Larry Sanger says

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Thu Feb 14, 2013 6:57 am

Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger on his next revolution

Larry Sanger helped launch a revolution when he cofounded Wikipedia in 2001. Now he may be ready to start another.

Vigilant · Unread post by **Vigilant** » Sat Feb 16, 2013 7:40 pm

Perhaps it's a way for home schoolers to get together.

The Devil's Advocate · Unread post by **The Devil's Advocate** » Sat Feb 16, 2013 8:03 pm

Seems it is going to be a for-profit venture. From the comment about him having done it before I wonder if it will be more akin to Nupedia, only with some crowdsourcing element.

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sat Feb 24, 2018 9:00 pm

High: Larry, in 2001 you co-founded Wikipedia. As of a few months ago, you joined Everipedia as the Chief Information Officer. Could you share your thoughts about the differences between the two businesses?

Larry Sanger: The co-founders of the company contacted me and told me that Everipedia was moving to blockchain, which is a major difference in its own right. This shift to the blockchain got me interested because the blockchain enables something that I have been wanting to do for a long time.

Forbes magazine

Bezdomni · Unread post by **Bezdomni** » Sat Feb 24, 2018 10:08 pm

Larry Sanger wrote:

For those who have not studied blockchain, I recommend doing so, it will blow your mind, it blew mine.

I have become a true believer.

Oh-oh.

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sun Feb 25, 2018 10:35 am

I don't believe for a second that Dr Sanger is a fool. But he has to find a plausible reason why Everipedia is better than Wikipedia.

dogbiscuit · Unread post by **dogbiscuit** » Mon Feb 26, 2018 11:58 am

I've had a couple of "Blockchain is the promised land!" conversations. All the plus points that people sell seem to be functions that can be provided on any other platform - and several of its "solutions" miss the point - e.g. bitcoins can still be stolen even with its supposed bullet proof audit trail.

It feels like relational database conversations of the 1980s, surprised nobody has come up with the 10 Rules of Blockchain.

Randy from Boise · Unread post by **Randy from Boise** » Mon Feb 26, 2018 3:57 pm

Poetlister wrote:I don't believe for a second that Dr Sanger is a fool. But he has to find a plausible reason why Everipedia is better than Wikipedia.

It has ready cash to pay its editor-in-chief?

RfB

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Mon Feb 26, 2018 4:20 pm

Randy from Boise wrote:
Poetlister wrote:I don't believe for a second that Dr Sanger is a fool. But he has to find a plausible reason why Everipedia is better than Wikipedia.
It has ready cash to pay its editor-in-chief?

RfB

Do you think it has more money than the WMF?

Randy from Boise · Unread post by **Randy from Boise** » Mon Feb 26, 2018 4:38 pm

Poetlister wrote:
Randy from Boise wrote:
Poetlister wrote:I don't believe for a second that Dr Sanger is a fool. But he has to find a plausible reason why Everipedia is better than Wikipedia.
It has ready cash to pay its editor-in-chief?

RfB
Do you think it has more money than the WMF?

I think it has more money that will be put into checks for him.

RfB

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sat Apr 21, 2018 9:24 pm

An essay by Larry.

The Next Web

Mason · Unread post by **Mason** » Sat Apr 21, 2018 10:33 pm

Larry Sanger wrote:Why does Wikipedia have just one article on each topic? With the massive amount of traffic it gets today, in 2018, surely there could be many competing articles. There could be competition. Are Wikipedians afraid of competition?

I remain unconvinced that having two "pizzagate" articles is an improvement.

AndyTheGrump · Unread post by **AndyTheGrump** » Sun Apr 22, 2018 12:50 am

Poetlister wrote:An essay by Larry.

The Next Web

I’ve been offered many jobs in the centers of power, which I’ve turned down.

Citation needed.

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sun Apr 22, 2018 7:38 am

Mason wrote:
Larry Sanger wrote:Why does Wikipedia have just one article on each topic? With the massive amount of traffic it gets today, in 2018, surely there could be many competing articles. There could be competition. Are Wikipedians afraid of competition?
I remain unconvinced that having two "pizzagate" articles is an improvement.

