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.'"

Comments

Re:Like Volkswagen

[Archangel Michael]

First Goodwin!

Re:Dates and dinners are not the issue

[garett_spencley]

Either way you Godwinned the thread. It's the most tried and proven way to inflate a discussion into a big messy heap of a flame war. You should know better.

You made your bed. Now sleep in it.

Re:Not a peach

[dedazo]

The entire conversation about tweaking her WP entry was published elsewhere, along with the more puerile parts. Wales did not bother to refute them.

AFAIK she is not accusing Wales of anything, so your reference is irrelevant. The fact that she works for Fox is irrelevant. The fact that you don't consider her a "peach" is irrelevant.

In the past three days a veritable army of astroturfers and apologists have been furiously committing character assasination on this woman all over the place. The same thing happens whenever some not-so-rosy news is published about Wikipedia. This is not news, you all take WP too seriously, the woman is evil, etc.

When WP claims (or rather, Jimmy Wales claims) that WP is the most important thing on the internet then we are all supposed to take WP very seriously. When the shit hits the fan (remember Essjay?) then we're all being too critical. You can't have your cake and eat it.

Re:And your point is?

[Doc Ruby]

"AC": "Anonymous Coward", "Another Conservative"

Who pretends the point is somehow hard to see, and that cursing at me in a Slashdot post does anything but prove how stupid fake "Conservatives" are, especially when Conservatives' corruption is being exposed yet again.

Re:Another Conservative Down

[Doc Ruby]

Ho hum, yet another Objectivism dabbler posing as a logician. Throwing your fallacy that I didn't make as a strawman doesn't prove anything except that you'd take Rand's books too seriously, like some kind of bible or something.

Jimmy Wales is spending foundation money on expenses like intimate $325:person steak dinners that aren't really justifiable in a nonprofit like Wikipedia's. That's corruption. The fact that so many other "Conservatives" are corrupt in exactly the same way, spending tax-exempt money (or tax money itself) without benefiting the public, makes him a typical "Conservative". That's why it's remarkable.

But of course your few personal dealings with him, decent and reasonable, are proof that he's not ripping off his foundation.

The bonus here is that you showed how objectivists and libertarians like you are as qualified to make "logical" arguments like that as "Conservatives" are to talk about personal responsibility and fiscal conservatism (the core Conservative principles that libertarians, and especially Objectivists, claim makes them "morally superior"), or libertarians are to run government-protected tax-free corporations.

Re:Hitler

[Robber Baron]

Hitler would have said the same thing. Hitler wouldn't have needed to because he would have been smart enough to steer well clear of that rabbit-boiling rat-bag stalker in the first place.

Re:That's something

[techpawn]

Gratz! Yur teh 3rd grammer Nazi! You getz teh gold redudant star of typos the greek godz of speeling eroors