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Bramlet, it's disputed by a relevant party. I don't care if his arguments "convince anyone". That's not relevant. You're inference as to who knew what when are not relevant.
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|occupation= Editor-in-Chief of [[Citizendium]]
|occupation= Editor-in-Chief of [[Citizendium]]
|website=[http://larrysanger.org/ Larry Sanger]
|website=[http://larrysanger.org/ Larry Sanger]
}} '''Lawrence Mark "Larry" Sanger''' (born [[July 16]], [[1968]]) has been involved with various online encyclopedia projects. He was Editor-in-Chief of [[Nupedia]], co-founder and first paid editor of its successor, [[Wikipedia]],<ref name="Larry_Sanger_Springs_Citizendium">{{cite news
}} '''Lawrence Mark "Larry" Sanger''' (born [[July 16]], [[1968]]) has been involved with various online encyclopedia projects. He served as Editor-in-Chief of [[Nupedia]], played a key role in starting its successor, [[Wikipedia]], and most recently founded [[Citizendium]].<ref name="sole-founder">{{cite news
|first=Brian
|last=Bergstein
|title=Sanger says he co-started Wikipedia
|url=http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WIKIPEDIA_FOUNDERS?SITE=NCASH&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
|publisher= [[Associated Press]]
|date=March 25, 2007
|accessdate=2007-03-26
|quote =<small>The nascent Web encyclopedia Citizendium springs from Larry Sanger, a philosophy Ph.D. who counts himself as a co-founder of Wikipedia, the site he now hopes to usurp. The claim doesn't seem particularly controversial - Sanger has long been cited as a co-founder. Yet the other founder, Jimmy Wales, isn't happy about it.<small/>}}<small> — Brian Bergstein.</small></ref><ref name="SangerLinks"/><ref name="boston20060212"/> and the founder of [[Citizendium]].<ref name="sole-founder">{{cite news
|first=Brian
|first=Brian
|last=Bergstein
|last=Bergstein

Revision as of 00:57, 1 April 2007

Lawrence Mark Sanger
Larry Sanger
BornJuly 16, 1968
United States Bellevue, Washington, USA
OccupationEditor-in-Chief of Citizendium
WebsiteLarry Sanger

Lawrence Mark "Larry" Sanger (born July 16, 1968) has been involved with various online encyclopedia projects. He served as Editor-in-Chief of Nupedia, played a key role in starting its successor, Wikipedia, and most recently founded Citizendium.[1] After his resignation from Wikipedia in 2002, he was also an early strategist for the expert-authored and edited Encyclopedia of Earth. He proposed Citizendium on September 15, 2006, originally designed as a fork of Wikipedia.[2] It was launched on March 25, 2007.[1]

Sanger was born in Bellevue, Washington, and reared in Anchorage, Alaska. He received his B.A. in philosophy from Reed College in 1991 and Ph.D. in philosophy from Ohio State University in 2000. His bachelor thesis is titled Descartes' methods and their theoretical background and his doctoral thesis concerned Epistemic Circularity: An Essay on the Problem of Meta-Justification. From 1998 to 2000 he ran a website called "Sanger's Review of Y2K News Reports" (formerly at sangersreview.com[3]), a resource for Y2K watchers.

Nupedia and Wikipedia

Sanger was employed by Jimmy Wales' Bomis company as Editor-in-Chief of Nupedia. Responding to frustrations with the slow progress of Nupedia, in January 2001 Sanger proposed the creation of a wiki to spur the development of articles,[4] and the result of this proposal was Wikipedia.[5] By virtue of his position with Nupedia, Sanger spearheaded and named the project, and formulated much of the original policy. Sanger was the only paid editor of Wikipedia, a status he held from January 15 2001, until March 1 2002. Sanger worked on and promoted both the Nupedia and Wikipedia projects until Bomis discontinued funding for his position in February 2002; Sanger resigned as editor-in-chief of Nupedia and as "chief organizer" of Wikipedia (he never claimed an official title) on March 1.[6] Sanger's stated reason for ending his participation in Wikipedia and Nupedia as a volunteer was that he could not do justice to the task as a part-time volunteer. Nupedia shut down the following year.

