Larry Sanger

Lawrence "Larry" Mark Sanger is an American philosopher and the cofounder of Wikipedia; he left the project in 2002. Apart from being the cofounder of one of the biggest websites on the Internet, he is mostly known for two things: criticising Wikipedia, and having created many failed WikiProjects to fix said criticisms. His concern trolling and arguments on why Wikipedia is biased have been lapped up by several far-right media outlets of America,"'Wikipedia Is More One-Sided Than Ever' Writes Disaffected Co-Founder Larry Sanger" by "Tyler Durden", ZeroHedge, 2021 July 5 (archived from July 5, 2021) Britain,"Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger slams the site's left wing 'woke' bias and claims its days of 'neutrality are long gone'" by Adam Schrader, Dailymail, 2021 February 21, archived on February 21, 2021) and India,‘Nobody should trust Wikipedia’, warns its co-founder Larry Sanger, says the site is taken over by leftists who reject content that doesn’t fit their agenda (16 July, 2021) OpIndia (archived from July 16, 2021).Please help voiceless Hindus Larry! We will be forever grateful! The smears, the outright lies, the anti Hindu propaganda is rife through all wiki pages on India! Our histories and our present is being erased before our eyes! Help us! We will be forever grateful! by sudeepj2 (7:28 AM - 5 Mar 2020) Twitter (archived from March 5, 2020).Sharing because I promised I would. What do you Westerners reckon? Or should we stay out of such things? by Larry Sanger (9:57 PM - 18 Jul 2021) Twitter (archived from July 19, 2021). and have provided cover for various cranks and advocates of pseudoscience, ranging from intelligent designWikipedia Co-Founder Blasts “Appallingly Biased” Wikipedia Entry on Intelligent Design by David Klinghoffer (December 12, 2017, 1:00 PM) Evolution News. to climate change denial.1/ Some 15 years ago, Wikipedia's global warming/climate change articles were neutral on the issue of AWG, as their policy requires. Today they are extremely biased. Now they go further even to delete lists of climate apostates. by Larry Sanger (11:37 AM - 7 Mar 2020) Twitter (archived from March 7, 2020). Sanger is a balance extremist, though he does draw the line against giving equal time to some "whacked-out conspiracies" like flat Earth.I'll pass. I have zero interest in investigating flat Earth stuff. There are plausible conspiracies, and then there are whacked-out conspiracies that are pure crazy speculation with no good evidence behind them, that it requires suspending all rationality to take seriously. by Larry Sanger (8:22 AM - 16 Apr 2020) Twitter (archived from April 17, 2020). As to which conspiracy theories Sanger regards as "whacked-out", he relies on either "no good evidence" (not for example refuted evidence), or "morally or epistemologically bankrupt" ideas, or argumentum ad populum. Problematically, these three criteria are arbitrary and can conflict with each other.
Sanger was also a consultant for Ballotpedia, where he allowed for Ballotpedia to call him a neutrality expert,The Ballotpedia Podcast: Episode 5 though he has not written any peer-reviewed publications on the subject.
==Neutrality==
Sanger was an early consultant for BallotpediaWhy Neutrality? by Larry Sanger (December 30, 2015) Ballotpedia. since leaving the leadership of Wikipedia in 2002, and he has become critical of Wikipedia not hewing to a strictly neutral point of view (NPOV).“Wikipedia is a broken system,” says co-founder Larry Sanger by Sophie Foggin (May 23, 2019) 150 Sec.Inside Wikipedia's leftist bias: socialism pages whitewashed, communist atrocities buried: "The days of Wikipedia's robust commitment to neutrality are long gone," co-founder Larry Sanger said. by Maxim Lott (February 18, 2021) Fox News (archived from February 18, 2021). Sanger wrote a 2015 essay on NPOV for Ballotpedia, which presumably also explains Ballotpedia's position on NPOV. Although Sanger acknowledges the existence of "false balance" (balance fallacy), his example of NPOV for global warming is rather skewed away from adequately acknowledging the balance fallacy:
Sanger wrote this in 2015, but by 2004 it was already the case that there was scientific consensusThe Scientific Consensus on Climate Change by Naomi Oreskes (2004) Science 306:1686. doi:10.1126/science.1103618. and by 2010, it had reached 97-98% agreement among climate scientists that climate change was real and anthropogenic.Expert credibility in climate change by William R. L. Anderegg et al. (2010) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107(27):12107–12109. doi:10.1073/pnas.1003187107. and has since risen to >99%.Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature by Mark Lynas et al. (2021) Environmental Research Letters 16(11):1-7. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966. Sanger was arguing that there was still a debate on the reality of climate change in 2015, when there wasn't one at all, i.e., the balance fallacy. Arguably, Sanger and subsequently Ballotpedia are NPOV extremists.
