Jimmy Wales facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Jimmy Wales
|
|
|---|---|
.jpg)
Wales in March 2023
|
|
| Born |
Jimmy Donal Wales
August 7, 1966 Huntsville, Alabama, U.S.
|
| Other names | Jimbo Wales (screen name) |
| Citizenship |
|
| Education | |
| Occupation |
|
| Known for | Co-founding Wikipedia |
| Title |
|
| Successor | Florence Devouard (as Chair of Wikimedia Foundation) |
| Board member of |
|
| Spouse(s) |
|
| Children | 3 |
| Signature | |
 |
|
Jimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966), also known as Jimbo Wales, is an American and British Internet entrepreneur. He is famous for being a co-founder of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. He also helped create Fandom (formerly Wikia), a website that hosts many different wikis. Jimmy Wales has worked on other online projects too, like Nupedia and WikiTribune.
Wales was born in Huntsville, Alabama, United States. He studied finance at Auburn University and the University of Alabama. Before starting his big internet projects, he worked as a financial trader.
In 1996, Wales started an internet company called Bomis. This company helped fund Nupedia (2000–2003), which was a free online encyclopedia with articles reviewed by experts. On January 15, 2001, Jimmy Wales, along with Larry Sanger and others, launched Wikipedia. Wikipedia quickly became very popular because it allowed anyone to contribute and edit articles. Wales became a main spokesperson for Wikipedia as it grew.
Today, Wales is still involved with the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit group that runs Wikipedia. He is a member of its Board of Trustees. In 2006, Time magazine named him one of "The 100 Most Influential People in the World" for his role in creating Wikipedia.
Contents
Early life and learning
Jimmy Wales was born in Huntsville, Alabama, on August 7, 1966. His father was a grocery store manager. His mother, Doris Ann, and grandmother, Erma, ran a small private school called the House of Learning. This is where Jimmy and his three siblings went to school when they were young.
As a child, Wales loved to read. When he was three, his mother bought a World Book Encyclopedia. He enjoyed reading it and even helped update it by sticking new information onto the pages. He joked that he started "revising the encyclopedia" as a kid!
Wales described his childhood school as having a "Montessori-influenced" way of teaching. He spent many hours looking through encyclopedias like Britannica and World Book. There were only a few other children in his grade, so students from different grades learned together.
After eighth grade, Wales went to Randolph School, a special school in Huntsville that prepares students for university. He graduated when he was sixteen. He said that education was very important to his family. He earned his bachelor's degree in finance from Auburn University in 1986. He then studied for his master's degree at the University of Alabama and later at Indiana University Bloomington. While studying, he taught at both universities. He also became very interested in the internet and played online fantasy games.
Building online projects
Early internet work
In 1994, Wales started working at a trading company in Chicago, Illinois. He loved the internet from early on and spent his free time writing computer code. He realized how powerful computer networks could be for large projects where many people work together.
After seeing how successful internet companies like Netscape were, Wales decided to leave his finance job. He had saved money from trading and wanted to start his own internet business.
Nupedia and the start of Wikipedia
Wales started Bomis, an internet company, in 1996. Even though Bomis didn't make much money at first, it helped Wales fund his dream project: an online encyclopedia. He hired Larry Sanger, a philosophy student, to be the editor-in-chief. In March 2000, they launched Nupedia.
Nupedia was a free online encyclopedia where experts wrote and reviewed articles. The idea was to have very high-quality articles, like those in professional encyclopedias. However, the process of getting articles reviewed was very slow. Wales realized that Nupedia wasn't growing fast enough.
In January 2001, Larry Sanger learned about a "wiki" from a friend. A wiki is a website that allows many people to edit content easily and quickly. Sanger thought this could help Nupedia grow faster. He suggested the idea to Wales.
They created a wiki for Nupedia on January 10, 2001. It was meant for the public to write articles that experts would then review for Nupedia. But most of Nupedia's experts didn't want to mix amateur content with their professional work. So, the wiki project, which Sanger named "Wikipedia," was launched separately just five days later.
Wikipedia's journey
At first, Bomis planned for Wikipedia to be a business that made money. Larry Sanger saw Wikipedia as a way to help Nupedia. Jimmy Wales worried that it might just become "complete rubbish" because anyone could edit it.
But to their surprise, Wikipedia grew very quickly. Within days, it had more articles than Nupedia! A small group of editors formed, and many of them believed in sharing information freely, like the open-source movement.
