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| Early life and education | |
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Sanger was born in Bellevue, Washington. When he was seven years old, the family moved to Anchorage, Alaska,[2] where Sanger spent his formative years and excelled in the classroom.[26] At an early age, he was interested in philosophical topics.[5] Alan Boraas from Anchorage Daily News writes "I can visualize the scene in his high school counselor's office when he announced his intended major. 'Kid,' I can hear the counselor say, 'What are you ever going to do with philosophy?' 'Well, change the way the world thinks, for one thing.'"[27] He graduated from high school in 1986 and went off to Reed College, majoring in philosophy.[27] As a college student, he explored the understanding and sources of knowledge. He also became interested in the Internet and its publishing abilities. These interests helped him to realize the benefits of using a wiki for an online encyclopedia.[5] He set up an early attempt with a listserver as a medium for students and tutors to meet up for "expert tutoring" and "to act as a forum for discussion of tutorials, tutorial methods, and the possibility and merits of a voluntary, free network of individual tutors and students finding each other via the Internet for education outside the traditional university setting."[28] He started and moderated a philosophy discussion list. The Association for Systematic Philosophy, managed by Sanger, published a journal.[29] Dated March 22, 1994, Sanger wrote in his opening manifesto:
The history of philosophy is full of disagreement and confusion. One reaction by philosophers to this state of things is to doubt whether the truth about philosophy can ever be known, or whether there is any such thing as the truth about philosophy. But there is another reaction: one may set out to think more carefully and methodically than one's intellectual forebears.[26]
He received a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Reed College in 1991, a Master of Arts from Ohio State University in 1995, and a Doctor of Philosophy from Ohio State University in 2000.[6] His bachelor thesis is titled Descartes' methods and their theoretical background[30] and his doctoral thesis concerned Epistemic Circularity: An Essay on the Problem of Meta-Justification.[1] From 1998 to 2000 he ran a website called "Sanger's Review of Y2K News Reports" (formerly at sangersreview.com), a resource for Y2K watchers.[31] In December 2001 Sanger was married,[32] meeting his wife online,[33] and they have since had two children.
[edit] Tags:Bellevue, Washington,Reed College,Ba,Ohio State University,Ma,Anchorage, Alaska,Philosophy,Bachelor Of Arts,Doctor Of Philosophy,Wiki,Anchorage Daily News,Majoring,Manifesto,Master Of Arts,Y2k,Encyclopedia,Ohio, | |
| Nupedia and Wikipedia | |
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Further information: History of Wikipedia
Nupedia was a Web-based encyclopedia whose articles were written by experts and licensed as free content.[11] It was co-founded by Jimmy Wales and underwritten by Bomis, with Sanger hired as editor-in-chief.[34][35] He developed a review process for articles and recruited editors.[11] Articles were reviewed before being posted on the site.[36] Frustrated at the slow progress of Nupedia,[37] in January 2001, Sanger proposed a wiki be created to spur article development,[12][38] and the result of this proposal was Wikipedia,[13] officially launched on January 15, 2001.[39][40][41] It was initially intended as a collaborative wiki for the public to write entries that would then be fed into the Nupedia review process of expertise.[13] The majority of Nupedia's experts wanted little to do with this project, so Sanger initiated a separate site named Wikipedia.[13]
To the surprise of Sanger and Wales, within a few days of launching, Wikipedia had outgrown Nupedia, and a small community of editors gathered.[13] By virtue of his position with Nupedia, Sanger spearheaded and named the project, and formulated much of the original policy, including "Ignore all rules,"[42] "Neutral point of view",[43] and "Verifiability".[15] Wikipedia quickly took off, but just months after it was launched, things started to go off the rails and by the summer of 2001, Sanger says, the new online community was being overrun by what he described as "trolls" and "anarchist-types", who were "opposed to the idea that anyone should have any kind of authority that others do not".[44] Sanger responded by proposing a stronger emphasis for expert editors, individuals with the authority to resolve disputes and enforce the rules.[44]
Tired of endless content battles and feeling he had a lack of support from Wales, Sanger eventually left the project.[44] 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 after the collapse in Internet advertising spending;[45][46] Sanger resigned as editor-in-chief of Nupedia and as chief organizer of Wikipedia on March 1.[45] 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.[45] Nupedia shut down in 2003,[47] shortly after Wikipedia's second anniversary.[36]
[edit] Tags:Wikipedia,Nupedia,Expertise,Part-time,History Of Wikipedia,Web-based,Jimmy Wales,Bomis,Ignore All Rules,Trolls, | |