Later in the essay, Sanger argued along the lines of supporting the argumentum ad populum fallacy measles vaccination, thereby giving oxygen to Andrew Wakefield's antivax bullshit:
Sanger does not even acknowledge that the Centers for Disease Control says that the MMR vaccine is extremely safe and effective,Measles, Mumps, Rubella (MMR) Vaccine (Page last reviewed: September 9, 2020, 12:00 AM) Centers for Disease Control. or that deaths in the US from measles dropped from 503,282 pre-vaccine availability to 89 post-vaccine availability.Epidemics have happened before and they’ll happen again. What will we remember? A look back at past epidemics reveals progress in research and medicine as well as reminders of what still needs changing by Aimee Cunningham (October 27, 2021 at 12:00 pm) Science News.
Neutrality is all well and good when dealing with easily verified facts, such as who and what is on an election ballot, what responses a candidate for office has given on issues, etc. However, once one starts getting into more complex issues such as science, medicine or general politics, neutrality becomes fraught with the balance fallacy (giving equal weight to refuted or crank ideas), and argumentum ad populum.
==Nuttery==
Ironically for someone having criticising Wikipedia for its lack of credibility and expertise in the past, Sanger serves as a very good case study of conservative crank magnetism.
What Sanger consistently fails to understand in each of his "criticisms"Wikipedia Is Badly Biased by Larry Sanger (May 14, 2020).Wikipedia Is More One-Sided Than Ever (which would never have been taken seriously even if it weren't his status as cofounder) is that neutrality is not about giving equal weight to every fringe opinion and viewpoint. It means to state the complete relevant information without bias. What even is the opposite viewpoint to the facts? Lies? It is literally impossible to entertain all possible viewpoints on an issue all at once, since not everything can be neatly categorised as a "left" vs "right" debate.
Note the fact that is only one part of ; the others being "" and ""; meaning you can not present unverifiable information for which reliable sources do not exist. This makes it almost impossible to sneak topics like global warming denialism, anti-vaccination, flat-eartherism, Holocaust denial etc. onto Wikipedia pages.
===Conservatism===
He believes that the Democrats are actually left-wing parties and openly support socialism,? It’s perfectly obvious that the Democrats have moved far left, particularly in the last few years, embracing leftist things like socialism, openly, and political violence. No, it’s the same goddamned people. They hate the 1% in the abstract...and love everything they stand for by Larry Sanger (8:08 AM - 9 Sep 2020) Twitter (archived from September 9, 2020). basically straight-up admitting he has no idea what socialism actually is, just like your average conservative.
He thinks that the global cooperation in making the COVID-19 vaccine is evidence of a deep state that secretly controls the world.1/ If I were a conspiracy theorist, I might think the ongoing lockdowns, masking, and social distancing, despite almost-zero deaths, is due to a desire to demonstrate to the world how international elites can fraudulently call the shots in defiance of facts and science. by Larry Sanger (1:27 PM - 16 Aug 2020) Twitter (archived from August 16, 2020).
He finds the absence of conservative news outlets on Wikipedia very concerning, stating:
Yes, Wikipedia does ban certain websites from being used as a source. However, this is not because of their biases. Wikipedia also bans certain leftist news sources, such as Occupy Democrats. (Also, out of the six sources Sanger mentions, only the Daily Mail and The Daily Caller are actually "banned" on Wikipedia.) Wikipedia does this because all of those "news" sites simply kept making shit up, over and over again, and it was made abundantly clear that they were not driven by the need to inform but to mislead. While they may be right in certain aspects is not the point because they simply can’t be trusted to be reliable at all.
