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'''Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales''' (born ], ]) is a ] ] ] and a ] pioneer who is best known as the head of ], an international collaborative ] ] on the Internet.
]

]
==Life before Misplaced Pages==
]
Wales was born in ], ]. His father, now retired, was a ] manager while Wales was growing up. Wales's mother Doris and grandmother Irma ran a small private school, "in the tradition of the one-room schoolhouse," where he also went to school. There were four children in his grade most of the time, so the school grouped together first through fourth grade and fifth through eighth grade. A May 2005 '']'' magazine article incorrectly reported that Wales was ] . Strictly speaking Wales was not, but he did note that his schooling experience was "in a sense similar" since his mother and grandmother were his primary teachers. Students had a fair amount of freedom to study whatever they liked; the school's philosophy of education was significantly influenced by ]. Wales spent many hours poring over the '']'' during this time. After eighth grade, Wales went to ], a ], which was and is an early adopter of computer labs and other technology for direct student use. This prep school was expensive for the family, since they had few means, but Wales reports that his family believed education was very important: "education was always a passion in my household ... you know, the very traditional approach to knowledge and learning and establishing that as a base for a good life."
]

]
He received his undergraduate degree from ] and his masters from the ]. Later, he took courses offered in the ] ] programs at the University of Alabama and ]. He taught at both universities during his postgraduate studies, but he did not write the ] required to earn a postgraduate degree at these institutions. Wales went on to become a ] and ] ] in ], and within a few years had earned enough to "support himself and his wife for the rest of their lives."
]

]
In 1996, Wales founded a search portal called ] which (among other projects) sold original ] pictures, and included a "Bomis Babes" ]. Because of his position with Bomis, Wales has been described as a peddler of ] by some of his critics. Wales disputes this, however, telling '']'' that "If ] movies are soft porn, it was porn. In other words, no, it was not." {{ref|wired}} When Wales was CEO, Bomis donated over a hundred thousand dollars (primarily through salaries and providing free Internet access and bandwidth) into ] and ] and continued supporting them into 2002.
]

]
In March 2000, he started a peer-reviewed open-content encyclopedia ] ("the 💕"), and hired ] to be its editor-in-chief.
]

]
==Development of Misplaced Pages and recent activities==
]
{{main|History of Misplaced Pages}}
]
On ], ], Wales, ] and several others set up ], a similar ]-based site intended for collaboration on early encyclopedic content before submitting it to ] for peer review. Misplaced Pages's rapid growth soon made it the dominant project and Nupedia was mothballed. Sanger did most of the early development of Nupedia, while Wales mainly provided the necessary capital. Wales considers himself the sole founder on the basis that Sanger was his employee in the creation of Misplaced Pages. Sanger contests this assertion, considering himself a co-founder along with Wales. Jeremy Rosenfeld initially came up with the idea to make the encylopedia wiki-based and Sanger coined the name 'Misplaced Pages.' Sanger has since dropped out of the project. His resignation can be seen at his ]. Sanger has since criticised Wales's approach to the project - - painting Wales as being "decidedly anti-elitist". Wales disagrees with Sanger's viewpoint, saying that he is not anti-elitist, but "perhaps anti-credentialist." Wales says, "To me the key thing is getting it right. And if a person's really smart and they‘re doing fantastic work I don‘t care if they‘re a high school kid or a Harvard professor; it's the work that matters. ... You can't coast on your credentials on Misplaced Pages... you have to enter the ] and engage with people."
]

]
In mid-2003, Wales set up the ], a ]-based ], to support Misplaced Pages and its younger sibling projects. Since then he has become increasingly involved with promoting and speaking about the foundation's projects. As of 2005, Wales is the foundation's president and chairman of the board.
]

]
In 2004, Wales had been quoted as saying that he spent around US$500,000 on the establishment and operations of his Wiki projects. By the end of the foundation's February 2005 fund drive, the Wikimedia Foundation was being supported entirely by grants and donations.
]

]
In late 2005, a small controversy arose regarding Wales and the related Misplaced Pages entry on himself, after he confessed to Wired Magazine that he had edited his own bio on Misplaced Pages, a practice generally frowned upon within the wiki community. He admitted to changing specific references to Misplaced Pages's origins as well as the description of Bomis. He said in the interview "People shouldn't do it, including me. I wish I hadn't done it."
]

]
]]]
]
More recently, perhaps inspired by the success of Misplaced Pages, Wales has founded the for-profit company ] (unrelated to ]) which hosts various wikis, and manages the ] project.
]

]
Wales was appointed a fellow of the ] at ] in 2005. Later that year, on October 3rd, according to a press release , Wales joined the ] of ], a provider of ] technology to businesses.
]

]
To promote Wikimedia, Wales travels the world, both to conferences and Wikimedia functions (like "Wikimeets" and ]). He has frequently been engaged as a speaker.
]

