Talk:Larry Sanger

"Cofounder" and Consistency

The Lede simply says he is a cofounder, and yet there is a separate section in the body of the Article that indicates that this status is either "in dispute", "complicated" or "requires explanation", depending on how you choose to look at it. My issue concerns readability, and consistency. If the body of the Article is going to open the door to the idea that Sanger's "cofounder" status is not clear and simple, then the Lede should also reflect that truth, else the Lede is misleading. Wikipedia has enough issues with bias and the accusations of bias, at least in an article about one of the supposed "founders", let there be some clarity.

Personally, I am inclined to doubt the claim that Sanger should be considered a "co-founder" for several reasons. One, because he was an employee, and I'm not certain that one can be considered a "founder" if one makes money without any real skin in the game, i.e. risk. Not sure about Wales and how the equation between who took risk and who did not might play-out, but I still believe that founders take risks that employees do not. Further, calling the 1st employee a "founder" is a slippery slope, because what about the 2nd employee? (Whoever that might have been) 3rd? 4th? 500th? Where do you draw the line within the scale of employees to determine who is, and who is not, to be considered a "founder"? Further, Wales has made public statements that Sanger is not a "founder", and I would think that the actual founder of Wikipedia should know whether or not his employee should be considered a "founder". Be nice to see Wale's thoughts on the reasons WHY he calls Sanger's status into question. Further, I'd be interested in seeing whether or not Sanger considers himself to be a founder. What if he does not? Then what? Can RS "draft" into existence a status for Sanger when both parties agree that Sanger is not a founder? RS can get things wrong, RS can lie, RS can repeat the false information that other RS has published, and thereby manufacture a false reality that does not, and has never, existed. Which point is an echo of several anti-Wikipedia statements that Sanger himself has made.

In any case, all of this is intended to convey the idea that the simple assertion that "Sanger is a cofounder" is patently false, not because of whether or not he's a co-founder, but because the Article is inconsistent with itself, and the Lede misrepresents what the body of the Article is saying. In short, it's clearly, simply and obviously wrong.

Finally, the advent of the new AI that I've been noticing means that when Users run a google search of (for example) "Larry Sanger", the "AI" (meaning the non-sentient computer script that is 100% controlled by humans) frequently presents the 1st sentence of the Lede of a Wikipedia Article as the 1st, initial "result", and that single line from the Lede may be the only information that the User gets, and in the case of this Article, that information is incorrect, and is contradicted by the actual Article. In short, disinformation, perpetrated upon an unsuspecting and unsophisticated public with the false claim that supposedly sentient "Artificial Intelligence" says that which is false, while the claimed source contradicts what the sentient (and lying) humans that control the "AI" make it say. My issue with all of this, is that Wikipedia is participating and enabling this deception, by failing to enforce clear standards and common sense.

Finally the Lede appends Wales "co-founder" status as an afterthought, and an add-on, when in fact if anyone is an add-on, it is the employee, Sanger. Another example of what may be intentional bias by Wikipedia Editors.~2025-31683-81 (talk) 18:07, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

A few remarks

I'm not going to argue about this here with anyone, except to say the following.

First, as a report about the content or significance of the Nine Theses, this—

Sanger was interviewed on the Tucker Carlson podcast on September 29, 2025, releasing his Nine Theses both on Wikipedia as well as his personal blog. In the Nine Theses, Sanger elaborated further on what he saw as the degrading of neutrality policies and the "blacklisting" of certain conservative sources. He also claimed that intelligence agencies like the CIA may have influenced some direction or content on Wikipedia.

—is a very poor summary. Surely you can do better.

