[Foundation-l] Jimmy Wales in the news

[SlimVirgin]

On 3/7/08, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 07/03/2008, SlimVirgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>  > There are also the hundreds of unpaid man hours Jimbo has put into the
>  > project. Not to mention that if he'd retained ownership of Wikipedia,
>  > he might now be worth an absolute fortune.
>
>
> I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying, but can you point to
>  anyone on this list who hasn't put hundreds of unpaid man hours into
>  the project? Also, if any one person had retained ownership of
>  Wikipedia, it wouldn't be what it is today.
>
It's true that a lot of us put in hundreds of hours too, but Jimbo has
been doing it longer than most, and he's under more pressure. The
number of e-mails he gets alone would boggle the mind, yet he manages
to respond to lots of them, which is a bit of a miracle. Whereas most
of the rest of us can just disappear if we get fed up, he can't, even
though he takes no salary. And in addition, he has sections of the
press just waiting for him to make a mistake.

As for what would have happened if he'd retained ownership, no one can
know. Maybe he'd have lost everything in a series of lawsuits for
libel, or maybe people wouldn't have wanted to volunteer for him, or
maybe he'd be a billionaire by now. As he said, it was either the
wisest or most foolish decision he's ever made. :)

Sarah