•Wikipedia isn't about human potential, whatever Wales says
guardian.co.uk, UK -26 minutes ago
Proselytisation of the cult of Wikipedia has reached new heights. Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, has joined a speaker's agency (amusingly, ...

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Seth struggled for days to get vetted my e-mail from Jimbo's agency, stating his fee was $100,000... so, it looks like he ended up settling for the source he could get confirmed, that is "over $50,000".

Any way you slice it, if Jimbo lines up 3 engagements in a year, he's making more than probably 98% of us on this message board.

We're told that there's no possible COI for him, though, between Wikia and Wikipedia.

Jimbo's famous because of Wikipedia, but he's trying to make a buck off Wikia. Finkelstein's article says Jimbo offers to speak representing himself, which is why he gets to keep the money.

It's a real mystery to me why anyone would want to blow 50,000 bucks to hear this guy talk. He has nothing interesting to say - at least, not so interesting to justify that level of expenditure. However, if he can bamboozle some idiot to plunking down money to hear him talk, more power to him. I don't see a conflict of interest in this situation.

Overall, Finkelstein's article is good, and it makes valid points.

I'd say Seth has hit the nail on the proverbial head!

Still, it's hard to imagine Wikia making all that much money from just advertising. And with tough economic times ahead, they're going to want to conserve as much of that VC startup cash as they can manage... At least Jimbo has those speaker's fees to keep himself in whatever lifestyle he's currently in.

Seth's article is a cheap shot.

I'm not Jimmy Wales fan, however look at the facts. He (co?)-created wikipedia, one of the top ten websites on the net. Everyone else responsible for initiatives like that has ended up worth billions.

If wikipedia took adverts, it would be worth a fortune.

But gave wikipedia away to charity. He gave it the the WMF - and can't directly profit from it at all. Whether he realised what financial potential he was giving up at the time, I don't know. But it isn't much speculation to say that he hight have times he regrets it. If he owned wikipedia now, he'd have his jet all right. But all he's got is his "founder status" - so what's that worth.

So, Jimbo tries to make some money? Big deal. He's given up more than he'll ever make. Wikia isn't successful - so he does the speaker circuit.

The argument seems to be that since Jimmy gave wikipedia away, he should also give he speaking fees to charity too. Now, it would be nice if he did - but really? Why should he?

Doc, at least speaking for myself, I think Jimbo is entitled to make as much money as he likes, springboarding off his "fame" for developing Wikipedia.

The problem emerges when he exploits his leadership within the tax-advantaged non-profit organization to boost or strengthen his privately-capitalized ventures. If done too egregiously, this is actually an illegal act ("self-dealing"?). Examples:

1. Jimbo requested that Brion Vibber switch on "nofollow" on external links within Wikipedia. Exception -- "interwiki" links, including many to Wikia.com, that were formatted in a way not affected by "nofollow". Jimbo later claimed that he didn't issue this request, but Brion disputed that again.

2. Angela Beesley using Wikipedia's deletion policies to "recruit" content and editors for Wikia.com transplantation.

3. Jimbo hiring to Wikia.com a Wikipedia admin, whom a month later he appointed to the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee. Jimbo later claimed that this appointment was "at the request of and unanimous support of" the sitting ArbCom, which is a big stretch.

4. As far back as August 2006, Jimbo defined his position on keeping all speaker's fees, but that Foundation employees should not. Keep in mind that this was approximately the time Jimbo was using Foundation funds to pay for $1200 dinners and Moscow massages. This challenges ethical credibility.

5. Jimbo using his English Wikipedia user page to advertise his Wikia.com venture, as well as his speaking engagement availability, even though there are policies against using user pages for self-promotional marketing.

6. Danny Wool has claimed that Jimbo utilized his non-profit-supported labor to orchestrate personal speaking arrangements, which is an ethical lapse by both parties.

7. Jimmy electing to sign a Form 990 that stated "no business relationships" existed in 2005 between the 3 Wikia employees serving on the 5-person Board of Trustees for the Foundation.

8. And, while I'm involved in this one, I think it is still important. You can argue that it's not a sin to strive to make a buck off of the notability of a successful non-profit project. Fine. But, in that case, it is a sin to deliberately and personally and pro-actively prevent others from doing so, from locations OFF THE PROJECT SITE itself!

