Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger blocked from editing Wikipedia • Hacker News Board

Re: Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger blocked from editing Wikipedia

#121

Post by SanjayMehta » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 3:59 PM UTC

ieie3366 wrote: post #93

martinald wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes agreed, for example, there was an interesting table on the starlink page I used to check every so often showing which countries had access to starlink as it was rolled out. Was interesting to see the expansion. Of course, some editor decided it was 'marketing' for starlink so it got deleted despite loads of people protesting. It was the only source I could find easily for showing which country got starlink when.…

And the worst is the cycle: 1. There is incorrect information on wikipedia. 2. Legacy news publishes an article, using wikipedia as source (of course). 3. Now the incorrect information is essentially canonized

Circular references. This methodology has been called out by several researchers. NYT, WaPo are key users of this technique.

Off the top of my head: https://citationintegrity.org/

Wikipedia features prominently as a defaulter.

Re: Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger blocked from editing Wikipedia

#122

Post by palmotea » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 4:02 PM UTC

pjio wrote: post #22

As an outsider the accusation "Canvassing" seems like a double edged sword. Similar to Reddits "Brigading" but without the hostile intention. It's not clear to me, how Wikipedia prevents this rule from being used inappropriately to silence people.

> It's not clear to me, how Wikipedia prevents this rule from being used inappropriately to silence people.

It doesn't. Wikipedia rules are often abused and selectively enforced.

Re: Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger blocked from editing Wikipedia

#123

Post by palmotea » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 4:05 PM UTC

croes wrote: post #34

dotancohen wrote: post #8

Many of his essays have been deleted, and many others are Pending Deletion. Those deleted can be viewed only by admins. There is a large movement to censor this guy's opinions and undo his contributions. What happened? There is no explicit mention on the page.

>There is a large movement to censor this guy's opinions Wikipedia is the wrong place for opinions

> Wikipedia is the wrong place for opinions

Wikipedia is literally all about opinions. A huge amount of its activity is different ideological camps battling to control the narrative presented in the reference work millions use by default and treat as authoritative.

And it's not an even close to an even playing field for every camp. Some camps get to push their opinions as authoritative and squash dissenters, others have to fight for the barest representation.

The key is selective enforcement: depending on your camp, you either have to walk on eggshells (and probably will get banned anyway) or can behave atrociously towards others and be given a pass every time time.

Re: Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger blocked from editing Wikipedia

#124

Post by bayindirh » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 4:06 PM UTC

dotancohen wrote: post #111

bayindirh wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Note: This is what I got from the Talk page about the ban) The core idea is, Wikipedia has internal mechanisms to make these kinds of notifications, and making these decisions needs some knowledge and experience about how Wikipedia works. Recruiting inexperienced people to bias decisions which requires knowledge is effectively converting that proposal to a blunt instrument and trying to force your way in (aka bludge…

> Recruiting inexperienced people to bias decisions which requires knowledge is effectively converting that proposal to a blunt instrument and trying to force your way in (aka bludgeon). I agree with your premise and with your conclusion. That said, campaigning in a democracy is exactly recruiting inexperienced people to bias decisions which requires knowledge. Any support of that viewpoint would effectively ban poli…

That's not my premise, and not my conclusion. This is a summary of what the admins talk on that discussion page. So I'm just a messenger summarizing things.

Moreover, Wikipedia is not a democracy [0]. It's a consensus based system. So, as they say, votes coming from outside doesn't count, and that's fine by me.

Last but not the least, this is a kind of decision on the level of law-making for the Wikipedia. People elect politicians, but don't write the laws themselves. Criticizing Wikipedia for not allowing "ordinary citizens" to write the laws is a bit stretch while giving democracy as an example to aspire to doesn't make sense, because even a democracy doesn't work the way you want to portray here.

Anyway, Wikipedia is not a democracy to begin with, so that's moot in a sense.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_no...

Re: Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger blocked from editing Wikipedia

#125

Post by vrganj » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 4:06 PM UTC

dotancohen wrote: post #116

mzajc wrote: post #78

I encourage people to read through his proposed WikiProject's page[0] and the related discussion.[1] Important context is also that WikiProjects are exempt from canvassing rules; members are free to notify each other of ongoing policy discussions with the goal of influencing the outcome. This is usually not a problem, but given how aggressively vague the WikiProject's goals are (eg. "We hope to open Wikipedia up to u…

> advocating for whitelisting of sources like Fox News As I understood it, he wasn't advocating for whitelisting Fox News, he was advocating for removing the blacklist. That's a stark difference. > it's not a good look for Sanger either way. What doesn't look good for him? It doesn't seem that he has an intent other than enabling the viewpoint of those other than the far-left, which compromise almost the entirety of…

Can you show me a single far left wikipedia admin?

