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Jimmy Domhnall Wales (engl. Jimmy Donal Wales also known as Dzhimbo (engl. Jimbo); sort. On August 7, 1966, Huntsville, Alabama, the USA) — the American Internet entrepreneur, the ideologist of the concept of the Wiki, the founder of Wikipedia, the chairman of Wikimedia Foundation (2003 — 2006). Now (summer of 2011) — the Honorary Chairman of Wikimedia Foundation; director of the company of Wikia, Inc.
Since March, 2012 — the adviser for questions of public policy and openness at the government of Great Britain.
Biography
In one of the interviews Wales told that, according to his mother, he was born on August 7, 1966, however official date of birth is announced on August 8. His father who was also called Jimmy Wales worked as the manager in grocery store. His mother Doris and his grandmother Erma owned small private school House of Learning in which the training system on the basis of Maria Montessori's technique practiced. The basis of this technique consists that children substantially define a form, time and content of the study. Jimmy Wales most of all liked to read encyclopedias.
After House of Learning Wales entered preparatory college Randolph School, and later to the Auburn university. Later he studied at the University of Alabama. After the termination of the university Wales decided to write the thesis for a degree of the doctor of philosophy in the field of finance. For this purpose he arrived on rates at the universities of Alabama and Indiana and began to teach in both. But he did not write the thesis.
In 1994 Wales moved to Chicago, there it till 2000 worked for Chicago Options Associates company, trading in securities and earning rather big money.
In 1996 Wales together with Tim Shell founded Bomis company which promoted the search system "for men" bomis.com. Later essential profit was made for Wales by the paid premium.bomis.com resource with pornographic content. In one of an interview in 2012 Wales told that there is no website bomis.com long ago, it represented the search engine similar to Yahoo!, users could share on it links and create communities; Wales called him "the great-grandfather of Wikipedia".
In March, 2000 Wales created the free encyclopedia Nupediya and employed the scientist-philosopher Larry Senger to a position of the Chief Editor. The encyclopedia was formed professional authors on a voluntary basis, articles of the encyclopedia passed expert evaluation. Nupediya's idea was in occupying the empty niche of free Internet encyclopedias.
On June 15, 2011 Wales, as expected, arrived to Russia with an open lecture. Exactly at 20-00 his lecture at the Pushkin movie theater began and continued about an hour. The remained hour listeners asked it questions. Next day, on June 16, Wales addressed students and teachers in MIREA.
In 2011 left the structure of jury of the German political award "Quadriga" because of the decision on award of an award to Vladimir Putin. It was one of the reasons that the award to the Russian prime minister was not awarded. The President of Russia Medvedev considered all this story manifestation "cowardice and inconsistency" members of the organizing committee and said that after that "the award ended, in any case, for the international community".
In March, 2012 Wales was appointed the unpaid adviser for questions of public policy and openness at the government of Great Britain. It is planned that he will deal with issues of expansion of participation of society in the course of determination of state policy.
Wikimedia Foundation
As content amount in a nupediya increased extremely slowly, on January 15, 2001 Wales and Senger created Wikipedia. The website was initially intended for preliminary development of materials for a nupediya, however rapid growth of Wikipedia made it the main project soon. At early stages Senger was engaged in development of Wikipedia generally, Wales more resolved financial issues.
As formally Senger was employed by Wales, the last considers himself the only founder of Wikipedia though Senger continues to call himself "co-founder". Soon Larry Senger left the project and fell upon Wales with criticism, having represented it the person hating elite and all elite (engl. "decidedly anti-elitist"). Senger's statement for resignation still hangs on his page of the participant in the English Wikipedia.
In the middle of 2003 Jimmy Wales created Wikimedia Foundation, non-profit organization with the headquarters in Tampa, the State of Florida. The fund had to support Wikipedia and its brotherly projects. Since then Wales who is the president and the board member of Fund actively is engaged in their promotion.
Since the beginning of 2005 till present (2012) Wikimedia Foundation completely contains at the expense of grants and donations.
Wales was repeatedly accused of abuse of regulations of Wikipedia. In particular, the former employee of Novell company Jeff Merki accused Jimmy Wales that in 2006 Wales suggested it to correct for money article in Wikipedia.
Wales is ironically called sometimes "The generous dictator" of Wikipedia though he refuses this title and seldom instructs vikipediysky community. By preparation of the issue of the magazine Wired devoted to Wikipedia it became clear that "Bogo-Korol drives the car of the Hyundai though has "Ferrari'".
According to the publicist Alexander Genis, "Jimmy Wales is a typical genius of an electronic century. The timid excellent student, the inveterate fan of computer games, the admirer of freedom-loving philosophy of Ayn Rand, the supporter of the anarchical social device, Wales conceived Wikipedia at a leisure, even without suspecting that it will become the biggest network project.<…> The most interesting that when Jimmy Wales was asked in what an ultimate goal of Wikipedia, he told: "In anything, one entertainment'".
Other projects
Inspired with success of Wikipedia, Wales together with Angela Beasley in 2004 based the commercial Wikia project on providing a hosting for the different websites using wiki technology.
The published works
- Robert Brooks, John Korson and J. Domhnall Wales, "The Pricing of Index Options When the Underlying Assets All Follow a Lognormal Diffusion" (1994, Advances in Futures and Options Research magazine)
- Jimmy Wales, Andrea Uecheri, "Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom: How Online Social Networking Will Transform Your Life, Work and World", (2008)
- Jimmy Wales, Andrea Uecheri, "Commentary: Create a tech-friendly U.S. government", 2009
- Jimmy Wales, Andrea Uecheri, "33 Million People in the Room: How to Create, Influence, and Run a Successful Business with Social Networking", 2009
- Jimmy Wales, Andrea Uecheri, "Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business", 2009
- Jimmy Wales, Andrea Uecheri, "Most Define User-Generated Content Too Narrowly", 2009
- Jimmy Wales, Andrea Uecheri, "Keep a Civil Cybertongue", 2009
Private life
With the first wife, Pam, Jimmy Wales got acquainted during student's practice. With it he moved to Chicago in 1994.
The second wife of Jimmy Wales — Christina Roan, worked as the Mitsubishi trader. He also divorced her. From these defects he has a daughter.
Since 2011 lives in Great Britain. The bride is Kate Garvey, the former adviser of Tony Blair.
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