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[edit] Pack Your Tent

When the Essjay Scandal hit the airwaves and paperwaves and everythingwaves, there were two distinct camps of reaction:

• Who cares, it's no big deal
• What do you mean it's no big deal, you hired a con artist to supervise and protect against con artists!

Well, that's not entirely true. There was a third camp of reaction, and by camp we mean outpost, and by outpost we mean an amazingly distant and out-of-touch outpost. Three guesses who we're talking about, unless you're a faithful reader of the 'truth, at which point you only get one.

After initially going on record to say that Essjay's little mess-up (getting caught) was not a major problem and it had been handled, Wales was sideswiped with even more attention. People found that Essjay quoted his false "degrees" in discussions, and made references to his non-existent "students". Wales then slowly came around to the situation, and ultimately said that he'd suggested to Essjay to resign, which Essjay did. Then came the interviews.

Within a short time of this torrent of interviews, Wales started to use a new line of excuse: He was traveling in India and had spotty internet connection, and didn't have time to get the full depth of the situation.

I have been for several days in a remote part of India with little or no Internet access. I only learned this morning that EssJay used his false credentials in content disputes. I understood this to be primarily the matter of a pseudonymous identity (something very mild and completely understandable given the personal dangers possible on the Internet) and not a matter of violation of people's trust ...

This is, of course, a bit of a lie: Wales had full knowledge of what Essjay had done; he'd just not seen that big a deal in it. So he said he'd gotten degrees he hadn't! Big deal! He was playing a character on a game! Of course he'd occasionally used it in arguments. Be glad he didn't also list having an oaken shield and a Tri-force! Then he really would have won some edit wars!

There was much giggling at Wikitruth Lodge that month. But now that things have settled, another angle has really come to light.

The "I'm in India, can't speak now kthx bye" excuse was interesting. What made it even more interesting was when he used the same excuse again as he was traveling in Japan:

I still have limited net access… for a couple of hours here I will be online, and then I am offline until I am in Japan tomorrow morning. I believe I will have a fast and stable Internet connection at that time, and I will deal with this further at that time.

And that's when it really hit us: How often does this jellybean travel, anyway?

[edit] The Non-Idles of Wales

A quick checkup of Jimbo Wales' Travel Schedule reveals a punishing amount of dates scheduled both in the past and for all of 2007:

• San Francisco, California: 5-9 December 2006
• London, England: 8-10 January 2007
• Rotterdam, Netherlands: 11-13 January 2007
• San Francisco, California: 15-20 January 2007
• Davos, Switzerland: 25-28 January 2007
• New York City, New York: 31 January - 2 February 2007
• San Francisco, California: 4-10 February 2007
• Delhi, India: 23 February - 3 March 2007
• Tokyo, Japan: 4 March - 2 April 2007
• San Francisco, California: 4-7 April 2007
• Spartanburg, South Carolina: 10 April 2007
• Richmond, Virginia: 11 April 2007
• Orlando, Florida: 12 April 2007
• South Africa: 13-21 April 2007
• Australia: 22-28 April 2007
• San Francisco, California: 9 May 2007
• Houston, Texas: 10 May 2007
• Bamberg, Germany: 16-18 May 2007
• Dubrovnik, Croatia: 15-17 June 2007
• San Francisco, California: 20 June 2007
• San Francisco, California: 30 July 2007
• Taipei, Taiwan: 3-5 August 2007
• Dalian, China: 4-6 September 2007
• San Francisco, California: 20 September 2007
• Los Angeles, California: 15 October 2007
• San Francisco, California: 18 October 2007
• San Francisco, California: 14 November 2007
• San Francisco, California: 12 December 2007

Bear in mind this is a tentative, incomplete schedule: Wales is trip-hopping his way around the Earth every month in 2007, no doubt telling rooms of agape students and journalists that their works would be 100 times better if you allowed every huckleberry from the ass end of town to toy with it. Forever.

[edit] The Key is Under the Mat

So who's minding the shop? That's an excellent question.

Wales is theoretically the head of Wikia, Inc. a for-profit company that pushes Wikis into entirely inappropriate situations. He's also on the board of the Wikimedia Foundation, and oh yeah, he has a family. Combine all this and you'd think the guy would have quite a bit on his plate, but apparently not enough that he can't spend weeks in various countries.

Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal, except that Wales has shown time and time again a willingness to step into somewhat complicated situations, glance over it squinting like Clint Eastwood, make a proclamation, and then walk away, like he solved something. With that clear direction, Wikipedians then try and follow Jimbo's will, even if it makes absolutely no sense. As he travels more and more, and the questions become tougher and tougher on his interviews, Wales faces a choice: keep skipping around this pretty blue marble while everything at home goes on auto, or finally accept his destiny: constitutional monarch.

Travel around the world, wave your scepter around a tad, wave to the crowd, avoid doing too much of substance with the projects you theoretically control... that's not a bad life, Jimbo!

...and you may already be living it.