Larry Sanger has proposed a reform of the entire online encyclopedia system, but apparently he did it the wrong way.
On Wikipedia, no one is above the law of Wikipedia, not even one of its co-founders. Larry Sanger was banned after starting the WikiProject Intellectual Diversity, a project he described as an attempt to promote greater impartiality and editorial balance. At the heart of this project are the “Nine Theses,” which are proposals for reforming Wikipedia. Among these: allowing “contrasting” articles on the same topic, eliminating the blacklist of sources deemed unreliable, increasing oversight on the checks and decision-making process that leads to approving and modifying Wikipedia entries. He also encouraged, Sanger, greater participation from groups he considers underrepresented in the editorial process. Among the groups he believes are underrepresented would also be conservatives, Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Zionists.
Wikipedia editors explained the ban with the accusation of canvassing. Sanger posted on his social media profiles a link to the ongoing discussion on Wikipedia regarding his reform proposal. Users reported this post to the administrators of the online encyclopedia, claiming that Sanger’s post was actually a way to influence the discussion (canvassing, indeed) by involving outside individuals who cannot or should not participate. Wikipedia administrators upheld the accusation. Sanger denied and rejected these accusations, describing the Wikipedia community as “a crowd, a shapeless mass” that operates in pursuit of consensus without caring about having useful and sensible rules. Sanger stated that he refuses to be judged by a “faceless crowd,” in what he considers a caricature of a process in which all basic legal guarantees are denied to him. As reported and stated by News Radio 570 WWNC, what Sanger contests is primarily the source evaluation system: Wikipedia classifies CNN, New York Times, NBC, and BBC (among others) as “generally reliable,” while Fox News and Newsmax are marked as “generally unreliable.” Sanger argues that the system is unfair because some liberal outlets classified as reliable are as biased as those on the right, and that “sometimes facts appear or are reported only in sources currently not allowed on Wikipedia,” thus compromising the site’s neutrality.
But the matter is not just an internal editorial dispute. The House Oversight Committee of the United States (the main investigative body of Congress) has launched an investigation into allegations of bias and manipulation on Wikipedia. The platform is the seventh most visited website in the world, the primary source consulted in searches by millions of people, and operates with a governance system that has no precise equivalent: neither democratic nor editorial nor corporate, but a combination of the three. The ban of one of its founders by anonymous editors is, at least formally, consistent with that system. Whether the system is fair, however, is a highly debatable matter. At least according to Sanger.
