Wikipedia founder/co-founder Jimmy Wales brooks no shit, and if you have any doubt about that then I invite you to watch his recent interview on German political podcast Jung and Naiv, “the shortest interview” it’s ever done.
Things are spicy from the start. After Wales introduces himself as “founder of Wikipedia,” host Tilo Jung asks if he’s the founder or co-founder. A seemingly harmless question, but Wales doesn’t seem interested in taking it on. “I don’t care,” he says in response. “It’s the dumbest question in the world.”
Jung, perhaps sensing an opportunity to take the interview somewhere unexpected—or maybe just curious about why Wales seems so touchy about the whole thing—presses on, suggesting there’s some sort of “dispute” and asking, “What are the facts?” Wales laughs, but he’s clearly not in a mirthful mood. When Jung tries one more time to nail it down, saying, “For you, you’re the founder?” Wales goes off.
Watch On
My initial reaction to the interview (once I stopped laughing) was, boy, Jimmy, kind of a dick move here. I also wondered if maybe the whole thing was some sort of Teutonic take on Between Two Ferns. Definitely not, though: Jung and Naiv has previously conducted numerous lengthy interviews with figures including Bernie Sanders, former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and former Volkswagen Group chairman Herbert Diess. So it definitely wasn’t a bit.
And the more I thought about it, the more sympathy I felt. Wales, for the record, is generally regarded as the co-founder of Wikipedia, along with Larry Sanger, but Sanger left the project in 2002 and has been highly critical of it ever since, particularly in conversations with alt-right and right-leaning media figures.
It’s clearly a sore spot. The founder/co-founder question has come up previously, and Wales has shared similar thoughts: In a 2023 Lex Fridman interview, for instance, he said the question was “unimportant” and “not that interesting,” although he also clarified that “I actually think Larry Sanger doesn’t get enough credit for his early work in Wikipedia, even though I think co-founder’s not the right title for that.”
So it’s understandable, I think, that Wales wouldn’t want to re-litigate the matter, particularly given the ugly political pressures Wikipedia is currently facing, which I would imagine have exacerbated tensions. I do think he went off a little too hot, a little too fast, but at the same time, credit where it’s due, because this is also a handy reminder for us all:
Read the full article here
