Jimmy Wales Faces Allegations of Corruption

eldavojohn writes "The SFGate site has up an article noting that Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, is facing allegations from multiple quarters accusing him of abusing his power. Several people apparently claim he used the foundation to pay for personal expenses, including reimbursement for a $1,300 dinner for four at a Florida steakhouse. Accusations have also been made indicating that he edited the Wikipedia entry of political commentator Rachel Marsden, a woman he was seeing, at her request. In the case of that allegation, Wales replied that 'I acted completely consistently with Wikipedia policy. I did the right thing: I passed along my work to date for other editors to deal with, and I recused myself from the case.'"

The devious plot is out.. again

[fictionpuss]

The most interesting thing about Wikipedia is that it could be founded by a hypocritical douche, but still remain a valuable repository of information. That in itself is enough to convince me that Web2.0 isn't just an empty phrase, not least because it is the legacy of Wikimedia and collaborative knowledge gathering which makes accounts of such douchiness hard to suppress.

That, and the fact that the Wikipedia elite seem to be so inept in keeping secret their devious plots.

Like Volkswagen

[EmbeddedJanitor]

which was Hitler's baby.

No need to throw out the product with the person.

Not that I'm equating Wales with Hitler, just using an extreme case to make my point.

Privilege?

[UbuntuDupe]

Wow, he used his *special* privileges to edit someone's Wikipedia article? Oh noes! Now maybe I'll use *my* special privileges to send around unauthorized copies of Linux!!!!

An open community wins again

[A beautiful mind]

This case with Jimmy shows how open initiatives win the day again. It doesn't matter if Jimmy Wales gets thrown into jail for murder, or if his character is undermined. It doesn't matter, because the only thing that matters is the positive contribution he made by founding Wikipedia and his later life or his personal details don't effect that.

It is like science, it doesn't matter who comes up with the evidence or the theory to explain it. The only thing that matters whether it's correct or not.

How is it different...

[ShatteredArm]

from other nonprofits? Some CEOs of nonprofits get paid hundreds of thousands per year of donated money, and this guy can't treat three friends to a $325 meal? Not saying I approve of his conduct, but this isn't really that damning.

Now the real problem is that he, the creator of wikipedia, hasn't been able to convince some private company to give him lots of money. You think that'd do pretty well on a resume.

Wait, THIS is corruption?

[pcgamez]

Good god, if this is corruption then about 95% of the people in middle and upper management should be in jail. When I read the headline I thought he had been caught embezzling a minimum of tens of thousands of dollars. I don't think that there are too many people who are innocent of having their company pay for an expense that was not 100% appropriate.

Get real, this is small time stuff that is not even worth making it to the news much less /.

Re:Wikipedia...

[fictionpuss]

Now you know where your "donations" to the "wikimedia foundation" went... while you were suckered into giving him free labor.

Over the last year Wikipedia has, quite easily, saved me (or more specifically, my clients) hundreds if not thousands of dollars in time because it is a valuable reference resource for science and technology.

I couldn't care less if they go all high-school on each others personal accounts, or whether political biases are enforced through some "admin" abuses - those pages are not those which I find useful.

I hope you verified the data with original sources

[davidwr]

Wikipedia isn't immune from mistakes [frozennorth.org]. Then again, neither is Encyclopedia Brittancia [bbc.co.uk].

Re:Wait, THIS is corruption?

[qortra]

if this is corruption then about 95% of the people in middle and upper management should be in jail.

Then we're agreed; 95% of the people in middle and upper management should be in jail.

As a side note, I really don't care that much about the money. For me, any notion of impropriety in the Wikipedia with regard to rogue editing of personally relevant entries, especially among administrators, should not be tolerated. I also don't really care whether he goes to jail. I simply don't want to see this kind of behavior among any active administrators: play within the rules, or lose privileges.

Re:That's something

[techpawn]

I appreciate that, this being Slashdot, you didn't do anything so radical as actually, you know, RTFA.

Thank you, I try my best to give the Slashdot community my whole half-assed, misspelled, and blatantly wrong opinions based solely off RTFS.
As soon as I can figure out how to give every post a meme spin or can analogy I'm in!

Re:Wikipedia...

[rucs_hack]

All this proves, even if true, is that the Wikipedians are human, just like the rest of us, and like to swing the lead or get something nice on expenses when possible.

