QUOTE(EricBarbour @ Sat 9th October 2010, 1:02am)
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QUOTE
A Swiss organization has awarded Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales 100,000 Swiss francs ($104,000) for "democratizing the access to knowledge."
The Im Grueene Foundation said Friday the free online encyclopedia "revolutionized the access to knowledge as man's most important resource" because it allows users to also be contributors.
The Gottlieb Duttweiler Award -- named after a Swiss businessman -- is awarded irregularly and last went to former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2008.
Wikipedia is one of the most popular websites in the world. Wales has said the site has more than 3 million entries in English, far more than a traditional encyclopedia, and is rapidly expanding into other languages, with almost a million entries in French and more in German.
Jesus H. Christ. Someone tell me this is some kind of hoax.
The real problem is that we've gotten to the point of thinking that the Swiss have especially fine judgement about the accomplishments of people and their abilities (despite their worrisome treatment of the young Albert Einstein in 1903
![unhappy.gif](http://wikipediareview.com/smilys0b23ax56/default/unhappy.gif)
), and this small award and announcement makes it seem almost as though the "Swiss" approve of Jimmy Wales. That's how the English news is playing it, and it's certainly how the WMF is doing so.
Actually, most Swiss have probably never heard of the man, and those that have, probably have seen only the German or French versions of Wikipedia, and would be shocked by the perversions that go on in the English version, which is our main target here, and which is the only version Wales has been really involved in running, and making policy for.
![hrmph.gif](http://wikipediareview.com/smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)
So this award is not only unfunny but unfair. Such is life.