Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 08:33, 27 October 2004

I have dropped my opposition to a page about me, but I think we're going to have to watch it carefully for trolling. It might even need to be generally protected, I don't know. Jimbo Wales 02:51, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Name

"Jimbo Wales" gets 2500 google hits, "Jimmy Wales" gets 12,900. I think this article should be moved there. anthony (see warning) 03:14, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

cf de:Jimmy Wales, I agree. — Kate Turner | Talk 03:20, 2004 Sep 9 (UTC)

I note User:Jimbo Wales revision as of 02:49, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC) was "Jimmy Wales is a person." sabre23t 04:01, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Non-encyclopedic trivia

Please limit the kinds of trivia you include in this article, as with any biography. Family details seem like they might be out of place. I can't find the australian interview; is that where the stat on 'USD spent on wiki/nupedia' came from? In any case, I removed the broken external link and the stat. +sj+ 08:36, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

A few verifiable facts and some opinions

Some factual material that may be helpful:

• this is my published academic work in options pricing
• Many press sources about me can be found on my homepage, but probably even more can be found on the WIkipedia news page.
• Bomis still owns the Ferrari, because the contest winner chose to accept cash instead. (This is confirmable by a photograph if anyone needs proof...)

Some opinions and unverifiable biographical facts:

• While it is sort of ok to call me a "firearms enthusiast" it is more accurate to say that I take a strong interest in firearms policy and legal issues, especially constitutional issues. I own guns, but I hardly ever go shooting, and I have never in my life gone hunting. It's really more of an intellectual hobby than a practical hobby.

• It would make the most sense I think to add "while in graduate school in the early 1990s" to the bit about my moderating the philosophy mailing list -- it puts that bit into perspective in the story of my life.

• The Herald Sun article is talking about Australian dollars. A later article in Time estimated the number at $500,000 US dollars total. Both numbers came direcctly from me, so it's interesting to me to think about the process by which something I said to a journalist becomes a fact after they print it.  :-)

• The bit about 'erotic images' is true, but it makes me laugh. I think of my time at Bomis as being marked by our early entry into the internet market, our early use of and promotion of the dmoz open source data, etc. But, you know, whatever.

Linkage

Would-be Arabic squirrel, I and others have already explained this: pages in the article namespace should not link directly to pages in other namespaces. If such links are necessary, they should be treated like links to an external website. Reread Misplaced Pages:Avoid self-references if you haven't picked this up yet. —No-One Jones 05:08, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's clearly an internal link and not an external one. If you are very concerned about self-reference, the link can be omitted. Please don't sully the article with factual inaccuracies such as designating internal links as external. · 05:12, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Both Wales' Misplaced Pages user page and Wales' Misplaced Pages user page take the reader to the same page—and policy on the matter is clear, so why are you making such a big issue of this? —No-One Jones 05:15, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You (·) don't seem understand..Using the external link syntax wasn't a factual inaccuracy. However, if internal links are used, it will be _transformed_ into a factual inaccuracy as soon as someone mirrors the Jimmy Wales article on another site. They may not include the User namespace, or their version of the user page may get edited without Jimmy knowing it or it may simply become outdated. — David Remahl 05:18, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I hold accuracy above any possible modification made to the database by re-users. If you have a great urge to link to internal pages as if they were external, I will allow you to wallow in your own folly. The tiny external link arrow shall be your punishment. · 05:28, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Haha :-). Anyway, remember that the purpose of the project is to build an encyclopaedia and that the web site (and associated talk, user and wikipedia namespace pages) are just vehicles. Another problem with using the internal link syntax is that, when printed, there will be no sign of where the user page (or wikimeet page) is located (or even it is a link, since links are not underlined when printed). The URL of an external link is displayed in print. — David Remahl 05:50, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

User pages are external to the encyclopedia itself. Misplaced Pages the project (including user pages, talk pages, policy pages, etc.) is distinct from Misplaced Pages the encyclopedia (which is just the article namespace). I don't think it is "wallowing in folly" to make that distinction. Jimbo Wales 12:41, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Citation

Wales owned a yellow Ferrari 308, which was photographed with adult model and actress Aria Giovanni as part of a promotion.

Anyone care to cite this? According to Jimbo, the Ferrari is owned by Bomis. anthony (see warning) 11:53, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

For marketing purposes, the car was referred to as mine. It's like "Win Bill Gates Ferrari!" But as a legal matter it was and is purchased and owned by Bomis. It now sits idle with flat tires in a friend's garage because I haven't bothered to maintain it, and it's too much trouble right now to sell it. Jimbo Wales 12:43, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've removed it, as I think mentioning a car which is owned by a company which is run by Jimbo is beyond "trivial". But if someone wants to add it back, as long as it doesn't say (without attribution) that "Wales owned" the car, I won't object. anthony (see warning) 13:15, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think we should work out what percentage of the car Jimbo owned, then truncate the sentence at that point, it would fit in well with our methods of resolving issues like Gdansk.  :) Pakaran. 17:14, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Other Stuff

Shouldn't the full in the introduction be given as James Donald Wales instead of Jimmy? Ausir 20:32, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

My full name is 'Jimmy Donal Wales', not 'James Donald Wales' Jimbo Wales 20:55, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

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. :-) Jimbo Wales 20:55, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

"spent"

Why use "spent" when a better word is "donated". Spent has a connotation as in “expecting profit” or “money lost”, while donated more correctly refers to the support of the wiki projects. GeneralPatton 10:42, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't agree with that at all. "I spent 100 bucks on a whore last night" (hypothetically speaking) - I didn't expect profit, and I don't consider it "money lost". "Abramovich spent 100 million pounds on Chelsea" (or however much it was) - he certainly doesn't expect profit, but this is not money lost - it's bought him status and fame. So should we say "Abramovich donated 100 million to Chelsea FC?" I think not.

Section by Marco Krohn

I moved this paragraph from the main article, since I don't believe it is encyclopaedic and it is very self-referential. It is © User:Marco Krohn. — David Remahl 12:01, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

About this article

After a long history of reverts this article started containing only one sentence: "Jimmy Wales is a person.". This very short form of an article is called a "stub" among Wikipedians. The usefullness of such stubs is disputed within Wikiedia. In this case the article start is an allusion to the 50.000 French article, which was "La nèfle est un fruit." and whose background was described in a beautiful posting by Anthere .