All,
Earlier today, I had no joy in trying to post this "open letter to Jimmy Wales" on Jimmy's own user talk page: the man himself deleted it. That is not the sort of behavior I would have expected of the head of an allegedly open, transparent community devoted to free speech. I would like Wikipedians in general to be apprised of my concerns. I believe they are serious and well-justified, and they should not be dismissed without a careful hearing. I do not ask that Jimmy Wales reply here on this list. But I do ask that "the powers that be"--including the Wikipedia community, the Wikimedia Board, and the media--hold Jimmy responsible for his very shabby behavior toward me.
Let me be clear. This is not just an attempt to "tell my side of the story." It is me confronting Jimmy Wales publicly for lying about my involvement in the project after many private requests to stop. You might disagree with me about many things, but we need not disagree about the facts as they can be found in various Internet archives, nor about the necessity of keeping our leaders honest.
A readable copy, with some updates, can be found here:
http://blog.citizendium.org/2009/04/08/an-open-letter-to-jimmy-wales-copy/
http://blog.citizendium.org/2009/04/08/updates-re-open-letter-to-jimmy-wales /
The letter itself follows.
--Larry Sanger
===============
Jimmy, I don't know a better place than this for an open letter to you [i.e., than on your user talk page on Wikipedia]. I recently read the Hot Press interview with you. The lies and distortions it contains are, for me, the last straw, especially after http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/xodp/message/1720 this came to light, in which you described yourself as "co-founder" in 2002.
I've reached out to you on a couple of occasions to coordinate our "versions" - well, my version and your fanciful inventions - about how Wikipedia got started. Last year I read about a speech in which you represented me as being more or less opposed to Wikipedia from the start - despite it being my own baby, really - and I wrote to you saying that if you keep this up, I will speak out. Well, I'm finally speaking out.
In Wikipedia's first three years, it was clear to everyone working on it that not only had I named the project, I came up with and promoted the idea of making a wiki encyclopedia, wrote the first policy pages and many more policy pages in the following year, led the project, and enforced many rules that are now taken for granted. I came up with a lot of stuff that is regarded as standard operating procedure. For instance, I argued that talk should go on talk pages and got people into that habit. Similarly, after meta-discussion started taking up so much of Wikipedia's time and energy, I shepherded talk about the project to meta.wikipedia.org - and after that, to Wikipedia-L and WikiEN-L. I insisted that we were working on an encyclopedia, not on the many other things one can use a wiki for. I came up with the name "Wikipedian" and other Wikipedia jargon. I had devised a neutrality policy for Nupedia, and I elaborated it in a form that stood for several years on Wikipedia. I did a lot of explaining and evangelizing for Wikipedia - what it is about, why we are here, and so forth - for example, in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Our_Replies_to_Our_Critics%22 Wikipedia:Our Replies to Our Critics and a couple of well-known posts on kuro5hin.org http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/7/25/103136/121 like this one and http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/9/24/43858/2479 this. I also recall introducing many specific policy details, the evidence for which is in archives (such as on archive.org) and no doubt in the memories of some of the more active early Wikipedians.
These are only some examples of ways in which I led the project in its first 14 months; after I left, there was a lot of soul-searching in the project about what would happen now that it was "leaderless" (see the quotations linked from http://www.larrysanger.org/roleinwp.html this page). When I was involved in the project, I was regarded as its chief organizer. As you can still see in the archives, I called myself "Chief Instigator" and "Chief Organizer" and the like (not editor).
I also want to correct you on something that tends to harm me: your repeated insinuations that I was "fired." In the Hot Press interview, you said I left Wikipedia because you "didn't want to pay him any more." You know - and so does everyone else who worked at Bomis, Inc., around a dozen people - that at the end of 2001, you had to go back to Bomis' original 4-5 employees, because of the tech market bust, when Bomis suddenly lost a million-dollar ad deal. Tim Shell told me I was the last person to be laid off. He told me - the day I arrived back from my honeymoon, as I recall - that I should probably start looking for new work, because of the market. I was made to believe, and always did until a few years ago when you started implying otherwise, that I had been laid off just like all the other Bomis employees.
In those first three years, Wikipedia did three press releases, in which we are both given credit as founders of the project. I http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%27s_first_press_relea se drafted the first press release in January 2002; you read and approved it before posting it on the wires. Moreover, you must have read the many early news articles that called us both founders. You could have complained then - when you were CEO of the company that paid my paycheck. But you didn't. In fact, you called yourself "co-founder" from time to time. Evidence of this has surfaced in the form of http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/xodp/message/1720 this post to xodp in which you begin, "Hello, let me introduce myself. I'm Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Nupedia and Wikipedia, the open content encyclopedias." While your company supplied the funding and you supplied some guidance, I supplied the main leadership of the early project. This is why Wikipedia's second press release also called me "founder," in 2003 - just after I broke permanently with you and the Wikipedia community - and the Wikimedia Foundation's first press release described me the same way, in early 2004.
I had nothing to do with the second and third press releases, and, as Bomis CEO and Wikimedia Chair, you approved all three. But now read what you told Hot Press recently. The interviewer asked: "Sanger said that proof of his being co-founder is on the initial press releases. Are you saying that he basically just put himself down as co-founder on these press releases?" You answered "Yes." How could I "put myself down as co-founder" in 2003 and 2004, when I wasn't even part of the organization? This is an attempt to buff your reputation while making me look like a liar - but your simple "Yes" answer can be refuted with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/January_2002 a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/January_2003 few http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/February_2004 URLs; you were a contact on all three press releases.
Beginning in 2004, you began leaving me out of the story of Wikipedia's origin. You began implying, to reporters, that you had done a lot of the sort of work that, in fact, you hired me to do. You have even implied that I was opposed to various ideas that were crucial to Wikipedia's popular success - when those were, for all intents and purposes, my own ideas. A good example is Daniel Pink's http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/wiki.html article for Wired Magazine - in which you implied that I had little or nothing to do with Wikipedia.
You still do this. You told the Hot Press interviewer, "Larry was never comfortable with the open-editing model of Wikipedia and he very early on wanted to start locking things down and giving certain people special authority - you know, recruit experts to supervise certain areas of the encyclopaedia and things like that." This is a lie. I was perfectly comfortable with the "open-editing model of Wikipedia." After all, that was my idea. I did not want to "start locking things down" - or to "recruit experts to supervise certain areas of the encyclopaedia." I challenge anyone to find any evidence in the archive that I did any such thing. For my early attitude toward expert involvement, see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Deferring_to_the_experts this column, written a year after the project started. Besides, your claim doesn't make sense. Even after a year, I was hoping that a revitalized Nupedia would work in tandem with Wikipedia as its vetting service. Though you increasingly disliked Nupedia as Wikipedia's star rose, it was always my assumption that you felt the same way about at least the potential of the two projects working together.
It was one thing, in 2004, to leave me out of the story of Wikipedia. It was another to assert in 2005, (1) for http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-April/021452.html the very first time, that http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-April/021446.html somebody else had the idea for the project, contrary to http://web.archive.org/web/20010406101346/www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Wikipedia_ FAQ what had been on the books since 2001, or (2) that I am not co-founder of the project. But in both cases, people scanning the Wikipedia-L mailing list archives found old mails in which you contradicted yourself. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-October/000671.html One embarrassing mail has you giving me credit - as, of course, I always had been given credit - for the idea of Wikipedia, and http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/xodp/message/1720 another embarrassing mail surfaced just a few days ago in which you called yourself "co-founder" of Wikipedia.
I find your behavior since 2004 transparently self-serving, considering that this rewriting of history began in 2004, just as Wikia.com was getting started, and you started promoting your reputation as the brains behind Wikipedia. There is a long "paper trail" establishing virtually all of my claims about Wikipedia, and which refute your various attempts to rewrite history.
I have not publicly confronted you about this before, to this extent. Public controversies are emotionally wrenching and time-consuming. I know I might be (verbally) attacked more viciously than ever by your fans and Wikipedia's. (To them, I just point out that Wikipedia is bigger than Jimmy Wales.) I have mainly limited myself to answering reporters' questions - keeping my more harshly-worded statements off the record - and to http://www.larrysanger.org/roleinwp.html this page on my personal site. Occasionally I couldn't help objecting to some particularly outrageous claim, but I never went all out.
I thought that the evidence against your claims about me would shame you into changing your behavior. But, five years since you started misrepresenting my role in the founding of Wikipedia, you're still at it.
I have been content to watch you reap the rewards of the project I started for you, largely without comment. You (with Tim Shell and Michael Davis, the Bomis partners) did, after all, sponsor the project. After leaving Wikipedia, I went back to academia and, after that, worked for a succession of nonprofit projects - these days, http://www.citizendium.org/ Citizendium.org and now also http://www.watchknow.org/ WatchKnow.org. I have not tried to cash in on my own reputation. I have been approached by a number of venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and publishers and have always told them that I have my own plans. If I had wanted to cash in myself, I wouldn't have moved away from Silicon Valley back to Ohio, as I did, in order to lower my costs in supporting the non-profit projects which I've made my life's work.
The Hot Press interview is the straw that broke this camel's back. I resent being the victim of another person's self-serving lies. Besides, I don't want to set a poor example in my failure to defend myself.
Please don't say I'm making mountains out of molehills. When you go out of your way to edit Wikipedia articles to http://workbench.cadenhead.org/news/2828/wikipedia-founder-looks-out-number -1 remove the fact that I am a co-founder, or http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Jimbo_Found_Out ask others to do so, I don't call that correcting "very simple errors," as you told Hot Press. What angers me is not any one error, but the accumulated weight of your lies about me - I've mentioned only a few of them here.
Finally, you might protest that you have said, several times, that I am not credited enough. For example, you told Hot Press:
I feel that Larry's work is often under-appreciated. He really did a lot in the first year to think through editorial policy. . I would actually love to have it on the record that I said: I think Larry's work should be more appreciated. He's a really brilliant guy.
This sounds like a fine sentiment. But how could it be sincere? What better way to ensure that I am "under-appreciated" than to contradict your own first three press releases and tell the Boston Globe, just two years later, that it's "preposterous" that I am called co-founder?
I have two further requests, not of you, but of those who deal with you: the Wikimedia Foundation and reporters.
First, I ask the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation to reiterate the Foundation's original position (as expressed in its http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/February_2004 first press release) that we are both, in fact, founders of Wikipedia. (I note that the author of the recent history of Wikipedia, Andrew "fuzheado" Lih, was http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Press_releases/February _2004&action=history among the authors and contacts for this press release.) If the Foundation is unwilling, I request an explanation why its corporate view has changed. Is it simply because Jimmy Wales has made his wishes known and you enforce them?
Second, I request any reporter who interviews you about the early history of Wikipedia and Nupedia to interview me as well, so I can correct anything misleading. They should know that there are many details in my 2005 http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/18/164213&tid=95 memoir of Nupedia and Wikipedia, and my story has never varied. I would also appreciate it if a reporter were to inquire about my request, above, to the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Larry Sanger (sanger@citizendium.org)
Honestly, it's important enough that the Foundation should take an objective look at the facts and make a statement about Wikipedia's history.
On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 7:36 PM, Larry Sanger sanger-lists@citizendium.orgwrote:
All,
Earlier today, I had no joy in trying to post this "open letter to Jimmy Wales" on Jimmy's own user talk page: the man himself deleted it. That is not the sort of behavior I would have expected of the head of an allegedly open, transparent community devoted to free speech. I would like Wikipedians in general to be apprised of my concerns. I believe they are serious and well-justified, and they should not be dismissed without a careful hearing. I do not ask that Jimmy Wales reply here on this list. But I do ask that "the powers that be"--including the Wikipedia community, the Wikimedia Board, and the media--hold Jimmy responsible for his very shabby behavior toward me.
