Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales Appointed UK Government Adviser
Jimmy Wales named as an unpaid adviser to the Government.
The British government has just signed on Jimmy Wales as an adviser on transparency and public policy. The London Telegraph reports that Rohan Silva, a senior Downing Street aide to Prime Minister David Cameron, announced Wales' appointment was announced at South by Southwest last night in Austin, Texas, where Silva was giving a talk titled 'Open Source Government, Enterprise and Innovation.'
Speaking after the announcement, a government spokesperson offered a little bit of clarity as to what Jimmy Wales will be doing:
"Mr Wales will act as an unpaid adviser to Government to support its agenda to open up policy-making to the public," the spokesperson said. "He will advise Government on developing innovative new ways technology can be used to give the public a greater say in the policy-making process."
According to a Whitehall source that spoke to the Telegraph, Wales' role will see him providing help and advice to civil servants as opposed to ministers. Additionally, this source said that the father of Wikipedia is one of several unpaid advisers. Though Wales will serve as an adviser to all government departments, he's also said to have a few specific projects that he will be working on.
Wales co-founded Wikipedia over a decade ago, in 2001, and founded the Wikimedia Foundation in 2003.

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That's why they asked him, because he is impartial and is a good person to ask for the best ideas
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Turn it on it's head, would you rather they appointed someone for advice who was entirley partisan and only motivated by political will?
Also, he is quite forthright in his views, which is a bonus.
Previous 'advisors' to the UK governement have been political devices. 'independantly' approved gimmicks to throw backing to the governement.
Not very often the Uk governement listens to good advice anyway.
Jimmy Wales is an Objectivist, so of course he's ~not~ impartial on certain issues such as the right to privacy and the freedom of the individual versus big government. It also makes him non-partisan. All UK political parties favour a blossoming state so he's not likely to hold any allegiance to any particular one.
It is very much like the phenomenon of piracy on game consoles. Piracy being enabled on a console will boost sales of a console in the short-term but then almost kill its sales for the long-term. If you don't know why then I can explain it to you.
I hope not. People will mandate themselves four work day weeks, six months annual leave, a 20% pay rise every year, and a blow job on Friday evenings until the economy comes crashing down and people start devouring each other after they've whacked all the rich. But, I suspect Jimmy Wales advice will be on how best to store and retrieve a mass of information and display it in a format similar to the Wikipedia.