| Origins of Wikipedia | |
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Wales started to play down Sanger's role in the founding of the project in 2005, a few years after Sanger left Wikipedia.[48][49][50] In light of Wales' view, Sanger posted on his personal webpage several links which supported his role as a co-founder.[14][51] The citations include earlier versions of selected Wikipedia pages,[52] press releases from Wikipedia in the years of 2002–2004,[53] and early media coverage stories[54][55] describing Wikipedia as founded by Wales and Sanger.[14][51] Sanger was identified as a co-founder of Wikipedia at least as early as September 2001.[54] Jimmy Wales identified himself in August 2002 as "co-founder" of Wikipedia.[56][57] During the time of Sanger's involvement in the project, he was routinely known as a co-founder.[14][51][54] The Wikimedia Foundation's first press release in 2004 described Sanger as co-founder.[58] Sanger is widely cited in the media as a co-founder.[59][60][61] While Sanger organized the project Wales concentrated on Bomis.[14][15][62]
It was only in 2005, after Wales first began his efforts to identify himself as the sole founder of Wikipedia by downplaying Sanger's early role, that Wales first claimed that he had actually initially heard of the wiki concept in 2001 not from Sanger, but instead from Jeremy Rosenfeld.[62] Wales had also been quoted in the press as far back as October 2001, stating that it was "Larry (who) had the idea to use Wiki software."[38]
According to all known documents actually dating from before 2005, the critical concept of marrying two of the three fundamental elements of Wikipedia, namely an encyclopedia and a wiki, first took form when Sanger met up with an old friend, Ben Kovitz.[7][9] This meeting occurred at a dinner on January 2, 2001, and it was here that Sanger was first introduced to the functionality of wiki software. Kovitz was a computer programmer and a regular on Ward Cunningham's wiki.[7][9] Sanger thought a wiki would be a good platform to use and decided to present the idea to Jimmy Wales, at that time the head of Bomis.[63][64] Sanger initially proposed the wiki concept to Wales and suggested it be applied to Nupedia and, after some initial skepticism, Wales agreed to try it.[12] Sanger formally proposed a "feeder" project for Nupedia titled "Nupedia Wiki"[12] and created a new page on Ward's wiki named "WikiPedia."[64][65]
It was Jimmy Wales who added the third critical ingredient to the mix. He directed Sanger to give essentially unrestricted editorial access to this new wiki to the "non expert" public.[66] Sanger came up with the name 'Wikipedia', which at the time, Sanger wrote that he believed would merely be, "a silly name for what was at first a very silly project."[66][67] Sanger first conceived of the wiki-based encyclopedia project only as a means to hopefully accelerate Nupedia's slow growth. During Wikipedia's critical first year of growth, Sanger spearheaded and guided the following that gathered around this nucleus. Through this early period, he served as Wikipedia's editor-in-chief, a position which has not been filled since his departure from Wikipedia.[14][66][68] Sanger is also credited with creating and enforcing the policies and strategy that made Wikipedia possible during its first formative year.[15][69] Thus it was that Wikipedia was in fact an accidental spin-off of Nupedia.[70] Originally it was only intended to act as a 'feeder site' to generate rough articles for Nupedia, where the articles would then theoretically be 'polished up' by the 'more qualified' volunteer editors that were expected to be found there.[13]
[edit] Tags:Wikimedia Foundation,Ward Cunningham, | |
| Post-Wikipedia | |
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Since Sanger parted ways with Wikipedia in 2002 he has been critical of its accuracy, among other things.[17] 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.[18] While stating "to appreciate the merits of Wikipedia fully" and to know and support "the mission and broad policy outlines of Wikipedia very well," Sanger expressed 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."[18] The article was the subject of much controversy in the blogosphere, and led to some reaction in the news media as well.[71][72] In September 2009, Sanger mentioned one reason for distancing himself from Wikipedia: "I thought that the project would never have the amount of credibility it could have if it were not somehow more open and welcoming to experts." He pointed out "The other problem was the community had essentially been taken over by trolls to a great extent. That was a real problem, and Jimmy Wales absolutely refused to do anything about it."[46]
Sanger identifies the purpose of the Internet as being equally about communication, as it is about information;[73] Stressing that successful communication needn't be informative, and that good communication is very different than good information. Sanger is careful to point out his criticisms of Wikipedia aren't as much based on its lack of meritocracy, but rather in its credibility as an informational medium. Sanger sees most web 2.0 websites as being built upon communication and socialization, instead of impersonal information resources. As a consequence of this, Sanger sees a continuing demand for more authoritative information sources. Saying: "Even in the field of encyclopedias, while the industry does seem to have taken a blow, some of the heavyweights are still alive and kicking."[74]