Let me be clear. This is not just an attempt to "tell my side of the story." It is me confronting Jimmy Wales publicly for lying about my involvement in the project after many private requests to stop. You might disagree with me about many things, but we need not disagree about the facts as they can be found in various Internet archives, nor about the necessity of keeping our leaders honest.
A readable copy, with some updates, can be found here:
http://blog.citizendium.org/2009/04/08/an-open-letter-to-jimmy-wales-copy/
http://blog.citizendium.org/2009/04/08/updates-re-open-letter-to-jimmy-wales /
The letter itself follows.
--Larry Sanger
===============
Jimmy, I don't know a better place than this for an open letter to you [i.e., than on your user talk page on Wikipedia]. I recently read the Hot Press interview with you. The lies and distortions it contains are, for me, the last straw, especially after http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/xodp/message/1720 this came to light, in which you described yourself as "co-founder" in 2002.
I've reached out to you on a couple of occasions to coordinate our "versions" - well, my version and your fanciful inventions - about how Wikipedia got started. Last year I read about a speech in which you represented me as being more or less opposed to Wikipedia from the start - despite it being my own baby, really - and I wrote to you saying that if you keep this up, I will speak out. Well, I'm finally speaking out.
In Wikipedia's first three years, it was clear to everyone working on it that not only had I named the project, I came up with and promoted the idea of making a wiki encyclopedia, wrote the first policy pages and many more policy pages in the following year, led the project, and enforced many rules that are now taken for granted. I came up with a lot of stuff that is regarded as standard operating procedure. For instance, I argued that talk should go on talk pages and got people into that habit. Similarly, after meta-discussion started taking up so much of Wikipedia's time and energy, I shepherded talk about the project to meta.wikipedia.org - and after that, to Wikipedia-L and WikiEN-L. I insisted that we were working on an encyclopedia, not on the many other things one can use a wiki for. I came up with the name "Wikipedian" and other Wikipedia jargon. I had devised a neutrality policy for Nupedia, and I elaborated it in a form that stood for several years on Wikipedia. I did a lot of explaining and evangelizing for Wikipedia - what it is about, why we are here, and so forth - for example, in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Our_Replies_to_Our_Critics%22 Wikipedia:Our Replies to Our Critics and a couple of well-known posts on kuro5hin.org http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/7/25/103136/121 like this one and http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/9/24/43858/2479 this. I also recall introducing many specific policy details, the evidence for which is in archives (such as on archive.org) and no doubt in the memories of some of the more active early Wikipedians.
These are only some examples of ways in which I led the project in its first 14 months; after I left, there was a lot of soul-searching in the project about what would happen now that it was "leaderless" (see the quotations linked from http://www.larrysanger.org/roleinwp.html this page). When I was involved in the project, I was regarded as its chief organizer. As you can still see in the archives, I called myself "Chief Instigator" and "Chief Organizer" and the like (not editor).
I also want to correct you on something that tends to harm me: your repeated insinuations that I was "fired." In the Hot Press interview, you said I left Wikipedia because you "didn't want to pay him any more." You know - and so does everyone else who worked at Bomis, Inc., around a dozen people - that at the end of 2001, you had to go back to Bomis' original 4-5 employees, because of the tech market bust, when Bomis suddenly lost a million-dollar ad deal. Tim Shell told me I was the last person to be laid off. He told me
- the day I arrived back from my honeymoon, as I recall - that I should
probably start looking for new work, because of the market. I was made to believe, and always did until a few years ago when you started implying otherwise, that I had been laid off just like all the other Bomis employees.
In those first three years, Wikipedia did three press releases, in which we are both given credit as founders of the project. I < http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%27s_first_press_relea se> drafted the first press release in January 2002; you read and approved it before posting it on the wires. Moreover, you must have read the many early news articles that called us both founders. You could have complained then - when you were CEO of the company that paid my paycheck. But you didn't. In fact, you called yourself "co-founder" from time to time. Evidence of this has surfaced in the form of http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/xodp/message/1720 this post to xodp in which you begin, "Hello, let me introduce myself. I'm Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Nupedia and Wikipedia, the open content encyclopedias." While your company supplied the funding and you supplied some guidance, I supplied the main leadership of the early project. This is why Wikipedia's second press release also called me "founder," in 2003 - just after I broke permanently with you and the Wikipedia community - and the Wikimedia Foundation's first press release described me the same way, in early 2004.
I had nothing to do with the second and third press releases, and, as Bomis CEO and Wikimedia Chair, you approved all three. But now read what you told Hot Press recently. The interviewer asked: "Sanger said that proof of his being co-founder is on the initial press releases. Are you saying that he basically just put himself down as co-founder on these press releases?" You answered "Yes." How could I "put myself down as co-founder" in 2003 and 2004, when I wasn't even part of the organization? This is an attempt to buff your reputation while making me look like a liar - but your simple "Yes" answer can be refuted with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/January_2002 a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/January_2003 few http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/February_2004 URLs; you were a contact on all three press releases.
Beginning in 2004, you began leaving me out of the story of Wikipedia's origin. You began implying, to reporters, that you had done a lot of the sort of work that, in fact, you hired me to do. You have even implied that I was opposed to various ideas that were crucial to Wikipedia's popular success - when those were, for all intents and purposes, my own ideas. A good example is Daniel Pink's http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/wiki.html article for Wired Magazine - in which you implied that I had little or nothing to do with Wikipedia.
You still do this. You told the Hot Press interviewer, "Larry was never comfortable with the open-editing model of Wikipedia and he very early on wanted to start locking things down and giving certain people special authority - you know, recruit experts to supervise certain areas of the encyclopaedia and things like that." This is a lie. I was perfectly comfortable with the "open-editing model of Wikipedia." After all, that was my idea. I did not want to "start locking things down" - or to "recruit experts to supervise certain areas of the encyclopaedia." I challenge anyone to find any evidence in the archive that I did any such thing. For my early attitude toward expert involvement, see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Deferring_to_the_experts this column, written a year after the project started. Besides, your claim doesn't make sense. Even after a year, I was hoping that a revitalized Nupedia would work in tandem with Wikipedia as its vetting service. Though you increasingly disliked Nupedia as Wikipedia's star rose, it was always my assumption that you felt the same way about at least the potential of the two projects working together.
It was one thing, in 2004, to leave me out of the story of Wikipedia. It was another to assert in 2005, (1) for http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-April/021452.html the very first time, that http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-April/021446.html somebody else had the idea for the project, contrary to < http://web.archive.org/web/20010406101346/www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Wikipedia_ FAQ> what had been on the books since 2001, or (2) that I am not co-founder of the project. But in both cases, people scanning the Wikipedia-L mailing list archives found old mails in which you contradicted yourself. <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-October/000671.html
One embarrassing mail has you giving me credit - as, of course, I always had been given credit - for the idea of Wikipedia, and http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/xodp/message/1720 another embarrassing mail surfaced just a few days ago in which you called yourself "co-founder" of Wikipedia.
I find your behavior since 2004 transparently self-serving, considering that this rewriting of history began in 2004, just as Wikia.com was getting started, and you started promoting your reputation as the brains behind Wikipedia. There is a long "paper trail" establishing virtually all of my claims about Wikipedia, and which refute your various attempts to rewrite history.
I have not publicly confronted you about this before, to this extent. Public controversies are emotionally wrenching and time-consuming. I know I might be (verbally) attacked more viciously than ever by your fans and Wikipedia's. (To them, I just point out that Wikipedia is bigger than Jimmy Wales.) I have mainly limited myself to answering reporters' questions - keeping my more harshly-worded statements off the record - and to http://www.larrysanger.org/roleinwp.html this page on my personal site. Occasionally I couldn't help objecting to some particularly outrageous claim, but I never went all out.
I thought that the evidence against your claims about me would shame you into changing your behavior. But, five years since you started misrepresenting my role in the founding of Wikipedia, you're still at it.
I have been content to watch you reap the rewards of the project I started for you, largely without comment. You (with Tim Shell and Michael Davis, the Bomis partners) did, after all, sponsor the project. After leaving Wikipedia, I went back to academia and, after that, worked for a succession of nonprofit projects - these days, http://www.citizendium.org/ Citizendium.org and now also http://www.watchknow.org/ WatchKnow.org. I have not tried to cash in on my own reputation. I have been approached by a number of venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and publishers and have always told them that I have my own plans. If I had wanted to cash in myself, I wouldn't have moved away from Silicon Valley back to Ohio, as I did, in order to lower my costs in supporting the non-profit projects which I've made my life's work.
The Hot Press interview is the straw that broke this camel's back. I resent being the victim of another person's self-serving lies. Besides, I don't want to set a poor example in my failure to defend myself.
Please don't say I'm making mountains out of molehills. When you go out of your way to edit Wikipedia articles to < http://workbench.cadenhead.org/news/2828/wikipedia-founder-looks-out-number -1> remove the fact that I am a co-founder, or http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Jimbo_Found_Out ask others to do so, I don't call that correcting "very simple errors," as you told Hot Press. What angers me is not any one error, but the accumulated weight of your lies about me - I've mentioned only a few of them here.
Finally, you might protest that you have said, several times, that I am not credited enough. For example, you told Hot Press:
I feel that Larry's work is often under-appreciated. He really did a lot in the first year to think through editorial policy. . I would actually love to have it on the record that I said: I think Larry's work should be more appreciated. He's a really brilliant guy.
This sounds like a fine sentiment. But how could it be sincere? What better way to ensure that I am "under-appreciated" than to contradict your own first three press releases and tell the Boston Globe, just two years later, that it's "preposterous" that I am called co-founder?
I have two further requests, not of you, but of those who deal with you: the Wikimedia Foundation and reporters.
First, I ask the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation to reiterate the Foundation's original position (as expressed in its http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/February_2004 first press release) that we are both, in fact, founders of Wikipedia. (I note that the author of the recent history of Wikipedia, Andrew "fuzheado" Lih, was < http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Press_releases/February _2004&action=history> among the authors and contacts for this press release.) If the Foundation is unwilling, I request an explanation why its corporate view has changed. Is it simply because Jimmy Wales has made his wishes known and you enforce them?
Second, I request any reporter who interviews you about the early history of Wikipedia and Nupedia to interview me as well, so I can correct anything misleading. They should know that there are many details in my 2005 http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/18/164213&tid=95 memoir of Nupedia and Wikipedia, and my story has never varied. I would also appreciate it if a reporter were to inquire about my request, above, to the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Larry Sanger (sanger@citizendium.org)
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
But you know there can only be one benevolent dictator, right?
On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 6:20 AM, Brian Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu wrote:
Honestly, it's important enough that the Foundation should take an objective look at the facts and make a statement about Wikipedia's history.
On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 7:36 PM, Larry Sanger <sanger-lists@citizendium.org
wrote:
All,
Earlier today, I had no joy in trying to post this "open letter to Jimmy Wales" on Jimmy's own user talk page: the man himself deleted it. That is not the sort of behavior I would have expected of the head of an allegedly open, transparent community devoted to free speech. I would like Wikipedians in general to be apprised of my concerns. I believe they are serious and well-justified, and they should not be dismissed without a careful hearing. I do not ask that Jimmy Wales reply here on this list. But I do ask that "the powers that be"--including the Wikipedia community, the Wikimedia Board, and the media--hold Jimmy responsible for his very shabby behavior toward me.
