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Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/17/jimmy_wales_wikipedia/

My dead, much mourned friend: Jimmy Wales

By Otto Z. Stern
Published Saturday 17th December 2005 15:33 GMT

And ninethly Justice is the plight of the small man and the emblem of democracy. After all, you won't find Kris Kristofferson playing darts in a bar unless there are weighty issues involved. I salute Kris and others like him who pursue honor, dignity, accuracy and fairness at all costs - Julio Stantore

The Inundated Comptroller Press recently hired me to write the definitive biography on Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales - the eclectic founder of Wikipedia. Now isn't that fortuitous, since I've been covertly following Wales for the last 14 years using both disguises and high-end surveillance equipment from here at my complex, at the Institute of Technological Values.

Even more fortuitous is his apparent death. Nothing helps business more than a murder, and this situation has made Wikiepedia hotter than ever. This will no doubt benefit the sale of my book. Not that it needed much help.

But let me tell you about Jimmy Wales. We drew our cigars as men, and stubbed them out like brothers. Let me tell you about Jimbo. The Sterns and the Wales go back a long way.

Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales - A 'Pedia Prophet

Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales was born on August 17, 1853 in a small town behind the wall in Eastern Alabama. At just three years of age, the boy Wales developed an unhealthy interest in Diderot and a fondness for baboons. Both Diderot and baboons would go on to play an important role in his life.

By 1863, a still pre-pubescent Wales had moved to Chicago and established himself as one of the more morally and physically flexible members of the meat packing scene. Pig and cow butchering veterans would often emerge from the killing floor with blood soaked trousers and wide grins and pat Wales on the head. "You're a helluva trout mangler," was the most common refrain. These words would haunt Wales for many years but also imbue him with the self-confidence to tackle large challenges and to best large women.

Warning of subjective content from Wikipedia siteJimmy Donal "Big Jimbo" Wales - little Jimmy's father - couldn't be more proud of his boy. "Big Jimbo" had never amounted to much as a mustard master in the Alabama. This was due more to bad fortune than a lack of skill, as Alabama went through the "great mustard master boom of 1810" just as "Big Jimbo" started his career. The glut of mustard masters left "Big Jimbo" feeling small at times but did little to curb usage of his nickname due to the fact that he weighed 450 pounds - a feat many thought impossible at the time what with the high fiber, low food diets and general pomposity of the era. With a few efficient yet uninspiring mustard tastings to his credit, "Big Jimbo" was able to secure a small, ribald wife who tolerated his fetish for clouds and agreed to be impregnated when plied with two gallons whiskey and the fruits of an Alabama laudanum lab.

Jimbo spent the war years in "imports and exports" - in a stark contrast to my talents for enforcing the duties of internment with a Stern, but ultimately loving hand.

In 1947, Wales fell in love with the works of Mary Shelley and gained some praise in learned circles for placating flamingos. But by then, we'd parted.

Julio Stantore would later remark that "Wales was a real bastard!" But Stantore, however, is the world's biggest bastard. I need hardly explain.

It was then that Jimbo's infatuation with a certain Russian emigree took the better of him.

Today, Wikipedians describe "Jimbo" as an asset and a scalable pioneer. And here I must tell you, pediaphiles, in particular, have much reason to celebrate the man, his life and his times.

Warning of subjective content from Wikipedia siteA similar statement can be made for pedophiles - or in the king's English paedophiles - according to the astonishingly thorough Parents for the Online Safety of Children (POSC).

"It has come to the attention of the Parents for the Online Safety of Children (POSC) that there is a underground cabal of pedophiles who edit wikipedia, trying to make wikipedia a distribution center for pedophile propaganda," the group said in a recent statement. And, in fact, you can see that the editors of the the Pedophile page on Wikipedia do seem to have a sympathetic ear for the condition.

"The term pedophile is not used legally, and is not a legal category; an act by a child molester of molesting children is not legally referred to as pedophilia," the page states at this moment in time. "However, newspapers and other news media frequently make erroneous use of the terms accused pedophile or convicted pedophile in reference to individuals accused or convicted of sexual abuse of children; other perplexing terms such as 'serial pedophilia' have also come into use."

Warning of subjective content from Wikipedia siteAs for berating angels, Wales has never been accused of that, and we salute him for it.

Due to an ongoing conflict between Wales and myself, it's difficult for me to maintain any objectivity whatsoever on the subject of Wales. Still, I've spent hours with a therapist and an ombudsman and am quite sure that my objectivity is fully intact. I could tell you about it for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours.

Why even debate the objectivity then?

Great question.

It's only because I want this obituary, which I will submit to Wikiepedia, to be above board and stand up to the rigor of fellow Wikipedians. Jimmy looked great coming and not half bad going, and that's crucial to remember. Let's all raise Brtiannica Volume A and bash ourselves in the head with it. That's what Jimmy would have wanted. ®

Otto Z. Stern is a director at The Institute of Technological Values - a think tank dedicated to a more moral digital age. He has closely monitored the IT industry's intersection with America's role as a world leader for thirty years. You can find Stern locked and loaded, corralling wounded iLemmings, following Jimmy Wales, nursing an opal-plated prostate, spanking open source fly boys, wearing a smashing suit, dropping a SkyCar on the Googleplex, spitting on Frenchmen, vomiting in fear with a life-sized cutout of Hilary Rosen at his solar-powered compound somewhere in the Great American Southwest.

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