March 11, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
Jim Wales, the founder of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, is fighting accusations by a former employee that he misused funds from the nonprofit group that oversees the Web site.
On his personal blog, All’s Wool that Ends Wool, the former Wikipedia employee, Danny Wool, wrote that Mr. Wales often asked the Wikimedia Foundation to pay for personal expenses.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Mr. Wales and the foundation’s executive director, Sue Gardner, denied any wrongdoing.
“Jimmy has never been reimbursed by the foundation for personal expenses, nor has he ever asked to be,” Ms. Gardner said in a statement. “The expenses he incurs on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation are modest and in no way unseemly. Jimmy has consistently put the foundation’s interests ahead of his own, and has erred on the side of personally paying for his own Wikimedia-related expenditures, rather than the reverse.”
The newspaper also reports that Brad Patrick, the foundation’s former interim executive director, said that the 2006 audit satisfied his concerns and that all expenses Mr. Wales did not have receipts for he paid for himself.
At the same time, Wikipedia is finding it difficult to raise money to keep its operation viable, especially given that the organization continues to reject online advertising, reports the Los Angeles Times.
Read The Chronicle’s article on the Wikimedia Foundation.
What do you think? Click on the comments link below this post to share your thoughts.
