Assignment 1: Jimmy Wales David Evans COMP SCI February 3 rd, 2011

- Jimmy Wales (Co) Founder of Wikipedia "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."

Jimmy Donal Wales Born August 7th, 1966 in Huntsville, Alabama. Earned Bachelor's degree in Finance from Auburn University. Earned his Masters degree in Finance from University of Alabama. Best known as the founder of...

What is Wikipedia? Wikipedia is so ubiquitous in daily life and conversation that it is hard to think of life without it or a time before it.  Q: What is the capital of North Dekota?  Q: Who is Kim Jong-il?  Q: When did Norway gain its independence from Sweden?  A: I don't know, check Wikipedia.

What is Wikipedia? Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia whose community of users compose, assemble, and constantly edit and update each article.  By 2005, there were (on average) sixteen edits made to the English Wikipedia every minute. Wikipedia is the most well known example of a 'wiki' project in which any registered user is able to edit existing or upload new content.  The term wiki was coined by Ward Cunningham who invented the first 'wiki' webpage WikiWikiWeb.  Wiki is Hawaiian for “quick”.

What is Wikipedia? Wikipedia also builds upon idealized principals of open-source programming in which a community creates something better (more efficient and useful) than any one user could have produced on their own. Open-source programming was well know within the programming community but unknown to the wider public. Wikipedia is widely considered the largest Open Content project in human history. By some estimates it is the 40 th busiest website on the internet.

History of Wikipedia English Wikipedia went online January 10 th, By February 12 th, 2001 it had reached 1,000 articles. In the first year more than 20,000 articles were created. And from there, the number of articles ballooned...

Multilingual Wikipedia German Wikipedia was the first non-English Wikipedia page, established in March Catalan Wikipedia was created less than twelve hours later (a Romance language that is spoken in some parts of Italy, France and Spain, and is the only official language of Andorra). Japanese Wikipedia followed a few weeks later. French Wikipedia was created in May 2001.

Multilingual Wikipedia Today non-English Wikipedia articles make up approximately 75% of all Wikipedia articles.

Jimmy Wales Before Wikipedia Wales worked as a futures and options trader between 1994 and During this time he earned “enough money to live” allowing him to fund his future projects and, most notably, volunteer with Wikipedia. He took up computer programming in his spare time and was fascinated by the internet.

Jimmy Wales Before Wikipedia Jimmy Wales, with a pair of partners, started a “male- oriented web portal” called Bomis in He has attempted in several interviews to reframe Bomis as a provider of 'adult content' which is not pornographic in nature, however this is the source of ongoing controversy and debate within the Wikipedia community. Wales used the money he earned from Bomis to found Nupedia in 2000, a free web based encyclopedia.

Nupedia Begets Wikipedia Nupedia was a peer-reviewed version of what was to become Wikipedia but due to the review process of articles by a panel of experts new entries were added very slowly: a dozen or so per year. Wikipedia was created to supply Nupedia with additional material but became so wildly popular that Nupedia was shut down in 2003 in favour of Wikipedia.

What About Larry? Larry Sanger was a personal friend of Wales and, at Jimmy's request, became the editor-in-chief of Nupedia. Sanger was supposedly the first to suggest a wiki format for an online Wikipedia and, reportedly, founded Wikipedia with Wales. Jimmy Wales contests this version and describes himself as the founder (not co-founder) of Wikipedia.

Controversy Editing your own biography is considered inappropriate in the Wikipedia community but Wales did so several times with regards to the role of Larry Sanger in the founding of Wikipedia and made corrections regarding the nature of Bomis. He has publicly stated he regrets doing so but defends the changes as accurate.

Accolades for Wales & Wikipedia Jimmy Wales has received a number of honourary degrees, sits on a series of boards (including the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence), and he has won and accepted (personally or on behalf of Wikipedia) a shelf- full of various technology, business and humanitarian awards for his work with Wikipedia.  the Monaco Media Prize for enabling collaborative knowledge-seeking  the Quadriga award of Werkstatt Deutschland for A Mission of Enlightenment  a Pioneer Award from The Electronic Frontier Foundation

Future of Wikipedia & Jimmy Wales Wales has described conventional encyclopedias as competition that will, “... be crushed out of existence within 5 years.” Jimmy Wales has also frequently restated his commitment to Wikipedia. In a particularly strongly worded quote from The New York Times,...

"Dialing down is not an option for me... Not to be too dramatic about it, but, 'to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language,' that's who I am. That's what I am doing. That's my life goal." - Jimmy Wales Founder of Wikipedia

References Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales Responds, Jimmy-Wales-Responds, access date January 30 th, Jimmy Wales, access date February 3 rd, History of Wikipedia, access date 3 rd, Catalan Language, access date February 3rd, Wiki, access date February 3 rd, Wikipedia Found Looks Out For Number One, Response=cont_pub_view_slideshow.lhtml&-Token.cID=100079&- Token.ID=10728&-Token.key=&-Token.filter=0&-Nothing, access date February 3 rd, 2011.

References Voß, Jakob (2005). Measuring Wikipedia. Paper for Proceedings of the ISSI 2005 Conference. Oops Astronaut, accessed February 3 rd, Q & A: Jimmy Wales Wikipedia Founder, a.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1042, accessed February 3rd, 2011.