Why is it okay to make money off Wikipedia, as long as it's "apart" on Wikia.com or in the form of speaking engagements, but it is not okay to make money off of Wikipedia's lure by writing paid-for content that is released elsewhere under the terms of the GFDL?

I've given you eight reasons, Doc, why Jimbo is not acting ethically in regards to his primary income. Nobody is saying he should give it back to the Foundation, but at least I am saying he should sever his conflicted ties before earning another dollar this way.

Greg

But of course Doc you are one of last dead-bitter-ender friends of Mr. Wales. You may well be The Last of the Mohicans in this regard. Do you think that a project that benefits from the unpaid contributors could have prospered under Bomis.com? A porn site? Wales created nothing. He stumbled upon the success of Wikipedia. which was obtained as a turn-key from Sanger. Wales in turn makes a career, literally, out of disparaging the man. The best proof of Wales mediocrity is his complete failure to figure out how monetorize the success he blundered into other than to take advantage of WMF.

Little known technical fact: when you give something to "charity" you don't own it anymore. As a lingering board member Wales owns a fiduciary duty to WMF and those speaking fees ought to be turned over.

Why should he, Doc? Duty. Responsibility. Fairness.

Greg, I agree with much of what you say; I just don't see what most of it has to do with Jimbo accepting large speaking fees on the strength of his co-creation of Wikipedia.

Assuming Brion's version is the correct one and that Jimbo actually did request this exemption (there doesn't appear to be evidence of that in the link you provided) this is indeed extremely sketchy. Another question, though: on what basis does an individual Trustee have the authority to direct Brion like that?
The question here is whether she exerts any control over Wikipedia's deletion policies. If she is influencing these policies in such a way as to make Wikia content-farming more viable, this is indeed a conflict-of-interest.
I'm not sure why his suggestion was "a big stretch" - it seems quite plausible to me, unless any of the arbitrators of the day have denied - but it really doesn't matter. There's a clear appearance of impropriety here (though this is one of those cases where I suspect stupidity rather than malice - was Essjay really intended to influence the outcome of arbitration cases in such a way as to benefit Wikia?).
I have no problem at all with Jimbo's position on this (the alleged $1200 dinners
and massages being a separate issue, with which I do have a problem).
The established practice is that active contributors are given some leeway in this; I don't actually think that Jimmy received treatment beyond what another user with his level of contributions would. Are you aware of any other user with several thousand edits who was prevented from including an external link on their user page to an organization in which they have a pecuniary interest?
Yes, that is a very troubling allegation. However, he no longer has access to any of this non-profit-supported labor, so this should be immaterial to current speaking engagements.
This does strike me as odd, though I confess ignorance as to the legal definition of "business relationship" for the purposes of Form 990.
I agree, and I think this is actually one of the symptoms of the insane Wikipedia governance structure, in which we're all essentially supposed to do what we feel like and then, once everybody's behaving in more or less the same way on a given issue, write it down as purely descriptive "policy"; you point to an unfair inconsistency, but Jimbo's governance philosophy has no problems with completely arbitrary inconsistency. That said, I'm not sure I see the connection with speaking engagements.
Hold on here - most of those pointed to issues with regards to the links between Wikia and Wikipedia - only a couple of them touched on speaking engagements arranged outside of Wikia, which I understand to be his primary income.

If wikipedia took adverts, it would be worth a pittance. Without the illusion of doing it all for That Kid in Africa, the unpaid labour would abscond, and there would be no content to drive traffic.

That is why adverts only find their way onto wikipedia-authored content through roundabout routes.

In almost all of Jimmy Wales' public speaking engagements he co-mingles his topics between Wikimedia Foundation project activities and Wikia, Inc. activities. He does not partition (that I know of) the dollars paid for the comments on Wikimedia concepts versus those paid for the comments about Wikia.

That is why the Wikia conflicts are very much germane to a discussion of how and why there is an ethical lapse in taking personal income from speaking engagements about both entities, while having an influential role in the governance of the non-profit entity.

If you can't see this for yourself, perhaps you should consult an optician? I know I can't help you further. You seemed to half-agree with about half of my eight points. Agreeing with one point alone should be sufficient to call for change, rather than defend the practice.