]
Wales lives in ] in the ], with his wife Christine and daughter Kira. He has travelled to many countries including the ], ] and ]. He is very protective about his personal life and it is unknown to most of the general public what his interests or hobbies outside of Misplaced Pages and the Wikimedia Foundation are.
]

]
==Published works==
]
* Robert Brooks, Jon Corson and J. Donal Wales, "The Pricing of Index Options When the Underlying Assets All Follow a Lognormal Diffusion", in ''Advances in Futures and Options Research'', volume 7, 1994. Abstract available online from the ] .
]

]
==References==
]
* {{News reference
]
| lastname = Pink | firstname = Daniel H.
]
| title=The Book Stops Here
]
| org=Wired
]
| date=] ]
]
| url=http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/wiki.html?pg=3&topic=wiki&topic_set=
]
}}
]
# {{note|Cadenhead}} {{Web reference
]
| title=Misplaced Pages Founder Looks Out for Number 1
]
| url=http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/news/2828/wikipedia-founder-looks-out-number-1
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| date=19 December
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| year=2005
]
}}
]
# {{note|BomisArchived}} {{Web reference
]
| title=The History of Bomis
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| url=http://web.archive.org/web/20001003173849/http://www.bomis.com/about/bomisstory.html
]
| date=3 October
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| year=2000
]
}}
]
# {{note|wired}} {{News reference
]
| author=]
]
| date=December 19, 2005
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| url=http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,69880,00.html
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| title=Misplaced Pages Founder Edits Own Bio
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| org=Wired News
]
}}
]

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==External links==
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{{Spoken Misplaced Pages|Jimmy Wales.ogg|2005-04-06}}
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{{commons|category:Jimbo Wales|Jimbo Wales}}
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{{wikiquote}}<!-- -------------- -->
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{{wikinews|Interview with Jimbo Wales}}
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*
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*
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* <!-- please do not make this an internal link; see ] and this article's talk page for reasons -->
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===News media===
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* {{News reference
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| url = http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2003-06-30-wiki_x.htm
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| title = It's a Wiki world out there for the Web's groupmind
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| org = USA Today
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| date = ]
]
}}
]
* {{News reference
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| url = http://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/stories/2005/09/26/focus4.html
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| title = St. Petersburg tech brain creates 'wiki' world with online encyclopedia
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| org = Tampa Bay Business Journal
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| author = Michael Hinman
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| date = ]
]
}}
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* {{News reference
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| url = http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/18/wikipedia_quality_problem/
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| title = Misplaced Pages founder admits serious quality problems
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| org = The Register
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| author = ]
]
| date = ]
]
}}
]
* {{News reference
]
| url = http://www.npost.com/interview.jsp?intID=INT00126
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| title = Interview with Jimmy Wales, WikiPedia Founder
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| org = nPost.com
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| author = Nathan C. Kaiser
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| date = ]
]
}}
]
* {{News reference
]
| url = http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6298340/site/newsweek/
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| title = It's Like a Blog, But It's a Wiki
]
| org = Newsweek
]
| author = Brad Stone
]
| date = ]
]
}}
]

]
===Audio/Video===
]
* ]th, 2005 - hosted by ]
]
* Video of Jimmy Wales talk given at the Oxford Internet Institute - recorded ] ].
]
* 40 minutes from a talk Jimmy held at Stanford on ] ] available as an avi in torrent form and licensed under the Creative Commons (Quicktime: , )
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* - recorded ] ]
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* ], ] by ]'s ]
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* on Wednesday, ], ]
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* 9 minutes, from Media Alliance event held in San Francisco on ] ]
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*, ], ]
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Revision as of 01:17, 22 December 2005

Jimmy Wales speaking at FOSDEM 2005 in Brussels, Belgium.

Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales (born August 7, 1966) is a U.S. Internet entrepreneur and a wiki pioneer who is best known as the head of Misplaced Pages, an international collaborative free content encyclopedia on the Internet.

Life before Misplaced Pages

Wales was born in Huntsville, Alabama. His father, now retired, was a grocery store manager while Wales was growing up. Wales's mother Doris and grandmother Irma ran a small private school, "in the tradition of the one-room schoolhouse," where he also went to school. There were four children in his grade most of the time, so the school grouped together first through fourth grade and fifth through eighth grade. A May 2005 Time magazine article incorrectly reported that Wales was home schooled . Strictly speaking Wales was not, but he did note that his schooling experience was "in a sense similar" since his mother and grandmother were his primary teachers. Students had a fair amount of freedom to study whatever they liked; the school's philosophy of education was significantly influenced by Montessori. Wales spent many hours poring over the World Book Encyclopedia during this time. After eighth grade, Wales went to Randolph School, a college prep school, which was and is an early adopter of computer labs and other technology for direct student use. This prep school was expensive for the family, since they had few means, but Wales reports that his family believed education was very important: "education was always a passion in my household ... you know, the very traditional approach to knowledge and learning and establishing that as a base for a good life."

