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back to article What's Jimmy Wales going to do with $500k from the UAE?

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales says he'll "start a foundation" to process a large amount of money he has received from the United Arab Emirates' regime. Christmas came early for Wales, and Tim Berners-Lee, earlier this month when they shared a $1m cash award from the Gulf state. The "Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum …

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  1. Philip Storry

    An admission...

    I'm just going to have to admit it - when I saw "UAE" I thought "Unrecoverable Application Error".

    I know I shouldn't do. I think it's contextual - on El Reg, I'm thinking in technical terms not in geographical ones.

    Still, it did make me wonder how a crash got them half a million dollars. If that's the way it works, I should be a billionaire by now...

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  2. FartingHippo
    Thumb Up

    Co-founder

    Heh. He hates that :)

    2 0 Reply
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Jimmy Wales could spend this on removing the begging advert

    Berners-Lee should donate all the cash to a human rights charity.

    3 0 Reply
  4. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "he'd planned to do so all along"

    Of course you did, Jimbo.

    And we plan to believe you just as sincerely as this declaration sounds.

    Is there something about being in the spotlight that makes declaring untrue things hoping that we'll buy it a conditioned reflex ? Couldn't he just have bowed his head, said sorry and pledged to do right ?

    Oh wait, it's Jimbo we're talking about. Right. Forget it then.

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  5. Jonathan 27

    By not donating it immediately to the Wikimedia foundation Whales looks like a hypocrit. Ask us all for money but don't donate your own.

    2 0 Reply
    1. Gregory Kohs
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      He knows the WMF too well

      Jimbo wouldn't turn the money over to the Wikimedia Foundation -- he knows all too well how inefficiently that organizational sham is actually run. He knows the money would be wasted on replacing programmers who weren't needed in the first place, all to create some silly "comment flow" system that only 1% of readers would ever see. Jimbo may be a fool, but he's no financial idiot.

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    2. Crazy Operations Guy
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      But fueling his private jet and funding overly-expensive trips to take photos of pop stars costs more than $500k...

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  6. Anomalous Cowshed

    The Outlaw Jimmy Wales

    You can criticise him for his slightly dodgy dealings since he went legit, and I can't argue with that, but back when he was a wanted man in the Wild West, the Outlaw Jimmy Wales was one cool son of a bitch. Probably the coolest one who ever walked and rode on the face of the earth. Cooler even than Chuck Norris. Nobody would dare to piss down his back and tell him it was raining. If he did, Jimmy would kick him so hard, he'd be wearing his ass* as a hat.

    * He was an American

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Let's not politicize about this. Allow Wiki be Wiki. Use all the available donated funds to develope a much better Wikipedia with much efficient self sufficient servers if possible, renewable energy while money still there.

    0 1 Reply

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