Let me be clear. This is not just an attempt to "tell my side of the story." It is me confronting Jimmy Wales publicly for lying about my involvement in the project after many private requests to stop. You might disagree with me about many things, but we need not disagree about the facts as they can be found in various Internet archives, nor about the necessity of keeping our leaders honest.
A readable copy, with some updates, can be found here:
http://blog.citizendium.org/2009/04/08/an-open-letter-to-jimmy-wales-copy/
http://blog.citizendium.org/2009/04/08/updates-re-open-letter-to-jimmy-wales /
The letter itself follows.
--Larry Sanger
===============
Jimmy, I don't know a better place than this for an open letter to you [i.e., than on your user talk page on Wikipedia]. I recently read the Hot Press interview with you. The lies and distortions it contains are, for me, the last straw, especially after http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/xodp/message/1720 this came to light, in which you described yourself as "co-founder" in 2002.
I've reached out to you on a couple of occasions to coordinate our "versions" - well, my version and your fanciful inventions - about how Wikipedia got started. Last year I read about a speech in which you represented me as being more or less opposed to Wikipedia from the start - despite it being my own baby, really - and I wrote to you saying that if you keep this up, I will speak out. Well, I'm finally speaking out.
In Wikipedia's first three years, it was clear to everyone working on it that not only had I named the project, I came up with and promoted the idea of making a wiki encyclopedia, wrote the first policy pages and many more policy pages in the following year, led the project, and enforced many rules that are now taken for granted. I came up with a lot of stuff that is regarded as standard operating procedure. For instance, I argued that talk should go on talk pages and got people into that habit. Similarly, after meta-discussion started taking up so much of Wikipedia's time and energy, I shepherded talk about the project to meta.wikipedia.org - and after that, to Wikipedia-L and WikiEN-L. I insisted that we were working on an encyclopedia, not on the many other things one can use a wiki for. I came up with the name "Wikipedian" and other Wikipedia jargon. I had devised a neutrality policy for Nupedia, and I elaborated it in a form that stood for several years on Wikipedia. I did a lot of explaining and evangelizing for Wikipedia - what it is about, why we are here, and so forth - for example, in <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Our_Replies_to_Our_Critics%22
Wikipedia:Our Replies to Our Critics and a couple of well-known posts on kuro5hin.org http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/7/25/103136/121 like this one and http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/9/24/43858/2479 this. I also recall introducing many specific policy details, the evidence for which is in archives (such as on archive.org) and no doubt in the memories of some of the more active early Wikipedians.
These are only some examples of ways in which I led the project in its first 14 months; after I left, there was a lot of soul-searching in the project about what would happen now that it was "leaderless" (see the quotations linked from http://www.larrysanger.org/roleinwp.html this page). When I was involved in the project, I was regarded as its chief organizer. As you can still see in the archives, I called myself "Chief Instigator" and "Chief Organizer" and the like (not editor).
I also want to correct you on something that tends to harm me: your repeated insinuations that I was "fired." In the Hot Press interview, you said I left Wikipedia because you "didn't want to pay him any more." You know - and so does everyone else who worked at Bomis, Inc., around a dozen people - that at the end of 2001, you had to go back to Bomis' original 4-5 employees, because of the tech market bust, when Bomis suddenly lost a million-dollar ad deal. Tim Shell told me I was the last person to be laid off. He told me
- the day I arrived back from my honeymoon, as I recall - that I should
probably start looking for new work, because of the market. I was made to believe, and always did until a few years ago when you started implying otherwise, that I had been laid off just like all the other Bomis employees.
In those first three years, Wikipedia did three press releases, in which we are both given credit as founders of the project. I < http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%27s_first_press_relea se> drafted the first press release in January 2002; you read and approved it before posting it on the wires. Moreover, you must have read the many early news articles that called us both founders. You could have complained then - when you were CEO of the company that paid my paycheck. But you didn't. In fact, you called yourself "co-founder" from time to time. Evidence of this has surfaced in the form of http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/xodp/message/1720 this post to xodp in which you begin, "Hello, let me introduce myself. I'm Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Nupedia and Wikipedia, the open content encyclopedias." While your company supplied the funding and you supplied some guidance, I supplied the main leadership of the early project. This is why Wikipedia's second press release also called me "founder," in 2003 - just after I broke permanently with you and the Wikipedia community - and the Wikimedia Foundation's first press release described me the same way, in early 2004.
I had nothing to do with the second and third press releases, and, as Bomis CEO and Wikimedia Chair, you approved all three. But now read what you told Hot Press recently. The interviewer asked: "Sanger said that proof of his being co-founder is on the initial press releases. Are you saying that he basically just put himself down as co-founder on these press releases?" You answered "Yes." How could I "put myself down as co-founder" in 2003 and 2004, when I wasn't even part of the organization? This is an attempt to buff your reputation while making me look like a liar - but your simple "Yes" answer can be refuted with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/January_2002 a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/January_2003 few http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/February_2004 URLs; you were a contact on all three press releases.
Beginning in 2004, you began leaving me out of the story of Wikipedia's origin. You began implying, to reporters, that you had done a lot of the sort of work that, in fact, you hired me to do. You have even implied that I was opposed to various ideas that were crucial to Wikipedia's popular success - when those were, for all intents and purposes, my own ideas. A good example is Daniel Pink's http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/wiki.html article for Wired Magazine - in which you implied that I had little or nothing to do with Wikipedia.
You still do this. You told the Hot Press interviewer, "Larry was never comfortable with the open-editing model of Wikipedia and he very early on wanted to start locking things down and giving certain people special authority - you know, recruit experts to supervise certain areas of the encyclopaedia and things like that." This is a lie. I was perfectly comfortable with the "open-editing model of Wikipedia." After all, that was my idea. I did not want to "start locking things down" - or to "recruit experts to supervise certain areas of the encyclopaedia." I challenge anyone to find any evidence in the archive that I did any such thing. For my early attitude toward expert involvement, see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Deferring_to_the_experts this column, written a year after the project started. Besides, your claim doesn't make sense. Even after a year, I was hoping that a revitalized Nupedia would work in tandem with Wikipedia as its vetting service. Though you increasingly disliked Nupedia as Wikipedia's star rose, it was always my assumption that you felt the same way about at least the potential of the two projects working together.
It was one thing, in 2004, to leave me out of the story of Wikipedia. It was another to assert in 2005, (1) for http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-April/021452.html the very first time, that http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-April/021446.html somebody else had the idea for the project, contrary to < http://web.archive.org/web/20010406101346/www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Wikipedia_ FAQ> what had been on the books since 2001, or (2) that I am not co-founder of the project. But in both cases, people scanning the Wikipedia-L mailing list archives found old mails in which you contradicted yourself. < http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-October/000671.html
One embarrassing mail has you giving me credit - as, of course, I always had been given credit - for the idea of Wikipedia, and http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/xodp/message/1720 another embarrassing mail surfaced just a few days ago in which you called yourself "co-founder" of Wikipedia.
I find your behavior since 2004 transparently self-serving, considering that this rewriting of history began in 2004, just as Wikia.com was getting started, and you started promoting your reputation as the brains behind Wikipedia. There is a long "paper trail" establishing virtually all of my claims about Wikipedia, and which refute your various attempts to rewrite history.
I have not publicly confronted you about this before, to this extent. Public controversies are emotionally wrenching and time-consuming. I know I might be (verbally) attacked more viciously than ever by your fans and Wikipedia's. (To them, I just point out that Wikipedia is bigger than Jimmy Wales.) I have mainly limited myself to answering reporters' questions - keeping my more harshly-worded statements off the record - and to http://www.larrysanger.org/roleinwp.html this page on my personal site. Occasionally I couldn't help objecting to some particularly outrageous claim, but I never went all out.
I thought that the evidence against your claims about me would shame you into changing your behavior. But, five years since you started misrepresenting my role in the founding of Wikipedia, you're still at it.
I have been content to watch you reap the rewards of the project I started for you, largely without comment. You (with Tim Shell and Michael Davis, the Bomis partners) did, after all, sponsor the project. After leaving Wikipedia, I went back to academia and, after that, worked for a succession of nonprofit projects - these days, http://www.citizendium.org/ Citizendium.org and now also http://www.watchknow.org/ WatchKnow.org. I have not tried to cash in on my own reputation. I have been approached by a number of venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and publishers and have always told them that I have my own plans. If I had wanted to cash in myself, I wouldn't have moved away from Silicon Valley back to Ohio, as I did, in order to lower my costs in supporting the non-profit projects which I've made my life's work.
The Hot Press interview is the straw that broke this camel's back. I resent being the victim of another person's self-serving lies. Besides, I don't want to set a poor example in my failure to defend myself.
Please don't say I'm making mountains out of molehills. When you go out of your way to edit Wikipedia articles to < http://workbench.cadenhead.org/news/2828/wikipedia-founder-looks-out-number -1http://workbench.cadenhead.org/news/2828/wikipedia-founder-looks-out-number%0A-1> remove the fact that I am a co-founder, or http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Jimbo_Found_Out ask others to do so, I don't call that correcting "very simple errors," as you told Hot Press. What angers me is not any one error, but the accumulated weight of your lies about me - I've mentioned only a few of them here.
Finally, you might protest that you have said, several times, that I am not credited enough. For example, you told Hot Press:
I feel that Larry's work is often under-appreciated. He really did a lot in the first year to think through editorial policy. . I would actually love to have it on the record that I said: I think Larry's work should be more appreciated. He's a really brilliant guy.
This sounds like a fine sentiment. But how could it be sincere? What better way to ensure that I am "under-appreciated" than to contradict your own first three press releases and tell the Boston Globe, just two years later, that it's "preposterous" that I am called co-founder?
I have two further requests, not of you, but of those who deal with you: the Wikimedia Foundation and reporters.
First, I ask the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation to reiterate the Foundation's original position (as expressed in its http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/February_2004 first press release) that we are both, in fact, founders of Wikipedia. (I note that the author of the recent history of Wikipedia, Andrew "fuzheado" Lih, was < http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Press_releases/February _2004&action=historyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Press_releases/February%0A_2004&action=history> among the authors and contacts for this press release.) If the Foundation is unwilling, I request an explanation why its corporate view has changed. Is it simply because Jimmy Wales has made his wishes known and you enforce them?
Second, I request any reporter who interviews you about the early history of Wikipedia and Nupedia to interview me as well, so I can correct anything misleading. They should know that there are many details in my 2005 http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/18/164213&tid=95 memoir of Nupedia and Wikipedia, and my story has never varied. I would also appreciate it if a reporter were to inquire about my request, above, to the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Larry Sanger (sanger@citizendium.org)
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
That would be a matter for Foundation-l then, not wikien-l.
2009/4/9 Brian Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu:
Honestly, it's important enough that the Foundation should take an objective look at the facts and make a statement about Wikipedia's history.
On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 7:36 PM, Larry Sanger sanger-lists@citizendium.orgwrote:
All,
Earlier today, I had no joy in trying to post this "open letter to Jimmy Wales" on Jimmy's own user talk page: the man himself deleted it. That is not the sort of behavior I would have expected of the head of an allegedly open, transparent community devoted to free speech. I would like Wikipedians in general to be apprised of my concerns. I believe they are serious and well-justified, and they should not be dismissed without a careful hearing. I do not ask that Jimmy Wales reply here on this list. But I do ask that "the powers that be"--including the Wikipedia community, the Wikimedia Board, and the media--hold Jimmy responsible for his very shabby behavior toward me.
