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He Co-founded Wikipedia, Now He Says the Site Needs a Radical Change
Larry Sanger says the website has become biased against conservative and religious viewpoints, but sees a way to fix it [theepochtimes.com]:
Wikipedia, a popular online encyclopedia millions of people treat as an authoritative source of information, is systemically biased against conservative, religious, and other points of view, according to the site’s co-founder, Larry Sanger.
Sanger, 57, who now heads the Knowledge Standards Foundation, believes Wikipedia can be salvaged either by a renewed emphasis on free speech withttps://larrysanger.org/nine-theses/hin the organization or by a grassroots campaign to make diverse viewpoints heard.
Failing that, Sanger said, government intervention may be required to pierce the shell of anonymity that now protects Wikipedia’s editors from defamation lawsuits by public figures who believe the site portrays them unfairly.
[...] “Basically, it’s required now, even for the sake of neutrality, that they take a side when [they believe] one side is clearly wrong,” Sanger said. “Pretensions of objectivity are out the window.”
[...] “You simply may not cite as sources of Wikipedia articles anything that has been branded as right wing,” he said. [...] “Even now, people are still sort of waking up to the reality that Wikipedia does, on many pages … act as essentially propaganda.”
[...] On his website [larrysanger.org], Sanger outlines a series of ideas for returning Wikipedia to its original stance on fairness and free speech. A handful of his ideas center on increasing transparency into site management, such as revealing who Wikipedia’s leaders are, allowing the public to rate articles, ending decision-making by consensus, and adopting a legislative process for determining editorial policy.
Related: Elon Musk Plans to Take on Wikipedia With 'Grokipedia' [soylentnews.org]