He received his undergraduate degree from Auburn University and his masters from the University of Alabama. Later, he took courses offered in the Ph.D. finance programs at the University of Alabama and Indiana University. He taught at both universities during his postgraduate studies, but he did not write the doctoral dissertation required to earn a postgraduate degree at these institutions. Wales went on to become a futures and options trader in Chicago, and within a few years had earned enough to "support himself and his wife for the rest of their lives." (March 2005, Wired article)

In 1996, Wales founded a search portal called Bomis which (among other projects) sold original glamour photography pictures, and included a "Bomis Babes" blog. Because of his position with Bomis, Wales has been described as a peddler of pornography by some of his critics. Wales disputes this, however, telling Wired that "If R-rated movies are soft porn, it was porn. In other words, no, it was not." When Wales was CEO, Bomis donated over a hundred thousand dollars (primarily through salaries and providing free Internet access and bandwidth) into Nupedia and Misplaced Pages and continued supporting them into 2002.

In March 2000, he started a peer-reviewed open-content encyclopedia Nupedia.com ("the 💕"), and hired Larry Sanger to be its editor-in-chief.

Development of Misplaced Pages and recent activities

Main article: History of Misplaced Pages

On January 15, 2001, Wales, Larry Sanger and several others set up Misplaced Pages, a similar wiki-based site intended for collaboration on early encyclopedic content before submitting it to Nupedia for peer review. Misplaced Pages's rapid growth soon made it the dominant project and Nupedia was mothballed. Sanger did most of the early development of Nupedia, while Wales mainly provided the necessary capital. Wales considers himself the sole founder on the basis that Sanger was his employee in the creation of Misplaced Pages. Sanger contests this assertion, considering himself a co-founder along with Wales. Jeremy Rosenfeld initially came up with the idea to make the encylopedia wiki-based and Sanger coined the name 'Misplaced Pages.' Sanger has since dropped out of the project. His resignation can be seen at his user page. Sanger has since criticised Wales's approach to the project - - painting Wales as being "decidedly anti-elitist". Wales disagrees with Sanger's viewpoint, saying that he is not anti-elitist, but "perhaps anti-credentialist." Wales says, "To me the key thing is getting it right. And if a person's really smart and they‘re doing fantastic work I don‘t care if they‘re a high school kid or a Harvard professor; it's the work that matters. ... You can't coast on your credentials on Misplaced Pages... you have to enter the marketplace of ideas and engage with people."

In mid-2003, Wales set up the Wikimedia Foundation, a St. Petersburg, Florida-based non-profit organization, to support Misplaced Pages and its younger sibling projects. Since then he has become increasingly involved with promoting and speaking about the foundation's projects. As of 2005, Wales is the foundation's president and chairman of the board.

In 2004, Wales had been quoted as saying that he spent around US$500,000 on the establishment and operations of his Wiki projects. By the end of the foundation's February 2005 fund drive, the Wikimedia Foundation was being supported entirely by grants and donations.

In late 2005, a small controversy arose regarding Wales and the related Misplaced Pages entry on himself, after he confessed to Wired Magazine that he had edited his own bio on Misplaced Pages, a practice generally frowned upon within the wiki community. He admitted to changing specific references to Misplaced Pages's origins as well as the description of Bomis. He said in the interview "People shouldn't do it, including me. I wish I hadn't done it."

Jimmy Wales speaking at Wikimania

More recently, perhaps inspired by the success of Misplaced Pages, Wales has founded the for-profit company Wikia (unrelated to Wikimedia) which hosts various wikis, and manages the Wikicities project.

Wales was appointed a fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School in 2005. Later that year, on October 3rd, according to a press release , Wales joined the Board of Directors of Socialtext, a provider of wiki technology to businesses.

To promote Wikimedia, Wales travels the world, both to conferences and Wikimedia functions (like "Wikimeets" and Wikimania). He has frequently been engaged as a speaker.

Wales lives in St. Petersburg, Florida in the United States, with his wife Christine and daughter Kira. He has travelled to many countries including the United Kingdom, Belgium and France. He is very protective about his personal life and it is unknown to most of the general public what his interests or hobbies outside of Misplaced Pages and the Wikimedia Foundation are.

Published works

  • Robert Brooks, Jon Corson and J. Donal Wales, "The Pricing of Index Options When the Underlying Assets All Follow a Lognormal Diffusion", in Advances in Futures and Options Research, volume 7, 1994. Abstract available online from the Social Science Research Network .

References

  1. "Misplaced Pages Founder Looks Out for Number 1". 19 December. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)
  2. "The History of Bomis". 3 October. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)
  3. Template:News reference

External links

Listen to this article
(2 parts, 3 minutes)
  2. Part 2
Spoken Misplaced Pages iconThese audio files were created from a revision of this article dated Error: no date provided, and do not reflect subsequent edits.(Audio help · More spoken articles)

News media

Audio/Video

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