Let me be clear. This is not just an attempt to "tell my side of the story." It is me confronting Jimmy Wales publicly for lying about my involvement in the project after many private requests to stop. You might disagree with me about many things, but we need not disagree about the facts as they can be found in various Internet archives, nor about the necessity of keeping our leaders honest.
A readable copy, with some updates, can be found here:
http://blog.citizendium.org/2009/04/08/an-open-letter-to-jimmy-wales-copy/
http://blog.citizendium.org/2009/04/08/updates-re-open-letter-to-jimmy-wales /
The letter itself follows.
--Larry Sanger
===============
Jimmy, I don't know a better place than this for an open letter to you [i.e., than on your user talk page on Wikipedia]. I recently read the Hot Press interview with you. The lies and distortions it contains are, for me, the last straw, especially after http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/xodp/message/1720 this came to light, in which you described yourself as "co-founder" in 2002.
I've reached out to you on a couple of occasions to coordinate our "versions" - well, my version and your fanciful inventions - about how Wikipedia got started. Last year I read about a speech in which you represented me as being more or less opposed to Wikipedia from the start - despite it being my own baby, really - and I wrote to you saying that if you keep this up, I will speak out. Well, I'm finally speaking out.
In Wikipedia's first three years, it was clear to everyone working on it that not only had I named the project, I came up with and promoted the idea of making a wiki encyclopedia, wrote the first policy pages and many more policy pages in the following year, led the project, and enforced many rules that are now taken for granted. I came up with a lot of stuff that is regarded as standard operating procedure. For instance, I argued that talk should go on talk pages and got people into that habit. Similarly, after meta-discussion started taking up so much of Wikipedia's time and energy, I shepherded talk about the project to meta.wikipedia.org - and after that, to Wikipedia-L and WikiEN-L. I insisted that we were working on an encyclopedia, not on the many other things one can use a wiki for. I came up with the name "Wikipedian" and other Wikipedia jargon. I had devised a neutrality policy for Nupedia, and I elaborated it in a form that stood for several years on Wikipedia. I did a lot of explaining and evangelizing for Wikipedia - what it is about, why we are here, and so forth - for example, in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Our_Replies_to_Our_Critics%22 Wikipedia:Our Replies to Our Critics and a couple of well-known posts on kuro5hin.org http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/7/25/103136/121 like this one and http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/9/24/43858/2479 this. I also recall introducing many specific policy details, the evidence for which is in archives (such as on archive.org) and no doubt in the memories of some of the more active early Wikipedians.
These are only some examples of ways in which I led the project in its first 14 months; after I left, there was a lot of soul-searching in the project about what would happen now that it was "leaderless" (see the quotations linked from http://www.larrysanger.org/roleinwp.html this page). When I was involved in the project, I was regarded as its chief organizer. As you can still see in the archives, I called myself "Chief Instigator" and "Chief Organizer" and the like (not editor).
I also want to correct you on something that tends to harm me: your repeated insinuations that I was "fired." In the Hot Press interview, you said I left Wikipedia because you "didn't want to pay him any more." You know - and so does everyone else who worked at Bomis, Inc., around a dozen people - that at the end of 2001, you had to go back to Bomis' original 4-5 employees, because of the tech market bust, when Bomis suddenly lost a million-dollar ad deal. Tim Shell told me I was the last person to be laid off. He told me
- the day I arrived back from my honeymoon, as I recall - that I should
probably start looking for new work, because of the market. I was made to believe, and always did until a few years ago when you started implying otherwise, that I had been laid off just like all the other Bomis employees.
In those first three years, Wikipedia did three press releases, in which we are both given credit as founders of the project. I < http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%27s_first_press_relea se> drafted the first press release in January 2002; you read and approved it before posting it on the wires. Moreover, you must have read the many early news articles that called us both founders. You could have complained then - when you were CEO of the company that paid my paycheck. But you didn't. In fact, you called yourself "co-founder" from time to time. Evidence of this has surfaced in the form of http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/xodp/message/1720 this post to xodp in which you begin, "Hello, let me introduce myself. I'm Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Nupedia and Wikipedia, the open content encyclopedias." While your company supplied the funding and you supplied some guidance, I supplied the main leadership of the early project. This is why Wikipedia's second press release also called me "founder," in 2003 - just after I broke permanently with you and the Wikipedia community - and the Wikimedia Foundation's first press release described me the same way, in early 2004.
I had nothing to do with the second and third press releases, and, as Bomis CEO and Wikimedia Chair, you approved all three. But now read what you told Hot Press recently. The interviewer asked: "Sanger said that proof of his being co-founder is on the initial press releases. Are you saying that he basically just put himself down as co-founder on these press releases?" You answered "Yes." How could I "put myself down as co-founder" in 2003 and 2004, when I wasn't even part of the organization? This is an attempt to buff your reputation while making me look like a liar - but your simple "Yes" answer can be refuted with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/January_2002 a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/January_2003 few http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/February_2004 URLs; you were a contact on all three press releases.
Beginning in 2004, you began leaving me out of the story of Wikipedia's origin. You began implying, to reporters, that you had done a lot of the sort of work that, in fact, you hired me to do. You have even implied that I was opposed to various ideas that were crucial to Wikipedia's popular success - when those were, for all intents and purposes, my own ideas. A good example is Daniel Pink's http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/wiki.html article for Wired Magazine - in which you implied that I had little or nothing to do with Wikipedia.
You still do this. You told the Hot Press interviewer, "Larry was never comfortable with the open-editing model of Wikipedia and he very early on wanted to start locking things down and giving certain people special authority - you know, recruit experts to supervise certain areas of the encyclopaedia and things like that." This is a lie. I was perfectly comfortable with the "open-editing model of Wikipedia." After all, that was my idea. I did not want to "start locking things down" - or to "recruit experts to supervise certain areas of the encyclopaedia." I challenge anyone to find any evidence in the archive that I did any such thing. For my early attitude toward expert involvement, see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Deferring_to_the_experts this column, written a year after the project started. Besides, your claim doesn't make sense. Even after a year, I was hoping that a revitalized Nupedia would work in tandem with Wikipedia as its vetting service. Though you increasingly disliked Nupedia as Wikipedia's star rose, it was always my assumption that you felt the same way about at least the potential of the two projects working together.
It was one thing, in 2004, to leave me out of the story of Wikipedia. It was another to assert in 2005, (1) for http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-April/021452.html the very first time, that http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-April/021446.html somebody else had the idea for the project, contrary to < http://web.archive.org/web/20010406101346/www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Wikipedia_ FAQ> what had been on the books since 2001, or (2) that I am not co-founder of the project. But in both cases, people scanning the Wikipedia-L mailing list archives found old mails in which you contradicted yourself. <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-October/000671.html
One embarrassing mail has you giving me credit - as, of course, I always had been given credit - for the idea of Wikipedia, and http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/xodp/message/1720 another embarrassing mail surfaced just a few days ago in which you called yourself "co-founder" of Wikipedia.
I find your behavior since 2004 transparently self-serving, considering that this rewriting of history began in 2004, just as Wikia.com was getting started, and you started promoting your reputation as the brains behind Wikipedia. There is a long "paper trail" establishing virtually all of my claims about Wikipedia, and which refute your various attempts to rewrite history.
I have not publicly confronted you about this before, to this extent. Public controversies are emotionally wrenching and time-consuming. I know I might be (verbally) attacked more viciously than ever by your fans and Wikipedia's. (To them, I just point out that Wikipedia is bigger than Jimmy Wales.) I have mainly limited myself to answering reporters' questions - keeping my more harshly-worded statements off the record - and to http://www.larrysanger.org/roleinwp.html this page on my personal site. Occasionally I couldn't help objecting to some particularly outrageous claim, but I never went all out.
I thought that the evidence against your claims about me would shame you into changing your behavior. But, five years since you started misrepresenting my role in the founding of Wikipedia, you're still at it.
I have been content to watch you reap the rewards of the project I started for you, largely without comment. You (with Tim Shell and Michael Davis, the Bomis partners) did, after all, sponsor the project. After leaving Wikipedia, I went back to academia and, after that, worked for a succession of nonprofit projects - these days, http://www.citizendium.org/ Citizendium.org and now also http://www.watchknow.org/ WatchKnow.org. I have not tried to cash in on my own reputation. I have been approached by a number of venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and publishers and have always told them that I have my own plans. If I had wanted to cash in myself, I wouldn't have moved away from Silicon Valley back to Ohio, as I did, in order to lower my costs in supporting the non-profit projects which I've made my life's work.
The Hot Press interview is the straw that broke this camel's back. I resent being the victim of another person's self-serving lies. Besides, I don't want to set a poor example in my failure to defend myself.
Please don't say I'm making mountains out of molehills. When you go out of your way to edit Wikipedia articles to < http://workbench.cadenhead.org/news/2828/wikipedia-founder-looks-out-number -1> remove the fact that I am a co-founder, or http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Jimbo_Found_Out ask others to do so, I don't call that correcting "very simple errors," as you told Hot Press. What angers me is not any one error, but the accumulated weight of your lies about me - I've mentioned only a few of them here.
Finally, you might protest that you have said, several times, that I am not credited enough. For example, you told Hot Press:
I feel that Larry's work is often under-appreciated. He really did a lot in the first year to think through editorial policy. . I would actually love to have it on the record that I said: I think Larry's work should be more appreciated. He's a really brilliant guy.
This sounds like a fine sentiment. But how could it be sincere? What better way to ensure that I am "under-appreciated" than to contradict your own first three press releases and tell the Boston Globe, just two years later, that it's "preposterous" that I am called co-founder?
I have two further requests, not of you, but of those who deal with you: the Wikimedia Foundation and reporters.
First, I ask the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation to reiterate the Foundation's original position (as expressed in its http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/February_2004 first press release) that we are both, in fact, founders of Wikipedia. (I note that the author of the recent history of Wikipedia, Andrew "fuzheado" Lih, was < http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Press_releases/February _2004&action=history> among the authors and contacts for this press release.) If the Foundation is unwilling, I request an explanation why its corporate view has changed. Is it simply because Jimmy Wales has made his wishes known and you enforce them?
Second, I request any reporter who interviews you about the early history of Wikipedia and Nupedia to interview me as well, so I can correct anything misleading. They should know that there are many details in my 2005 http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/18/164213&tid=95 memoir of Nupedia and Wikipedia, and my story has never varied. I would also appreciate it if a reporter were to inquire about my request, above, to the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Larry Sanger (sanger@citizendium.org)
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Larry Sanger wrote:
All,
Earlier today, I had no joy in trying to post this "open letter to Jimmy Wales" on Jimmy's own user talk page: the man himself deleted it. That is not the sort of behavior I would have expected of the head of an allegedly open, transparent community devoted to free speech.
<snip>
I came up with and promoted the idea of making a wiki encyclopedia, wrote the first policy pages and many more policy pages in the following year, led the project, and enforced many rules that are now taken for granted. I came up with a lot of stuff that is regarded as standard operating procedure. For instance, I argued that talk should go on talk pages and got people into that habit. Similarly, after meta-discussion started taking up so much of Wikipedia's time and energy, I shepherded talk about the project to meta.wikipedia.org - and after that, to Wikipedia-L and WikiEN-L. I insisted that we were working on an encyclopedia, not on the many other things one can use a wiki for.
Putting aside for the moment, the rest of your missive of quite respectable length; if you do deserve kudos for creating the very first heuristics for channeling discussion to appropriate fora, it is sadly regrettable that you were not able to choose the initial forum where you published your diatribe with more discernment.
