Censorship of Wikipedia on the 2008 Summer Olympics and the International Olympic Committee's request for press freedom during the games. In September 2008, Jimmy Wales had a meeting with Cai Mingzhao, Vice Director of China's State Council Information Office. While no agreements were made, Wales believes that a channel of communication has been opened between Wikipedia's community and the PRC Government. According to a report published in "American Economic Review" in 2011, the blocking of Chinese Wikipedia not only reduced the group size of its users, but also decreased the nonblocked users' contributions by 42.8% on average. In 2012, both Chinese and English
Jimmy Wales traveled outside North America prior to the site's founding, his participation in the Wikipedia project has seen him flying internationally on a near-constant basis as its public face. When Larry Sanger left Wikipedia, Wales's approach was different from Sanger's. Wales was fairly hands-off. Despite involvement in other projects, Wales has denied intending to reduce his role within Wikipedia, telling "The New York Times" in 2008 that "Dialing down is not an option for me ... Not to be too dramatic about it, but, 'to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on