===Obamagate===
Sanger describes Barack Obama as "Wikipedia’s favorite president," indicating the fact that his article fails to mention some of his "well-known scandals." Of course, if this were the case with every article, most articles about companies would host a lengthy section detailing each of their unethical practices on their same page. Leaving aside the veracity of the allegations, Wikipedia does host detailed articles on each of the "scams" mentioned by Sanger, Specifically…
*
*The 2012 Benghazi attack
*IRS targeting controversy
*Solyndra
*Hillary Clinton email controversy
*and categorises a variety more controversies.
The 2012 Benghazi attack is actually mentioned in the main Obama article, specifically in the infoboxes and the section on the Libya intervention. 
The fact that Sanger thinks that Obamagate, a conspiracy theory, should be mentioned in his article shows how deep he has fallen.
===Trump===
Sanger believes the Wikipedia page on Donald Trump is heavily biased against him; pointing out the frequent use of the words "false" and "falsely" in the article, stating: "Wikipedia frequently asserts… that many of Trump’s statements are “false.” Well, perhaps they are. But even if they are, it is not exactly neutral for an encyclopedia article to say so…" Once again, he fails to understand Wikipedia's stating objective truth about a persona is not an indication of bias. In fact, rejection of basic facts and instead replacing it with a more "neutral"-sounding "some people believe…" would be a better indication of bias. Sanger voted for Trump in 2020."Looking forward to voting for Donald Trump tomorrow.", Twitter, 3 November 2020 Nonetheless, Sanger is pissed at Trump for his supposed vaccine pushing.Not gonna lie—Trump, still the self-described “Father of the Vaccine,” pisses me off in his intransigent vaxx-pushing. by Larry Sanger (5:29 AM - 23 Oct 2021) Twitter (archived from October 23, 2021).
===QAnon===
Sanger has had frequent flirtations with the alt-right conspiracy theory QAnon; having retweeted tweets from QAnon accounts,@lsanger by Larry Sanger, Twitter (archived from 28 Jun 2020 15:46:31 UTC).Former Wikipedia Insider (co-creator) has written a book on its downfall in context of the wider decline of access to factual information. Looks interesting! More details below. #GreatAwakeningWorldwide by @99freemind (8:05 AM - 8 Sep 2020) Twitter (archived from Septmeber 8, 2020). defending QAnon a few times,I saw a Christianity Today column attacking Qanon: https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/august-web-only/qanon-is-wolf-in-wolfs-clothing.html … I’m open to the idea (given evidence) that Qanon is itself seriously wrong, but this article gives no such evidence. This guy’s video takedown also exhibits no comprehension of Q: https://youtu.be/Esx2CH5tkxE by Larry Sanger (12:12 PM - 27 Aug 2020) Twitter (archived from August 27, 2020).In other Internet censorship news, let’s talk #Qanon: Did you know that when Cloudflare deplatformed 8chan (you should know about it because it’s important news https://heavy.com/news/2019/08/cloudflare-shutdown-8chan-new-host-bitmitigate/ …) they also deplatformed the only medium by which #Qanon communicates with the general public? by Larry Sanger, Twitter (archived from 6 Aug 2019 8:45 PM UTC). and repeating false QAnon statements.You know, the evidence that #BillClintonIsAPedo is outrageously strong at this point. Yes, I’m jumping on the bandwagon. You should too. And that’s one of the main reasons to think we don’t have an honest media class anymore. If we had one, this would be all over the news. by Larry Sanger (4:15 PM - 3 Aug 2020) Twitter (archived from August 3, 2020). More than 50% of his followers believe QAnon is true, according to a twitter poll done by Sanger.So...what do you think? by Larry Sanger (9:15 am - 7 Aug 2019) Twitter
He criticised a Christianity Today article that attacked QAnon by saying that the article gives "no such evidence" as to why QAnon is wrong. As the article he criticised itself states: "…here’s the genius of QAnon: For those already convinced, it’s unfalsifiable."QAnon Is a Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing: There’s nothing sheepish about this insidious internet demon. by Bonnie Kristian (August 26, 2020) Christianity Today.
