Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing.
I'm a big advocate of freedom: freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of thought.
If it isn't on Google, it doesn't exist.
My view is that good community management is like having good municipal government: You should be able to have dissenting opinions and so on, freedom of speech, but your grandmother should also be able to walk down the street at night without having to worry about getting mugged.
My original concept was to provide a free encyclopedia for every single person in the world.
I have always viewed the mission of Wikipedia to be much bigger than just creating a killer website. We're doing that of course, and having a lot of fun doing it, but a big part of what motivates us is our larger mission to affect the world in a positive way.
People who have achieved a public voice find it a mixed bag.
I'm not real good at the administrative part of running a company.
Almost anything is better than three network TV outlets completely controlling the national discourse with their nightly broadcasts. We've moved a long way from that, and that's important.
I have always liked the idea of going to print because a big part of what we are about is to disseminate knowledge throughout the world and not just to people who have broadband.
Dialing down is not an option for me.
Mostly, I try to take a rational approach to life.
You shouldn't use anything as the sole source for anything, in my view.
We don't need secrecy.
To create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language - That's who I am. That's what I am doing. That's my life goal.
People take issue with individual aspects of Wikipedia all the time. But it's kind of hard to hate the general idea of a free encyclopedia. It's like hating kittens.
People are not fundamentally bad. It only takes the smallest of correctives to take care of that tiny minority that wants to disrupt the community.
I'm very much an Enlightenment kind of guy.
I don't worry. It's just not in my nature, really.
I don't come down on any simple place as a deletionist or a completionist.
