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《吉米•威尔士：维基百科的“穷”掌门》
I Don’t Regret Not Monetising Wikipedia
如果一个网站位列全球访问量最大的网站前五名，每月访问量有150亿次以上，你一定认为该网站的创始人早已赚得盆满钵盈。而维基百科的联合创始人吉米•威尔士却是一个例外。作为一个由全球志愿者共同编写的网络百科全书，维基百科不收费、不刊登广告，仅仅依靠公众和企业的捐赠来维系日常运营。如此，就不难理解为何吉米•威尔士是“世界知名的互联网企业家中唯一一个没有成为亿万富豪的人”。比起巨额的财富，或许威尔士更在意的是实现他的梦想——让地球上每个人都能自由获取人类全部的知识。
据维基百科页面的介绍，吉米•威尔士是一个来自亚拉巴马州的无神论者，身家100万美元，结过三次婚，朋友们称他为“Jimbo”。
他同时还是这个网络百科全书的联合创始人，该网站建立15年来，已经成为全球被链接次数最多的网站。
在谷歌上输入任一词条进行搜索，维基百科都很可能排在最前面的三条搜索结果中。该网站目前每个月的网页访问量超过150亿次，每天有7000个词条被创建，创建者为分布在全球各地的8万名无偿志愿者——他们中有些人只参与过一次编写，有些则是网站的铁杆编辑，一有闲暇就细心阅读词条，讨论改动内容。
网站的页面没有华而不实的精巧装饰，不追求花哨的设计，每个词条仅有少量图片点缀。但是维基百科在数字时代占据了如此至关重要的地位，对于当今世上近三分之一的人来说，维基百科就是这个世界理所当然的一部分。
但是在这个来自亚拉巴马(具体说是亨茨维尔)的从小求知若渴、痴迷百科全书的男孩看来，自己的理念被广为接受并不意外。
“我小时候家里有一套《世界百科全书》，是妈妈从一个旅行代理那儿买的。”威尔士说。“每年他们都会寄来当年更新的修订内容，有时甚至会完全重写某个篇目。”他愉快地回忆道。
“他们会随信寄来一些贴纸，比如，如果‘Moon’这个词条有改动，我就会找到M开头的部分，然后在介绍月亮的那篇文章旁边贴上一张贴纸，上面写着：‘本篇的最新版本参见1979年的年度更新。’我想那是我第一次编辑百科全书。”
将时间快进37年，现年49岁的威尔士掌管的这家网站如此庞大，一个普通人仅仅看完它的英文网页内容就要花超过21年的时间。
不过，正如他妻子的伴娘在他们的婚礼上发表祝辞时所说的那样，他也是世界知名的互联网企业家中唯一一个没有成为亿万富豪的人，这一点可能出乎人们的意料。
维基百科是一个非营利机构，其生存靠那些单纯热爱求知的人们的小额捐款得以维系。那么，看到世界上有马克•扎克伯格和比尔•盖茨这样的人时，威尔士会不会感到一阵痛悔？
“我一点也不后悔。我的生活充满乐趣。我能够结识形形色色的人，做任何我想做的事。我在生活中办不少事，比如去游说政府官员，我觉得所有这些都非常有趣。我不是个特别受金钱驱动的人。”
但是他也不“反对别人赚钱”。事实上，他对朋友扎克伯格极为赞赏——认为他“最终会像比尔•盖茨一样”，不会止步于Facebook，而是会继续投身于更伟大的事业。
在威尔士看来，人道主义愿景始终是维基百科背后的推动力。他说，他的目标是建立一个“地球上每个人都能自由获取人类所有知识”的世界。如果他得偿所愿，那么生活在世界上最偏远、最贫困角落里的人们都会人手一部预装了维基百科的手机，而且无需支付数据费用。
不过威尔士最先认识到，在和互联网相关的问题上，权力越大，责任就越大。而在2016年1月15日度过了15岁生日的维基百科，多年以来也并非毫无争议。
2012年3月，英国新闻调查局披露，六分之一的英国下院议员的维基条目被修改过，修改人就来自议会内部，下院议员或其僚属对维基百科上的内容进行了约一万次改动——威尔士称这种不体面的做法“违反道德”。不过，在这方面，他自己同样躲不开外界的审视。
2005年12月，有报道称，威尔士一直在修改有关自己的词条——他说是对一处确实有误的地方做出更正：“维基百科并不完美——我们毕竟是凡人，因此编写的过程充满各种不同的声音，不过维基百科的一个优势在于参与者的多元化。因此，如果你想为唐纳德•特朗普或巴拉克•奥巴马写一篇全是赞美之辞的词条，总会有人来找你理论的。”
According to Jimmy Wales’s Wikipedia page, he is an atheist2) from Alabama, is worth a million dollars, has been married three times, and is known to his friends as “Jimbo.”
