Jimmy Wales, of Huntsville, is the founder of the online website Wikipedia. He also just authored his first book, “The Seven Rules of Trust,” which will available in bookstores starting tomorrow. It’s based on his work to establish the internet encyclopedia, which is reportedly visited by a billion people every month. Wales’ conversation for an upcoming episode of “APR Notebook” came roughly a week after a gunman rushed the stage of a New York City Wikipedia conference. He commented on the idea of public discourse prompting a violent response.
“Let’s have a discussion. Let’s try and understand each other a little bit better,” Wales contended. “Because, you know, the alternative where we get to and we are seeing this is to violence, you know? I mean people, I mean it’s this enormous tragedy of Charlie Kirk being assassinated. And you know, what did Charlie Kirk do? He made a lot of arguments. He upset people. He said things people disagreed with.”
Wales spoke with APR news about the new book, and his experiences at the helm of Wikipedia. He credits his interest in high technology to growing up in Huntsville during the days of the Apollo manned moon landings…