Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's founder/co-founder – Jung and Naiv: Episode 792 [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uswRbWyt_pg

by qwertox • 8 months ago

23 22 8 months ago

qwertox2• 8 months ago

Jimmy Wales walks out of interview after 1 minute for getting asked about the topic of being a co-founder, after he introduced himself as a founder.

MultifokalHirn• 8 months ago

Not a good look for Mr. Wales

mingus883• 8 months ago

Eh, Wales is a grump but good on him for not entertaining this garbage style of gotcha interview.

It’s clickbait in video form. I’ve never heard of this interviewer and by all accounts I would have preferred to keep it that way. But by being a jerk, he has forced his way into multiple feeds of mine.

croes2• 8 months ago

So fact checking against Wikipedia is being a jerk?

madjam002• 8 months ago

This must be some sort of joke right?

cnnlives23• 8 months ago

I’m sorry to Jimmy Wales for the community doing this. I get that people want hard-cutting interviews, and I think it’s valid to do them, and that sort of interviewing needs to exist. But this is Wikipedia that we’re interested in, it was not the best way to start an interview.

I would’ve loved to have heard about the history and the day-to-day running, and I worry that people don’t understand how important Wikipedia and Wikimedia are to not only a large percentage of the world but to LLMs and the future of the world. Just because something isn’t new and cool doesn’t mean it isn’t crucial.

I admit that I used to donate about every year, and I stopped because I heard they had a ton of money already. I’m now second-guessing that, and will plan to give this year, because I use it indirectly most hours of each week now developing with LLMs, and I have fond memories of the old sets of World Book and Encyclopædia Brittanica our family had and the love and awe of learning they inspired. Wikipedia is that for today’s youth and will continue to be.

croes2• 8 months ago

A fact check is not a good way? He says founder, Wikipedia says co-founder

IAmBroom• 8 months ago

I'm sorry he was so immature that he couldn't withstand a reference to the elephant in his room.

If he had made it a condition of the interview, as Susan Sarandon apparently did for decades about "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", NBD. But he left it on the table, and threw a fit when it was brought up.

dandersch• 8 months ago

The most appalling thing of this is the printout of what seems to be a web page in darkmode.

pella• 8 months ago

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45933077

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45930998

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45936905

washere3• 8 months ago

The repeated posting is strange given that the date of the video is so new. They must be reposting it?

Also, I just learned Jimbo Wales only has net worth of 1M, which for someone his age is barely considered enough to retire comfortably, even if he worked until he was 65:

https://qz.com/98600/wikipedia-founder-jimmy-wales-is-only-w...

atombender2• 8 months ago

That article doesn't give any credible sources, so it's just guessing, as is every other Internet article concerning his net worth. It's literally just referencing a New York Magazine article which says "Wales’s total net worth, by most estimates, is just above $1 million" with the only offered being a literal Google search (!).

The only public information we have, I believe, is his divorce proceedings in 2011, which put his net worth at around $1m. There's no reason to think his net worth hasn't grown considerably since then, given his position, paid speaking engagements, etc.

kylecazar• 8 months ago

It's silly that Jimmy doesn't want to refer to Sanger as a cofounder. But knowing that, this is an even sillier way to start a conversation with the man that's been leading the org alone for 22 years.

qwertox2• 8 months ago

FWIW, Tilo Jung is the best interviewer Germany has. He holds hours-long interviews, usually with politicians and representatives.

He's the only one who manages to reach the young people as well though the type of questions he usually asks, and is the one who makes the most uncomfortable questions at the federal press conferences.

the-mermaid• 8 months ago

I find it hard to believe that someone so famous would:

1. Update the date of an inflammatory interview over-and-over again for repost to YT, then continually post to HN about it.

2. Then update the video that made second page HN while it was posted to remove the countdown portion of the video to ensure more people watched it fully.

Those seem to be techniques of a wannabe viral YT influencer, not those of a well-known interviewer.

Do we know these aren’t AI-generated?

thoroughburro2• 8 months ago

My appreciation of Wikipedia has decreased as my own expertise has increased. A long way before I’m anywhere near an expert on a topic, I begin to spot misleading inaccuracies in its Wikipedia articles. Most often, information that is decades out of date — correct once, but now actively perpetuating old, inaccurate information.

If you’re relying on Wikipedia for more than discovery, be aware that you’re internalizing some amount low-quality or false information along with your layman’s view of the topic.

jsmallberries• 8 months ago

If you’re relying on Wikipedia for more than discovery, be aware that you’re internalizing some amount low-quality or false information along with your layman’s view of the topic.

Where would you suggest getting up-to-date encyclopedic information?

thoroughburro2• 8 months ago

Wikipedia is fine for that.

My point is that “encyclopaedic information” is low-quality by necessity: there is no shortcut to truly expert information on a topic.

Too many have convinced themselves they can find expertise without joining an actual discourse of experts.

hawthornet• 8 months ago

Perhaps someone could start an alternative to Wikipedia that allows people to register blogs and papers of experts on topics that an LLM could extract information from and that experts could be invited to edit and curate?

Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's founder/co-founder – Jung and Naiv: Episode 792 [video]

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