Using Wikipedia to dump your girlfriend - By Jimmy Wales
By Dave Parrack
Jimmy Wales is an important man, an Internet entrepreneur best known for founding Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia. Now he is also very well known as the man who dumped his girlfriend via Wikipedia, which will always be remembered as a classy move.
Jimmy ‘Jimbo’ Wales started seeing Canadian right wing commentator Rachel Marsden after her Wikipedia profile came under attack from rivals in 2006. She contacted Wales for help, and got it, as well as much more besides.
Since then, in a series of salacious rumours brought to wider attention by Valleywag, Silicon Valley’s version of Perez Hilton, while Wales has been divorcing his wife, the pair have got closer, and eventually started a relationship, however short.
But it’s now all over, and the way Wales dumped Marsden was to issue a statement about the relationship on his own site.
The accusation which is causing grief for Wales, and which prompted him to end the speculation involves how he may have had a direct hand in getting Marsden’s profile page altered, a move which if true,clearly goes against the code of conduct which asks for a “neutral point of view,” to be maintained at all times.
Contributors are told not to edit articles where they have a conflict of interest, which in this case, if Wales and Marsden were busy, ermm, discovering each other at the time, is very much the case.
The most embarrassing thing for Wales is the publishing of transcripts of chats which allegedly occurred between himself and Marsden. These include the following gems, courtesy of Valleywag:
“btw, i am recovered from 24 hours of marathon sex. lol.”
“When you talk about megabits and broadband, you have no idea what that does to me.”
“I am supposed to be designing a Google killing search engine so I can buy a jet.”
Now, Marsden is hitting back, and as well as making their sex chats available to a gossip blog, is selling a t-shirt on eBay that Wales wore when they met. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, the auction price is only up to $301, hardly worth Marsden ruining her conservative reputation for.
All this whole sorry business proves is that sex can provoke anyone to do the stupidest things, and even if you’re the founder of a hugely popular and successful website, you’re not above tempting. Oh, and if you believe that what you do online is private in any way, shape or form, you’re sadly mistaken.
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March 3rd, 2008
>>> hardly worth Marsden ruining her conservative reputation for.
You call this dumb skank “conservative”?
http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=b1c9eef3-679c-4f86-955e-aa7a7806475f&k=74787
“In 2004, she was given a conditional discharge for harassing a Vancouver radio host following their breakup.
In 1996, while a student at Simon Fraser University, Marsden accused her swim coach of sexual harassment. The coach was fired, then rehired when SFU admitted its investigation was flawed.”
March 3rd, 2008
Rachel Marsden calls herself a Conservative. She is Canada’s Ann Coulter, and as such, more of a vampire than a Conservative.
But she does sell herself as a Conservative.
What? Conservatives are incapable of being misguided, petulant, vindictive creeps? I don’t see what politics has to do with what kind of a human being one is or is not.
March 3rd, 2008
frankly this is just a way to destroy whatever credibility Wikipedia still had…I don’t think anyone considers it much more than a half-helpful rag full of inconsistencies. Its one thing to be immature in your personal relationships…its something else to endanger your livelihood with foolish squabbles.
April 3rd, 2008
Whats this got to do with adult content?