Talk:Jimmy Wales

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Notice

All quotes on the page Jimmy Wales are true. If disputed, ask Jimmy Wales, but do not delete them before they are confirmed to be hoax. —This unsigned comment is by 68.255.38.230 (talk • contribs) .

I'm afraid I still don't believe the ones listed at #Dialog. They don't sound like Jimbo; perhaps they were made by an impostor. I'll believe them when either Jimbo confirms them (preferably on this talk page) or a reliable source is cited. Seahen 21:44, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

A quick check of the citation shows that this is not likely to be true. Removing pending verifiability. GChriss 23:01, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Need to comment?

A new addition "I regard it as a pseudonym and I don’t really have a problem with it." - yeah it would be remarkable, particularly for English Wikipedia concerned, but perhaps it would be more and more obscure after time goes by? So I think we'd better to add a commentary - but I find myself in a conflict of interest. I think I am too much emotionally involved, and afraid most of us so - anyway the person who was regarded was a part of our community. Is there anyone who is bold enough make a comment to that quote? --Aphaia 04:07, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

the best comment belongs to boxingwear, the innocent lamb:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=1398351&oldid=1373360

boxingwear's

"Drama mongers"

I much prefer this quote, which shows the true nature of just how flawed this project is.

"And as long as some people like to pretend that our carrying out of policies against posting private emails on the wiki is an attempt 'to suppress discussion' then we will continue to allow drama mongers to control the discussion of things on the site"

This is already linked to, but this part of the quote is happily ommitted from the article. This is exactly how wikipedia is, and this is what is wrong with the site. 216.37.86.10

I'm afraid you are laboring under a misapprehension. Wikiquote does not collect everything and anything that someone says just because they are notable. Although it admittedly contains quite a bit of substandard material, largely due to the fact that people treat articles as dumping grounds for anything they can find somewhere, it tries to encourage citing only those quotes that are somehow memorable for the long run by expecting explicit sources from reliable publications. Wikimedia projects are not, in general, reliable sources from which we can source quotes.

For Jimmy Wales, the point can be argued, since although we can't accept Wikipedia as a reliable source for the general identity of almost anyone, Wales is a prominent exception. However, one major reason that we demand more traditional publications like books, magazines, newspapers, etc., is that their independent editorial staffs have decided the material is worth quoting, just as WP reliable sources vet material to be used for WP articles. (The system isn't perfect, but it's far better than anything else we have available.) Given this philosophy, it is unlikely you will find anything found only in a Wales posting to a discussion page or maillist, positive or negative, that makes a good Wikiquote quote (regardless of what this article currently contains).

In short, anything generally memorable from Wales, or any other subject, should be printed or reprinted in a reliable source, which we should cite. Anything memorable only to Wikimedians isn't worth quoting here, any more than quotes only interesting to fans of TV shows or video games are Wikiquote-worthy. And stuff cited here for the sake of documenting Wikimedia events and attitudes is most defintely not Wikiquote material, any more that it is Wikipedia material. That's far too omphalaskeptic. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:33, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Seth, you're an idiot

This quote was installed here, but then removed as not being notable enough. It has been mentioned in a couple of notable places now, though -- Valleywag and Nicholas Carr's Rough Type, in addition to Seth Finkelstein's own writings. At what point might it become worthy of inclusion on Wikiquote? -- Thekohser 12:40, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Just because something has been reported and sourced doesn't mean it's a quote to preserve for posterity. Wikiquote is not a memoir or documentation service. The words themselves should convey an idea that goes beyond their immediate context. There's nothing especially original or pithy about this statement.

We have a lot of editors (particularly in TV-show articles) who seem to believe that quotes that denote a significant moment in time for the participants are inherently worthy of inclusion in Wikiquote. But such situational quotes, which are only meaningful for the participants, just don't make for timeless, pithy sayings. On rare occasions, such a quote can become so famous that it might rise above these problems, like Rhett Butler's "Frankly, Scarlet, I don't give a damn" from Gone with the Wind, or General McAuliffe's response to a World War II German ultimatum, "Nuts!". But there should be one heck of a lot of cultural propagation before we would want to include something like that.