Later, in December 2004, Sanger wrote a critical article for the website Kuro5hin, in which he admitted that there had existed "a certain poisonous social or political atmosphere in the project" that had also accounted for his departure.[7] While claiming "to appreciate the merits of Wikipedia fully" and to know and support "the mission and broad policy outlines of Wikipedia very well", Sanger maintained that there are serious problems with the project. There was, he wrote, a lack of public perception of credibility, and the project put "difficult people, trolls, and their enablers" into too much prominence; these problems, he maintained, were a feature of the project's "anti-elitism, or lack of respect for expertise". The article was the subject of much controversy in the blogosphere, and led to some reaction in the news media as well.[8][9]

Jimmy Wales, who is the current Wikimedia Foundation Chairman Emeritus, has publicly disputed since 2004 that Sanger is a co-founder[10] of Wikipedia. Wales described Sanger as having been merely a subordinate employee,[11] and stated of the co-founder claim "I know of no one who was there at the company at the beginning who would think it anything other than laughable".[12] Sanger concedes that it was Wales alone who conceived of an encyclopedia that non-experts could contribute to, i.e., the Nupedia.[13] However, Sanger maintains that it was he who brought the wiki concept to Wales and suggested it be applied to Nupedia and that, after some initial skepticism, Wales agreed to try it. (Wales has claimed that one Jeremy Rosenfeld first suggested the idea of a wiki to him, though he claimed earlier, in October 2001, that "Larry had the idea to use Wiki software."[4]) Sanger also maintains that he "came up with the name 'Wikipedia', a silly name for what was at first a very silly project."[13] In response to Wales' view of his role in Wikipedia, Sanger posted on his personal webpage a collection of links which he claimed confirmed his co-founder role.[14] Sanger has also provided evidence that he is the co-founder of Wikipedia, by referencing earlier versions of Wikipedia pages,[15][16][17][18] citing press releases from Wikipedia in the years of 2002 - 2004,[19][20][21] and asserting that early media coverage articles[22][23] stated Wales and Sanger are the co-founders.[11][14] In review, Larry Sanger conceived of the wiki-based encyclopedia as a strategic solution to Nupedia's inefficiency problems, and spearheaded and pursued the project as its leader in its first year.[13] Further, Sanger has been widely described in the media as a co-founder.[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]

After Wikipedia

Sanger returned to the academic world as a lecturer at Ohio State University, where he taught philosophy until June 2005. His professional interests are epistemology (in particular), early modern philosophy, and ethics. In his spare time, he plays and teaches Irish traditional music on the fiddle in Columbus and Dayton, Ohio, and also manages a site about the Donegal fiddle tradition.

In December 2005, Digital Universe Foundation announced that Sanger had been hired as Director of Distributed Content Programs,[32] where he would lead the Digital Universe Encyclopedia content resource of the larger web project launched in early 2006.[33] Unlike Wikipedia, the Digital Universe encyclopedia plans to bring in recognized experts to certify the accuracy of user-submitted articles as well as to write articles themselves. The first step in this effort is the Encyclopedia of Earth.

In April 2006, Sanger published "Text and Collaboration: A personal manifesto for the Text Outline Project" arguing for the importance of what he called "strong collaboration" (that is, collaboration in which people work on the parts they're interested and nobody gets to claim control), the possibility that strong collaboration could be more effective with a less anarchistic set of ground rules than Wikipedia, and the creation of a new Text Outline Project to create The Book of the World, featuring summaries of the arguments of the great philosophers, organized by topic and time, along with summaries of their debates.[34]

At the Wizards of OS conference in September 2006, Sanger announced a fork of Wikipedia, named Citizendium. The objectives of the fork are to address various perceived flaws in the Wikipedia system. The main differences will be no anonymous editing - every author/editor will have to be identified by his/her real name, no "top-down" hierarchy of editors, and to aspire to be a "real encyclopedia." More differences are discussed in the FAQ. The initial fork will be only of the English language Wikipedia.

