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.