It's certainly not encyclopaedic. Which serious reference work has multiple competing articles on the same topic? It does sometimes happen on Wikipedia that you have an article on A and another on "Criticisms of A", but that's usually due to POV/COI machinations.

Casliber · Unread post by **Casliber** » Mon Apr 23, 2018 10:14 am

Mason wrote:
Larry Sanger wrote:Why does Wikipedia have just one article on each topic? With the massive amount of traffic it gets today, in 2018, surely there could be many competing articles. There could be competition. Are Wikipedians afraid of competition?
I remain unconvinced that having two "pizzagate" articles is an improvement.

One could really go to town with any subject area with differing points of view..such as ALL politicians...and various conflicts around the globe...two (or more) parallel 'pedias with thousands of pages..

Bezdomni · Unread post by **Bezdomni** » Tue May 15, 2018 10:17 pm

Larry Sanger wrote:Only 12,000 people have done enough work (and that’s not much) to be able to cast a vote on the English Wikipedia’s administrators.

I wonder how many of them are not named Kumioko, Smee lgova~enwiki OnWheels, or Bishzilla (T-C-L) s-k-w-e-a-k-! ?

And to think Bongwarrior (T-C-L) alone has already blocked 16,683 ...

Drmies has only blocked 11,384 and counting
Zzuzz: 26,262 ...
Bbb23: 25,381 ...

Kumioko · Unread post by **Kumioko** » Wed May 16, 2018 1:07 am

I would question that 12, 000 number.

I mean there are 1200+ admins, so that's 1/10th. Another couple hundred employees of the WMF, etc.

I mean I agree that the community is pretty small and dropping but that's a pessimistic number even by my standards.

iii · Unread post by **iii** » Wed May 16, 2018 3:53 am

Sanger's brilliant insight was to open the wiki up to the internet at large. This and this alone made Wikipedia. But it also brought with it the attendant problems.

This essay doesn't offer a comparable breakthrough. Blockchains are more-or-less cryptographically managed version control systems. Wikipedia could implement such in a heartbeat if it so wanted, but no one would know the difference.

The idea that people will disrupt the Wikipedia monopoly because they'll be excited about voting for the best articles is about as compelling as the idea floating around in the original flavor Web 2.0 that crowdsourcing would solve all ills. Maybe you all don't remember this, but Wikipedia used to have a nascent rating system. It was scrapped for reasons I'll let you discover on your own. (But I bet you can guess!)

I notice too that Sanger is slipping into some right wing political gamesmanship. He all but accused SJWs of ruining his encyclopedia. Small wonder that everipedia carries with it some of the alt right tinge? Be careful, Larry.

Bezdomni · Unread post by **Bezdomni** » Wed May 16, 2018 9:54 pm

iii wrote:Sanger's brilliant insight was to open the wiki up to the internet at large. This and this alone made Wikipedia. But it also brought with it the attendant problems.

This essay doesn't offer a comparable breakthrough. Blockchains are more-or-less cryptographically managed version control systems. Wikipedia could implement such in a heartbeat if it so wanted, but no one would know the difference.

The idea that people will disrupt the Wikipedia monopoly because they'll be excited about voting for the best articles [...]

FWIW: I thought the argument was that people would disrupt the WP monopoly because nobody likes the way the geeky markdown has been infested with templates for everything from kerning to conversions to pamphleteering. Fewer bells & whistles might be a welcome thing for less enterprising authors. I didn't see how you could reference a print book without linking a file, though.

Coming back to blockchain, I think what he likes most is the decentralization (of incentive?). One single corporation, blessèd though it may be by its relatively small canon of believers, should probably not be in a position to co-opt the volunteer "knowledge as a service" economy heap.

If the Wikispooks bubble gets rated against the Wikipedia bubble on, say, Lockerbie, if GG wiki or conservapedia is pitted against WP on Wikipedia Criticism, or if the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ( § ) were stacked against the CTLF ( § ) on Pāṇini... would Google even notice?

iii wrote:Sanger is slipping into some right wing political gamesmanship. He all but accused SJWs of ruining his encyclopedia. Small wonder that everipedia carries with it some of the alt right tinge? Be careful, Larry.