Seth Finkelstein has given us one of the best written and most subtly executed deconstructions of Wikipediot Pretenses that I have seen in the external media yet. I hope that it marks the long-e-waited turning point in the quality of media analyses.

Jon

I disagree, actually; I think most content-generators are doing it because they enjoy doing it, not because they're (we're) labouring under any delusions that it's helping starving Africans. As I've said before, I'd be a better person if I devoted my leisure time to things that actually did help African children, but that's true of most of us.

By my count, I wholly agreed with one of your points (#8), largely agreed with five others (#1, 2, 3, 6, 7), and only essentially disagreed with two (#4, 5). And yes, that's certainly enough justification to call for change: in brief, the situation needs to change such that the overlap between WMF and Wikia is limited to either personnel or business relations (broadly-defined). I'm just not sold that this is relevant to the speaking engagement thing.

Personally, I started editing in early 2004 mainly because it looked interesting and exciting. After about a year of editing I got embroiled in a dispute and all the fun was sucked out of the experience, but by then enjoyment had already been supplanted as my main reason for participation: by that point I was doing it primarily because I felt an intense personal obligation to help build a knowledge resource, and secondarily because the whole process was a means of learning and self-improvement. Certainly I have no delusion that Wikipedia will suffice in place of food for a starving child, but I believe that developing Wikipedia as a resource makes the world a better place for people in general. I'd be interested to know what motivation is actually more common among contributors, particularly long-term contributors.

Would I keep editing if they introduced ads? Sure, although I think it's better not to have them as long as that situation is financially sustainable.

Heartwarming as it is to see a handful of unpaid labourers queueing up to keep volunteering for the profit of others, larger (if equally unscientific) surveys tend to paint a different picture:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Polls#Numbe...lish_Wikipedia.

When Jimbo ran an ad-hoc poll on the topic, he got a better result by proposing some of the revenue was put to African schools.

There's a couple of obstacles to profit-taking from wikipedia: firstly, the goodwill of the users, characterised by some web 2.0 creeps as "social capital", would be pretty widely undermined by the appearance of ads.

Secondly, advertisers can be pretty uncomfortable about placing their products next to questionable content. Remember the boy-scout-spanking fiasco - the motivation to shut down the spanking wiki wasn't doing the right thing, it was the threat of losing sponsorship. And wikipedia is chock full of pages that would make advertisers squirm.

How are they doing for volunteers over at Wikia search? As I recall from some chat log, the mission over in that particular salt mine includes the purchase of a jet upon which Jimbo can shag media chicks...but the stats page appears to be missing a "number of editors" metric...

I think a lot of users would quit in protest if Wikipedia started running ads. They won't quit in protest over anything else, but removing the perception that this is all altruistic volunteering without a profit motive would be a killer, certainly for me if I were still involved. Maybe for minor edits I'd still be interested, but to be truly dedicated, you have to see a higher purpose. Or you have to have an ulterior motive. I don't know.

Wikipedia should stop pretending it's too intellectual to be carrying ads. I say, "stop begging from the users, and let the ads roll", and get some core funding into the coffers. It's quite a silly situation that year after year, Jimbo is still begging. Yet he can fly all over the world, make speeches for $100,000 a shot, choose the best of parlours, and have his photo taken with all the stars. Jimbo is playing "new boy" for far too long now, and it's time for child to grow.

I don't see why it would cease to be altruistic volunteering if there were ads (although, lest we forget, it isn't altruistic in the first place according to Jimbo, since altruism is evil). Ads, if used, could just be a means of keeping the site afloat. If the money went into Jimbo's pocket, or anyone's pocket, yeah, I wouldn't accept that, and indeed almost nobody would accept that. But there's a big difference between having ads to cover expenses so that the site can remain functional and having ads for the sake of personal profit.

Admittedly, though, at the end of the day I'd probably stick around even if the ad money did go into Jimbo's pocket. I already detest him, and if I was going to leave the site over anything related to Jimbo (or the site's dismal quality of leadership in general) I would have done it years ago.

A question - if Wikipedia had one little Google ad, maybe on the left-hand panel just below the Search box - how much would they make? Would it cover costs?