Re: Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger blocked from editing Wikipedia

#126

Post by ben_w » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 4:09 PM UTC

classified wrote: post #112

pjc50 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> that hit a nerve Speaking the unvarnished truth often does.

While this can be the case, in my experience nerves are always attached to self-image. This means one can hit a nerve not only by saying the emperor has no clothes, but also with actual defamation.

Re: Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger blocked from editing Wikipedia

#127

Post by pseudalopex » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 4:17 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #82

InsideOutSanta wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People often mention anecdotes like that when Wikipedia is discussed, but I made a few changes to pages over the years and never had any issues. I took care to follow the rules, and the changes were usually accepted; when they weren't, it was always for reasonable reasons, even if I didn't always agree with them.

I haven't done a whole lot, but I've also never had a bad experience editing on Wikipedia. I suspect most people who complain about getting stuff reverted on Wikipedia are mostly editing controversial pages. Which, yeah, discussing controversial stuff on the Internet is a recipe for having a bad time. The other strong possibility is they are lower quality editors than they think they are. You notice they almost never…

> I suspect most people who complain about getting stuff reverted on Wikipedia are mostly editing controversial pages.

This could be true. But I saw it in histories of not controversial pages also. Some people feel they own articles they contributed to. Wikipedia made a policy against this because it was a problem.[1]

> You notice they almost never actually link to the reverts they are complaining about.

I noticed they said it was years before nearly always if they said when. And to find revisions of forgotten date in Wikipedia required more time than most people would spend for a comment. And anecdotal evidence changed beliefs rarely.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_content

Re: Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger blocked from editing Wikipedia

#128

Post by throwawaypath » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 4:33 PM UTC

vrganj wrote: post #120

throwawaypath wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Why is that bad? Because it's a far-right conspiracy theory implying Wikipedia editors are Red Guards purging universities, and calls for a counter-purge. In other words, it is a thinly veiled call for violence based on a conspiracy theory. The same conspiracy theory Anders Breivik explicitly cited after murdering 77 people.

[flagged]

Re: Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger blocked from editing Wikipedia

#129

Post by InsideOutSanta » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 4:38 PM UTC

pseudalopex wrote: post #127

coldpie wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't done a whole lot, but I've also never had a bad experience editing on Wikipedia. I suspect most people who complain about getting stuff reverted on Wikipedia are mostly editing controversial pages. Which, yeah, discussing controversial stuff on the Internet is a recipe for having a bad time. The other strong possibility is they are lower quality editors than they think they are. You notice they almost never…

> I suspect most people who complain about getting stuff reverted on Wikipedia are mostly editing controversial pages. This could be true. But I saw it in histories of not controversial pages also. Some people feel they own articles they contributed to. Wikipedia made a policy against this because it was a problem.[1] > You notice they almost never actually link to the reverts they are complaining about. I noticed th…

> I noticed they said it was years before nearly always if they said when

It's absolutely fair that people aren't going to dig up old edits. At the same time, I'm not sure how relevant years-old anecdotal evidence is. It would be interesting to see some actual statistics on this; I guess the data is public, so it would be possible to do research on how often helpful edits are rejected.

Re: Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger blocked from editing Wikipedia

#130

Post by philipkglass » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 4:46 PM UTC

handoflixue wrote: post #57

avaer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't realize that essentially all parts of Wikipedia are owned by random nerds versed in the beaurocracy who will revert all outsider edits. Unless you have hours per day dedicated to arguing with them (which they do!), the sign says you're welcome but the people say you're not. Not to say Wikipedia isn't great + useful! But realize that it is owned by a distributed network of feudal nerd-lords that will…

It's amazing how much this behavior is tolerated, despite very clear policies against a single person "owning" a page. > Saying this as a former Wikipedia admin + nerd. Any insight into how these people all manage to dodge the policies against such behavior? Is it just too much effort to complain + favoritism towards frequent editors?

There's not a big pool of well-adjusted people who are equally willing to learn the intricacies of Wikipedia and manage it better. The people who care a lot, in the wrong ways, outnumber people who are passionately neutral. Most people don't care enough to fight bad edits and reversions. They just stop contributing. I know I did. (I wasn't even editing controversial areas, just adding to data about chemical compounds.)

I still love Wikipedia, but mostly as a starting point to find deeper references. (Which, to be fair, is primarily how you should use an encyclopedia.) The degree to which you should trust it as your sole starting point for research in an unfamiliar area is anti-correlated with the length of the article's Talk page.