Also, I want to point out that it is false to say that I "backed a plan by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation to dox Wikipedia editors alleged to be antisemitic." I did no such a thing, nor would I, and I request that Wikipedia remove this false claim. The quotation that follows is supposed to constitute evidence, but it is taken out of context and poorly reported on by the Bloomberg source: "Admins and those with significant authority in the system should be as easily named and shamed as any ordinary journalist." If this is a genuine quotation (it's been long enough that I don't know if it is), it is out of context in any event; if this is quoted correctly (again, I can't confirm it), the point I was making was very probably the same as that which I made in WP:THESIS9. That is, anyone with significant authority in the system should, at some future date, be required to reveal their real identities. I was not saying that present leadership should be doxxed, of course. I was saying (or implying) that anonymous leadership of a project as powerful as Wikipedia has become is now morally wrong, in my opinion. Because Wikipedia does not record the URL of the original X post, and because I cannot find the post via X.com search, we cannot even confirm that the quotation is correct. Larry Sanger (talk) 22:02, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

"Surely you can do better."  Not done: Per WP:COIREQUEST#Be sensitive to factors that affect the amount of time that is being requested, please be specific with what you would like changed. Arlo James Barnes 10:41, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

The quote about the Heritage Foundation is from Bloomberg which is considered "generally reliable"—enough for this kind of context. I found the following quote at sangerfeed.org:

I guess I’ll say the obvious: the recent push by left-wing Wikipedians to stop using the Heritage Foundation as a source, because Heritage seeks to dox (name and shame) anti-Semitic editors on Wikipedia, is predictable. If Heritage is de-sourced, it will cause Wikipedia to become even more biased and less relevant. 😱 There does, of course, need to be some accountability for Wikipedia editors. For one thing, admins and those with significant authority in the system should be as easily named and shamed as any ordinary journalist.

Thus it appears that the "name and shame" idea is represented fairly and accurately. Sanger indicates in the quote that doxxing is a synonym for name and shame.

The next part of the sangerfeed.org source shows RT responding positively to Sanger's proposal. That is not a good look. Binksternet (talk) 16:08, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

There is certainly an ambivalence as to whether "There does" etc is a direct continuation and agreement with the choice of the HF or instead a change of tone which is tantamount to has taken the point of the 1st part and used it for his own ends to instead comment / make a point on the subject of Wikipedia. I think: point 1 point 2 - there is a break in the comments "There does, of course" is a different direction not a concordance with the 1st part (source). Cattenion (talk) 08:26, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

Is 1-2 not 1a-1b Cattenion (talk) 08:31, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

I see what you're saying, and I have no objections to you tweaking "backed a plan" to "agreed with a plan" because the former might imply that Sanger got the idea that doxxing Wikipedia editors is a good thing from the Heritage Foundation, when it reads more as "here's my ideas about who should be doxxed" following a quote about Heritage's plans to dox editors. A small difference, but a difference nonetheless.

As for Sanger's edit request, slightly rephrasing this material & improving its sourcing is  Done, but removing it or suggesting that he did not agree with the Heritage Foundation about doxxing editors is N Not done and not likely to be done. It looks like Sanger forgot that he said this, but it is a verbatim quote and the plain reading of it is that, in a quote about the Heritage Foundation's plans to dox Wikipedia editors, Sanger said doxxing Wikipedia editors is a great idea. It wasn't about the "theses" as they didn't exist yet when he said this, though the "theses" also advocate for mass doxxing for what it's worth. The secondary source reported it correctly and Wikipedia described it correctly.

 Vanilla  Wizard 💙 19:17, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

This is incorrect. Quote the entire sentence and think about it.

https://sangerfeed.org/6097

That’s all I’m going to say.

Larry Sanger (talk) 22:46, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

The current wording conflates an independent statement of support for a tangentially shared ideal with a conspiratorial framing. The Heritage Foundation's explicit plan to target anti-semites and Sangers proposal to target powerful editors are not equivalent unless you happen to be suggesting that anti-semites and powerful wikipedia editors are the same group of people.

They agree in principle on the acceptance of doxing as defined in that comment, not the Heritage Foundation's plan and should be documented as such.

