Larry Sanger, a co-founder of Wikipedia, was banned from the site indefinitely on Monday for promoting an initiative that, among other things, aims to prevent the site from being biased against “currently disfavored views and groups,” including Jewish and pro-Israel views, he told JNS.
“Wikipedia has become more of a mob-rule anarchy than ever,” Sanger said. “In the kangaroo court in which a mob ousted me, Wikipedia’s administrators showed that they are above trivial details like formal charges, a designated prosecutor, basic decorum, distinction between prosecution and judge, dispassionate adjudication and so forth.”
“They have no proper system other than triggering a mob to selectively enforce their hodgepodge of vague rules,” he told JNS. “That same mob has blocked me for trying to bring an intellectually diverse group of thinkers and editors to the site.”
Sanger submitted an application on Friday for community approval on his proposed “WikiProject Intellectual Diversity” for contributors who believe in helping “reinforce Wikipedia’s original, firm commitment to intellectual diversity.”
The crowdsourced online encyclopedia defines a “WikiProject” as being a “group of contributors who want to work together as a team to improve Wikipedia” focused on specific topic areas.
The initiative had a series of goals, including making Wikipedia’s decision-making processes more transparent, expanding the number of usable sources and reinforcing “genuine neutrality.”
“We did not want to push Wikipedia to be pro-anything, just not exclusively pro-GASP,” he said, referring to a “globalist, academic, secular and progressive” point of view.
Sanger also told JNS that he aimed to ensure that the site is “not biased against currently disfavored views and groups,” including some Hindus, Christians, Jews, Zionists and those who are politically conservative.
“It is ridiculous that after Oct. 7, antisemitism became open and even mandatory on Wikipedia,” he told JNS. “I have my criticisms of Israel, but you don’t report one side and call yourself neutral.”
“Titling an article ‘Gaza genocide’ and burying any mention of the Israeli perspective deep in the article is not neutral,” Sanger said. “Nor is it neutral to title an article ‘Yahweh’ and say that this was the chief god of an ancient Near East pantheon, in Wikipedia’s own voice, with no mention of Christian or Jewish perspectives, when we worship Yahweh.” (The Tetragrammaton is a Hebrew divine name that appears in the Torah.)
‘Absurd and bizarre’
After Sanger posted on social media that Wikipedians were deliberating on his initiative and shared a link to the discussion, he was reported to the “administrators’ noticeboard-incidents” forum, where editors accused his post of being “canvassing.” Wikipedia defines that as being a “notification done with the intention of influencing the outcome of a discussion in a particular way.”
Editors also accused Sanger of canvassing after he said in an interview on an Indian podcast that those who want to challenge what he sees as an anti-Hindu bias on Wikipedia should join the site and his WikiProject and “learn how to play the game.”
A member of Wikipedia’s arbitration committee, the site’s take on a high court, “closed” the discussion and implemented the ban. The arbiter stated that “there is general agreement among participants that he has engaged in off-wiki canvassing and is not here to constructively build the encyclopedia.”
“There is also a significant concern shared by many editors that his actions constitute calls for outing,” the committee member stated. That refers to Wikipedia’s policy against “posting another editor’s personal information,” or doxxing.
Sanger denied those allegations and told JNS that he tried to recruit members for his proposed initiative on social media, which he said is allowed under the site’s policy, and that he updated his social media followers on its status.
He did not tell his followers to “take my side or even to weigh in,” Sanger told JNS. “Moreover, there is no rule against saying, ‘There is a discussion of such-and-such going on, and I’m involved’ on social media.”
The Wikipedia co-founder also said it was “absurd and bizarre to say that, in my reform work, I was not trying to build and improve Wikipedia” and that it is a “harmful lie” to accuse him of “outing.”
Sanger referred JNS to a comment he made on Wikipedia talk pages in which he said he believes certain, high-ranking Wikipedians should be required to disclose their real-life identities, but doesn’t think any editors should be doxxed.
Shlomit Lir, a researcher at the University of Haifa who specializes in Wikipedia, is a member of Sanger’s proposed initiative. She told JNS that she was drawn to the initiative because it “engages with the same questions I have been working on.”
Lir thinks that Wikipedia’s banning of Sanger is “deeply alarming.”
“Even if one thinks his wording or tactics were imperfect, treating such public advocacy as grounds for an indefinite block is a profound overreaction,” she said. “His permanent blocking can be read symbolically as an act of patricide, highlighting the urgent need for reform.”