User talk pages in current practice are not for blogging or personal communication (except to the extent that such personal communication is in the aid of cementing the trust and fellow feeling contributors have with each other, and thus helps our work as a community). User talk should be squarely about improving the encyclopaedia.
You may not have taken the trouble to acquaint yourself with the methods by which legitimate feedback and comment on wikimedian matters is currently channeled, but it would very much be worth your while, to facilitate a smoother communicative experience.
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
Can this just not stop? From what I can see, Larry worked for Jimmy at Bomis. Together they worked on Wikipedia, but with Larry coming up with the idea & being the main driving force behind it to start with. But he was an employee of Bomis. Everyone knows that you once described each other as co-founders & therefore, if that's what Jimmy described you as back then, that's what you are. He could just as easily have described you as an employee of the finder & would be entitled to as you were the employee & he can take the credit.
Why the continuous childish bickering-everyone knows what happened & it makes absolutely no difference now.
Please just get over it, it's damaging Wikipedia itself, which I don't think Larry wants to do, & just seems so pointless.
That's my ten cents!
On 09/04/2009 16:21, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
Larry Sanger wrote:
All,
Earlier today, I had no joy in trying to post this "open letter to Jimmy Wales" on Jimmy's own user talk page: the man himself deleted it. That is not the sort of behavior I would have expected of the head of an allegedly open, transparent community devoted to free speech.
<snip>
I came up with and promoted the idea of making a wiki encyclopedia, wrote the first policy pages and many more policy pages in the following year, led the project, and enforced many rules that are now taken for granted. I came up with a lot of stuff that is regarded as standard operating procedure. For instance, I argued that talk should go on talk pages and got people into that habit. Similarly, after meta-discussion started taking up so much of Wikipedia's time and energy, I shepherded talk about the project to meta.wikipedia.org - and after that, to Wikipedia-L and WikiEN-L. I insisted that we were working on an encyclopedia, not on the many other things one can use a wiki for.
Putting aside for the moment, the rest of your missive of quite respectable length; if you do deserve kudos for creating the very first heuristics for channeling discussion to appropriate fora, it is sadly regrettable that you were not able to choose the initial forum where you published your diatribe with more discernment.
User talk pages in current practice are not for blogging or personal communication (except to the extent that such personal communication is in the aid of cementing the trust and fellow feeling contributors have with each other, and thus helps our work as a community). User talk should be squarely about improving the encyclopaedia.
You may not have taken the trouble to acquaint yourself with the methods by which legitimate feedback and comment on wikimedian matters is currently channeled, but it would very much be worth your while, to facilitate a smoother communicative experience.
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
First, let me thank the moderators for approving my letter.
Replies to two different people here.
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
... it is sadly regrettable that you were not able to choose the initial forum where you published your diatribe with more discernment.
I disagree. As I said in the letter itself, there is not a better place for this message than Jimmy Wales' user talk page. This is because I am deliberately confronting him. If I can't confront a person on the talk page for the leader (at least by reputation) of the project, where can I?
User talk pages in current practice are not for blogging or personal communication
I think you may not understand what an open letter is. Why don't you look it up on Wikipedia? An open letter cannot be dismissed as either a blogs or a personal communication.
User talk should be squarely about improving the encyclopaedia.
This *is* about improving the encyclopedia--by improving its leadership, the way that the media reports about it, and what Wikipedians themselves know about it.
You may not have taken the trouble to acquaint yourself with the methods by which legitimate feedback and comment on wikimedian matters is currently channeled, but it would very much be worth your while, to facilitate a smoother communicative experience.
This illustrates a sort of silly, condescending manner of speaking among Wikipedians that really ought to stop. Enough said.
Tris Thomas wrote:
Can this just not stop?
Stop? But I am not continuing something, I am starting something. I have never confronted Jimmy Wales publicly in this way for his lies, and described them as lies, ever before. I am absolutely insisting, once and for all, that the record be corrected and that Jimmy Wales be held to account for his appalling and self-serving behavior toward me.
The way to stop it is for Jimmy Wales to be shamed into ceasing his misrepresentations of Wikipedia's early history--or else for him to earn a wide public reputation as a completely unreliable source about it. Either way will suit me fine. Until then, I will continue to confront and shame him with archived evidence of his mendacity.
I would hope that those with an interest in sound leadership and honesty would appreciate and support my efforts.
Everyone knows that you once described each other as co-founders & therefore, if that's what Jimmy described you as back then, that's what you are.
I'm glad you're convinced. Then let's ask the Wikimedia Foundation to reaffirm what it said about me in its very first press release.
Anyway, this isn't just about the label "co-founder," as you'll see if you read the letter.
Why the continuous childish bickering-everyone knows what happened & it makes absolutely no difference now.
What I see as "childish" is the unnecessary tip-toeing around Jimmy Wales, and people supporting and making excuses for what *really is* just self-serving dishonesty.
Please just get over it, it's damaging Wikipedia itself, which I don't think Larry wants to do, & just seems so pointless.
It is not pointless to get the record corrected and to hold our leaders to high standards of honesty. This may require courage, but it is essential to having a truly open, transparent community that has any chance of deserving the label "democratic."
In the end, assuming the Wikipedia community and Board reacts to this in a mature, decent manner, it could come out of this stronger and better. On the other hand, if you pretend that it isn't happening, or dismiss my concerns, you'll just be digging yourselves even deeper into the hole you're already in. Remember: the world is watching.
--Larry
On Apr 9, 2009 9:11am, Larry Sanger sanger-lists@citizendium.org wrote:
You may not have taken the trouble to acquaint yourself
with the methods by which legitimate feedback and comment
on wikimedian matters is currently channeled, but it would
very much be worth your while, to facilitate a smoother
communicative experience.
This illustrates a sort of silly, condescending manner of speaking among
Wikipedians that really ought to stop. Enough said.
For once, I agree with Mr. Sanger. Unfortunately, the Wikipedian culture is now fossilized into strange patterns that are strange, unnecessarily complex, difficult to learn, and don't quite work the way they're supposed to anymore. I know you say you wish you'd done more in the beginning, but you can't and we have too much of a barrier to entry.
Enough said.
~O
Dear Larry Sanger: Please keep Citizendium going and do not step down in two years as, I believe, you have previously stated. Eventually more writers are going to show up at Citizendium if it proves to have a more collegial and collaborative atmosphere. We are currently stuck with Wikipedia, but you offer a great alternative.
Bill
________________________________ From: "purple.clouder@gmail.com" purple.clouder@gmail.com To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thursday, April 9, 2009 12:24:38 PM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] An open letter to Jimmy Wales
On Apr 9, 2009 9:11am, Larry Sanger sanger-lists@citizendium.org wrote:
You may not have taken the trouble to acquaint yourself
with the methods by which legitimate feedback and comment
on wikimedian matters is currently channeled, but it would
very much be worth your while, to facilitate a smoother
communicative experience.
This illustrates a sort of silly, condescending manner of speaking among
Wikipedians that really ought to stop. Enough said.
For once, I agree with Mr. Sanger. Unfortunately, the Wikipedian culture is now fossilized into strange patterns that are strange, unnecessarily complex, difficult to learn, and don't quite work the way they're supposed to anymore. I know you say you wish you'd done more in the beginning, but you can't and we have too much of a barrier to entry.
Enough said.
~O _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Another set of replies.
I wrote:
... On the other hand, if you pretend that it isn't happening, or dismiss my concerns, you'll just be digging yourselves even deeper into the hole you're already in. Remember: the world is watching.
Sam Korn replied:
What hole are we in, pray?
The reputation of Wikipedia as an endless source of scandal and dishonesty, coupled with this open letter, in which I decided to use whatever weight my views have in the "court of public opinion" to confront the project's leading light. Deny it if you must, but you have a problem on your hands.
Your concerns seem to be that Jimmy is not acknowledging your role and status as you'd like, and that the community and the Board are silent in the face of Jimmy's doing this.
That's only part of it, and not the biggest part. My biggest complaint is that Jimmy has lied about me, and a lot of people have believed him. I am determined finally to hold Jimmy Wales to account for it.
For my part, this silence may be attributed to insouciance -- I care little for the minutiae of history now eight years old and for your personal (yes, personal) dispute with Jimmy.
Perhaps you can explain what the world at large, the Wikipedia community and I personally gain from publicly pursuing it.
Well, Sam, if the honesty or dishonesty of your leader and chief spokesman does not concern you, if you don't care that he has used his position to distort the truth for personal gain, I doubt there is anything I can say that will convince you.
Bill Carter wrote:
Dear Larry Sanger: Please keep Citizendium going and do not step down in two years as, I believe, you have previously stated. Eventually more writers are going to show up at Citizendium if it proves to have a more collegial and collaborative atmosphere. We are currently stuck with Wikipedia, but you offer a great alternative.
Bill, I appreciate the compliment! But it is my intention to begin--soon--to seek a successor. It is deeply important that the torch be passed in truly open, democratic projects. I have other projects in the works to start, anyway.
Charles Matthews wrote:
One thing about history and Wikipedia, is that we are supposed to let historians write it. Really, if you are asking me personally to choose between your version of history, and what you say is Jimbo's, I would prefer a third-party, dispassionate account.
I am not asking you to choose "versions of history," I am asking you to acknowledge that Jimmy Wales has self-servingly denied, distorted, or ignored provable facts that ought to be acknowledged on *anybody's* version of history.
Tris Thomas wrote:
... but I really don't see the need to continue this issue. There is no tiptoeing around Jimmy Wales as can be seen by many people's views on here(I'm sure he's reading it) & in Wikipedia articles. There is a general consensus that on this particular matter, Jimmy is unreliable & almost everyone agrees, so why the continuation? If there is anyone here who believes that Jimmy is right & is the sole & only founder, please make yourself known, otherwise can we just end this pointless, yes pointless, feud.
This is not a feud, Tris. This is me publicly confronting a liar with evidence. A feud would be more of a matter of competing claims with no way of sorting them out. There *is* a way to sort the claims I dispute out: by looking in the archives and interviewing people.
Moreover, and I'm not sure how many times I am going to have to say this, it isn't just about the matter of being a "co-founder" and me getting credit. If you read the letter, you'll see why I say so. While I do of course want proper credit for my achievements, what I want even more is to correct the record in general, and to dissuade Jimmy Wales from being so fast and loose with the truth, as I said. I am now convinced this requires a public confrontation, because the low-level and private remarks I have made in response to him over the last five years or so obviously haven't worked. It will only stop when Jimmy Wales changes his tune, or he is so discredited in public that no one listens to him on the subject any longer.
Sam Korn said:
Perhaps you can explain what the world at large, the Wikipedia community and I personally gain from publicly pursuing it.
geni said:
It has in the past caused problems with our [[Wikipedia]] article and Jimbo's past attempts to distort the record did cause unnecessary conflict within wikipedia.
True, but it's more than that, you know. The problem isn't just inconvenience to the community. In an encyclopedia project, the inherent value of the truth itself ought to be accorded a lot of weight. In addition, you have Wikipedia's reputation in the broader world to think about. The sort of person who is permitted to speak on its behalf, and who still enjoys a lot of credence in claiming sole credit for starting it, says a lot about the project itself, I think.
Sam Korn wrote:
"Sanger and most media sources consider Wales and Sanger co-founders.[cite][cite][cite] Wales disputes it, saying that, although Sanger played a vital part in the formation of Wikipedia and his role is regularly underestimated, Wales alone should be considered the founder.</cite>"
Or something like that.