Sanger took a "leave of absence" from Digital Universe, announced on 27 September 2006, "in order to set up a fully independent Citizendium Foundation".[35]

Citizendium launched

On March 25, 2007, Citizendium ended its pilot phase and went live, into its beta phase, and the site became publicly readable.[36] The launch coincided with a feature-length Associated Press article that ran widely, with a title in USA Today of "Citizendium aims to be better Wikipedia".[1] Unlike Wales, who has compared his role in Wikipedia with that of a British monarch,[37] Sanger said he would not head Citizendium indefinitely, and has already announced his planning to step off the leadership team in two or three years.[38]

See also

Citizendium versus Wikipedia

References

  1. ^ a b c Bergstein, Brian (March 25, 2007). "Citizendium aims to be better Wikipedia". Associated Press. Retrieved 2007-03-26. This week, Sanger takes the wraps off a Wikipedia alternative, Citizendium. His goal is to capture Wikipedia's bustle but this time, avoid the vandalism and inconsistency that are its pitfalls. — Brian Bergstein.
  2. ^ Larry Sanger. "Citizendium launch plan as of September 26", Citizendium-l mail list, September 27, 2006.
  3. ^ Sanger's Review of Y2K News Reports Retrieved on March 28, 2007.
  4. ^ a b Jimmy Wales (2001-10-30). "LinkBacks?". wikipedia-l archives. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ Poe, Marshall (September, 2006). "The Hive". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2007-03-31. Wales and Sanger created the first Nupedia wiki on January 10, 2001. The initial purpose was to get the public to add entries that would then be "fed into the Nupedia process" of authorization. Most of Nupedia's expert volunteers, however, wanted nothing to do with this, so Sanger decided to launch a separate site called "Wikipedia." Neither Sanger nor Wales looked on Wikipedia as anything more than a lark. This is evident in Sanger's flip announcement of Wikipedia to the Nupedia discussion list. "Humor me," he wrote. "Go there and add a little article. It will take all of five or ten minutes." And, to Sanger's surprise, go they did. Within a few days, Wikipedia outstripped Nupedia in terms of quantity, if not quality, and a small community developed. In late January, Sanger created a Wikipedia discussion list (Wikipedia-L) to facilitate discussion of the project. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help) — Marshall Poe.
  6. ^ My resignation — Larry Sanger, March 1 2002
  7. ^ Larry Sanger (Dec 31, 2004). "Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism". Kuro5hin. Retrieved 2007-03-19.
  8. ^ H. Pink, Daniel (March, 2005). "The Book Stops Here". Wired News. Retrieved 2007-03-31. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. ^ Terdiman, Daniel (January 6, 2006). "Wikipedia's co-founder eyes a Digital Universe". CNET. Retrieved 2007-03-31.
  10. ^ Mitchell, Dan (December 24, 2005). "Insider Editing at Wikipedia". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-03-26. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |quotes= (help)
  11. ^ a b Bergstein, Brian (March 25, 2007). "Sanger says he co-started Wikipedia". Associated Press. Retrieved 2007-03-26.
  12. ^ Two who were there dispute founding of online encyclopedia - The Boston Globe
  13. ^ a b c The Early History of Nupedia and Wikipedia: A Memoir Part 1 and Part 2 from Slashdot, Retrieved on March 29, 2007."The actual development of this encyclopedia was the task he gave me to work on. So I arrived in San Diego in early February, 2000, to get to work. One of the first things I asked Jimmy is how free a rein I had in designing the project. What were my constraints, and in what areas was I free to exercise my own creativity? He replied, as I clearly recall, that most of the decisions should be mine; and in most respects, as a manager, Jimmy was indeed very hands-off. Nevertheless, I always did consult with him about important decisions, and moreover, I wanted his advice. Now, Jimmy was quite clear that he wanted the project to be in principle open to everyone to develop, just as open source software is (to an extent). Beyond this, however, I believe I was given a pretty free rein. So I spent the first month or so thinking very broadly about different possibilities." — Larry Sanger.
