This article profiles Jimmy D. Wales, the father of Wikipedia. Jimmy D. Wales cannot describe a magnetic monopole or rattle off the birth names of the 14 Dalai Lamas. But that's okay because there are more than 18,000 people around the world who every month answer these and hundreds of other questions. Wales, 39, is the father of the world's most sprawling encyclopedia, the online Wikipedia. So far Wikipedia has accumulated 2.2 million articles in 100 languages. In June 7.7 million people checked Wikipedia, according to Nielsen NetRatings, beating out MSN Encarta to become the Web's top research site. Mistakes and vandalism are common on Wikipedia, but anarchy is tolerated because the community polices itself.
