Jimmy Wales—Jimmy Wales edited and directed edits to the Wikipedia biography of Rachel Marsden while pursuing a romantic relationship with her, violating conflict-of-interest norms
In February-March 2008, leaked instant-message transcripts showed Jimmy Wales communicating with Fox News commentator Rachel Marsden about edits to her Wikipedia biography while the two were developing a romantic relationship, which he did not fully disclose to Wikimedia's OTRS volunteer team. In one leaked message Wales wrote, 'The truth is of course a much worse conflict of interest than that :) but that will do,' acknowledging the conflict while misrepresenting it internally. Wales maintained he acted consistently with Wikipedia policy and had disclosed a conflict, but the episode was widely reported as a breach of the neutral-point-of-view and conflict-of-interest norms Wales himself championed as Wikipedia's founder.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Corporate Governance | -against | primary | -1.00 |
| Overall incident score = | -0.590 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (medium ×1) × confidence (0.59)
Evidence (1 signal)
NYT and The Register report on Wales's conflict of interest editing girlfriend Rachel Marsden's Wikipedia biography
The New York Times and The Register reported that leaked instant messages showed Jimmy Wales discussing edits to Rachel Marsden's Wikipedia biography while pursuing a relationship with her, and that he told OTRS volunteers a misleading reason for meeting her rather than disclosing the romantic context.