Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales, or Jimmy Wales was born in Huntsville, Alabama, USA, August 7, 1966, His father was a grocery store manager, while his mother (Doris) and grandmother (Erma) ran a small private school in the form of "traditional school with one classroom ". where Wales was educated. Because the number of students that class, only four children with her always, the school brings together students grade one to grade four and grade five to grade eight.
After eighth grade, Wales attended Randolph School, a preparatory school for college entrance, which was an early supporter of computer labs and other technology for use by the students. Wales said that the school was too expensive for his family, but education is considered important. "My family has always attached importance to education ... a very traditional approach to education as the foundation of a good life." He received a bachelor's degree in finance from Auburn University and continued his studies in finance at the University of Alabama and earned a master's degree in finance. After that, he followed the doctoral education at Indiana University. During a post-graduate student, he taught at both universities, but he did not do the dissertation required to earn a Ph.D.
From 1994 to 2000, Wales worked as research director at Chicago Options Associates, a trader at the Chicago futures and options. According to Daniel Pink of Wired magazine, by doing a "speculation interest rate and foreign currency" he immediately could collect enough money to "pay for himself and his wife for life". In 1996, he founded a search portal called Bomis, which also sells things that are erotic until mid-2005. In September 2005 he was interviewed by a cable television station C-SPAN about his involvement in the past about it, called by Brian Lamb, the interviewer, as a "pornographic images". Response, Wales described Bomis as a "site search engine for men", with a market similar to Maxim magazine.
In an interview with Wired News, he also explained that he opposed the Bomis grouping into groups of "soft-core pornography": "If the movies with R ratings are grouped into softcore pornography, it was porn films. In other words, no, it was not. " Wales is no longer actively involved in the company. In March 2000, he founded the encyclopedia can be edited by the general public, but being watched by people prominent in their respective fields, namely Nupedia.com ("free encyclopedia"), and hired Larry Sanger as editor-in-chief.
Larry Sanger submitted a proposal to make the encyclopedia using wiki software on January 10, 2001, and Wales trying to make it happen, and launch it on January 15, 2001. when it is, Wikipedia is a wiki-based site as a facility to create the initial content encyclopedia that is done by the general public for inspection by experts and then put into Nupedia, but Wikipedia's rapid development project to be a more evolved and become dormant Nupedia. Sanger resigned from the project in 2002.
In mid-2003, Wales founded the Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit company based in St. Petersburg. Petersburg, to support Wikipedia and other similar projects. He pointed to himself and two other business associates who are not active Wikipedian on the board of directors consisting of five persons; two other members are elected community representatives. According to Daniel H. Pink of Wired magazine, to 2004 Wales has spent approximately U.S. $ 500,000 to establish and operate the projects Wiki her, almost entirely from his own pocket. At the end of the fundraiser in February 2005, the Wikimedia Foundation is supported entirely by donations and gifts. Wales became increasingly involved with promoting and talking about the Wikimedia projects, and to do so, he visited conferences and meetings, such as "Wikimeets" and Wikimania.
Wales is often explained his goals would be Wikipedia. In an interview with the website Slashdot, he said, "Imagine a world in which every person can gain free access to all existing science. That's what we're doing." At the end of 2005, Wales has been criticized for editing his own biography in a way that is called by some as "revisionist history." In particular, Rogers Cadenhead draw attention to the log file indicates that Mr. Wales has removed references to Sanger as a co-founder of Wikipedia. He is also known to have changed the reference Bomis in a way that is referred to as to reduce the element of sexuality of some of the company's previous products. In both cases, Wales argued that the conversion is done solely to make it be more accurate. Wales explained that Sanger is the employees, and he always considered himself as the sole founder of Wikipedia.
In 2006, Wales told the newspaper the Boston Globe that "absurd" to call Sanger as a co-founder. However, Sanger vigorously deny this. He was known as the co-founder of Wikipedia, at least since September 2001 and calls himself so at least since January 2002. After the incident, apologized for Wales has changed the article on his own biography (actions that are less preferred in Wikipedia). Wales said in an interview in Wired magazine, "It should not be done, I myself was not supposed to. I regret doing it." However, he still insists that he is the sole founder of Wikipedia.
According to a press handout issued by Wikia, Wikia (formerly known as Wikicities) is a wiki hosting service that was established in October 2004 by Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley. Wikia is a wiki-based collection sites MediaWiki software and operated by Wikia, Inc.. devoted to various communities. Wiki site is free for visitors and editors, and the income derived from advertising. After renaming, Wikia announced that the company had received funding of U.S. $ 4 million in combined capital from a group of investors. "The investors are very interested in this company, and the problem just choosing who will be invited investors to cooperate to ensure that people who become pemodaladalah people who have the same confidence of our mission," said Wales, which operates Wikipedia and Wikia are separately from its offices in St. Petersburg, reports Wrought Bay Business Journal.
Wales appointed a member of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School in 2005. According to a press handout issued by SocialText, on October 31, 2005, Wales joined the board of directors of Socialtext, an enterprise developer of wiki technology to businesses. In 2006, he joined the board of directors of Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization. Wales received an honorary degree from Knox College on June 3, 2006. Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award awarded to him on May 3, 2006. Wales was the first to be included in the list of "Scientists & Thinkers" in a special issue of Time magazine dated May 8, 2006 ("History of life and ideas of the most influential people in the world"), a leading electoral register 100 people in 2006 in Time magazine.
