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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
According to his YouTube channel and Wikipedia entry [1], this is the newest episode, posted on November 14. Where do you see that he is updating the video and the date?
The video has been posted to HN 4 times during the last 24 hours, but that's pretty common for something newsworthy. I don't know why HN's dupe detector isn't merging them, though.
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.
> 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?
This is a silly take. How many experts are available to provide “actual discourse” with everyone out there.
That’s why experts write articles for encyclopedias.
The issue that I have is that Wikipedia editors are terminally online political actors. All you have to do is browse the edits and talk sections for popular pages to become jaded with it. These are not serious editors.
I am old enough to have had childhood access to actual printed encyclopedias, and they were amazing. I don’t really care if the section I am reading about the renaissance is not up to date. Funny how you never hear that complaint about libraries filled with old books, where research has been done for centuries.
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?
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.
Wales certainly thought so. It’s a pretty pointless thing to stake your entire interview on, and all we get out of it is this low value clip. What a waste.
From what I have read, the other guy was getting a salary from Wales early on, which does sound like co-founder material to me. That point would have been worth bringing up instead of whatever noise this guy led with.