Sanger, a philosophy instructor,[75] began work as a lecturer at The Ohio State University, where he taught philosophy until June 2005.[5] His professional interests are epistemology (in particular), early modern philosophy, and ethics.[5][27] 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.[76]
In December 2005, Digital Universe Foundation announced that Sanger had been hired as Director of Distributed Content Programs.[77] He would be a key organizer of the Digital Universe Encyclopedia web projects which was launched in early 2006.[78][79] The Digital Universe encyclopedia plans to recruit recognized experts to write articles, and to check user-submitted articles for accuracy. The first step in this effort is the expert-authored and edited Encyclopedia of Earth,[19] an electronic reference about the Earth.[80]
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.[81]
The question of accuracy over Wikipedia article content spurred Sanger to unveil plans for a new encyclopedia called Citizendium, the citizen's compendium.[82] At the Wizards of OS conference in September 2006, Sanger announced Citizendium as a fork of Wikipedia. The objectives of the fork were to address various perceived flaws in the Wikipedia system. The main differences would be no anonymous editing: every author/editor would have to be identified by his/her real name, no "top-down" hierarchy of editors: it would aspire to be a "real encyclopedia."[83] More differences are discussed at the Citizendium website in the FAQ.[84] The initial fork was of the English language Wikipedia.[85] Prior to its March 2007 public launch, Citizendium favored an emphasis on its own original articles.[86] On September 27, 2006 Sanger announced that he would take a leave of absence from Digital Universe "in order to set up a fully independent Citizendium Foundation."[20] In 2007 Sanger examined the possibilities for education online. He explained, "Imagine that education were not delivered but organized and managed in a way that were fully digitized, decentralized, self-directed, asynchronous, and at-a-distance." He further stated, "There would be no bureaucracy to enforce anything beyond some very basic rules, and decision-making would be placed almost entirely in the hands of teachers and students."[87] In 2008, Sanger was at Oxford University to debate the proposition that "the internet is the future of knowledge." Sanger agreed that today's wikis and blogs are fundamentally changing the way knowledge is created and distributed.[88]
[edit] Tags:Citizendium,Epistemology,Credibility,Encyclopedia Of Earth,Fork,Critical Of Its Accuracy,Kuro5hin, | |
| Citizendium | |
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Main article: Citizendium
On March 25, 2007, Citizendium ended its pilot phase, entering a live and publicly readable beta phase.[89] 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."[21] Unlike Wales, who has compared his role in Wikipedia with that of a British monarch,[90] Sanger said he would not head Citizendium indefinitely, and in 2007 announced his intention to step off the leadership team in two or three years.[91]
Two weeks after the launch of Citizendium, Sanger criticized Wikipedia, stating the latter was "broken beyond repair," and had a range of problems "from serious management problems, to an often dysfunctional community, to frequently unreliable content, and to a whole series of scandals."[92] Sanger stated in part:
The work of the Wikipedians has astounded the world, but the amateur nature of Wikipedia's contributions, whose authors remain anonymous, is not for everyone. Some experts are hostile toward the idea of Wikipedia and many avoid Wikipedia altogether. We may take Wikipedia as an early prototype of the application of open source hacker principles to content rather than code. I want to argue that it is just that, an early prototype, rather than a mature model of how such principles should be applied to reference, scholarly and educational content. Where Wikipedia shares the culture of anonymity found in the broader Internet, the Citizendium will have a culture of real-world, personal responsibility.[93]
Citizendium has a form of peer-review, in which the site's content is subject to "gentle expert oversight."[94][95][96] In reference to creating a new encyclopedia project Sanger stated: "I think there is a need for a more reliable and free [online] encyclopedia. If we can create a more reliable and free encyclopedia, particularly if we adopt a different system than Wikipedia's, then we should."[22] As Citizendium's editor-in-chief, Sanger commented in late October 2007 about its first anniversary, from its initial private launch date of October 30, 2006.[44][97] Citizendium's readers, he said, have only just begun to see the power of the project's model:[98]