Although he says that he is “not… a big Qanon supporter”All, if I happen to be caught up in this purge—not that I’m a big Qanon supporter, but I’m interested and I’m friends with many who are—then go to http://LarrySanger.org for future updates from me. by Larry Sanger (5:01 AM - 22 Jul 2020) Twitter (archived from July 23, 2020). and that he is “open to the idea (given evidence) that Qanon is itself seriously wrong”.
===Pro-life===
Sanger thinks that the Wikipedia article on abortion is written with a "left-liberal point of view," stating:
In this case, Sanger is absolutely correct; conservatives would obviously never inform about the medical consensus on the safety of abortion. Sanger then performs a non sequitur while ignoring how not getting an abortion would be even more psychologically taxing and lengthy.
===Queerphobia===
Sanger is upset that the Wikipedia article on LGBTQ adoption doesn't list all the reasons why homophobes think it is a bad idea. This is not surprising for a person with a history of transphobic and homophobic tweets.I'll bet they won't have any problem with this wedding dance. by Larry Sanger (1:11 PM - 5 May 2021) Twitter (archived from May 5, 2021).
Sanger believes that trans people have a "mental problem" and repeats the famous and beaten-to-death "Facts don't care about your feelings" argument saying people changing their pronouns "willy-nilly based on "how they feel inside" is "one of the cringiest pop culture fads ever" and says that it is "just an attempt to control others and force them to play a frankly pathological game with you".I would never, ever, ever subject a child to this sort of insanity, which is frankly exactly what this is. People changing their pronouns willy-nilly based on "how they feel inside" is a fad. It will be looked back on as one of the cringiest pop culture fads ever. by Larry Sanger (1:39 PM - 3 Dec 2021) Twitter (archived from December 3, 2021).
He has spread false statements about trans activists being closet pedophiles and being after your children while sourcing a Reddit post as evidence.So is this the poison pushed on trans kids—stories that encourage six-year-olds to think oral sex is normal? 🤢🤢🤮 Do you have no filters, @susankuklin? Is that what you want kids to believe and act on? by Larry Sanger (9:21 AM - 16 Nov 2021) Twitter (archived from November 16, 2021).OP calls an author a pedo. Hundreds blindly believe it and spout transphobia. (November 17, 2021) Reddit (archived from November 17, 2021). He frequently and fallaciously equates children having self-determination to them being raped,If you allow a child to determine whether he or she "transitions" without parental consent, it is a very, very small step to allowing the child to determine whether he or she will have sexual relations with adults. What's the moral difference? by Larry Sanger (9:56 AM - 20 Mar 2021) Twitter (archived from March 20, 2021).No. If you say children have the right (independent of their parents) to decide to do something as devastating as a procedure and treatment that might sterilize them and commit them to a lifelong condition, then why don't they have the right to "consent" to sex with adults? by Larry Sanger (8.41 - 26. helmik. 2021) Twitter (archived from February 26, 2021).If they can do that, why can't they declare that they love adults? "Consent?" Sure they can consent. Who are you to say they don't love who they love? Love is love! (That's a "MAP" catchphrase too.) (I hope it's clear that this is all tongue in cheek.) by Larry Sanger (8:25 AM - 2 Jul 2021) Twitter (archived from July 2, 2021). implying that any amount of freedom given to children will eventually lead to pedophilia and bestiality.
===Christian fundamentalism===
In his essay, Sanger produces a laughably poor argument as to why Wikipedia is biased:
Suddenly, the facts don’t care about your feelings crowd is very concerned about the feelings of Christians who may feel disheartened after knowing that Santa wasn’t real 😢.
Of course, some Christians believe that the Gospels are reliable. However, people who aren’t Christian (which happens to be around 70% of the entire global population) do not believe so. Hence describing their reliability as uncertain is correct.
