3 ms·

Generally the NY Times Magazine does an excellent job, but this was a poor article. Lots of personal fluff about Wales and his high-powered friends and nothing

Generally the NY Times Magazine does an excellent job, but this was a poor article. Lots of personal fluff about Wales and his high-powered friends and nothing new or interesting about his role in Wikipedia or the challenges that Wikipedia faces.

reeses 13y ago
The repetition got to me. It could have been a fairly interesting article at about 1/4 the length. The feature reporter gave the impression that they believed saying the same thing multiple times would make it the truth. So he's a phony who got lucky and...made no money. It's interesting to see the targeting of someone for success along a different angle than politics, insubstantial celebrity, or 'undeserved' wealth. (Coincidence that RMS is on the front page of HN as well?) The NYT has increasingly mixed its editorial content with its journalistic content. Quite often, I'll scratch my head at a linked article and then notice that it's blogs.nytimes.com or otherwise NYT-branded blogorrhea. While they have to struggle to stay relevant, it's unfortunate that they've largely gone the HuffPo route instead of consolidating their strengths. It makes it confusing when reading event-based reporting, trying to discern the agenda.
- lazyjones 13y ago
  > got lucky and...made no money. I find it difficult to believe that. He's in an influential position at what many people consider the reference for the "truth" and there are many wealthy and powerful people out there interested in distorting that truth where it suits them. It's not terribly difficult to hide money from dubious sources and bribery around Wikipedia isn't something I just made up: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/10/13/wikipedias-dark-side/ http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/10/13/wikipedias-dark-sid...
  - GabrielF00 13y ago
    I'm sure he can use his position of influence to make money via speaking fees, service on boards, consulting fees, that sort of thing, but the idea that Wales himself is accepting money in exchange for favorable edits is laughable. He's the most scrutinized person on Wikipedia and there are people who object to pretty much everything he does. He could theoretically use alternate accounts, but that would mean risking a permanent ban from Wikipedia which would be extremely foolish, since he would lose all credibility.
  - makomk 13y ago
    Wasn't there an incident a while ago where he used his position to ban video game guides from Wikibooks, telling people to put them on his for-profit Wikia instead?
nicholassmith 13y ago
It was a weird article. It felt very much like the writer wanted you to come away from the article thinking that Wales is all about the fame and glory, and very little about what he did to get there. If Wales is rubbing shoulders with the high and powerful, and meeting celebrities for dinner then cool. I don't have a problem with that, I don't even have a problem with a musician saying "Dude that's wrong" and him updating it. The community balances and adjusts. He could have sold out and had a goldplated jet pack made but he's stuck at his idea and created a tool with worldwide reach and impact, fair play to him.

reeses 13y ago

The repetition got to me. It could have been a fairly interesting article at about 1/4 the length. The feature reporter gave the impression that they believed saying the same thing multiple times would make it the truth. So he's a phony who got lucky and...made no money. It's interesting to see the targeting of someone for success along a different angle than politics, insubstantial celebrity, or 'undeserved' wealth. (Coincidence that RMS is on the front page of HN as well?) The NYT has increasingly mixed its editorial content with its journalistic content. Quite often, I'll scratch my head at a linked article and then notice that it's blogs.nytimes.com or otherwise NYT-branded blogorrhea. While they have to struggle to stay relevant, it's unfortunate that they've largely gone the HuffPo route instead of consolidating their strengths. It makes it confusing when reading event-based reporting, trying to discern the agenda.

lazyjones 13y ago
> got lucky and...made no money. I find it difficult to believe that. He's in an influential position at what many people consider the reference for the "truth" and there are many wealthy and powerful people out there interested in distorting that truth where it suits them. It's not terribly difficult to hide money from dubious sources and bribery around Wikipedia isn't something I just made up: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/10/13/wikipedias-dark-side/ http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/10/13/wikipedias-dark-sid...
- GabrielF00 13y ago
  I'm sure he can use his position of influence to make money via speaking fees, service on boards, consulting fees, that sort of thing, but the idea that Wales himself is accepting money in exchange for favorable edits is laughable. He's the most scrutinized person on Wikipedia and there are people who object to pretty much everything he does. He could theoretically use alternate accounts, but that would mean risking a permanent ban from Wikipedia which would be extremely foolish, since he would lose all credibility.
- makomk 13y ago
  Wasn't there an incident a while ago where he used his position to ban video game guides from Wikibooks, telling people to put them on his for-profit Wikia instead?

nicholassmith 13y ago

It was a weird article. It felt very much like the writer wanted you to come away from the article thinking that Wales is all about the fame and glory, and very little about what he did to get there. If Wales is rubbing shoulders with the high and powerful, and meeting celebrities for dinner then cool. I don't have a problem with that, I don't even have a problem with a musician saying "Dude that's wrong" and him updating it. The community balances and adjusts. He could have sold out and had a goldplated jet pack made but he's stuck at his idea and created a tool with worldwide reach and impact, fair play to him.