Regardless of how famous Jimmy Wales is to Wikimedia editors, I know of nothing that he's said that meets this general guideline for unoriginal but outrageously famous lines. So like the vast majority of quotes, we should only be including his well-sourced, original, pithy statements. And that means that a lot of the stuff in this article isn't very quoteworthy. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:33, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

An erroneous explanation

Regarding this section:

You have caused too much harm to justify us putting up with this kind of behavior much longer.

* On the User talk page for Giano II, regarding his public disclosure of the inflammatory contents of a private e-mail distribution list (25 November 2007)

This was absolutely not regarding anything of the sort. And in any event, it is very very hard to imagine that this quote is in any way notable. It strikes me as an attempt to portray my position on an important issue (public disclosure of private em-mail) in a way that is not consistent with my actual position.--Jimbo Wales 02:30, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

As Jeffq has written in his comments on this page, there are a number of quotes in the article that are unmemorable in themselves; they are documentary evidence for matters that would, at most, be of interest to no one but the wiki community. This lack of memorability and self-sufficiency alone would be reason to have them deleted. I am going to edit out all the wiki trivia and will transfer unsourced quotes to this talk page. - InvisibleSun 03:28, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Unsourced

If you can provide a precise, verifiable source for any quote on this list please move it to Jimmy Wales.

• And so, we don't need a business model, we're just doing it. ~ 200?

• Most people are good. They may not be saints, but they are good.

• Stop the huns by showing them neighborly love!

• It's a very simple and pure goal. It's something that's good for the world. We're still not there by a long shot.
  • Comment to the Birmingham News, "Alabamian is brain behind Wikipedia"

• "It's been an ongoing process of figuring out how the social model actually should work, how can you control the site to generate quality," Wales said. "It's an ongoing series of modifications."
  • Comment to the Birmingham News, "Alabamian is brain behind Wikipedia"

• It's very exciting to all of us. I travel all over the world. I think that worries my mom some, (but) it's nice.
  • Comment to the Birmingham News, "Alabamian is brain behind Wikipedia"

• Like the great artists Jerry Lewis and David Hasselhoff. I'm only appreciated overseas.
  • Regarding a cancelled event in St. Petersburg, as quoted in TechNewsWorld^{[dead link]}

• I'm more like the Queen of England — my power is decreasing over time. Soon, I'll just wave at parades.
  • As quoted in TechNewsWorld^{[dead link]}

• "Men's Health" might be the single best periodical since Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg invented modern book printing. I'm kidding. It definitely is.
  • As quoted in TechNewsWorld^{[dead link]}

Invisible Sun on a deletion kick

Please review these deletions of content by User:InvisibleSun. May we please have a discussion here to determine if these are legitimate purges of inappropriate content, or whether this is an inappropriate sanitizing of the quoted history of Jimmy Wales? -- Thekohser 19:54, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

• Remove. I endorse InvisibleSun's position: this is wikiomphaloskepsis. The remarks are not so well said, insightful, or important to the world at-large as too merit inclusion here. That something served a documentary purpose in the context of a newspaper article does not, in itself, make it a remarkable quotation to be memorialized for posterity. ~ Ningauble 22:01, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Formatting

Why are so many of the quotes on the page showcased in bold text, while many others are in standard text? It would seem to me that the page would look better with consistent formatting, preferably unbolding stuff, per the guidance here. Would someone want me to take a crack at it, or would my assistance in improving Wikiquote be a blockable offense? -- Thekohser 16:52, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, one that is widely shared in the publishing world, when a typographic effect such as boldface is overused its effectiveness is undermined. Go ahead and tone it down, but don't be surprised if you encounter contention. Some contributors are more enthusiastic about boldface than others. ~ Ningauble 19:32, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Thekohser did remove the bold, which was definitely overused. Practice on other pages seems to be to bold particularly pithy or well-known quotes. He was reverted, apparently because he's Thekohser. I'm reviewing them and will leave some bold, based on my own opinion. The extensive bolding that now exists simply makes the article ugly and detracts from noticing the most well-known quotes. --Abd 22:57, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

The Daily Show with John Stewart

Jimmy was just recently featured on The Daily Show with John Stewart! Wikipedia is rarely mentioned in the news as it is. Nobody bothered to grab one quote from it? Son, I am Disappoint!67.149.243.229 21:24, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Is it ok to add this quote ?

