The 43-year-old Internet entrepreneur is probably one of the most influential people on the World Wide Web. From a small town in Alabama, Jimmy Wales – the founder of Wikipedia – grew to become a living legend, thanks to the free and open content encyclopedia he established in 2001. Less than ten years down the road, millions use Wikipedia worldwide. However, many are critical of the website, raising serious questions about the credibility of its entries. Wales spoke to Forward about what it means to have an army of readers – and an army of doubters who want to trash his project.

Whenever the topic of Wikipedia comes up, people ask one uniform question: how do we measure the credibility of its content, if it is an open-user website, where everybody can alter the entries as they see fit? Why trust Wikipedia?

The truth is that we should all be careful when using Wikipedia, recognizing both its strengths and weaknesses. We do know from academic studies that Wikipedia is of comparable quality to traditional encyclopedias. A study in Nature over three years ago found that Wikipedia was somewhat less accurate than Britannica, but not by very much – and we have progressed a lot since!

A study in Germany by the WIND Research Institute, commissioned by Stern
Magazine, found that Germanlanguage Wikipedia was better than a version of Brockhaus. The best approach to Wikipedia is to trust it to a certain degree, but follow the links at the bottom to confirm anything of critical importance. And if you find a mistake, we would love your help in fixing it!

In a 2004 interview, you were quoted saying, “Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing!” Seemingly a very ambitious goal, but how close are you to achieving it? How many people use Wikipedia? Is this number increasing because of the different languages in which its content can now be read?

In a typical recent month, over 330 million people accessed Wikipedia, according to ComScore. Our internal numbers suggest that ComScore underestimates us – they are better at measuring in the developed world, and we are very strong in the developing world. At the same time, we do know that we have a long way to go before reaching our goal. Arabic is actually one of our most interesting opportunities for progress. Arabic is the fourth most popular language worldwide, after English, Chinese, and Hindi. There are around 500 million Arabic speakers. Yet Arabic Wikipedia, with just over 100,000 articles now, is ranked 27th in the world.

I have spoken to many Arabs who bemoan the state of education and scholarly culture in today’s Arab world – but others disagree. And I disagree! The reason Arabic Wikipedia is behind is nothing negative about Arabic culture; Arabic Wikipedia simply got started later, as we struggled to figure out how to have the software work with Arabic writing.

Once those issues were resolved, the growth of Arabic Wikipedia has been normal and typical – and I believe that in the next five years Arabic Wikipedia will grow quickly to enter the top 10 among all languages in Wikipedia. But we need the help of your readers to help make that happen.

Many complain that all non-English content is poorly managed, and left unchecked for vandalism. What is your policy towards non-English speaking users of your website? How do you monitor, upgrade, and edit the non-English Wikipedia, particularly the one in Arabic?

The English version is not different from any other version, except that it is larger. All communities are managed in the same way. It is of course true that the larger the version, the higher quality it is –but the management and the community passion are the same.

Just a note – many people believe, and correctly I think, that the highest quality Wikipedia is the German version. Due to strict policies and a culture of quality there, they do a great job. I think this shows that even languages with a smaller number of speakers (100 million people speak German) can do well. Arabic, with 500 million speakers, and a deep cultural history of education and learning, will be amazing.

'Prior to the launch of the website’s predecessor, Nupedia, in 2000, you reportedly had never traveled abroad. You are now constantly on a plane, lecturing internationally for a reported $75,000+ per speaking engagement. How has that changed you?

I am laughing. If you know anyone who will pay me $75,000 to speak in the middle of this financial crisis, please have him call me. I will not only speak, I will personally wash your car for that price. I have been changed by my travels, because I now have seen a good part of the world (though not enough) and I have met people all over the world.

And what I have discovered is really quite simple, but at the same time really quite profound: people everywhere are more or less the same. I am quite hopeful that Wikipedia, and the Internet more broadly, can become very powerful instruments for peace. As we learn more about the world and each other, and recognize our essential sameness and humanity, it will be much harder for leaders with their own crazy agendas to push pain and suffering on everyone.

Everywhere in the world, ordinary people want the same things. They want to do honest work and earn reasonable money. They want to come home and play with their children. They want to grow old with friends. They want to explore the world creatively and with passion and dignity.
Does that describe everyone? Of course not. Some people are crazy and really do want conflict, or are willing to cause conflict in pursuit of power. But I think it describes ordinary people everywhere. When we understand that, we have gone a long way towards ending violence.

Can you tell us more about Wikipedia’s headquarters, its staff, and your relationship with them? At work, you have been described as a benevolent dictator, a constitutional monarch, and a spiritual leader, all in one. Do you involve yourself in day-to-day operations? Do you follow up on updated entries, or edit any yourself?

I am very little involved with day-to-day work at the headquarters – my place is with the community. I love the staff, and we work well together, but I am not involved in management. There are people who are very good at that sort of thing, and if I have achieved any wisdom in my life it is to avoid doing things that I am not very good at! I do some minor editing from time to time, but I am much more involved at the level of community policy.

To some, Wikipedia is Jimmy Wales, and Jimmy Wales is Wikipedia. You have added to this image by once saying, “Dialing down is not an option for me. Not to be too dramatic about it, but ‘to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language,’ that’s who I am. That’s what I am doing. That’s my life goal.” That does not sound too institutional, and raises questions: how will Wikipedia survive after Jimmy Wales?

Will the child survive the father? Yes. But the father will always be the father, and work passionately to try to help the child be all that it can be!

Being a celebrated “giant” of the World Wide Web, what advice would you give young Syrian entrepreneurs, especially those in IT and web development?

Do something that you are passionate about, something that sustains you, something that is productive and useful. If you do that, then whether you succeed by traditional measures doesn’t really matter. You will have succeeded as a human being.

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