Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Walesis an American Internet entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and promoter of the online non-profit encyclopedia, Wikipedia, and the for-profit Wikia web hosting company...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth7 August 1966
CountryUnited States of America
Dialing down is not an option for me.
running real company
I'm not real good at the administrative part of running a company.
mistake thinking different
I think it's a mistake to treat different realms of knowledge as if they are some how fundamentally the same.
believe challenges important
I still believe there is a need to open up search and it will come eventually. It is very important to challenge the current models.
people rude stuff
There's plenty of rude stuff online. People say things online that they would be ashamed to say face to face. If people could treat others as though they were speaking face to face, that would be huge.
giving people advice
In general, the best advice I can give people is to take criticism seriously, apologize for anything you have done wrong, and pull back from conflict. Of course, if you are right on a content matter, you should press forward in the interest of quality, but conflict often has a way of taking on a life of its own, unfortunately.
fashion fun thoughtful
Ideally, our rules should be formed in such a fashion that an ordinary helpful kind thoughtful person doesn't really even need to know the rules. You just get to work, do something fun, and nobody hassles you as long as you are being thoughtful and kind.
new-york cities cheerful
We are growing from a cheerful small town where everyone waves off their front porch to the subway of New York City where everyone rushes by. How do you preserve the culture that has worked so well?
mean thoughtful criticism
We are Wikipedians. This means that we should be: kind, thoughtful, passionate about getting it right, open, tolerant of different viewpoints, open to criticism, bold about changing our policies and also cautious about changing our policies. We are not vindictive, childish, and we don't stoop to the level of our worst critics, no matter how much we may find them to be annoying.
rocks people rock-n-roll
It turns out a lot of people don't get it. Wikipedia is like rock'n'roll; it's a cultural shift.
hate numbers love-hate
We've always had a love/hate relationship with numbers.
thinking differences people
I think that argument is completely morally bankrupt, and I think people know that when they make it. There's a very big difference between having a sincere, passionate interest in a topic and being a paid shill ... Particularly for PR firms, it's something they should really very strongly avoid: ever touching an article.
hurt eye
Myspace hurts my eyes.
writing thinking people
Greatest misconception about We aren't democratic. Our readers edit the entries, but we're actually quite snobby. The core community appreciates when someone is knowledgeable, and thinks some people are idiots and shouldn't be writing.