Interviews with Wikipedia's founder, Jimmy Wales

Transcipt of the C-SPAN interview with Jimmy Wales, Sept. 25 2005



Video of the same interview

Jimbo (Wales' internet handle) is prodded by Brian Lamb to reveal the power structure of Wikipedia, the collaborative nature of truth in Wikipedia's open editing system, and the influence Ayn Rand had over his early adulthood. Some interesting tidbits concerning Wikipedia slip out as well, some verging on the heroically idealist:

Wales: Wikipedia for a lot of people hearkens back to what we all thought the Internet was for in the first place which is, you know, when most people first started the Internet they thought oh, this is fantastic, people can communicate from all over the world and build knowledge and share information.
And then we went through the whole dot-com boom and bust and the Internet seemed to be about pop-up ads, and SPAM, and porn and selling dog food over the Internet. And now Wikipedia kind of hearkens back to the original vision of the Internet

A conscientious interviewer, Lamb must try to get concrete ideas of Wikipedia's working model instead of vagaries, and somewhat succeeds:

WALES: And so we're moving from that model which was necessary when we had a small group of people to a model - I make the comparison of the British monarchy. That my power should decrease over time and become more symbolic. And it's more my job is to defend the community not rule over the community.

Although Wales has the vision of deposing himself for the good of the commonwealth, others in the industry, such as "Robert McHenry, former editor and chief, Encyclopedia Britannica." are dubious. Lamb brings up McHenry's analogy comparing Wikipedia to a public restroom which leads to this exchange:

LAMB: Last sentence, I mean last paragraph: "The user who visits Wikipedia to learn about some subject to confirm some matter sof fact is rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom." - I know you've seen that …
WALES: Right.
LAMB: ... many times ...
WALES: Yes.
LAMB: "It may be obviously dirty so that he knows to exercise great care or it may seem fairly clean so that he may be lulled into a sense of - a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him."
Mr. McHenry's not very happy with you.
WALES: Well, I had dinner with Bob after he wrote this article. And he's a really very thoughtful, nice guy. So I don't actually know if he regrets this inflammatory rhetoric because now he's sort of gotten famous as the public toilet guy.
So - but the ultimate point there is an interesting point but one that I feel is invalidated by the fact that there is a community. And I suppose if you want to call it a public restroom you can but it's a public restroom that's kept immaculately clean for the most part. And most people are more than happy to go into, you know, the Four Seasons hotel and use the public restroom because it's cared for by people."

If Wikipedia is the Four Seasons hotel, then our place here at Sewers must be a pissoir open to all, but serving as the home turf for a tribe of trinket-collecting rats.

Another Interview with Wales through ITConversations.com

Videos of a public talk given by Wales including a Q&A session