Jimmy Wales: Quotes about people

“The real struggle is not between the right and the left — that's where most people assume — but it's between the party of the thoughtful and the party of the jerks. And no side of the political spectrum has a monopoly on either of those qualities.”

Jimmy Wales

"How a ragtag band created Wikipedia" http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/37 - TED Talk (July 2005); this has sometimes appeared paraphrased as "The real struggle is not between the right and the left but between the party of the thoughtful and the party of the jerks."
Context: Most people understand the need for neutrality. The real struggle is not between the right and the left — that's where most people assume — but it's between the party of the thoughtful and the party of the jerks. And no side of the political spectrum has a monopoly on either of those qualities.

People , Jerk

“If people could treat others as though they were speaking face to face, that would be huge.”

Jimmy Wales

As quoted in "The Encyclopedist’s Lair" in The New York Times (19 November 2007)
Context: There’s plenty of rude stuff online. People say things online that they would be ashamed to say face to face. If people could treat others as though they were speaking face to face, that would be huge.

People

“Simply having rules does not change the things that people want to do. You have to change incentives.”

Jimmy Wales

Interview with Reason magazine (June 2007) http://reason.com/news/show/119689.html

People , Change

“Real people are involved, and they can be hurt by your words. We are not tabloid journalism, we are an encyclopedia.”

Jimmy Wales

Jimmy Wales on Biographies of living persons article

People , Hurt

“I think that argument is completely morally bankrupt, and I think people know that when they make it. There's a very big difference between having a sincere, passionate interest in a topic and being a paid shill … Particularly for PR firms, it's something they should really very strongly avoid: ever touching an article.”

Jimmy Wales

PRWeek (30 Jan 2007) http://www.prweek.com/us/login/required/629646 In response to suggestions Wikipedia might change policies to allow PR firms to edit the site without breaking a rule called "WP:AUTO".

People , Thinking , Passion , Sincerity

“Frankly, and let me be blunt, Wikipedia as a readable product is not for us. It's for them. It's for that girl in Africa who can save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around her, but only if she's empowered with the knowledge to do so.”

Jimmy Wales

Foundation-l mailing list http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-October/017898.html (23 October 2005)

People , Girl , Knowledge

“I have said this many times in the past and will say it many times in the future I am sure: some people need to find a different hobby, because whatever they are here for, it is not to help build an encyclopedia.”

Jimmy Wales

Comment about "drama mongers" on the Wikipedia Administrator's noticeboard, (23 November 2007) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive330&diff=prev&oldid=173346013

People , Time , Past , Future

“It turns out a lot of people don’t get it. Wikipedia is like rock’n’roll; it’s a cultural shift.”

Jimmy Wales

Wales to Computerworld, "Wikipedia founder gazes into site's future" (18 August 2006) http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/0/E33CA972AD48588CCC2571C7001C3649?OpenDocument, based on an earlier interview at Wikimania

People

“Greatest misconception about Wikipedia: We aren’t democratic. Our readers edit the entries, but we’re actually quite snobby. The core community appreciates when someone is knowledgeable, and thinks some people are idiots and shouldn’t be writing.”

Jimmy Wales

Source: The Encyclopedist’s Lair, The New York Times, November 18, 2007, 2007-11-19 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/magazine/18wwln-domains-t.html?ex=1196139600&en=25f7b166ceba3519&ei=5070&emc=eta1,

People , Communication , Knowledge , Thinking

“I have my team focused on the front end, working on the user experience, and making sure we have all the wiki-like tools people need to work on the site. We're just cranking away.”

Jimmy Wales

About Wikia Search, in an interview with Susan Kuchinskas in iMediaConnection, March 26, 2009 http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/22475.asp (only days before Wales would shut down Wikia Search and lay off two developers)

People

“We are going to change the [GNU] Free Documentation License in such a way that Wikipedia will be able to become licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License. And so this is not, as some people speculated on Facebook my 50th birthday party. This is a party to celebrate the liberation of Wikipedia.”

Jimmy Wales

Announcing that the Wikimedia Foundation Board has voted to enable Wikipedia to be licensed under a Creative Commons license. "Wikipedia to be Licensed Under Creative Commons" (30 November 2007) http://blog.jamendo.com/index.php/2007/12/01/breaking-news-wikipedia-switches-to-creative-commons/

People , Way , Birthday , Change

“I frequently counsel people who are getting frustrated about an edit war to think about someone who lives without clean drinking water, without any proper means of education, and how our work might someday help that person. It puts flamewars into some perspective, I think.”

Jimmy Wales

As quoted in "Wikimedia Founder Jimmy Wales Responds," by Robin "Roblimo" Miller, Slashdot (28 July 2004)

War , People , Education , Drink

“Quite frankly, several of the people who contributed to the article should be banned from coming near a keyboard until they have learned to engage in proper encyclopedia writing.”

Jimmy Wales

Source: In a discussion about Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:BonziBUDDY&diff=74314772&oldid=74246581 (07 September 2006)

People , Learning

“When someone just writes 'f**k, f**k, f**k', we just fix it, laugh and move on. But the difficult social issues are the borderline cases — people who do some good work, but who are also a pain in the neck.”

Jimmy Wales

Source: As quoted in "Who knows?", The Guardian (26 October 2004)

Pain , People