The Revenge of a Booted Fox News Babe

Aspiring fameball Rachel Marsden once loved Fox News mastermind Roger Ailes like an uncle responsible for her career — even after his henchmen booted Marsden from the building. No more: in a "novel" she's shopping, Ailes is the "blubbery" villain. More »

Jimmy Wales, the nobody everybody knows about

"A nondescript man with thinning brown hair and a slight paunch" is how W nondescribes Jimmy Wales, the cofounder of Wikipedia, the site where anybody can write history, and nobodies do. Wales, once known for sporting kimonos and Mao jackets, has reverted to wearing all black, which gives the fashion magazine rather thin material to work with. One would think the magazine would turn to probing his brains, not his looks — but there, too, they came up empty. More »

Is Jimmy Wales getting Wikipedia in legal trouble?

Jimmy Wales's clandestine editing of a girlfriend's Wikipedia entry has done more than just bring the online encyclopedia into disrepute. It may well put the site's nonprofit parent, the Wikimedia Foundation, in legal jeopardy. Wikipedia has thrived in part thanks to a protection granted by the Communications Decency Act, which spares websites which merely host users' content from liability for what they say. But what if one of the website's officials moves to have that content edited? Then the protection vanishes. That is the legal argument advanced by Wales's ex, Rachel Marsden, in a series of emails with Mike Godwin, Wikimedia's general counsel, that she has posted to Valleywag. More »

Jimmy Wales takes his Wikipedia magic show to New York City

For a province of California, Silicon Valley can be strangely puritan at times. That made it an uncomfortable locale for libertine Libertarian Jimmy Wales, the less-than-saintly founder of Wikipedia. Wales told ex-lover Rachel Marsden, the Canadian controversialist, that he wanted to move to New York to be closer to her. Their affair is over — ended, fittingly, via a posting on Wikipedia — but Wales has relocated to New York all the same. The likely reason has to do with work, or the appearance of work. Although Wikipedia's nonprofit parent, the Wikimedia Foundation, is located in San Francisco, and his ostensible employer, for-profit wiki venture Wikia, has itsheadquarters in a suburb to the south of the city, Wales is charged with running a search-engine project for Wikia which is based in New York. More »

Jimmy Wales hires bodyguard for New York event

Invited to speak about "the future of the Internet" at New York University, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales instead spent the session dwelling on his smartphone's inbox. Why was the muse for the world's most exhaustive list of Simpsons episodes so distracted? Likely for the same reason he hired a personal security guard for the event: would-be paramour Andrea Weckerle. We're told that Weckerle, a PR consultant previously linked to Wales, has such a crush on Wales — unrequited — that she flew cross-country for the event, and told friends she was sharing a hotel room with Wales for a supposed tryst. More »

Jimmy Wales edited Julia Allison's Wikipedia entry

We now know the kind of woman Jimmy Wales goes for: brunettes who appear on Fox News and have conveniently troubled Wikipedia entries. In January, the founder of the world's greatest online list of unusually shaped vegetables was courting Canadian controversialist Rachel Marsden with sex-fantasy-laden IM chats. But at the same time, Wales was also playing the gallant on Star editor-at-large and former Fox News late-night pundit Julia Allison's Wikipedia page. More »

World Economic Forum organizers defend womanizing Randian Jimmy Wales as conference chair

Why is Jimmy Wales, the do-little founder of Wikipedia, cochair the annual World Economic Forum on the Middle East? The event is the "foremost global gathering of political, business and cultural leaders," according to the organizers. Wales was chosen for the "contribution [he has made] globally, regionally or within [his] industry... His expertise in terms of business, knowledge etc. is the important thing here, not necessarily any knowledge of the region... At present the gossip and allegations directed towards Mr. Wales remain just that — gossip and allegation — and as such, the Forum has no comment." What gossip and allegation are they referring to? Something like this, perhaps: More »

Wales's ex-girlfriend on Wikipedia edits: "Game on, sweetheart"

There is no neutral point of view in a love affair gone bad. Jimmy Wales violated Wikipedia's rules in posting a note announcing his breakup with Canadian journalist Rachel Marsden on the world's most exacting collection of urban legends about McDonald's. Marsden has retaliated in kind, or attempted to. Her recent efforts to leave a note for Wales on Wikipedia — "the only way to have any sort of rational or caring discussion with him," she claims — resulted in her account being banned by administrators. More »

Did Jimmy Wales and Wikipedia boss make out in Amsterdam?

What is it about Jimmy Wales? The founder of Wikipedia has a thing for brainy women, and a penchant for mixing business and pleasure. But the latest rumor I've heard is mind-blowing: That Wales had a brief affair with Sue Gardner, the executive director of the nonprofit which runs Wikipedia. Gardner has always been swift to rush to Jimmy Wales's defense — oddly so, since he's just one of many board members she reports to. In a recent newspaper article on Wales, there was this line: "Ms. Gardner said there will always be a need for what Mr. Wales provides." Ah yes, what Mr. Wales provides. To Rachel Marsden, Elisabeth Bauer, and Barbara Cohen, among others, you mean? More »

Donor, ex-girlfriend accuse Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia extortion

Jeff Merkey, a former Novell chief scientist, has issued a statement accusing Jimmy Wales of extortion. Merkey says that Wales offered him "special protection" for his Wikipedia entry in exchange for a "substantial" donation to Wales's Wikimedia Foundation. After Merkey withdrew his donation over concerns that the funds were being mismanaged, he was banned from the site for "frivolous and unsubstantiated claims." Merkey's not the only one: Rachel Marsden, Wales's ex-girlfriend, has privately threatened Wales with a lawsuit over what she claims are hostile revisions to her Wikipedia entry which began after they broke up. While they were together, Wales promised Marsden swift action on edits so he could "continue fucking [her] brains out." After the jump, Merkey's statement and Marsden's email. More »