Wales was initially worried about the idea of "open editing," where anyone can change the encyclopedia. He even checked the site at night to see what was being added. But the early editors helped create a strong community that could manage itself, which helped Wikipedia grow. Wales once said that the first words he wrote on Wikipedia were "Hello world" – a common phrase programmers use to test new software.
Larry Sanger helped develop Wikipedia in its early days. He later said that the idea of a free, collaborative encyclopedia that anyone could contribute to was "entirely Jimmy's." Bomis provided the money for Wikipedia at first. Later, they decided to create a non-profit foundation to run Wikipedia instead of trying to make money from it.
Jimmy Wales's role
In 2004, Wales shared his big dream for Wikipedia: "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."
Even though his official title is a board member and chairman emeritus of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wales has a special role within the Wikipedia community. He has been called a "constitutional monarch," meaning he has influence but no real power, much like the Queen of the United Kingdom Elizabeth II. He was also the main spokesperson for Wikipedia in its early years.
Wikipedia's growth made Wales an Internet celebrity. He travels around the world to promote Wikipedia and its mission. He has said that reducing his role in Wikipedia is "not an option for me." He sees his goal as helping to "create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language."
Wikimedia Foundation
In 2003, Wales created the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF). This is a non-profit organization that supports Wikipedia and its related projects. All the rights to Wikipedia were given to this new foundation.
Wales has been a member of the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees since it started. He was its chairman from 2003 to 2006. Since 2006, he has been an honorary chairman and holds a special "community founder's seat" on the board. He does not get paid for his work with the foundation.
Wales often jokes that giving Wikipedia to the foundation was both the "dumbest and the smartest" thing he ever did. He estimated Wikipedia was worth billions, but he believes donating it made its success possible.
Other projects
In 2004, Wales and Angela Beesley started Wikia, a company that hosts many different wikis. These wikis cover various topics, like Memory Alpha for Star Trek fans and Wookieepedia for Star Wars. Wikia also tried to create a search engine called Wikia Search, but that project ended in 2009.
Wales has also advised the U.K. government on making academic research freely available online. In 2014, he joined The People's Operator, a mobile phone network. He also spoke at a Clinton Global Initiative conference, encouraging young people to use social media for positive change.
In 2017, Wales announced WikiTribune, an online news publication. It aims to fight fake news by having professional journalists and volunteers work together to check facts. In 2019, he launched WT Social, an ad-free social network.
Wales also founded the Jimmy Wales Foundation for Freedom of Expression. This charity works to fight against human rights violations related to freedom of expression.
Personal life
Jimmy Wales has been married three times and has three daughters. He married Pamela Green when he was 20. Later, he married Christine Rohan in 1997, and they had one daughter.
In 2012, Wales married Kate Garvey in London. They met in Davos, Switzerland. He has two daughters with Kate.
Wales is an atheist, meaning he does not believe in a god. He says his beliefs are based on reason. Since 2012, he has lived in London, England, and became a British citizen in 2019. He also enjoys cooking.
Awards and recognition
_(37).JPG)
Jimmy Wales has received many awards and honors for his work with Wikipedia and his contributions to the internet:
- In 2006, TIME magazine listed him as one of "The 100 Most Influential People in the World."
- He is a member of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and the board of directors at Creative Commons.
- He was named one of the "Young Global Leaders" of 2007 by the World Economic Forum.
- In 2011, he received the Gottlieb Duttweiler Prize and the Leonardo European Corporate Learning Award.
- He has received honorary degrees from several universities, including Knox College and Amherst College.
- In 2013, Wales was awarded the UNESCO Niels Bohr Medal for his work on Wikipedia. He was also inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame.
- In 2014, The Daily Telegraph named him one of "25 Web Superstars." He also shared the first $1 million Mohammed bin Rashid Knowledge Award with World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
- In 2015, he received a $1 million Dan David Prize for "launching the world's largest online encyclopedia."
- In 2016, he was awarded honorary citizenship of Esino Lario in Italy.
- In 2017, the British Academy awarded him the President's Medal for helping spread information through Wikipedia.
Images for kids
-
Wales at the tenth-anniversary celebration of the Bengali Wikipedia.
-
Wales at a Creative Commons board meeting in June 2008.
-
Jimmy Wales in 2014 discussing Wikipedia Zero.
-
Wales at the 2018 World Economic Forum in Davos.
.JPG)
_On_stage_showing_the_world_for_Wikipedia_Zero_(500_millions),_while_Brent_Goff_is_still_listening.jpg)
.jpg)
See also
In Spanish: Jimmy Wales para niños