This article estimates $106 million a year, and by reinvesting that money into better tools, better content (paying experts to write high quality GFDL material and produce diagrams/images/video/animated content, donating cash to museums to freely release high-quality GFDL images of their exhibits or scans of their works), better servers, etc. The article estimates withinin a few years time of running ads that revenue could be up to $1bn a year. This is money that could be further reinvested, and also huge charitable donations could be made. Even if that estimate is an order of magnitude high, that's still promising.

Jimbo even discussed this on his blog. Also see Wikipedia:Advertisements.

I think it was Greg who suggested paying the top 1000 Wikipedia contributors $10,000, or something similar, out of this money. That would also be a possibility. Or pay anyone who gets an FAC $5k.

They could even registered contributors an option in their preferences to turn the ad off.

If people are really against ads being a permanent fixture, I'd run ads for one month a year out of 12 (instead of the panhandling for donations). This would produce around $10m, and meet all running costs, with money to spare.

Neil, you're making too much sense. Stop it.

With all that money, some of it might actually get used to buy The Poor Kid in Africa a pair of shoes, or a clean water well, or a goat. And we can't actually help The Poor Kid in Africa with Wikipedia's money. She is better served with free articles that discuss the gender-bias of sex positions.

Keep in mind, too... ads could be set to "user opt-out", so anyone personally offended by commercial stakes could just switch them off.

That would be too simple and too logical, though. It will never happen, unless Jimbo does find some way to take a percentage cut for himself.

Maybe Wikipedia should have Wikia ads? WP practically does that already with "Wikia has a wiki about this subject" links at the bottom of numerous pages. Jimbo would make a lot more money with that strategy.

As a Top 10 website they should have leverage to get more tasteful adds.

It wasn't a top ten website until *after* he gave it away. In fact, it wasn't even profitable until *after* he gave it away.

Maybe it would have been just as successful even if he didn't give it away. Maybe it wouldn't have been. Honestly, I go back and forth myself on which is the case. But the fact of the matter is, he *did* give it away, he did so *before* it was making a profit, and, frankly, I seriously doubt he would have done so had he thought it was capable of making a profit. (Additionally, remember he had been promising turning Wikipedia into a non-profit from before that, at least as early as the Enciclopedia Libre split, and I believe even before that.)



If I could have convinced a venture capitalist to fund a Wikipedia competitor during the dot-bomb times that Wikipedia was "given away", I'd be worth a fortune. And I don't know about Jimbo, but if I had the connections to get that kind of money, I would have done it.

And, frankly, I think Wikipedia as a for-profit would have been a much better service than the current Wikipedia as a non-profit. Especially if it were a for-profit run by me.



He's a self-declared "Objectivist to the core". He clearly didn't think he was giving anything up at the time. The only real question is whether or not, given perfect hindsight, he *did* give anything up.



I don't think Jimbo should give his speaking fees to charity. I don't think there's anything wrong with Jimbo trying to make some money. But what I do think is that he should resign from the WMF Board of directors, and I think that if he refuses to resign, he should be kicked off the board. I believe this mainly because of his actions with regard to Wikia, but I'm not comfortable with the speaking engagements either. Maybe if his presence on the WMF Board was essential to the mission of the WMF I might be willing to overlook the speaking engagements, but it isn't.

Why should the WMF keep him around? Why should they?

I'm unsure if this is actually intentional. I have filed Bug #15801 about this situation.

Sanger in turn getting the idea from Ben Kovitz.

And all of this happening right around the time of the launch of Gnupedia. It's probably just a parallel development, but on December 24, 2000, a week before "The conversation at the taco stand", Álvaro Tejero Cantero said, of Gnupedia:



I hope someone can translate this better than Google Translate. But clearly the idea of using a wiki to help create an encyclopedia was not solely the idea of Wales. Even if you believe Wales that he had the idea independently of Kovitz/Sanger, which frankly I don't, he wasn't the only person to have the idea. See my timeline, which is not meant to imply a cause/effect relationship.

From the article:



Not sure what Seth meant, but this article from March 11, 1999:

Well, after Jimbo's own firing of Sanger, I suppose "gratitude for past services" as a reason, would be right out...