Objectivist options/futures trader turned internet entrepreneur Jimmy Donal Wales (who sometimes uses the nickname Jimbo) has been involved with a number of projects such as the Bomis.com portal and the WeTheLiving.com Objectivist discussion lists.
He is perhaps best known for his involvement in founding Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, though there is a rather semantic dispute as to the precise nature of his involvement - in brief, most of the code for the Wiki software was written by Larry Sanger, who considers both himself and Wales to be co-founders of Wikipedia, but Wales contends that he alone founded the project and financed the software development from his personal funds, thus Sanger was his paid employee.
Wales' vision is of a freely accessible repository of knowledge, to which any internet user can contribute, with all articles adhering to a neutral point of view (essentially, presenting the facts about the issue absent the authors' opinions, and presenting all sides in any debate fairly). The software thus allows any visitor to create new articles and edit existing entries, and includes a function to revert any article to it's previous form, enabling responsible contributors to instantaneously trash nonsense edits by trolls.
Wales is currently President of Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organisation that has ultimate responsibility for Wikipedia and other Wiki projects such as Wiktionary. Several of these projects are available in a number of languages, though the English versions currently have by far the most entries.
Wales also heads Wikia, a separate incorporated company, which utilises elements of the Wiki software in for profit projects, such as the Wikicities web hosting service.
Added by Matthew Humphreys
on 5/05, 5:02pm
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ales, Jimmy "Jimbo"