===White genocide/Christophobia===
===Global warming denialism===
In his essay, Larry grossly misinterprets what scientific consensus is about:
This is false because citing scientific consensus is not the same as using argument from authority. If more than a hundred people say it is raining outside, but one says it’s not, an editor shouldn’t state both so that the reader can make up their mind , or pretend that there is some debate going on between the two when there isn’t.
Similarly, there is no debate between scientists as to whether global warming is real or not, or whether vaccines work or not. Pseudoscientists aren’t "scientific minorities"; a snake oil peddler shouldn’t be receiving the same amount of credibility as actual scientists. Entertaining fringe views of a sensitive issue like vaccination would not only be most likely factually incorrect, but also risk endangering lives. All this in the name of "neutrality" and representing "scientific minority viewpoints"…
When Wikipedia deleted its page on Sanger unsurprisingly jumped to call the action "indefensible" and "extremely biased". He once again fails to understand Wikipedia policies, and he also makes clear he didn't actually read the discussion about the deletion of the article. An article is never deleted because it violates the policy, as Larry assumes. Articles that violate NPOV are not deleted but rewritten from scratch. The only articles that are deleted are which do not meet guidelines. Specifically, the article was deleted for failing the criteria. Another problem with the article was that the list didn't include just climate scientists, but a mish-mash of random people who had no credentials on climate science. Of course, there is no article titled "List of scientists who agree with the consensus on global warming" because that would just be extremely long.
Sanger also denies global warming's effect on the planetInteresting how the left pulls out all the stops to fight a disease with a 99.5+% survivability rate, and a global warming disaster which has yet to appear, but not sky-high murder and addiction rates among their core constituencies. by Larry Sanger (7:15 AM - 27 Sep 2021) Twitter (archived from September 27, 2021). and calls global warming a "manufactured crisis" and a leftist "boogeyman" manufactured by "globalists".I think the globalists expect us to come together against the manufactured crises of the virus, the boogeyman of racism, and global warming. Little did they know that, yes, the "crises" will bring us together...against them. by Larry Sanger (4:54 PM - 30 Aug 2020) Twitter (archived from August 30, 2020).From the News-of-the-Insane Dept.: Biden’s climate plan would allegedly limit American per capital consumption of beef to 4 pounds per year, I.e., a bit over 5 oz. per month. This is what fascism looks like by Larry Sanger (8:38 PM · Apr 24, 2021) Twitter (archived from December 7, 2021).
===Anti-vaccine===
As seen above, Sanger also happens to be a bit of an anti-vaxxer,Hi @WHO and others: If any future Covid-19 vaccine is made mandatory in the U.S., I will not take it for that reason alone, as a n act of civil disobedience. Just don't try it. I will also go out of my way to protest in meatspace, which is something I almost never do. by Larry Sanger (10:08 PM • May 18, 2020) Twitter, reposted by @wikigamaliel at 9:40 AM - 19 May 2020 (archived from May 19, 2020). even criticising Donald Trump for promoting the vaccine.
Sanger's views on vaccines are peculiarly imbalanced, alternately fearmongering about vaccines,Just because the current totalitarianism doesn’t precisely resemble a previous variety, it hardly follows that it isn’t every bit as much totalitarianism. Depending on how damaging the vaccines and lockdowns and social turmoil turns out, this could be far more fatal than WWII. by Larry Sanger (4:02 PM - 1 Dec 2021) Twitter (archived from December 2, 2021). and threatening to block anyone who tweets him promoting vaccine mandates.I enthusiastically instablock the following categories of Twitter accounts: - defenders of vaccine mandates - leftist ideologues and drones - Satanists and some other occultists - particularly annoying crypto shills - racists - leftists LARPing as conservative racists by Larry Sanger (1:12 PM - 20 Oct 2021) Twitter (archived from October 2020, 2021).
===Alternative medicine promotion===
In his essay, Sanger complains:
Sanger fails to explain how this definition is wrong or biased in any way. In fact, it describes alternative medicine quite aptly; for if it were tested and proven effective, it wouldn’t be alternative, just medicine.