  14. ^ An Earlier Version of the "Wikipedia" Article.
  15. ^ An Earlier Version of the "History of Wikipedia" Article.
  16. ^ An Earlier Version of the "Larry Sanger" Article.
  17. ^ An Earlier Version of the "Jimmy Wales" Article.
  18. ^ Wikipedia press release from January 2002, describing Sanger and Wales as "co-founders"
  19. ^ Wikipedia press release from January 2003, stating Sanger and Wales founded the site
  20. ^ Wikipedia press release from February 2004 describes Sanger as a founder
  21. ^ Peter Meyers (2001-09-20). "Fact-Driven? Collegial? This Site Wants You". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-03-30. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)"It's kind of surprising that you could just open up a site and let people work," said Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's co-founder and the chief executive of Bomis, a San Diego search engine company that donates the computer resources for the project. "There's kind of this real social pressure to not argue about things." Instead, he said, "there's a general consensus among all of the really busy volunteers about what an encyclopedia article needs to be like."
  22. ^ Kendra Mayfield (2003-01-28). "Not Your Father's Encyclopedia". Wired News. Retrieved 2007-03-30. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  23. ^ David Mehegan (February 12, 2006). "Bias, sabotage haunt Wikipedia's free world". Boston Globe. Retrieved 2007-03-26.
  24. ^ Larry Sanger (January 10, 2001). "Let's make a wiki" (Email). Nupedia-l mailing list. Retrieved 2007-03-19.
  25. ^ Ben Hammersley (January 30, 2003). "Common knowledge". The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-03-19.
  26. ^ Press Release, Kintera Inc. (January 10, 2007). "Kintera Announces Larry Sanger, Co-Founder of Wikipedia, as Keynote Speaker for Annual User Conference". Yahoo. Retrieved 2007-03-19.
  27. ^ Stefanie Olsen (October 16, 2006). "Wikipedia co-founder plans 'expert' rival". news.com. Retrieved 2007-03-19.
  28. ^ Jay Lyman, LinuxInsider (September 20, 2006). "Wikipedia Co-Founder Planning New Expert-Authored Site". Retrieved 2007-03-19.
  29. ^ Steve Tally (March 20, 2006). "Wikipedia co-founder to speak on campus". Purdue University News Service. Retrieved 2007-03-19.
  30. ^ Natali T. Del Conte (October 20, 2006). "Wikipedia Co-Founder Starting Rival Online 'Encyclopedia Project'". Fox News. Retrieved 2007-03-19.
  31. ^ "Lawrence Sanger, Ph. D., Director of Distributed Content Programs". Digital Universe. Retrieved 2007-03-19.
  32. ^ "Digital Universe Seeks to Become Free 'PBS of the Web'". Rress Release, Digital Universe. January 17, 2006 accessdate = 2007-03-19. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Missing pipe in: |date= (help)
  33. ^ Larry Sanger (April, 2006). "Text and Collaboration: A personal manifesto for the Text Outline Project". textop.org. Retrieved 2007-03-19. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  34. ^ Larry Sanger (Sepember 27, 2006). Citizendium-l "Citizendium launch plan as of September 26". Citizendium-l mailing list. Retrieved 2007-03-19. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help); Check date values in: |date= (help)
  35. ^ Larry Sanger. "We have launched", Citizendium blog, March 25, 2007
  36. ^ McNicho, Tom (February 27, 2007). "Wikipedia founder hunts for gold". Business 2.0. CNN. Retrieved 2007-03-26. "I'm sort of like a British monarch," Wales said, while smiling.
  37. ^ Anderson, Nate (February 25, 2007). "Citizendium: building a better Wikipedia". ars technica. Retrieved 2007-03-26. Citizendium currently has over 500 participants, most of whom have been individually screened. Growth has been sometimes erratic; Sanger says that the site gained 50-75 contributors on a single day after being featured on Slashdot. Edits have now topped 500 per day, which Sanger says compares favorably with the earliest days of Wikipedia.

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