Well, I'm not going to try to tell you what the Wikipedia articles should say, but obviously a lot more needs to be said about the situation. Among other things, frankly, I think Wikipedia's articles should state that I--and a lot of other people--believe that Jimmy has been caught disseminating quite a bit of self-serving disinformation.
Fayssal F. said:
I may agree with that but I am still waiting for mainstream media talking about it and Larry's claims in the open before thinking about editing that page.
Fair enough. You won't have to wait long. But as you can probably guess, from my point of view, that this is ultimately not just about what the Wikipedia articles should say. It is about what the broader public "knows," which is something over which Wikipedia has only slender control at best (which is as it should be).
--Larry
Larry Sanger wrote:
Charles Matthews wrote:
One thing about history and Wikipedia, is that we are supposed to let historians write it. Really, if you are asking me personally to choose between your version of history, and what you say is Jimbo's, I would prefer a third-party, dispassionate account.
I am not asking you to choose "versions of history," I am asking you to acknowledge that Jimmy Wales has self-servingly denied, distorted, or ignored provable facts that ought to be acknowledged on *anybody's* version of history.
Distinction without a difference?
Seems to me you are letting off a fair amount of steam here. That is a traditional role of mailing lists, and in particular of wikien. Your unsubtle flaming of Jimmy here isn't likely to change too many minds; which is more than can be said for some of your past and more insidious comments on Wikipedia, in more prominent places. So go ahead, if it lances the boil.
Charles
Two more replies...
Charles Matthews wrote:
Seems to me you are letting off a fair amount of steam here. That is a traditional role of mailing lists, and in particular of wikien. Your unsubtle flaming of Jimmy here isn't likely to change too many minds; which is more than can be said for some of your past and more insidious comments on Wikipedia, in more prominent places. So go ahead, if it lances the boil.
Charles, I wrote an open letter, which has appeared on Jimmy Wales' user talk page as well as my blog, and now several other places--including this list. I'm not merely "flaming" Jimmy Wales on this list. I am publicly calling him to account. I am actually trying to achieve a certain effect, as I've explained.
I wrote:
Deny it if you must, but you have a problem on your hands.
Fred Bauder replied:
A problem you are trying to stir up.
A problem I am exacerbating--quite right. Do you have a problem with that?
As far as "Wikipedia [being] an endless source of scandal and dishonesty", that is an artifact of your own wishful thinking.
Well, if that's really what you want to think, Fred, I'm not going to spend my time trying to convince you otherwise. Suffice it to say that, outside of Wikipedia's inner circles and its Web 2.0 promoters and fans, Wikipedia's reputation for honesty and decency is rather less than sterling.
As the promoter of a competing project your interest is transparent.
Your insinuation here, Fred, deserves no reply.
I do think an apology is due you from Jimmy Wales, but that ought to be the end of it.
If Jimmy Wales were to apologize, he would have to admit that he had done something wrong., and for me to believe an apology, I should have to see him correct the record and say he was wrong. What are the chances of that happening? I think I know Jimmy well enough to know he will never do that.
--Larry
This statement is totally incorrect:
Suffice it to say that, outside of Wikipedia's inner circles and its Web 2.0 promoters and fans, Wikipedia's reputation for honesty and decency is rather less than sterling.
I am pretty new to Wikipedia editing but have obviously used it for a long time before. Wikipedia has some reliability issues which is why it's discouraged in schools etc. but it definitely does not have a reputation for dishonesty & indecency. I am no Wikipedia die hard fan, but I enjoy using it & it has proved an invaluable resource many many times. In the wider public, it is viewed as a respectable & accurate encyclopedia, with some issues directly related to the fact that anyone can edit it. Mr Sanger-I feel I am very neutral in this debate, having no real opinion, I also don't really care who "wins", because that's what it is all about. I just think this is a stupid thing to keep going on at, all replies so far have agreed with you that Jimmy did wrong & should probably apologise or set the record straight. Your constant gibes at Wikipedia serve no purpose except to turn many neutral editors who are here & would probably be happy to help get a NPOV, against you. Please stop this pointless, yes I'll say it again, pointless, business for the good of everyone.
Phew, let that off, apologise if I offended anyone, just want to stop this rubbish.
On 09/04/2009 19:57, Larry Sanger wrote:
Suffice it to say that, outside of Wikipedia's inner circles and its Web 2.0 promoters and fans, Wikipedia's reputation for honesty and decency is rather less than sterling.
2009/4/9 Tris Thomas Tris@waterhay.co.uk:
Phew, let that off, apologise if I offended anyone, just want to stop this rubbish.
I predict it won't stop it for a moment. Mike Johnson of CZ has noted before that criticising Wikipedia is the quickest way to publicity for Citizendium:
http://moderndragons.blogspot.com/2007/05/modern-dragons-now-with-20-more-um...
As I commented on that post, it's not clear that's good for Citizendium in the long run. Entirely too many Citizendium contributors appear to be in it to be against Wikipedia, rather than e.g. to write an encyclopedia.
- d.
2009/4/9 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
I predict it won't stop it for a moment. Mike Johnson of CZ has noted before that criticising Wikipedia is the quickest way to publicity for Citizendium: http://moderndragons.blogspot.com/2007/05/modern-dragons-now-with-20-more-um... As I commented on that post, it's not clear that's good for Citizendium in the long run. Entirely too many Citizendium contributors appear to be in it to be against Wikipedia, rather than e.g. to write an encyclopedia.
Further note from Tara Hunt: "How not to build a community: Part I: the anti-community "
http://www.horsepigcow.com/2006/06/how-not-to-build-community-part-i-anti.ht...
"The first mistake I ever made in community fostering is to position the company I worked for in opposition to another one (can't find that post, but I was an idiot). So let me offer this unsolicited advice: Rule #1 in building your own reputation is to never ever ever build it on the grounds that it is different/better/etc. than an established company"
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_%28software_development%29 - the successful forks don't spend their time railing against the other tine of the fork ... they get on with being good of their own account.
- d.
2009/4/9 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
Further note from Tara Hunt: "How not to build a community: Part I: the anti-community " http://www.horsepigcow.com/2006/06/how-not-to-build-community-part-i-anti.ht...
David Shankbone comments:
http://blog.shankbone.org/2009/04/09/larry-sanger-vs-jimmy-wales/
"Perhaps the explanation as to why Sanger is now making so much noise about this again is that Citizendium is not doing so great. Nobody reads it and nobody cares about it. Most people do not know it exists."
Seth Finkelstein is apparently going to try for another hatchet job on the subject in the Guardian, after his previous one was severely gutted (in case you're wondering why it didn't appear to make sense). I'm sure it'll be beautiful.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
2009/4/9 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
Further note from Tara Hunt: "How not to build a community: Part I: the anti-community " http://www.horsepigcow.com/2006/06/how-not-to-build-community-part-i-anti.ht...
David Shankbone comments:
http://blog.shankbone.org/2009/04/09/larry-sanger-vs-jimmy-wales/
"Perhaps the explanation as to why Sanger is now making so much noise about this again is that Citizendium is not doing so great. Nobody reads it and nobody cares about it. Most people do not know it exists."
Seth Finkelstein is apparently going to try for another hatchet job on the subject in the Guardian, after his previous one was severely gutted (in case you're wondering why it didn't appear to make sense). I'm sure it'll be beautiful.
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I was scanning the list today so I've not read every message in this thread. What is citizendium? Is there a linky?
Best,
Jon
2009/4/10 Jon scream@nonvocalscream.com:
I was scanning the list today so I've not read every message in this thread. What is citizendium? Is there a linky?
It's another attempt to make a wiki-based free content encyclopedia that isn't Wikipedia.
- d.
On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 6:13 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2009/4/10 Jon scream@nonvocalscream.com:
I was scanning the list today so I've not read every message in this thread. What is citizendium? Is there a linky?
It's another attempt to make a wiki-based free content encyclopedia that isn't Wikipedia.
We also have an article on it, as well as one on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizendium http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia
Citizendium have an article on Wikipedia and also one on Citizendium:
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Wikipedia http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Citizendium
It's quite interesting reading those four articles and comparing them.
Carcharoth
Wikipedia says Wikipedia was "a complementary project for Nupedia". Citenzendium says Wikipedia was "an accidental spin-off of Nupedia". Is there any reason to say that? How can a project be an "accidental spin-off" of something else?
Noble Story
________________________________ From: Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Saturday, April 11, 2009 2:00:37 AM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] An open letter to Jimmy Wales
On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 6:13 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2009/4/10 Jon scream@nonvocalscream.com:
I was scanning the list today so I've not read every message in this thread. What is citizendium? Is there a linky?
It's another attempt to make a wiki-based free content encyclopedia that isn't Wikipedia.
We also have an article on it, as well as one on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizendium http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia
Citizendium have an article on Wikipedia and also one on Citizendium:
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Wikipedia http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Citizendium
It's quite interesting reading those four articles and comparing them.
Carcharoth
_______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
In my opinion what Wikipedia says about this matter is entirely irrelevant. Wikipedia is not a source of authority on the matter - the Wikimedia Foundation is.
On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 7:59 PM, Mark Nilrad marknilrad@yahoo.com wrote:
Wikipedia says Wikipedia was "a complementary project for Nupedia". Citenzendium says Wikipedia was "an accidental spin-off of Nupedia". Is there any reason to say that? How can a project be an "accidental spin-off" of something else?
Noble Story
From: Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Saturday, April 11, 2009 2:00:37 AM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] An open letter to Jimmy Wales
On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 6:13 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2009/4/10 Jon scream@nonvocalscream.com:
I was scanning the list today so I've not read every message in this thread. What is citizendium? Is there a linky?
It's another attempt to make a wiki-based free content encyclopedia that isn't Wikipedia.
We also have an article on it, as well as one on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizendium http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia
Citizendium have an article on Wikipedia and also one on Citizendium:
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Wikipedia http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Citizendium
It's quite interesting reading those four articles and comparing them.
Carcharoth
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-----Original Message----- From: Brian Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 10:54 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] An open letter to Jimmy Wales
In my opinion what Wikipedia says about this matter is entirely irrelevant. Wikipedia is not a source of authority on the matter - the Wikimedia Foundation is.>> -------------------------
Foundations like companies are mostly the worst possible historians. They have a vested interest in rewriting history to match their current goals.
Will Johnson
Lets just be clear that this is an IMHO that has nothing to do with my point - the source of authority on the subject. All primary sources are biased in that respect.
On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 12:24 AM, wjhonson@aol.com wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: Brian Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 10:54 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] An open letter to Jimmy Wales
In my opinion what Wikipedia says about this matter is entirely irrelevant. Wikipedia is not a source of authority on the matter - the Wikimedia Foundation is.>>
Foundations like companies are mostly the worst possible historians. They have a vested interest in rewriting history to match their current goals.
Will Johnson
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Brian, the foundation is not the "source of authority" on what did or didn't happen years before they existed. The sources of authority would be those people who were actually present and involved in the situation.
I'm sure that the entire company wasn't solely Jimmy and Larry. There are probably others who were employees or whatever who could also be interviewed on the matter.
As well there are archives of what Jimmy and Larry did or didn't say, and when and to whom. The foundation really is irrelevant in writing the "History of Wikipedia: The First Two Years". They aren't even a primary source.
Will Johnson
Jimmy Wales is part of the Wikimedia Foundation.
On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 3:35 AM, wjhonson@aol.com wrote:
Brian, the foundation is not the "source of authority" on what did or didn't happen years before they existed. The sources of authority would be those people who were actually present and involved in the situation.
I'm sure that the entire company wasn't solely Jimmy and Larry. There are probably others who were employees or whatever who could also be interviewed on the matter.
