Jimmy Wales (Jimbo Wales)

Unlike Wikipedia, this article will be updated with accurate, relevant, encyclopedic information.  The subject can send me information about himself and I'll decide what's worthy of posting here, after debating it vigorously with myself. Certain co-authors who know the subject well will also be invited to contribute. But again, we'll keep this collaboration closed to "respect human dignity". As "God Queen" and "Spiritual Leader" for "Jimmy Wales", that will be my guiding principle.  -- Rachel Marsden

 

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Jimmy Donal Wales, born in Alabama, supposedly on August 7, 1968 (but that is a point of dispute), is an American Internet enterpreneur known mostly for his work with various wiki-related projects, where content is provided by unpaid labor, then control of that content is removed from the original author.  This production model has been deployed before.

While the Wikipedia site that Wales co-founded is considered by many to be a popular and successful encyclopedia, other critics have emerged, calling it "the world's largest defamation platform".  The tone of this very knol is offered in support of that particular criticism of Wikipedia.

In December 2006, with the launch of Openserving.com, Jimmy Wales attempted to copy another business model that had been floated by Centiare.com (which is currently regenerated at MyWikiBiz.com) and Helium.com, where the unpaid labor who create new content would actually have the opportunity to earn advertising revenue as a reward for their efforts.  Although Wales claimed that thousands of interested queries were made of Openserving, the project never got a single new forum off the ground.  It was a failure.  Google's Knol project is the latest iteration of attempting to pay labor for quality content generation.

Wikia.com is perhaps Wales' most successful project financially, although it has been speculated that it won't be able to turn a profit, as meager ad revenues can't possibly support the staffing needs.  Wikia Search, the last-gasp effort of Wales to achieve Internet success was on a miserable fail trajectory from the outset, especially in terms of edits being made to the site.  Finally, in April 2009, Wales has shut down Wikia Search, only a few days after telling a reporter that he and his team were "cranking away" at it.