Posts Tagged ‘Jimmy Wales’

Wikipedia was born on Jan. 15, 2001, and, days before its 10^th anniversary, founder Jimmy Wales reflected:

It’s hard to imagine that it’s been 10 years since I first edited Wikipedia. I remember that first day. I clicked on “Edit” and I wrote “Hello World,” and that was the beginning of Wikipedia and all the things that have come since then. I want to thank everyone who has helped. I want to thank all the people who have edited Wikipedia, who have contributed to this great knowledge base. I want to thank everybody who is reading Wikipedia, who is really engaging with ideas and knowledge. That’s what we made it for: We made it for you to read.

According to Wikipedia, 1,000 articles were written in its first month. From those humble beginnings, 400 million people now access the site monthly, according to comScore data, and Wikipedia now boasts more than 17 million articles in 270 languages.

Wikimedia Foundation executive director Sue Gardner on the next five years:

We want to reach 1 billion people by 2015. We want to persuade more readers to edit — more women, more people from the global south. We know that the more diverse the editing community becomes, the more comprehensive, accurate, and rich the encyclopedia will be.

On Nov. 15, Wikipedia parent the Wikimedia Foundation announced a fund-raising goal of $16 million by the end of 2010 “to maintain the infrastructure necessary to keep these sites free, stable, and running smoothly, while also continually improving the systems and architecture behind them.” On Jan. 1, the foundation announced that it had reached and exceeded its goal.

The Wikimedia Foundation said it received an average donation of $22 over the 50-day period, and contributions came from some 140 countries. For 2010 as a whole, the organization received more than 500,000 donations, more than doubling its total of 230,000 in 2009.

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Alex Konanykhin, founder of WikiExperts.us, which helps promote visibility on Wikipedia, believes banner ads featuring Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales have too much visibility on Wikipedia, instead urging the nonprofit research destination to eschew fund-raising in favor of traditional advertising. Konanykhin wrote:

Would we have a more easily searchable Internet if, instead of relying on $23 billion of annual revenues, Google adorned every search page with its founders’ pictures and their personal appeal to donate? The banner with Mr. Wales’ image is viewed roughly 3,000 times every second. Wouldn’t it make more sense to show tasteful ads of advertisers like Rolex and Audi? Is the public truly being asked to donate $16 million to finance Wikipedia … or a personal ego trip?

Konanykhin explained that Wikipedia’s donations-only, no-commerce model limits it to using volunteers rather than qualified professionals, and he continues:

We believe that boycotting fundraising efforts of Wikipedia might compel it to raise billions via advertising and develop content of significantly better quality. Qualified contributors may and shall be compensated for their time. History has repeatedly proven that free labor is not the best business model in the long run and on a large scale.

The no-banners environment on Wikipedia was quite enjoyable and required a relatively low amount of donations. Now we have the worst of both words: huge Jimmy Wales banners which have become a subject of Internet-wide ridicule, combined with the tripled donations goal and failing content development strategy.

The New York Observer has a multigender reporting staff once again, as The Village Voice‘s Runnin’ Scared blog reports that intern Kat Stoeffel was promoted to online staff writer. The memo from Observer.com managing editor Aaron Gell, via Runnin’ Scared:

Please join me in congratulating Kat Stoeffel, formerly our crack intern (who can forget the Jimmy Wales stare contest?), on her new position as online staff writer. Prior to her arrival at the Observer, Kat interned for n+1 and Paper. She also did a semester at the Sorbonne. Ask her something in French!

Kat will be on the media beat. Let the usual hazing begin.

Social gaming has some 250 million+ players on Facebook alone, its top companies have valuations in the billions, it attracts heavy investment from major corporations like EA, Disney, and Google, but here’s something social gaming doesn’t really have: Its own Wikipedia entry. As of this writing, Wikipedia’s Social Games entry is a placeholder, while the “Social casual games” entry is less than 100 words long, and even more shocking, comes with an editor’s note, “This article may not meet [Wikipedia's] general notability guideline.” Seriously! By contrast, even though they’re niche genres relative to social gaming, Wikipedia’s MMORPG entry is almost 4000 words, while the entry on first-person shooters is over 3000. So what’s the deal? I put the question to Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, for his take:
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