===Anti-mask===
Sanger is an anti-masker,I agree with this much: wearing a mask these days is a not just a badge of conformity, it is damaging our chances of getting through this year with our freedom in tact. In other words, the masked are acting like collaborators of our future overlords. If you can, don't do it. by Larry Sanger (August 2020) Twitter, reposted by @wikigamaliel at 7:01 AM - 14 Aug 2020 (archived from August 14, 2020). saying that it has more “potential harm” than their valuehttps://web.archive.org/web/20200705035530/https://twitter.com/lsanger/status/1279621105813200896 and was incredibly distressed and felt “miserable”https://web.archive.org/web/20200705035304/https://twitter.com/lsanger/status/1279621104924012544 when was asked to wear a mask at a bookstore, calling it a “totalitarian dystopia”.https://web.archive.org/web/20200705035127/https://twitter.com/lsanger/status/1279623262495014912 Sanger's anti-mask rhetoric has even verged into paranoid fantasies, "What happens when crazy people start hunting down the unmasked unvaxxed?"What happens when crazy people start hunting down the unmasked unvaxxed? “Better start wearing a mask...or else!” by Larry Sanger (6:44 AM - 14 May 2021) Twitter (archived from May 14, 2021).
===Coronavirus downplay===
Sanger has downplayed coronavirus in the past.- virus deaths greatly inflated - lockdown length associated with deat - any higher rates due to old folks alone - lockdowns caused excess deaths due to other causes - no scientific basis for "social distancing" We've been had, folks. Now ask why. by Larry Sanger (May 19, 2020) copied from Gab by @thewikipedian (11:19 AM - 19 May 2020) Twitter (archived from May 19, 2020).Interesting how the left pulls out all the stops to fight a disease with a 99.5+% survivability rate, and a global warming disaster which has yet to appear, but not sky-high murder and addiction rates among their core constituencies. by Larry Sanger (7:15 AM - 27 Sep 2021) Twitter (archived from September 27, 2021).
He calls the COVID-19 pandemic a leftist "boogeyman" by "globalists". He says that “the ongoing lockdowns, masking, and social distancing, despite almost-zero deaths, is due to a desire to demonstrate to the world how international elites can fraudulently call the shots in defiance of facts and science,” despite there having been a hundred thousands of deaths due to COVID-19 and several studies showing that lockdowns and masking works. Whether he thinks there is a nationwide global conspiracy to fake millions of deaths from a completely nonexistent virus or just being oblivious to the truth, we will let you decide.
===Antifa did the coup===
===George Floyd conspiracy theory===
Sanger's Twitter thread on the death of George Floyd are mainly a piling up of tangential coincidences and just asking questions, while cautioning not to spread rumors,1/ Must read. Let's demand an explanation for this from police/reporters: *Why* was it that George Floyd worked with his killer, Derek Chauvin, on the security team for the El Nuevo Rodeo club on Tuesday nights "for much of the year before" the killing? by Larry Sanger (June 2, 2020) Twitter (archived from June 3, 2020). ignoring the fact that asking inane questions about coincidences is a good way to start rumors.
He also asks his followers “what reason is there to believe these riots, and recent U.S. riots generally, are bought and paid for by George Soros?”Help me out with links: what reason is there to believe these riots, and recent U.S. riots generally, are bought and paid for by George Soros? by Larry Sanger (6:32 AM - 30 May 2020) Twitter (archived from May 30, 2020).
===Election fraud===
Sanger spreads false claims about the 2020 US presidential election.The claims that Biden has won, when poll watchers were prevented from closely observing the mail-in ballot counting (as is normal) and when there is an *amazing* amount of excelent evidence of fraud, is a shocking, devastating indictment of Democrat-run elections. by Larry Sanger (9:14 AM · Nov 7, 2020) Twitter (archived from August 13, 2021).The co-creator of the Internet's encyclopedia has been factchecked by Twitter. 2020 everybody! by @wikigamaliel (10:26 - 7. Nov. 2020) Twitter (archived from November 7, 2020).
===Views on RationalWiki===
No points for guessing what Larry thinks of us.
==Projects==
List of (mostly failed) projects by Larry Sanger.