Baxtermaxwell (talk) 07:48, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

Will note this reply is the only edit this account ever made, and the account was registered moments before leaving it. It's somewhat unusual for a new editor to join Wikipedia just to reply to one specific message in the middle of a moderately low-activity talk page. Is that you, Larry?  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 05:54, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

A reddit post led me here. Ive been a regular user of wikipedia for over a decade. At this point the paranoid partisan antics that guide this website are no surprise to me but let it show on record that I outed it for everyone to see clearly. Baxtermaxwell (talk) 23:11, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

Heritage was used as a reliable source before? Who said that? If it was, it was a mistake because they lie all the time. No doxxing initiative from their side is needed to make them uncitable. --Hob Gadling (talk) 20:28, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

Sanger was wrong to suggest that the Heritage Foundation was considered a reliable source up until it was added to the spam blacklist. WP:HERITAGEFOUNDATION shows otherwise. It was already considered an unreliable source for statements of fact, but links to their website were still able to be cited as a primary source to verify statements about their opinions. Not anymore, for obvious reasons.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 21:13, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

Sanger was wrong Ah, thanks. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:58, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

"Philosophy" section should be titled "Views"

The majority of this section is about his political views and anti-vax conspiracy theories. On any other biography, we'd call that section "Views."

This:

Sanger has argued that liberal and left-leaning views dominate in academia, science, the media and tech companies such as Facebook and Twitter. In 2011, Sanger began to defend Christians as he viewed them to be unfairly attacked in the media. In January 2002, Sanger returned to Columbus, Ohio to teach philosophy at Ohio State University. In December 2010, Sanger said he considered WikiLeaks to be "enemies of the US—not just the government, but the people". In September 2021, in response to U.S. President Joe Biden announcing a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, Sanger tweeted "Nor I.#IWillNotComply" in agreement with political commentator Tim Pool. In an earlier tweet, Sanger falsely claimed that COVID-19 vaccines are "not a vaccine".

is not "philosophy" no matter how you look at it. Titling "the COVID 19 vaccine is not a vaccine!" as "philosophy" is MOS:PUFFERY and I do not understand why User:Randy Kryn objects to changing the section name.

 Vanilla  Wizard 💙 15:27, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

I told you why, it's long time wording and needs to form a consensus. You were removing all mentions of Sanger being a philosopher and saying there were no sources. There are. Also long-term wording for this topic. Please respect existing material on even controversial articles, thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:31, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

@Randy Kryn: the language being the status quo is not by itself a reason to keep it that way. There was never a consensus for the status quo, I've done a CTRL+F search for "philosophy" and "philosopher" in all of the talk archives. The "philosophy" section was controversial from the beginning with multiple sections arguing over if it should even exist in Archive #5, there was opposition to calling him a "philosopher" in Archive #4 Across all archives, only one editor (QuackGuru) argued for calling him a "philosopher", as they did in #5, #4, and #3. In #2, Sanger himself rejected the label of "philosopher". There was never a consensus for the current language, and it was always shaky, with multiple editors over the years popping up to oppose the language and the same one editor disagreeing with them every time.

If you didn't object to changing the language, the altered language very well could have become "long time wording." Reverting back to the status quo simply because it was the status quo is not a good reason; if you disagree with the change, you have to give a reason why, otherwise this is just WP:SQS. To your credit, you did make an argument for using the word "philosopher" over my preferred language "former philosophy professor", but you have not given any reasons for why it is better to call his anti-vax conspiracies "philosophy" instead of a less flowery label like "Views."

 Vanilla  Wizard 💙 15:53, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

Agree that "Views" should be the section heading for Sanger's views about the world. Binksternet (talk) 15:59, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

Should we use this 2023 image as WP:LEADIMAGE instead of the current 2006 one?

Larry Sanger in 2023.

A second alternative

Note that it's a screenshot from this video, [1], and people are welcome to try to make a better one. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:17, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

• Weak support though I don't feel very strongly about it. The current (2006) photo is much better quality, but it's also almost twenty years old and it is generally better to use a more up-to-date photo in the infobox. I'd be okay with swapping them so the higher quality 2006 photo is still somewhere in the article.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 03:48, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
• Not a very good photo. Maybe Larry Sanger would consider uploading an image that he thinks may be a better representation. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:43, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  Per User_talk:Larry_Sanger#Portraits_of_you, maybe he will at some point, WP:A picture of you has some good guidance. But atm, this is what we got. IMO, as a leadimage, it's a little better than the current since it's much more recent. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:37, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  I changed it, we'll see what happens. 2006 image now further down in the article. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:22, 25 November 2025 (UTC)