After online breakup, Wikipedia boss finds his life is an open book

It is not the first time that Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia’s de facto leader, has found his behaviour questioned— especially since no subject appears too arcane for dissection by Wikipedia’s passionate community of users. The latest episodes, however, reverberated beyond the usual die-hards.

A former lover— political pundit Rachel Marsden— let out steamy and embarrassing online chats with Wales, and dumped his clothes on eBay. Wales, 41, also became the subject of an eyebrow-raising blog entry by Danny Wool, who until last year worked for the nonprofit, donor-supported Wikimedia Foundation that runs the encyclopedia.

Wool wrote that Wales had asked the foundation to reimburse him for costly items like a $1,300 dinner for four at a Florida steakhouse. Wool alleged that at one point Wales was short on receipts for $30,000 in expenses before settling the matter with the foundation’s lawyer and paying the organisation $7,000.

Wales denied that, saying in an interview over instant message that it was his own decision to stop seeking reimbursements even for business travel for the foundation, where he is “chairman emeritus” and one of seven board members.

Wales, a former options trader who started Wikipedia in 2001, would not comment on other specifics of Wool’s charges.

He pointed to a supportive statement from Sue Gardner, who recently joined Wikimedia as executive director: “Jimmy has never used Wikimedia money to subsidise his personal expenditures. Indeed, he has consistently put the foundation’s interests ahead of his own.”

Brad Patrick, the lawyer cited by Wool, said Wool had been “irresponsibly erroneous”. “Danny seems interested in blogging his way straight to a lawsuit,” Patrick, who is no longer with Wikimedia, wrote in an e-mail.

Behind the public face, however, Wales was taking heat. In an interview with The Associated Press, Florence Devouard, who chairs the Wikimedia Foundation, defended Wales and said he had simply been “slow in submitting receipts”. She pointed out that the foundation rejected the steakhouse expense.

A short time later, in an e-mail exchange with her fellow board members, Devouard reported that she had persuaded the AP that “the money story was a no story”. Yet she proceeded to indicate the opposite, upbraiding Wales for having asked the foundation to pay the steakhouse tab.