One of my Wikipedia editor friend 'Abhijeet Safai'(Abhijeet also likes to edit articles on Mahatma Gandhi) liked following Jimmy's quote very much  ; is it ok to add the same in this wikiquote article ? WhataQuote (talk) 12:44, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

"In the old days, I would have just personally blocked the troll on sight, and that would have been the end of that. One of the things that makes wikis work is precisely the ability of the community to tell people to knock off the nonsense or get blocked.

If you go back to the disastrous culture of unmoderated Usenet groups, you can see what happens if it is too difficult to block trolls from participation. What happens is that good people reach the end of their good humor and lash out. The social environment degrades to people screaming at each other and it becomes quite hard to tell the good people from the bad. If someone says that they "consider Wikipedia to be an intrinsically evil concept" then the solution is not to get emotional and lash out at them in anger, but to realize that telling them to fuck off is not nearly as satisfying as maintaining a good sense of humor while making them fuck off (with a permanent ban). We have better things to do!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:00, 28 August 2012 (UTC) [2] "

• I wouldn't, because it is not very succinct. (Jimbo is usually pretty good at making his point in a nutshell.) Is this quoted by any notable secondary sources? ~ Ningauble (talk) 15:44, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

New version

There is a new version of Jimmy Wales' concise thesis: "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge." On the Wikimedia website [3]. It's too similar to the original, even if it has a different author. -Inowen (talk) 00:07, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

@Inowen: could you please elaborate. Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 19:58, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

REQUEST for help The problem of gender bias

I have added a quote reported by writer Tim Walker who wrote about the problem of gender bias at the online encyclopedia on 16 August 2012 in the Independent.

I found the ref to this quote on a 2012 deletion discussion in a comment made by an IP. The deletion discussion comment contains the complete quote which I cannot see in the news article because of a paywall. So here is the complete quote as it appears in the that discussion:

I hope someone will create lots of articles about famous dresses,' Wales wrote. 'Our systemic bias caused by being a predominantly male geek community is worth some reflection in this contest. We have nearly 90 articles about Linux distributions… I think we can have an article about this dress. We should have articles about 100 famous dresses.

I hope someone can add the missing part of the quote (with a ref that is not paywalled) and the date it was made by Jimbo Wales

Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 16:16, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Yeah about that, so if Jimmy Wales is against gender bias on the online community he helped build, then why isn't he listed as a feminist activist? Also, he is categorized as an activist, but for what causes specifically? Has he ever advocated either pro-choice or pro-life views, and would simply stating his opinion on that issue make him an activist automatically or is there some kind of requirement Wikiquote has for being listed as an activist that he has not met? Why isn't Joe Biden categorized as an activist? Shouldn't politicians be a subcategory of the generic activist category, they all advocate for something. I'm pretty sure politicians meet whatever requirement we have for inclusion in that category, assuming that there is one beyond self-identification. There's a lot of evidence that numerous historical figures were gay or would be considered as MSM or WSW, but they don't get labeled as such either on Wikipedia or here unless they self identified because then we'd have to decide on a standard of evidence. CensoredScribe (talk) 00:01, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Jimbo

@Philip Cross

Strange. But I'd rather say the 2005 user was mistaken because on the 2001 revision (the very first one) it is clearly written " as edited by JimboWales". Synotia (talk) 16:08, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

The User:JimboWales account (an alternative account) does seem to have been blocked by mistake. However, a comment deleted in May 2005, would not seem worth reviving as a notable comment by Jimmy Wales. Philip Cross (talk) 18:29, 7 March 2023 (UTC)