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From Wikitruth

Jimbo Wales has a problem.

Well, he has many problems.

But the most pressing and public problem is his position as the "founder" of Wikipedia, a website which claims, on its front page, is "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". To achieve this lofty goal, Jimbo and his nearly nameless cast of developers and advisors have created what is called a "Wiki", which is essentially a web page that lets random people edit any page they want in any way they want.

In the blink of an eye, most folks' reaction to that concept is "man, that could never work". And then they look at the website, browse its million pages, and go "wow, it really does work".

Unless of course they start to see how those million pages are put together. Then they realize their initial gut reaction was pretty spot on.

But this brings us back to Jimbo.

As his own Wikipedia article (which he hates, even though it whitewashes him) describes him:

Yawn. Anyway.

Jimbo used to run a site that had what some people call "pornography" on it. That is, the site was occasionally known to have pictures of naked women on it. It also linked to sites that carried much more "sexy" material. From this site, Bomis, Jimbo made a lot of money, money which he then decided to use to create some sort of information/online encyclopedia. That was very nice of Jimbo. However, he really doesn't like it if you imply that Bomis had pornography.

Nowadays, when pressed about it, Jimbo will say that it was actually just "glamour photography".

Jimbo says a lot of things.

As the de facto head and king of Wikipedia and its owner, the Wikimedia foundation, Jimbo has become known to millions through the ever-growing presence of the Wikipedia on the internet, and as a result he is often asked to be interviewed, to provide keynotes and speeches, and otherwise stick his sleepy-eyed, inquisitive face into a lot of cameras and recording devices.

And here we run into one of Jimbo's problems, the main one we alluded to.

Because of a few simplistic decisions made long ago, and because Jimbo still claims that these decisions were good ones, Jimbo says a lot of what might be called dumb stuff about the Wikipedia project.

Contents 1 Grandiosity 2 I wonder... 2.1 I wonder if you might consider... 3 Oh Shit, Dad's "Fixing" the Water Heater Again 4 Quotables

[edit] Grandiosity

Jimbo has a habit, in interviews, of being very rah-rah about the Wikipedia project. At first it appeared to be self-ironic grandiose statements, but they've pretty much become the norm:

"We make the Internet not suck." - Jimbo in a C-SPAN Interview

"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." - Interview on Slashdot

[edit] I wonder...

Jimbo does not issue commands. He likes to pretend he's leading, not coercing. Objectivists believe that the former is doubleplus good, the latter the ultimate evil. So Jimbo likes to "wonder". It's wikicode for "Do it." Here is an example. Mel Etitis has been clearing out spam links to a minor website. They have whined to Jimbo about it. Jimbo "wonders" whether Mel would like to find a way to add their links to every article they can be added to.

Jimbo's wonderings can cause enormous conflict. The following is what he "wondered" about userboxes:

[edit] I wonder if you might consider...

I wonder if you might consider simply removing your political/religious/etc. userboxes and asking others to do the same. This seems to me to be the best way to quickly and easily end the userbox wars. Userboxes of a political or, more broadly, polemical, nature are bad for the project. They are attractive to the wrong kinds of people, and they give visitors the wrong idea of what it means to be a Wikipedian. I think rather than us having to go through a mass deletion (which is what is likely to happen if the userbox fad doesn't go away), it will be better to simply change the culture, one person at a time. Will you help me? — Jimbo Wales 10:53, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

This is a classic Jimbo order. He "wonders" whether you'll consider doing something that he makes clear will be done by fiat if you don't. But in this way, he can convince himself you are not coerced, but are simply following his lead. See MarkSweep for the results.

[edit] Oh Shit, Dad's "Fixing" the Water Heater Again

That said, it actually is kind of worse when Jimbo goes into "hands on" mode, as he has on many notable occasions.

This is mostly because Wales, for all his driving Wikipedia and causing an environment where Wikipedism is running rampant, actually doesn't buy into pretty much any of the procedural bullshit. Or the procedural non-bullshit. Or even the concept of procedure.

When the War of Brian Peppers began and turned into a fantastically huge flamewar between administrators, users, YTMND denziens and whatever other shit-demons the Internet was summoning to the location, Jimbo did very little, staying on the sidelines. The article was deleted, then brought back, then deleted again. Obviously, some people felt very strongly that the bug-eyed Mr. Peppers needed an article and another set of people felt very strongly that he should not. Points were raised, people were being whack-asses, and, on the whole, it was another fine day in the most Anal Place on Earth.

Until, one day, Jimbo finally blundered in and locked the article down, making this proclamation:

"This page has been deleted by Jimbo Wales, and should not be re-created until 21 February 2007 at the earliest."

Doing this unilateral, un-defendable, and arbitrarily-decided block has made things even worse, causing an even larger debate to occur. [1]

But most importantly, this whole "lock it down for a year and then discuss it" comes from nowhere. The term of a year is unheard-of, the idea that it then might be open for discussion is weird and not really defended. Jimbo burbled out a few phrases, but quickly got away, leaving a wake of defenders of the Way of Jimbo.

So really, when Jimbo gets involved, things are rarely, actually, "fixed". Well, unless you mean like a cocker spaniel.

[edit] Quotables

I think a fair number of people need to be kicked out of the project just for being lousy writers. — Jimmy Wales, May 16 2006 [2]

My actual birthday is August 7th, 1966. This is unverifiable information, I'm sorry to say, since my driver's license and passport say August 8. If we must revert on that basis, then I guess we must. *g*. Maybe I'll have to upload a signed note from my mom as documentary evidence; the only proof that I have is her sayso. :-) — Jimmy Wales, September 18 2004 [3]