Am getting annoyed with all this shit flying around about Jimmy Wales.
I met him, allbeit briefly, at an education.au event last year – heard him speak and had the chance to chat to him really briefly.
To be honest, I was all prepared to not like him… to find him arrogant (especially as Education is concerned – having got teh gist of a few things he’d said before) or to have not much interesting to say, or to just be on an aloof junket. So I went into it with a pretty bad attitude.
I know this isn’t very cool of me, but that’s honestly how I felt going into it.
However, I came out of it no less that utterly impressed.
He’s an incredibly smart, interesting and genuine individual. He talked openly and with a great deal of time and respect for his audience and impressed me more than – and this is no small thing – any conference presenter ever has. He rocks out.
Now, everyone has their share of personal strife and difficulties – I’m no exception by a long shot on that one – and anyone with his profile or dealings is going to be without enemies or the occasional thing that might seem questionable about what they do professionally.
He deserves a lot more respect and lot less crap (especially the highly likely utterly incorrect crap) thrown at him.
Sure, there’s nothing wrong with criticism, but a lot of publications are taking the piss, and that’s not on.
So? All this proves is that he was such a good con man that he had you fooled along with his ex-girlfriend, Wikipedians, the Wikipedia Board, everyone else. He’s a creep who deserves everything he’s getting.
Nope, can’t understand how that proves that (by your reckoning that means everyone you like, who then does something that’s not 100% perfect – is a creep).
It’s a witch hunt – firstly don’t hold anyone to standards that you yourself might struggle to keep to, secondly letting vwag / newscorp be judge, jury and executioner is hardly fair on anyone.