Wikipedia and Beyond

Back in 2007, Reason magazine had interesting feature on Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.

I know that’s old news, but I just thought I’d refer to some interesting quotes from that article.

On the influence of Fredrich Hayek:

“Hayek’s work on price theory is central to my own thinking about how to manage the Wikipedia project,” Wales wrote on the blog of the Internet law guru Lawrence Lessig

And again:

Wales has adopted Hayek’s view that change is handled more smoothly by an interlocking network of diverse individuals than by a central planning authority

On Von Mises:

He swears to have actually read Ludwig von Mises’s 10-pound tome Human Action

On Homeschooling:

Wales, whose wife Christine teaches their 5-year-old daughter Kira at home, says he is disappointed by the “factory nature” of American education: “There’s something significantly broken about the whole concept of school.” A longtime opponent of mandatory public school attendance, Wales says that part of the allure of Florida, where his Wikimedia Foundation is based, is its relatively laissez-faire attitude toward homeschoolers.