As well there are archives of what Jimmy and Larry did or didn't say, and when and to whom. The foundation really is irrelevant in writing the "History of Wikipedia: The First Two Years". They aren't even a primary source.
Will Johnson
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-----Original Message----- From: Brian Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 3:56 am Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] An open letter to Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Wales is part of the Wikimedia Foundation.
------------------ Yes and many others who were there at the beginning, are not now part of the Foundation. The Foundation isn't relevant to writing a history, that's my point. They are not the seat of authority on that matter and they aren't even a primary source because most of them weren't a party to the early machinations. The people who make up the Foundation today are relative newcomers. At least for this particular purpose.
Will Johnson
Folks, shout Larry down all you want - I know I personally would be happy to see the co-founder dispute disappear forever. But threats to block or moderate him are overboard; there is no basis for either action (and a block would result in repercussions for the blocking admin, I'd imagine).
Nathan
David Gerard wrote:
Mike Johnson of CZ has noted before that criticising Wikipedia is the quickest way to publicity for Citizendium:
http://moderndragons.blogspot.com/2007/05/modern-dragons-now-with-20-more-um...
Fighting red ink with green?
Charles
Larry Sanger wrote:
Two more replies...
Charles Matthews wrote:
Seems to me you are letting off a fair amount of steam here. That is a traditional role of mailing lists, and in particular of wikien. Your unsubtle flaming of Jimmy here isn't likely to change too many minds; which is more than can be said for some of your past and more insidious comments on Wikipedia, in more prominent places. So go ahead, if it lances the boil.
Charles, I wrote an open letter, which has appeared on Jimmy Wales' user talk page as well as my blog, and now several other places--including this list. I'm not merely "flaming" Jimmy Wales on this list. I am publicly calling him to account. I am actually trying to achieve a certain effect, as I've explained.
Actually, though I may be an "inner circler", the combination of forum-shopping and an intent to demonise by sheer assertion is not unfamiliar to me. Come to think of it - tip of the tongue - ah yes, you've decided to treat us to some "trolling". Those who have something in mind that is not merely "effective" - as mudslinging may be - tend to approach debates in other ways.
Fred Bauder replied:
As the promoter of a competing project your interest is transparent.
Your insinuation here, Fred, deserves no reply.
I think that means you're not going to answer Fred, not that you needn't.
Yes, the bit where you write: "Suffice it to say that, outside of Wikipedia's inner circles and its Web 2.0 promoters and fans, Wikipedia's reputation for honesty and decency is rather less than sterling." You know, I think you may really feel that some people are inattentive enough not to notice the elisions here. You argue, it seems, that Jimmy Wales may not be a reliable witness in his own case. You don't, apparently, think you need to justify the claim that you are, in your own case. You start off trashing Jimmy's reputation, and then, hey presto, it's Wikipedia's reputation as an anthropomorphised whole that's in the pillory.
Cutting to the chase, it seems perfectly easy to say "a pox on both your houses" in the dispute on the "founder" badge; and yet to defend Wikipedia. In fact it's been a good few days, with positive write-ups in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the London Observer. Noam Cohen in the NYT mentions "there is a professional class of Wikipedia skeptics". If you haven't already, you should see the context there.
Charles
On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 8:21 PM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Larry Sanger wrote:
Two more replies...
Charles Matthews wrote:
Seems to me you are letting off a fair amount of steam here. That is a traditional role of mailing lists, and in particular of wikien. Your unsubtle flaming of Jimmy here isn't likely to change too many minds; which is more than can be said for some of your past and more insidious comments on Wikipedia, in more prominent places. So go ahead, if it lances the boil.
Charles, I wrote an open letter, which has appeared on Jimmy Wales' user talk page as well as my blog, and now several other places--including this list. I'm not merely "flaming" Jimmy Wales on this list. I am publicly calling him to account. I am actually trying to achieve a certain effect, as I've explained.
Actually, though I may be an "inner circler", the combination of forum-shopping and an intent to demonise by sheer assertion is not unfamiliar to me. Come to think of it - tip of the tongue - ah yes, you've decided to treat us to some "trolling". Those who have something in mind that is not merely "effective" - as mudslinging may be - tend to approach debates in other ways.
Fred Bauder replied:
As the promoter of a competing project your interest is transparent.
Your insinuation here, Fred, deserves no reply.
I think that means you're not going to answer Fred, not that you needn't.
Yes, the bit where you write: "Suffice it to say that, outside of Wikipedia's inner circles and its Web 2.0 promoters and fans, Wikipedia's reputation for honesty and decency is rather less than sterling." You know, I think you may really feel that some people are inattentive enough not to notice the elisions here. You argue, it seems, that Jimmy Wales may not be a reliable witness in his own case. You don't, apparently, think you need to justify the claim that you are, in your own case. You start off trashing Jimmy's reputation, and then, hey presto, it's Wikipedia's reputation as an anthropomorphised whole that's in the pillory.
To quote Mr Sanger, "Wikipedia is bigger than Jimmy Wales."
On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 7:04 PM, Larry Sanger sanger-lists@citizendium.org wrote:
Sam Korn replied:
What hole are we in, pray?
The reputation of Wikipedia as an endless source of scandal and dishonesty, coupled with this open letter, in which I decided to use whatever weight my views have in the "court of public opinion" to confront the project's leading light. Deny it if you must, but you have a problem on your hands.
Endless source of scandal and dishonesty? The reputation of Wikipedia? The project's leading light?
I credit none of the three.
Your concerns seem to be that Jimmy is not acknowledging your role and status as you'd like, and that the community and the Board are silent in the face of Jimmy's doing this.
That's only part of it, and not the biggest part. My biggest complaint is that Jimmy has lied about me, and a lot of people have believed him. I am determined finally to hold Jimmy Wales to account for it.
So it's personal. There's nothing wrong with that at all; from a certain point of view, I don't blame you. On the other hand, I'm not interested in getting involved.
For my part, this silence may be attributed to insouciance -- I care little for the minutiae of history now eight years old and for your personal (yes, personal) dispute with Jimmy.
Perhaps you can explain what the world at large, the Wikipedia community and I personally gain from publicly pursuing it.
Well, Sam, if the honesty or dishonesty of your leader and chief spokesman does not concern you, if you don't care that he has used his position to distort the truth for personal gain, I doubt there is anything I can say that will convince you.
I do not consider Jimmy Wikipedia's leader or its chief spokesman. Perhaps you underestimate the extent to which the project is community-led, community-driven, community-focussed; I don't know. I am not interested, no, in this personal and now-irrelevant dispute.
2009/4/9 Larry Sanger sanger-lists@citizendium.org
Fred Bauder replied:
A problem you are trying to stir up.
A problem I am exacerbating--quite right. Do you have a problem with that?
Yes. You can't complain that something is a problem when you are the one who is causing it.
Basically, shut up and go and cry in a corner.
Another set of replies.
I wrote:
... On the other hand, if you pretend that it isn't happening, or dismiss my concerns, you'll just be digging yourselves even deeper into the hole you're already in. Remember: the world is watching.
Sam Korn replied:
What hole are we in, pray?
The reputation of Wikipedia as an endless source of scandal and dishonesty, coupled with this open letter, in which I decided to use whatever weight my views have in the "court of public opinion" to confront the project's leading light. Deny it if you must, but you have a problem on your hands.
A problem you are trying to stir up. As far as "Wikipedia [being] an endless source of scandal and dishonesty", that is an artifact of your own wishful thinking. As the promoter of a competing project your interest is transparent. I do think an apology is due you from Jimmy Wales, but that ought to be the end of it.
Fred Bauder
2009/4/9 Larry Sanger sanger-lists@citizendium.org:
The reputation of Wikipedia as an endless source of scandal and dishonesty,
Nah. Sure journalists have worked out that an attack on wikipedia will get them some viewer ship but these days the attacks tend towards outdated recycled stuff or "I don't like it". Fresh scandals not so much.
coupled with this open letter, in which I decided to use whatever weight my views have in the "court of public opinion" to confront the project's leading light. Deny it if you must, but you have a problem on your hands.
We have many many problems. From the POV of the community Jimbo's actions with regards to the founder issue probably ranks somewhere below the fight over the "Country X country Y relations" articles.
That's only part of it, and not the biggest part. My biggest complaint is that Jimmy has lied about me, and a lot of people have believed him. I am determined finally to hold Jimmy Wales to account for it.
What does this have to do with the foundation or the community?
Well, Sam, if the honesty or dishonesty of your leader and chief spokesman does not concern you, if you don't care that he has used his position to distort the truth for personal gain, I doubt there is anything I can say that will convince you.
Jimbo is not the leader (sue might have a better claim to that but hard to tell) and I think chief spokesbeing is probably jay.
On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 12:11 PM, Larry Sanger sanger-lists@citizendium.orgwrote:
... it is sadly regrettable that you were not able to choose the initial forum where you published your diatribe with more discernment.
I disagree. As I said in the letter itself, there is not a better place for this message than Jimmy Wales' user talk page. This is because I am deliberately confronting him. If I can't confront a person on the talk page for the leader (at least by reputation) of the project, where can I?
Soapboxes are pretty cheap these days.
Why the continuous childish bickering-everyone knows what
happened & it makes absolutely no difference now.
What I see as "childish" is the unnecessary tip-toeing around Jimmy Wales, and people supporting and making excuses for what *really is* just self-serving dishonesty.
Moreover, I don't think everyone does know what happened during those early years. I've read contradictory statements about it, and have concluded that neither you nor Wales are being 100% truthful.
On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 5:11 PM, Larry Sanger sanger-lists@citizendium.org wrote:
In the end, assuming the Wikipedia community and Board reacts to this in a mature, decent manner, it could come out of this stronger and better. On the other hand, if you pretend that it isn't happening, or dismiss my concerns, you'll just be digging yourselves even deeper into the hole you're already in. Remember: the world is watching.
What hole are we in, pray?
Your concerns seem to be that Jimmy is not acknowledging your role and status as you'd like, and that the community and the Board are silent in the face of Jimmy's doing this. For my part, this silence may be attributed to insouciance -- I care little for the minutiae of history now eight years old and for your personal (yes, personal) dispute with Jimmy.
Perhaps you can explain what the world at large, the Wikipedia community and I personally gain from publicly pursuing it.
Agree with Sam, I'm not supporting Jimmy because it's clear in calling himself the sole founder he is wrong & shouldn't do it, but I really don't see the need to continue this issue. There is no tiptoeing around Jimmy Wales as can be seen by many people's views on here(I'm sure he's reading it) & in Wikipedia articles. There is a general consensus that on this particular matter, Jimmy is unreliable & almost everyone agrees, so why the continuation? If there is anyone here who believes that Jimmy is right & is the sole & only founder, please make yourself known, otherwise can we just end this pointless, yes pointless, feud.
Just my view! :,)
On 09/04/2009 17:33, Sam Korn wrote:
On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 5:11 PM, Larry Sanger sanger-lists@citizendium.org wrote:
In the end, assuming the Wikipedia community and Board reacts to this in a mature, decent manner, it could come out of this stronger and better. On the other hand, if you pretend that it isn't happening, or dismiss my concerns, you'll just be digging yourselves even deeper into the hole you're already in. Remember: the world is watching.
What hole are we in, pray?
Your concerns seem to be that Jimmy is not acknowledging your role and status as you'd like, and that the community and the Board are silent in the face of Jimmy's doing this. For my part, this silence may be attributed to insouciance -- I care little for the minutiae of history now eight years old and for your personal (yes, personal) dispute with Jimmy.
