Larry Sanger, one of Wikipedia’s cofounders, was banned from editing the site indefinitely after other editors determined he was canvassing, or in other words, calling on his followers off platform in order to influence Wikipedia’s content.
Sanger has spent more than a decade criticizing Wikipedia for what he claims is an ideological, left-wing bias on a variety of topics, and on X has framed this recent ban as further proof of everything that’s wrong with Wikipedia. The New York Post took that bait and last night published an article with the headline “Left-leaning Wikipedia blocked founder from editing site—after he campaigned to make it more balanced.”
Wikipedia editors obviously reject that framing and say that Sanger was banned for wielding his followers to sway discussion and decision making on Wikipedia. The discussion that led to the decision to ban Sanger concluded with what an editor called a “clear consensus” to ban Sanger.
I read his “contributions” to the Gaza genocide article’s talk page, along with the equally mealy-mouthed hand-wringing of Jimmy Wales. Total bellends both, although for different reasons. Jimmy is pressured into being an annoying grandstanding dickhead by Israeli interests, whereas Larry’s pressured into being an annoying grandstanding dickhead by his childhood.
Will he start working for conervapedia now?
Good work by wikipedia. Always good to get the trash out.Sanger was laid off from Wikipedia early on, started a competitor site that failed, and then returned to Wikipedia not so much to contribute but to rail against the project, his only credentials being setting up some of the crucial rules for the site two decades ago. It was really pathetic, like an ex pestering the other one years after the breakup, unable to move on. I hope he finds a better hobby now.
“Reality has a well-known liberal bias.” --Stephen Colbert
In the end conservatism is only appealing to those in power. And people with power work every day to ensure everyone else has none.
What’s funny is that Jimmy Wales, who has described himself as an objectivist, is far from “leftist” or “liberal” himself. But unlike this asshole, he is principled.
It’s a little sad that he’s still messing with that site. It’s been years since I’ve used it for anything. It’s incomplete and heavily biased.
Wikipedia is a great start point. You read the wiki, then check the references. Just like reading the news, you should never take one source at face value! Engage your ✨ CRITICAL THINKING ✨
Then contribute to it. Bring receipts and evidence. Those are the table stakes. Without that, you’ll get laughed out like the clown you are. You don’t bring hearsay and prejudice to an evidence fight.
Wikipedia has its problems, but ‘balance’ is not near the top of the list.
Biased how?
Reality has a well known liberal bias
In the kangaroo court in which a mob ousted me, Wikipedia’s administrators showed that they don’t appear to value details like formal charges, a designated prosecutor, basic decorum, distinction between prosecution and judge, dispassionate adjudication, and so forth
These hypocrite fucks always rail off at the mouth about how abused they are… and it’s always just to get their foot in the door. Once they run the show, they rewrite history, dole out all the abuse they want and face zero repercussions. Intolerant shits that the rest of us simply must tolerate. Well go fuck yourself Larry Sanger. The world doesn’t need more right-wing bullshit.
Wikipedia’s administrators showed that they don’t appear to value details like formal charges, a designated prosecutor, basic decorum, distinction between prosecution and judge, dispassionate adjudication
-
It would be deranged and far from a good thing if online moderation and dispute adjudication decided to use a criminal model of trying to prove a person’s guilt
-
The real life criminal justice system is the opposite of unbiased and fair
-
Karl Popper has entered the chat
Reality has a liberal bias.
Leftist, even
Colbert used the term in a more traditional sense, as opposed to how it’s sometimes used now as an insult by harder leftists.
It’s not an insult. It’s the widely accepted term for the ideology of the bourgeoisie. They self-describe as liberals. That’s been the usage of the term since its coining; USAmericans just decided to only use it to describe more left-leaning liberals rather than all liberals. If it’s used as an insult, it’s between communists accusing another communist of not being a communist, not because liberalism is inherently a pejorative. Like if a right-winger calls someone a communist as an insult, it’s not because communism is a pejorative, it’s because it’s a non-communist accusing another non-communist of not being not-communist enough.
The more traditional sense is the global definition.
I knew you knew that, my comment was more for the passers-by who may not even be old enough to remember that it was a Colbert quote.
I like how we all make comments for chat now, but there’s probably only like what a thousand people who comment on lemmy regularly?
We have no idea how many lurkers, with registered accounts or not.
👍
These reactionaries will never be happy until literally everything is a fascist propaganda outlet. Not content with all mainstream media and social media, wikipedia and other community information hubs must fall next
exactly. there may be genuine improvements Wikipedia could make, but as long as there’s a rabid pack of chuds making demands that change happen, I’ll support Wiki taking it slowly and deliberately. Anything that pisses off those fuckwits has to be good for humanity.
Part of Larry Sanger’s statement
“In the kangaroo court in which a mob ousted me, Wikipedia’s administrators showed that they don’t appear to value details like formal charges, a designated prosecutor, basic decorum, distinction between prosecution and judge…”
Does this guy think Wikipedia is run like a country
Faux News melts their brain and breaks who they are as people
I’m not sure the NYP took the bait, they’re more like the bait shop; more than happy to sell whatever the right wing outrage machine is selling on a given day.
And when there’s nothing to sell today, they’ll drum up some shit for a sale tomorrow
Yeah… The Post isn’t much of a shocker. It’d be more of a shocker if it were NYT.
That is very much the definition of snowflake behaviour.
Hmm I wonder if Sanger knew better. I wonder if there was any smoking gun posted online that would prove this.
“Wikipedians are now debating whether my proposed WikiProject Intellectual Diversity should be permitted to become an official WikiProject (club/group of editors),” Sanger said on X on Friday and linked to the Wikipedia talk page about the issue. “Lots opposed. Also lots in favor.”
“Can I still join the movement?” one person replied to Sanger on X.
“Let’s just say that if I answer that question one way or another, the playground moms who rule Wikipedia might block me,” Sanger responded.
shocked_pikachu
Discussions about potential bans are supposed to remain open for at least 72 hours. While consensus that Sanger had violated Wikipedia policies was clear, Sanger was banned at some point before that deadline. He was then briefly unbanned, and then again indefinitely banned once 72 hours had elapsed and the discussion about the ban closed.
There is clearly some extreme bias on Wikipedia when they can’t even follow this very normal and regularly practised rule
Wikipedia also has a well-known and well-exercised rule called the Snowball Clause. Basically, if consensus is clear early, don’t waste others’ time or let further harm occur while you’re waiting for a procedure to reach a foregone conclusion.
In the ban discussion, you can see a clear consensus developing very early that Sanger was, by his own admission on external platforms, NOTHERE to build an encyclopedia. He further doubled down on his position in the discussion thread for his own banning, and even intimated that he was rejoining Wikipedia with the express purpose of gathering enough meatpuppets to change Wikipedia’s policies. The Snowball Clause is even mentioned in that discussion; basically, had Sanger and his meatpuppets been allowed to continue to edit for those three days, the damage to the encyclopedia could have been significant.
They literally gave him three days.
He was then briefly unbanned, and then again indefinitely banned once 72 hours had elapsed
What else were they supposed to do? Give him a get-out-of-jail-free card for a procedural mistake that they already rectified?
Give him extra time to make up for how long the early ban was? Or maybe give him an extra 24h as a courtesy? I dunno, lol
To do what? They had established that he was performing activities that needed to be stopped, he’s not owed more time to do those activities in.
Was he even blocked from doing anything useful for those several hours?
You have 72 hours to make your case, he had plenty of time to do so before those 72 hours were up, even with the incorrect ban. Another fee hours isn’t gonna make a difference.
youre right, execute the editors.
edit: /s