He is also the co-founder of the online encyclopedia which, in its 15-year history, has become the most-linked-to website on the planet.
Type any search into Google and the chances are that Wikipedia will feature among the first three posts. The website now receives more than 15 billion page views a month, with 7,000 new articles created every day by its 80,000 unpaid volunteers worldwide—a mix of one-off contributors and diehard3) editors who spend their free time poring over entries and debating changes.
Its pages feature no clever bells or whistles4), there is no attempt at flashy design, and a limited number of photographs adorn the entries. And yet Wikipedia has carved such a vital niche5) in the digital age that almost a third of the people alive today have never known a world without it.
But for the boy from Alabama (Huntsville, to be precise) who grew up with a thirst for knowledge and a fascination with encyclopedias, it’s no surprise that his idea caught on.
“We had a set of World Book Encyclopedias which my mother bought from a travel agent back in the day,” says Wales. “Every year, they would send out the annual update and sometimes they would just rewrite an article completely,” he says, delighting in the memory.
“They would send out these stickers with them and when, say, the Moon article was updated, I would go back to ‘M’ and next to the article on the Moon I would paste a sticker saying: ‘Check the 1979 annual for the latest version of this article.’ I guess that was my first time editing an encyclopedia.”
Fast-forward 37 years, and the now 49-year-old Wales is at the helm6) of a website so vast, it would take more than 21 years for a normal person to read the English-language pages alone.
But, perhaps unexpectedly, he is also—as his wife’s maid of honour described him in a toast at their wedding—the one world-famous internet entrepreneur who didn’t become a billionaire.
Wikipedia is a non-profit organisation which survives on donations from small donors who, quite simply, love to learn. So does he look at the Mark Zuckerbergs and Bill Gateses of this world and feel a pang of regret?
“I don’t regret it at all. My life is very interesting. I get to meet all kinds of people. I can do whatever I like. I do things in my life, like going to lobby government officials, and I find it all hugely fascinating. I’m not a very money motivated person.”
But nor is he “opposed to people making money.” Indeed, he is hugely admiring of his friend Zuckerberg—who he thinks “will be like Bill Gates, eventually” and move on from Facebook to work on a greater cause.
For Wales, a humanitarian vision has always been the driving force behind Wikipedia. The goal, he says, is to create a world in which “every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.” If he had it his way, people in the furthest, most destitute7) corners of the world would all have a mobile phone preloaded with Wikipedia at no data charge.
But Wales is the first to acknowledge that when it comes to the internet, great power comes with great responsibility, and Wikipedia, which celebrates its 15th anniversary on Jan. 15, 2016 has not been without its controversies over the years.
In March 2012, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism revealed that one in six British MPs had had their entries edited from within Parliament, with around 10,000 edits to the encyclopedia made by MPs or their staff—a sharp practice8) Wales has described as “anti-ethical.” However, he himself has not been immune to scrutiny in this area.
In December 2005, it was reported that Wales had been editing his own entry—fixing a legitimate error, he says: “It’s not perfect—we’re human beings, so it’s a very noisy process, but one of the strengths of Wikipedia is the diversity of people working there. So if you try to write a completely favourable article about Donald Trump9) or Barack Obama, someone will always call you up on it.”
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文章摘自：《新东方英语》杂志2016年7月号