Shock Story! Wikipedia moderators also human!

News at 11...

what makes speeding wrong

[davidwr]

Some people live by an moral code that says you must follow the laws of government unless they conflict with a higher moral law. If they violate a statute without a good reason they are hypocrites. If they speed without reason, they are hypocrites not because they sped, but because they violated the rules imposed by government without a good reason.

In the example of speeding to a hospital because the ambulance would be too slow, there is a conflict with the higher moral law that says you must save a life when you can.

In the example of speeding 5mph over on the highway, there is an alternative that satisfied the law and the moral code: Don't drive on roads that are unsafe to drive on at or below the speed limit. Now, is the cop in this example a hypocrite? It depends on what his moral code tells him.

Generally speaking Hypocrites don't believe the rule(s) apply to them

Sometimes, the rules really don't apply to a particular person or to a particular situation. You see on TV where cops lie or break the law during drug busts because the law allows them to do so. That is, the "normal rules" that apply to everyone else don't apply to them. That is but one example of many.

Key word: Allegations

[SirStiff]

There appear to be two sides to this story. There seem to be many points defending him.

And although a $1300 meal sounds expensive, the article doesn't actually say it was a dinner with friends. Maybe he dined with some corporate donors that would be responsible for contributing many times that amount back to the foundation.

Re:Dates and dinners are not the issue

[fuzzlost]

Jimmy Wales is no different than anyone else who (un)knowingly puts up false information on Wikipedia. But this is proof that the editorship of Wikipedia is solid and independent enough to correct problems in their data, even if put there by a high-profile person.

Re:Like Volkswagen

[Nefarious Wheel]

An angel taking a leak is more newsworthy than the devil strangling a kitten.

Re:More to the story?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

And, ummm, why do we care? Are we all suddenly soap opera fans because it involves a 'geek'?

Re:Dates and dinners are not the issue

[garett_spencley]

No, Godwin's point was that as a discussion grows larger the possibility of Nazi or Hitler being mentioned increases.

My post was not intended as flaimbait or a personal attack. I was pointed out an observation and attempted to do it with a humorous tone but obviously it failed.

When Godwin's law is invoked it generally provokes a strong discussion about the fact that it was invoked and whether or not it was necessary. Did I feed it: absolutely. Shame on me. Was it inevitable anyway ? I feel that yes, it was.

Re:Not a peach

[CohibaVancouver]

Which naturally raises the question of why the founder of an online encyclopaedia wouldn't have the good sense to use the resources at his disposal to check out her bonafides before getting personally involved.

Because...

a) He is male
b) She is an attractive female
c) She let him see her naked and have sex with her

Speaking as a man, never underestimate a man's ability to overlook the obvious when there's potential nudity involved.

(I think Matt Groening said it best in his "Life in Hell" comic script: "Love is doomed to fail because men are stupid and women are crazy.")

Re:Wikipedia and big Corporate donations

[aleph42]

It's an important example; and in fact intelligent design would never be called the accepted theory even with a vote system.

Why? Because on Wikipedia you have to write verifiable facts; and when intelligent design claims that "there is a significant part of the scientific community which disagree with evolution", they simply don't have the proofs to support it (all articles they could link are from the same few intelligent design advocates who have a phd).

(it doesn't mean there is no article on inteligent design: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design [wikipedia.org]; just that there is no mention of it on the "evolution" article)

That kind of "guidelines" on wikipedia effectively serve as a constitution; it's pretty efficient, but not as much as full blown moderation and meta-moderation as we have here, on Slashdot. Personaly, I think it's a shame, and I would love to see more "jury duty" like moderation on wikipedia, or some fork of it!

Re:Dates and dinners are not the issue

[fuzzlost]

But this is proof that the editorship of Wikipedia is solid and independent enough to correct problems in their data, even if put there by a high-profile person.

Well, of course Wikipedia has no ethical problems. Any ethical problems that have been reported are quickly fixed. But perhaps you ask: what about the problems that just haven't been reported yet? Well, there aren't any, silly! I mean, of course there were problems in the past, but they've all been taken care of now. Everything is perfectly totally 100% okay.

It will never be 100% okay, perfect, because it is a self-correcting system with a lot of morons. Something will always be wrong with it, but hopefully individual wrongs always get corrected (more just show up)