I read him talking about "page-owners" barking at passersby. Is that what you're referring to? In his defense, he does say at one point that his encylopedia is of no more use than yours, theirs, pers, etc. alone. (I'm paraphrasing.)

Looking more carefully at what he says about Metadata: Organizations in the 2019 plan, the idea does seem to be to let people organize themselves without having the volunteers of some central gate-keeping corporation getting all fussy-feathered over their loss of grallatorial control.

Heh. I've been wanting to use that word ever since reading up on the etymology of "progressives".

Also... his "wonkological" parenthesis about bubbles makes me wonder if he hasn't been reading Sloterdijk ( § ). How they're going to manage to make rating sources, articles, bubbles & reading communities fun & engaging is another question entirely.

But yes, saying that "fake news" is already a largely solved problem *is* some pretty quirky upstream swimming.

In 8000 words, the only energy source mentioned is the technical team: "It is no accident that it is being developed by an energetic technical team, with significant funding and enthusiastic support by the blockchain community. " In other words, I'd like to see the green paper.

AndyTheGrump · Unread post by **AndyTheGrump** » Wed May 16, 2018 10:29 pm

Yeah, Sanger does a nice job of explaining how there will be 'incentives' for contributing without actually telling us where the dosh is coming from. Which is par for the course for anything involving blockchain-magic-beans, needless to say...

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sat Feb 23, 2019 9:52 pm

The problem about social media is that it is centralized. Centralization empowers massive corporations and governments to steal our privacy and restrict our speech and autonomy. What should exist are neutral, technical standards and protocols, like the standards and protocols for blogs, email, and the Web. Indeed, many proposed standards already do exist, but none has emerged as a common, dominant standard. Blockchain technology — the technology of decentralization — is perfect for this, but not strictly necessary. Common protocols would enable us to follow public feeds no matter where they are published. We would eventually have our pick of many different apps to view these feeds. We would choose our own terms, not Facebook’s or Twitter’s, for both publishing and reading.

thenextweb.com

Ming · Unread post by **Ming** » Tue Feb 26, 2019 1:54 pm

Facebook's privacy issues are a problem, but they are hardly the largest issue with social media. The biggest problem, it turns out, is that computer-abetted social interaction has on the one hand enabled flaming, and on the other encouraged the dissemination of falsehood, willful or not. There is thus way too much unearned and unwarranted anger out there, fueling a lot of socially destructive behavior. Leaving aside that Facebook and Twitter have an interest in encouraging this, because it pumps up traffic, the reality is that there are plenty of other conduits out there to take up the slack were FB and Twitter to rein things in.

Auggie · Unread post by **Auggie** » Tue Feb 26, 2019 6:53 pm

Hopefully someday there will be transparent user-adjustable algorithms for what kind of content we get shown in our social media feeds.

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Tue Feb 26, 2019 9:14 pm

A big problem is that if you start with a bias, the system is geared to feed you stuff that supports your bias. You may thus get more and more entrenched and extreme in your bias.

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sat Mar 23, 2019 4:40 pm

Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger has thrown his support behind the Brave browser and the Basic Attention Token (BAT) project. The internet enthusiast and philosopher published a post, titled ‘The two problems of computer technology”, on his personal website, a post that covered his concerns about internet security and the increasing monopolization of the internet by a few established entities.

Investinblockchain.com

Anyone tried Brave?

Randy from Boise · Unread post by **Randy from Boise** » Sun Mar 24, 2019 4:32 am

Sanger, who is also the Chief Information Office for decentralized web encyclopedia Everipedia...

Tell me what is "decentralized" about a commercial entity with a "Chief Information Officer"...

RfB

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sat Apr 06, 2019 10:06 am

From the foundational elements of the web to RSS syndication, the internet has been friendly to innovation thanks to all sorts of common standards. Dr. Larry Sanger is worried that that’s fading. Sanger is best known as a cofounder of Wikipedia and is now the CIO of Everipedia, a for-profit fork of Wikipedia on the blockchain that is still finding its way. In both these endeavors he’s shown interest in access to information. He’s taking an interest in the communication side of media, too.