Simply put, we've pioneered a new and better way to use wikis, and an interesting, dynamic way to build an online knowledge base. Increasingly, the Citizendium is looking like the next step in the evolution of the collaborative Internet.[98] The project's fundamentals are solid and growing stronger through motivated, diligent effort. Given enough time and enough people, the results would surely be amazing. If this possibility is amazing, it is even more amazing that it's within our grasp. What I do know is that if we do have a good chance to create something so stupefyingly useful for humanity, we must try.[99][100]
When asked in an interview with The Minnesota Daily: Do you see a role for Citizendium anywhere in academia? He responded: "Of course. The idea is it will be good enough for professors to be able to send their students and students to get reliable information from. I know a lot of students use Wikipedia as a place to start to learn about a subject. For that purpose it's fine. I actually think, as a place to start to get some information, it's a fine resource. Approved articles on Citizendium hopefully will be more reliable than articles on Wikipedia."[101]
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Building on Sanger's experience from other collaborative encyclopedias,[7] Citizendium represents an effort to establish a scholarly and credible online encyclopedia.[22][91] Sanger aims to improve upon the wiki-based encyclopedia model by bringing more accountability and academic quality to articles.[10] In an interview with CNET News in 2007 Sanger explained the reasons for starting a Wikipedia alternative:
I think we absolutely need another wiki—first of all, simply because Wikipedia lacks credibility, unfortunately. It's a good starting place, as people say—on some subjects anyway—but it isn't really what we want out of a reliable reference resource. And frankly, I don't think that the Wikipedia community is prepared to make the changes that I think need to be made in order to transform Wikipedia into something that's really reliable.[102]
Citizendium is wiki-based, and several aspects set it apart from Wikipedia.[103][104][105] Prospective contributors on Citizendium are required to sign in using real names.[106][107] Users of Wikipedia may contribute anonymously, or create a username. This username does not necessarily have a connection with their real name.[108][109] Experts in their field of expertise have a role in the Citizendium community to approve articles on the basis of accuracy.[91] The Good Article and the Featured Article systems on Wikipedia employs a review by editors.[110] Wikipedia is perceived to promote consensus and not truth[111] and verifiability is the inclusion criteria – reporting on what other sources have to say.[112] Citizendium experts have the final say for article content[85][113] and it is not necessary to cite a source for a content decision on Citizendium.[114] Citizendium attempts to prevent future wiki-vandalism in the tradition of Stephen Colbert,[96] who once asked users on air to add false information to articles about elephants.[115]
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| Post-Citizendium | |
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In early 2009, Sanger effectively ceased to edit Citizendium, although an announcement confirming this was not made until July 30, 2009 on the Citizendium-l mailinglist.[116] He had worked at WatchKnowLearn project,[116] a non-profit online community devoted to rating and organizing into a large directory hundreds of thousands of short videos and other media, making it possible to find subjects taught to school kids watchable on one website.[117] Business Edge Services and Technologies, Inc. completed the project under the direction of Larry Sanger.[118] Sanger was the executive director of the system.[117]
In April 2010 Sanger sent a letter to the FBI detailing his concern that Wikimedia Commons was hosting child pornography in its pedophilia and lolicon categories later clarified as "obscene visual representations of the abuse of children".[119][120] Sanger said that he felt obligated to report it because he realized the statutes required that one do so or risk prosecution.[121] The Register wrote that the law says "it is not a required element of any offense under this section that the minor depicted actually exist."[122]
On September 22, 2010, Sanger stepped down as editor-in-chief of Citizendium but is still willing to offer advice and continues to support the goals of the project.[23] In December 2010, commenting to WikiLeaks, he said: "Speaking as Wikipedia's co-founder, I consider you enemies of the U.S.—not just the government, but the people."[123]
He is working on developing educational projects for individuals behind WatchKnowLearn, originally named WatchKnow.[23][124] He is producing a reading-tutorial application that will be applicable for beginning readers of all ages.[125] The name of his new reading project is Reading Bear.[126] He began blogging on various subjects, including baby reading.[24] A blog post, "Is There a New Geek Anti-Intellectualism?" was discussed in 2011.[127] Sanger is interested in incorporating vast online teaching video multimedia encyclopedias for early education using technolog Tags:U.s.,Watchknowlearn, | |
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