Jimbo Wales: The Editor Options

[The Wales Hunter]

I'm surprised he didn't even edit much in the beginning. That seems odd to me. I mean sole founder and all. You think he would have put some greater effort into it. It's like he was just the financial half of a partnership with someone or something like that...

That's one of the things I'm puzzled by. If I had created Wikipedia, I'd want to ensure it was full of articles - as detailed as possible - soon after it launched before somebody else with better PR skills came along and stole the idea!

[wikiwhistle]

Actually, they would - editing an article with the same name as your username is considered promotional and prohibited by the username policy. I doubt that this would be applied to established users though.

Not so. Only if it's the name of a company or business can an account risk being banned largely for the username alone if its edits seem to be promotional. People are allowed to contribute under their real names even to their own articles, this was clarified to me only the other day when I tried to get blocked on username grounds someone who'd written an article about themselves.

This post has been edited by wikiwhistle: Sat 9th August 2008, 1:02pm

[Alex]

I'm surprised he didn't even edit much in the beginning. That seems odd to me. I mean sole founder and all. You think he would have put some greater effort into it. It's like he was just the financial half of a partnership with someone or something like that...

That's one of the things I'm puzzled by. If I had created Wikipedia, I'd want to ensure it was full of articles - as detailed as possible - soon after it launched before somebody else with better PR skills came along and stole the idea!

Here are some of his early edits, when his username was in CamelCase. He was busy-ish.

Or perhaps a lot of his early edits are lost. It's strange how the earliest edit in the database is this.

[LaraLove]

Actually, they would - editing an article with the same name as your username is considered promotional and prohibited by the username policy. I doubt that this would be applied to established users though.

Not so. Only if it's the name of a company or business can an account risk being banned largely for the username alone if its edits seem to be promotional. People are allowed to contribute under their real names even to their own articles, this was clarified to me only the other day when I tried to get blocked on username grounds someone who'd written an article about themselves.

Indeed, it is not prohibited. Many notable people have edited their own article. There's a template that is added to the talk page of their BLP that indicates they have edited it. Close attention should be paid to ensure they are editing within policy, which is rarely the case, and is what eventually gets many of them banned, if not from the project, at least from their own article. It has nothing to do with the username policy. The only such concern there is that they must prove their identity through OTRS in order to ensure they are not being misrepresented by an impostor.

I'm surprised he didn't even edit much in the beginning. That seems odd to me. I mean sole founder and all. You think he would have put some greater effort into it. It's like he was just the financial half of a partnership with someone or something like that...

That's one of the things I'm puzzled by. If I had created Wikipedia, I'd want to ensure it was full of articles - as detailed as possible - soon after it launched before somebody else with better PR skills came along and stole the idea!

Here are some of his early edits, when his username was in CamelCase. He was busy-ish.

Or perhaps a lot of his early edits are lost. It's strange how the earliest edit in the database is this.

Ah, lost history. That makes a lot more sense. I looked up Larry Sanger's edits... you know, that random guy, and I was surprised to see that he had less than 800 edits. I thought he played a much bigger role in the very beginning of the project. Thanks for pointing that out, Majorly.

[One]

Hmm. I think Sanger did have more edits. Lots of history was lost in the php conversion in 2002. History since then should be reliable, but I believe there are admins from the first year who have apparently no edits.

I've often wonder what would happen if the AWOL since 2002 admins came back to raise hell and lecture the whippersnappers.

I should also add that 1000 edits was a lot back then, the first admins typically only had hundreds. He was one of the most prolific editors on the project.

This post has been edited by One: Sat 9th August 2008, 5:18pm

[LaraLove]

Hmm. I thing Sanger did have more edits. [...] He was one of the most prolific editors on the project.

That's what I thought. I wasn't there for it, of course, but I've read about it from people and was under the impression that he did a great deal in policy creation and such, as well as article writing. Isn't he the original author of IAR?

[One]

Yes, but he repudiated IAR before he left. Switched from support to oppose. It originally said that if the rules make you frustrated or sad that you should just keep writing. Like anonymous registration, it was intended to be a temporary measure to generate content, but quickly became an article of faith.

[DevilYouKnow]

He also used to claim that he had an obscure sockpuppet which he occasionally used to engage in normal editing . . .

Jayjg, perhaps?

Kidding aside, Jimbo seems to be one of the biggest offenders of WP:NOTMYSPACE.

[Crestatus]

Like Mel Brooks said, "It's good to be the King".

[thekohser]

Jimbo recently disrupted Wikipedia for 91 minutes (is that "a couple of minutes", Jimmy?), just so he could get a cleaner-looking screenshot of an article.

I'm sure this will appear in some speech he's preparing to give, and now it will have an image of an article that misrepresents what Wikipedia actually looks like to the average reader.