Jimmy Wales, of Huntsville, is the founder of the online website Wikipedia. He also just authored his first book, “The Seven Rules of Trust,” which will available in bookstores starting tomorrow. It’s based on his work to establish the internet encyclopedia, which is reportedly visited by a billion people every month. Wales' conversation for an upcoming episode of "APR Notebook" came roughly a week after a gunman rushed the stage of a New York City Wikipedia conference. He commented on the idea of public discourse prompting a violent response.
"Let's have a discussion. Let's try and understand each other a little bit better," Wales contended. "Because, you know, the alternative where we get to and we are seeing this is to violence, you know? I mean people, I mean it's this enormous tragedy of Charlie Kirk being assassinated. And you know, what did Charlie Kirk do? He made a lot of arguments. He upset people. He said things people disagreed with."
Wales spoke with APR news about the new book, and his experiences at the helm of Wikipedia. He credits his interest in high technology to growing up in Huntsville during the days of the Apollo manned moon landings.
“I mean, pretty aware (of NASA.) I mean, I always say it was like our hometown sports team, you know, like everybody was pretty excited about it. Huntsville, of course, is where a lot of the rocket scientists were, Wernher von Braun and all that,” Wales said.
“The Seven Rules of Trust” focuses on the building blocks Wales credits for the success of Wikipedia. The list includes neutrality, accountability, an open and transparent process, and civility. Wales concedes Wikipedia could do better in terms of the number of female editors who volunteer to curate articles on the site, which is reportedly at twenty percent. African American editors reportedly account for about one half of one percent. These editors can make changes at any time on any article, so long as they includes sources to back up their assertions.
“Elon Musk calls us ‘Woke-i-pedia’ and so forth, that we're left leaning and all of that,” Wales said. “And I'm like, Okay, if we are, we need to fix that. If we are, we need to reach out to kind and thoughtful conservatives to say, yeah, come and help us. Come and edit Wikipedia, because it's not out of maliciousness, and we're not so we're crazy activists.”
Getting back to his boyhood days in Huntsville, Wales recalls nearby rocket engine testing of the Saturn boosters that would carry astronauts to the moon during Project Apollo. These ground based firings rattled the windows in his home. Wales says growing up with NASA so nearby left him feeling optimistic about the future. His first book, “The Seven Rules of Trust” will be available in bookstores tomorrow.