The Outlaw Jimmy Wales?

Hardly. Jimmy Wales was not at all what I expected when I went to hear the founder of Wikipedia tonight at the University of Hartford’s Lincoln Theater. He was too old, too corporate, and too confident, (but Wales’ lecture was sponsored by the Barney School of Business?) For those of you who have been in Shangri-la since 2001 when Wikipedia was created, it is “a freely licensed encyclopedia written by thousands of volunteers in many languages for every single person on the planet.” Wikipedia is the seventeenth most popular website on the Internet, the seventh most popular in Germany, and the thirtieth most popular in the United Arab Emirates. One million articles (30% of the total) are in English, (and 300 of those are about the Muppets!) Wikipedia’s “reach” last year was greater than the websites of CNN and the BBC combined. It’s no wonder that Wales was named one of the world’s top one hundred people in Time magazine‘s Scientists and Thinkers section in 2002.
How good is Wikipedia? Wales says that in December, 2005, Nature magazine gave a copy of similar science articles from both Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica to its reviewers to analyze. Wikipedia had an average of four errors per article, but Britannica had three! An even better contrast was what happened when the errors were revealed. The Wikipedia people asked Nature to give them a copy of all the errors, and then they fixed them. Britannica, however, issued a twenty page denunciation of the Nature reviewers’ work, and threatened to sue the magazine. Wales claims that neutrality and moderation are the criteria at which Wikipedia excels, (like public libraries?) He claims that Wikipedia’s value lies in its ability to generate a calm and reasoned debate, especially on controversial topics, because “the writing that survives is the writing that is fair. Trolls and Flamers are pushed to the margin.”
To counter claims that Wikipedia, as the BBC said this year, “is not as Wiki as it used to be,” Wales explained the progression of its open editing policies. The old time (before 2001?) Wikipedians’ philosophy was to keep everything open, assuming that an atmosphere of trust would encourage people to do good. An era of protection followed, however, (when the new Pope Benedict’s picture was replaced online with a picture of Darth Vader?) Articles which were subjected to a “flame war” were locked down immediately. An era of semi-protection was next, when only anonymous users and those with accounts of less than four days’ duration, were prohibited from editing. Presently, Wikiworld has become more open. Anyone is allowed to edit, but edits on controversial topics are flagged and must be approved before they are posted online. Wikipedia is managed by a tight knit group of volunteers. (Only 615 hard core users, one of whom was in the audience tonight, are responsible for half of all edits.)
Wales suggests that Wikipedia’s success has led to Creative Commons licenses’ becoming hugely popular, helping people to create a culture of sharing by using sites like Flickr. He closed by saying, “Other people talk about the democratization of knowledge. I say, ‘Let’s do it!’ Wikipedia will never compromise on censorship. People must have the right to share information freely.”
When Wales opened his lecture, he asked the audience, (which was older, better dressed, and shorter on students than I expected,) how many had used Wikipedia. Half the hands in the theater went up, (which I also didn’t expect,) so when I returned home I immediately became a first-time user. When I looked up"library," I thought, “Not bad.” Forget what you expect, go to en.wikipedia.org, and see for yourself what Jimmy Wales has wrought.