Larry Sanger

Lawrence "Larry" Mark Sanger (Bellevue, Washington, July 16, 1968) is an American philosopher, best known for being the co-founder of Wikipedia, along with Jimmy Wales, and for having helped organize it. as a free, open and collaborative community, developing several of the most important policies of the encyclopedia. He in turn is the creator of Citizendium.

Born in Bellevue (Washington) on July 16, 1968, when he was seven years old his family moved to the city of Anchorage (Alaska), where he spent his childhood and adolescence.

After completing his high school education in 1986, he earned a BA in philosophy from Reed College in Portland, Oregon. In college she became interested in the Internet and his publishing skills. Created a listserv as a means for students and tutors to come together for "expert tutoring" and "to act as a forum for discussion of tutorials, tutorial methods, and the possibility and merits of a free and voluntary network of individual tutors and students." found via the Internet for education outside of the traditional university environment. She started and moderated a philosophy discussion list, the Association for Systematic Philosophy.

The history of philosophy is full of disagreements and confusion. A reaction of philosophers to this state of affairs is to doubt whether the truth about philosophy can ever be known, or whether there is such a thing as the truth of philosophy. But there is another reaction: one can begin to think more carefully and methodically than one's intellectual ancestors.

Larry Sanger, in a manifesto (1994) for the discussion group

Sanger received his Bachelor of Philosophy from Reed College in 1991, a Master of Arts from Ohio State University in 1995, and a Ph.D. from Ohio State University in 2000.

Starting in 1998, he ran a website called "Sanger's Review of Y2K News Reporting," a resource for those concerned with the Y2K problem (such as computer system administrators).

Nupedia and Wikipedia

Sanger worked as editor-in-chief of Nupedia for the company Bomis, owned by Jimmy Wales, which failed after six years. Because of his disappointment with the slow progress of Nupedia, in January 2001 he proposed creating a wiki to streamline the creation of articles. As a result of this, Wikipedia will emerge, whose name was devised by Sanger, with the purpose of providing universal knowledge to humanity and with this avoiding disputes regarding definitions and others, in the search for harmony and world peace. In this way he would be the only paid editor of the encyclopedia, a status he held from February 15, 2001 until the day he renounced any relationship with Wikipedia, on March 1, 2002.

Sanger claims to be the co-founder of Wikipedia along with Jimmy Wales, who since 2005 has rejected this consideration on several occasions, proclaiming himself the sole founder of the encyclopedia, although before that date he did recognize him as a co-founder. Wales argues that while Sanger's role was important, he was still an employee under his direction, to which Sanger has responded on occasion by stating that while he was organizing Wikipedia, Wales focused primarily on Bomis.

Wikipedia co-founder Sanger is Wikipedia's most outspoken critic: "People who I would say are trolls took over. The prisoners began to run the asylum."

After leaving Wikipedia, he returned to Ohio State University, where he earned his Ph.D. in philosophy. In September 2006, Sanger announced the creation of a fork of Wikipedia, called Citizendium, which would use real names and would be written by experts in each subject.

Larry Sanger denounces leftist bias on Wikipedia

On various occasions and before different media, the philosopher Larry Sanger has denounced a left-wing bias on the Wikipedia platform, stating that: "The appropriate word here is: 'propaganda', when it is systematic" In addition to calling for no more use of Wikipedia, Sanger has pointed out that: "What many of our current media outlets, Wikipedia included, seem to assume is that there is only one legitimate and defensible version of the truth on any controversial issue.. Of course, Wikipedia was not like that before." He also recalled the co-founder of Wikipedia: «One obstacle we ran into was how to keep bad actors at bay so they wouldn't ruin the project for the general public. Unfortunately, we were not able to find a solution for that problem.”