===Infobitt===
===Citizendium===
Sanger's contempt for Wikipedia's supposed lack of expertise inspired him to found Citizendium. The main idea of CZ was that anyone who made edits had to prove they were accredited in a given area (proof of medical licence, Ph.D., Bachelor's degree, etc); of course, this severely limited the amount of people who could actually edit the wiki, or, given how personal the account request form was, how many people wanted to edit the wiki. The main problem became which areas of study Sanger recognized as valid; pseudoscientific and fringe studies like homeopathy was, but women's studies wasn't. Sanger's slight persecution complex made it so that submitted articles were locked from editing, thus creating echo chambers that no one could change. As a result, pseudoscience and woo spread across the site, and relatively little was done about it.
===Everipedia===
Another of Sanger's attempts (and failures) to make a Wikipedia offshoot.Everipedia is the Wikipedia for being wrong, the Outline. This time, the gimmick was that anytime you made an edit, you'd get a Bitcoin Dogecoin IQ token, Users with higher token counts were more or less admins with full power over the other helpless plebians. Sanger stated he was abandoning the project in 2019.
===Encyclosphere===
The current project.Introducing the Encyclosphere, Larry Sanger. Sanger describes his goal as a "totally decentralized network, like the Blogosphere—or like email, IRC, blockchains, and the World Wide Web itself." In essence, he wants to create a massive, centralized hub where people can link or upload encyclopedic articles, and search for any encyclopedia article on the Internet. So Wikipedia, with a dozen extra steps. Some proposed features include:
*article publishing without the need for review by anyone
*some kind of rating system
*a search engine
*data aggregation
It all feels a little eerily similar to both Citizendium and Everipedia. Unlike CZ, though, which created echo chambers because of excessive emphasis on accreditation, Encyclosphere is probably going to create echo chambers due to its disregard for pre-release review. One can only imagine what shit will get dumped there before anyone has the chance to proofread it.
To support Encyclosphere, Sanger has created the "Knowledge Standards Foundation", which will act as the tech support and developers for the site. Again, this Management Council, so to speak, is reminiscent of Everipedia's IQ token system and the social classes it created as a result. History repeating itself? So far, we have yet to see. It is unknown how far along the project even is; the website mainly promotes Sanger's upcoming Encyclosphere conference, and his blog has little, if any, mention of the project (as far as his posts go). The project was announced in late 2019, and for all we know it hasn't progressed. 
Time will tell the success of Encyclosphere. All we can do right now is wait.
===Minifeed===
Minifeed is Sanger’s knockoff of WordpressMinifeed -- About that may or may not be totally abandoned in favor of a revamped version of the site. It claims it has "enhanced privacy," but this is not explained anywhere on the site. The rest of the "About" page is terribly vague, and the most recent post (from December 2021) is a post noting the progress of the new version of the site. The future of the site is unknown.
===Sanger Academy===
Sanger Academy is basically knock-off Sanger also has homeschooled his kids, which might be the inspiration for the project."I'm co-founder of Wikipedia and with my new startup, Infobitt, I want to make a Wikipedia for the news. Ask me anything!" by u/LarrySanger, Reddit, /r/IAmA subreddit, 2014 December 16 (archived on December 16, 2014). It has videos on several topics, all taught by Sanger himself using PowerPoint presentations, including art, music, metaphysics, a three part series on free speech.What is free speech? - an intro for young people - Sanger Academy by Larry Sanger (Mar 3, 2016) YouTube.
==Notes==
==References==
Category:Agnostics
Category:2020 election denialists
Category:Alternative medicine promoters
Category:Anti-abortion activists
Category:Anti-vaccination movement
Category:Citizendium
Category:Conspiracy theorists
Category:COVID-19 denialists
Category:Crank magnetism
Category:Educators
Category:Global warming denialists
Category:Homophobes
Category:Internet kooks
Category:Libertarians
Category:Living people
Category:Philosophers
Category:Pissed at us
Category:Pseudoscience promoters
Category:QAnon
Category:Right-wing activists
Category:Transphobes
Category:Trolls
Category:Wikipedians