Technically

Textnyymi · Unread post by **Textnyymi** » Sat Apr 13, 2019 1:36 pm

I don't think decentralizing the web would be a terrible idea, but what are the requirements for carrying out such a thing?

Vigilant · Unread post by **Vigilant** » Sat Apr 13, 2019 3:20 pm

Larry Sanger's stupid article wrote:He has a proposal to get it done, and it involves the blockchain.

What XKCD has known about blockchain for a while.

Larry is a hack who doesn't really know shit about architecting large, distributed, heterogeneous systems.
He should stay in his lane, which is being really lucky and then failing repeatedly with obviously bad ideas.

Why he gets any press at all only has one logical answer.
Argumentum Ad Verecundiam

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sat Apr 13, 2019 5:38 pm

If one day the Internet—or even humanity itself—were obliterated, surely Wikipedia would be remembered (by aliens, perhaps) as one of its crowning achievements. Sanger, however, thinks it sucks.

Decryptmedia.com

Beeblebrox · Unread post by **Beeblebrox** » Sun Apr 14, 2019 5:23 pm

So, if I've got this straight, Larry, who left WP because he didn't think it was unbiased and accurate, is now saying let's allow bias and inaccuracies, in fact collect them all up, and let them fight it out? Two articles enter, one article leaves, Thunderdome style?

Randy from Boise · Unread post by **Randy from Boise** » Sun Apr 14, 2019 6:23 pm

Beeblebrox wrote:So, if I've got this straight, Larry, who left WP because he didn't think it was unbiased and accurate, is now saying let's allow bias and inaccuracies, in fact collect them all up, and let them fight it out? Two articles enter, one article leaves, Thunderdome style?

Whatever monetizes things for the moment is the supreme law.

t

Vigilant · Unread post by **Vigilant** » Mon Apr 15, 2019 5:11 am

Randy from Boise wrote:
Beeblebrox wrote:So, if I've got this straight, Larry, who left WP because he didn't think it was unbiased and accurate, is now saying let's allow bias and inaccuracies, in fact collect them all up, and let them fight it out? Two articles enter, one article leaves, Thunderdome style?
Whatever monetizes things for the moment is the supreme law.

t

Another grubby money grab awaiting its inevitable failure.

Sanger and Wales are so very similar.

Randy from Boise · Unread post by **Randy from Boise** » Mon Apr 15, 2019 6:39 am

Vigilant wrote:
Randy from Boise wrote:
Beeblebrox wrote:So, if I've got this straight, Larry, who left WP because he didn't think it was unbiased and accurate, is now saying let's allow bias and inaccuracies, in fact collect them all up, and let them fight it out? Two articles enter, one article leaves, Thunderdome style?
Whatever monetizes things for the moment is the supreme law.

t
Another grubby money grab awaiting its inevitable failure.

Sanger and Wales are so very similar.

bing! bing! bing!!!

Winnar!!!

RfB

C&B · Unread post by **C&B** » Mon Apr 15, 2019 7:08 am

Winner Winner Sangar Dinner

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sat May 25, 2019 4:49 pm

Free online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, should be taken with a pinch of salt, co-founder Larry Sanger said. Speaking to Times of Malta, Dr Sanger said Wikipedia had been dubbed by some as “the original fake news”. However, he said, he always found the term to be “a bit of a misnomer”. “Fake news has always been around, since before Wikipedia as well. We just did not call it that.”

Times of Malta

The photo is awful.

C&B · Unread post by **C&B** » Mon May 27, 2019 10:25 am

Not helped by the microphone looking like his head has its own moon.

Randy from Boise · Unread post by **Randy from Boise** » Mon May 27, 2019 9:19 pm

C&B wrote:Not helped by the microphone looking like his head has its own moon.

Unread post by **Midsize Jake** » Mon May 27, 2019 9:47 pm

Y'know, I can't quite put my finger on why I feel this way, but I'm getting the impression that this isn't going to be one of our more erudite threads.

That said, the two comments (so far) beneath the Times of Malta article are even worse, so maybe I shouldn't be so quick to criticize.

