Larry Sanger, the founder of Wikipedia, is not allowed to edit the site
The founder of Wikipedia who calls he himself is a “former founder of Wikipedia” and has criticized the site and been banned from editing its articles since leaving it more than 20 years ago.
Almost anyone can edit Wikipedia, but changes are then reviewed by others. The site’s editors agreed this week to restrict co-founder Larry Sanger’s access.
None of Mr. Sanger’s anti-Wikipedia contradictions, which he has, were cited as the reason long criticized over what he sees as left-wing bias, but something procedural. A spokesperson for the Wikipedia Foundation said Wednesday that it was reaching out to external audiences to influence internal policy votes.
Days before the vote on the decision, Mr. Sanger submitted a proposal entitled “WikiProject Intellectual Diversity”. His goal, he said, was to have more diversity in viewpoints on the site.
Mr Sanger posted his project to his 93,000 followers on X, which was deemed a breach of customer acquisition guidelines. He was he declared “we’re not here to build an encyclopedia,” another serious violation.
Mr. Sanger returned to X after his sentence, writing“There was no due process, no prosecutor, no impartial judge, no jury, no interpretation of the law.”
Founded in 2001 by Mr. Sanger and Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia has always operated as a non-profit organization with a decentralized editing system of mostly anonymous volunteers from around the world.
These volunteers develop and enforce policy “through open, transparent discussions and consensus-based decision-making,” a spokesperson said Wednesday. “These policies apply uniformly to all contributors, regardless of affiliation or history with Wikipedia.”
Mr. Sanger left Wikipedia in 2002 and last June he called website “one of the most effective organs of establishment propaganda in history”. He then returned last fall “to help reform Wikipedia in various ways.” he said.
Wikipedia exists in almost 300 languages and each language version has its own rules, according to Dariusz Jemielniak, who he wrote “Common Knowledge? An Ethnography of Wikipedia.”
English sites have long allowed their volunteer administrators to remain anonymous, said Professor Jemielniak of Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society.
“He was very anti-anonymity,” Professor Jemielniak said of Mr. Sanger. He believes that people in power should identify themselves.
“Once you make enough edits, you can become an administrator,” said Professor Jemielniak, who gave a first-hand account of the community in his book and later served on the Wikimedia Foundation’s board for a decade. “After a few hundred edits, you’re there to create Wikipedia.”
“What surprises me is that when he came back, he didn’t cut, he just started bossing,” he said.
Mr. Sanger did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
This is normal for Wikipedia block users modify in certain circumstances “so as not to damage or disrupt”. “Blocks are mainly used to solve immediate problems,” its policy states.
But the site ban imposed on Mr. Sanger is a formal removal of Wikipedia-wide editing rights.
On more opportunitiespeople or groups were prohibited from using Wikipedia for public relations, self-promotion, or shadowing a personal or corporate narrative.
One of them was Roger Bamkin, a Wikimedia UK board member who was revealed to be using his status to promote the Government of Gibraltar through WikipediaYou knew” homepage feature while being paid by the Gibraltar Tourist Board resigned from the board in 2012.
Blanket bar was released in 2009 of all IP addresses owned or operated by the Church of Scientology after it was found to be using internal computers to aggressively rewrite articles about Scientology, its critics and its founder L. Ron Hubbard to reflect its preferred doctrine.
Yet nearly 250,000 volunteer editors contribute to Wikipedia every month without much controversy.