Beeblebrox · Unread post by **Beeblebrox** » Mon May 27, 2019 9:57 pm

Short version of the (already short) article: Everipedia pays Larry Sanger to say disparaging things about WP, and make it sound like blockchain makes EP way better because reasons.

Earthy Astringent · Unread post by **Earthy Astringent** » Tue May 28, 2019 1:02 pm

Poetlister wrote:
The photo is awful.

Is it really? You can’t polish a turd.

Unread post by **Smiley** » Tue May 28, 2019 3:21 pm

Lammy.

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Tue May 28, 2019 3:46 pm

The picture on his Twitter account looks rather better.

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sat Jun 01, 2019 3:30 pm

“Wikipedia is…broken,” controlled by special interests and bad actors, says co-founder

sharylattkisson.com

Randy from Boise · Unread post by **Randy from Boise** » Sat Jun 01, 2019 4:38 pm

Poetlister wrote:
“Wikipedia is…broken,” controlled by special interests and bad actors, says co-founder
sharylattkisson.com

Probably better filed in the Sharyl Attkisson thread, since 2/3 of the piece is her editorializing about how Wikipedia was mean to her.

RfB

Vigilant · Unread post by **Vigilant** » Sat Jun 01, 2019 5:45 pm

Larry Sanger wrote:In its early days, “Wikipedia itself had special challenges,” he explained. “One was simply to teach everyone who arrived at the wiki, which was basically a blank bulletin board that could have become whatever we wanted it to become, that we intended to build an encyclopedia. A lot of people didn’t seem to know what that meant, or maybe they just didn’t care,” he said.

“Wikipedia itself had special challenges,” Larry Sanger, Wikipedia co-founder.

“Another hurdle was to figure out how to rein in the bad actors so that they did not ruin the project for everyone else. Unfortunately, we never did come up with a good solution for that one,” Sanger added.

“Wikipedia is a broken system as a result,” he said.

OMG!

The stupid! IT BURNS US, PRECIOUS!

Have accounts linked to verifiable user information.
Restrict users to one account.
Hire competent customer management people and control all advanced permissions.
Have a customer relations policy in line with best practices in the industry.
Set all BLPs to pending changes.
Have a BLP subject specialist, with absolute authority to make changes, deal with claims of inaccuracies or libel in private correspondence with the BLP subject.
Stop being cheap shits by allowing 'teh community' of toxicity to manage this stuff and hire good people to clean up your most troublesome areas.

Let me know when you're sending my check for this professional consultation.

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sat Jun 01, 2019 8:21 pm

Randy from Boise wrote:Probably better filed in the Sharyl Attkisson thread, since 2/3 of the piece is her editorializing about how Wikipedia was mean to her.

RfB

I'm happy with that.

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sat Jun 08, 2019 6:24 pm

Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger, who has split from the organization, has new and big ideas. Some of them involve a plan to take censorship power away from the few and the powerful.

sharylattkisson.com

Do we need a separate Larry Sanger forum?

Vigilant · Unread post by **Vigilant** » Sun Jun 09, 2019 2:04 am

Larry Sanger has never been able to get a single thing working in his entire career.

All of his ideas are half baked garbage that wouldn't work, even if implemented flawlessly, and they never are...

He and Jimmy are similar "thought leaders" whose ideas are garbage.
Every single thing either one of them has actually run has turned directly to shit.

Why do people keep talking to him/them?

Randy from Boise · Unread post by **Randy from Boise** » Sun Jun 09, 2019 2:33 am

Poetlister wrote:
Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger, who has split from the organization, has new and big ideas. Some of them involve a plan to take censorship power away from the few and the powerful.
sharylattkisson.com

Do we need a separate Larry Sanger forum?

I'm all about the Larry Sanger criticism. That guy wins the putzoff with Jimmy Wales. Not even that close, really, and that is saying something.

RfB

P.S. I see the right wing toad Sheryl Attkisson has her hand out for digital donations. Birds of a feather flock together!

P.P.S. "Host of Sinclair's Full Measure" — It all becomes clear!!!

P.P.P.S. What is so fucking "independent" about a Sinclair stooge? Lemme help ya: NOTHING.