Perhaps you can explain what the world at large, the Wikipedia community and I personally gain from publicly pursuing it.
2009/4/9 Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com:
What hole are we in, pray?
Your concerns seem to be that Jimmy is not acknowledging your role and status as you'd like, and that the community and the Board are silent in the face of Jimmy's doing this. For my part, this silence may be attributed to insouciance -- I care little for the minutiae of history now eight years old and for your personal (yes, personal) dispute with Jimmy.
Perhaps you can explain what the world at large, the Wikipedia community and I personally gain from publicly pursuing it.
-- Sam PGP public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sam_Korn/public_key
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
2009/4/9 Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com:
Perhaps you can explain what the world at large, the Wikipedia community and I personally gain from publicly pursuing it.
It has in the past caused problems with our [[Wikipedia]] article and Jimbo's past attempts to distort the record did cause unnecessary conflict within wikipedia.
On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 6:15 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2009/4/9 Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com:
Perhaps you can explain what the world at large, the Wikipedia community and I personally gain from publicly pursuing it.
It has in the past caused problems with our [[Wikipedia]] article and Jimbo's past attempts to distort the record did cause unnecessary conflict within wikipedia.
"Sanger and most media sources consider Wales and Sanger co-founders.[cite][cite][cite] Wales disputes it, saying that, although Sanger played a vital part in the formation of Wikipedia and his role is regularly underestimated, Wales alone should be considered the founder.</cite>"
Or something like that.
On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 6:15 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2009/4/9 Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com:
Perhaps you can explain what the world at large, the Wikipedia community and I personally gain from publicly pursuing it.
It has in the past caused problems with our [[Wikipedia]] article and Jimbo's past attempts to distort the record did cause unnecessary conflict within wikipedia.
"Sanger and most media sources consider Wales and Sanger co-founders.[cite][cite][cite] Wales disputes it, saying that, although Sanger played a vital part in the formation of Wikipedia and his role is regularly underestimated, Wales alone should be considered the founder.</cite>"
Or something like that.
-- Sam
Yes, that is an appropriate description of the situation.
Fred
geni wrote:
2009/4/9 Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com:
Perhaps you can explain what the world at large, the Wikipedia community and I personally gain from publicly pursuing it.
It has in the past caused problems with our [[Wikipedia]] article and Jimbo's past attempts to distort the record did cause unnecessary conflict within wikipedia.
In summation: Larry says Jimmy is a self-serving liar, and presents (IMO) compelling evidence of the same.
The question then is: 1) Does Wikipedia/WMF care? and 2) Should Wikipedia/WMF care?
Well, perhaps not:
*unless its articles reflect something other than reality. (We are committed to NPOV)
*or unless Jimmy were abusing his position within WMF and the community to push his POV, or distort Wikipedia for his own benefit. (If the leader/exemplar were engaging in POV-pushing and COI meet puppetry, that should concern us!)
Is he?
I don't know.
Are these IRC transcripts accurate? The source is questionable, but as a minor participant in one of the discussions, it does seem to tally with my (admittedly fuzzy) memories.
2009/4/9 doc doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com:
Are these IRC transcripts accurate? The source is questionable, but as a minor participant in one of the discussions, it does seem to tally with my (admittedly fuzzy) memories.
The first one is.
On Thu, 9 Apr 2009, Sam Korn wrote:
Your concerns seem to be that Jimmy is not acknowledging your role and status as you'd like, and that the community and the Board are silent in the face of Jimmy's doing this. For my part, this silence may be attributed to insouciance -- I care little for the minutiae of history now eight years old and for your personal (yes, personal) dispute with Jimmy.
Perhaps you can explain what the world at large, the Wikipedia community and I personally gain from publicly pursuing it.
If he is telling the truth it seems like a perfectly legitimate request. Wikipedia obviously cares about the issue enough to have Wikipedia articles covering the subject and put out press releases mentioning it. If so, then Wikipedia should care enough to get those correct.
In other words, if you care enough to get it wrong, you should be expected to care enough to get it right.
On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 11:16 PM, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
If he is telling the truth it seems like a perfectly legitimate request. Wikipedia obviously cares about the issue enough to have Wikipedia articles covering the subject and put out press releases mentioning it. If so, then Wikipedia should care enough to get those correct.
This controversy has been going on for a long while now, and I just want to say something to both Jimmy and Larry:
Suck it up, and take your petty fight elsewhere! I don't know what happened in the early days of wikipedia, and I don't much care to. You have different versions of the same story, and the constant carping is getting tiring. And wikipedia and wikipedians are getting caught right in the middle. Wikipedia is getting a bad rep because of all this, and many different users are locked in an endless struggle trying to do either Jimmy's or Larry's bidding.
We don't need it. This is an issue between *you two*, and every time you start one of your diatribes or Jimmy asks for articles to be changed, it puts us, the community, in an impossible situation. It needs to end.
So, on behalf of those who actually write wikipedia, I say: suck it the hell up!
Larry, Jimmy readily admits that you where the original Editor-in-Chief of wikipedia, and with helping to form some of the early core policies. Isn't that enough? You've already basically denounced wikipedia in as many ways and places you can think of (not least this thread), why would you even want to be considered one of its chief architects? You've got a whole project to yourself, I suggest you stick to improving that.
Jimmy, stop getting involved in the articles that concern yourself, Larry and the history of wikipedia. It's an impossible conflict of interest, not only for you, but for the wikipedians that are loyal to you (who, again, are put in an impossible situation). You know better than anyone that the wikipedia process works beautifully. Trust the process that works for the rest of the encyclopedia, and stay the hell away and let the editors sort it out. I think you have enough insight to realize that you're not neutral on the issue.
So, please, both of you, get yourself some blogs and hash it out away from wikipedia servers, and away from community at large. We don't need it.
Rant over.
--Oskar
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
This controversy has been going on for a long while now, and I just want to say something to both Jimmy and Larry:
Suck it up, and take your petty fight elsewhere! I don't know what happened in the early days of wikipedia, and I don't much care to. You have different versions of the same story, and the constant carping is getting tiring. And wikipedia and wikipedians are getting caught right in the middle. Wikipedia is getting a bad rep because of all this, and many different users are locked in an endless struggle trying to do either Jimmy's or Larry's bidding.
We don't need it. This is an issue between *you two*, and every time you start one of your diatribes or Jimmy asks for articles to be changed, it puts us, the community, in an impossible situation. It needs to end.
So, on behalf of those who actually write wikipedia, I say: suck it the hell up!
Larry, Jimmy readily admits that you where the original Editor-in-Chief of wikipedia, and with helping to form some of the early core policies. Isn't that enough? You've already basically denounced wikipedia in as many ways and places you can think of (not least this thread), why would you even want to be considered one of its chief architects? You've got a whole project to yourself, I suggest you stick to improving that.
Jimmy, stop getting involved in the articles that concern yourself, Larry and the history of wikipedia. It's an impossible conflict of interest, not only for you, but for the wikipedians that are loyal to you (who, again, are put in an impossible situation). You know better than anyone that the wikipedia process works beautifully. Trust the process that works for the rest of the encyclopedia, and stay the hell away and let the editors sort it out. I think you have enough insight to realize that you're not neutral on the issue.
So, please, both of you, get yourself some blogs and hash it out away from wikipedia servers, and away from community at large. We don't need it.
Rant over.
--Oskar
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Thank you!
That's about the most balanced analysis I've read yet. Far better than most of the pledges of allegiance to Jimmy, or the "two minute hate" response to Larry, that we've had on this list.
As long as neutral people write the relevant articles, most of us can either stop caring, or draw our own conclusions on who (if anyone) is deluded, self-deluded, spinning, lying or otherwise manipulating history.
Me, I'll go back to adopting the mantra of a wise man: "Decline to participate, sorry"
On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 10:37 PM, doc doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
This controversy has been going on for a long while now, and I just want to say something to both Jimmy and Larry:
Suck it up, and take your petty fight elsewhere! I don't know what happened in the early days of wikipedia, and I don't much care to. You have different versions of the same story, and the constant carping is getting tiring. And wikipedia and wikipedians are getting caught right in the middle. Wikipedia is getting a bad rep because of all this, and many different users are locked in an endless struggle trying to do either Jimmy's or Larry's bidding.
We don't need it. This is an issue between *you two*, and every time you start one of your diatribes or Jimmy asks for articles to be changed, it puts us, the community, in an impossible situation. It needs to end.
So, on behalf of those who actually write wikipedia, I say: suck it the hell up!
Larry, Jimmy readily admits that you where the original Editor-in-Chief of wikipedia, and with helping to form some of the early core policies. Isn't that enough? You've already basically denounced wikipedia in as many ways and places you can think of (not least this thread), why would you even want to be considered one of its chief architects? You've got a whole project to yourself, I suggest you stick to improving that.
Jimmy, stop getting involved in the articles that concern yourself, Larry and the history of wikipedia. It's an impossible conflict of interest, not only for you, but for the wikipedians that are loyal to you (who, again, are put in an impossible situation). You know better than anyone that the wikipedia process works beautifully. Trust the process that works for the rest of the encyclopedia, and stay the hell away and let the editors sort it out. I think you have enough insight to realize that you're not neutral on the issue.
So, please, both of you, get yourself some blogs and hash it out away from wikipedia servers, and away from community at large. We don't need it.
Rant over.
--Oskar
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Thank you!
That's about the most balanced analysis I've read yet. Far better than most of the pledges of allegiance to Jimmy, or the "two minute hate" response to Larry, that we've had on this list.
As long as neutral people write the relevant articles, most of us can either stop caring, or draw our own conclusions on who (if anyone) is deluded, self-deluded, spinning, lying or otherwise manipulating history.
Me, I'll go back to adopting the mantra of a wise man: "Decline to participate, sorry"
Hear, hear (to both of you)!
I'm sure I'll have more to say about posts to this list from the last 24 hours or so, but I did want to respond to this.
Various people said:
So, please, both of you, get yourself some blogs and hash
it out away
from wikipedia servers, and away from community at large. We don't need it.
Rant over.
Thank you!
Hear, hear (to both of you)!
You are misunderstanding what's going on here. Jimmy Wales has been lying about me and my role in this project. This is a SERIOUS PROBLEM, and I frankly resent your implicit dismissal of my concerns.
This isn't "just more of the same"; I am *not* asking for the community's resolution on the issue of "who is founder." That really *would* be inane, but it isn't what I am doing. You would know this, by the way, if you had actually read my open letter to Jimmy Wales.
I am speaking out first time, publicly, by saying that Jimmy Wales has been lying about me in a way that is self-serving. If you don't care about that, that's your prerogative. You don't need to announce to the world that you don't care. There *are* a lot of people who *do* care. I'm speaking to *those* people.
Moreover, I assert that it is my right to raise hell not only on this list, but also on Jimmy Wales' user talk page--if this is really an open, transparent, democratic project devoted to free speech. If he wants to take responsibility, as he does, as sole founder of the project, to represent himself that way to the world, and in other respects speak on behalf of the project--which he does, whether you like it or not--then he ought to be held to a higher standard than most.
If you don't like my message, that's fine, but do not try to deny my right to get it out there.
--Larry
2009/4/10 Larry Sanger sanger-lists@citizendium.org:
Moreover, I assert that it is my right to raise hell not only on this list, but also on Jimmy Wales' user talk page--if this is really an open, transparent, democratic project devoted to free speech.
It isn't the last two of those things. You need to reread "What Wikiipedia Is Not":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NOT
This list is not a free ranting green ink zone. It's a working list for the project itself. In practice it's stuff of interest to those working on the project; those people here have pretty clearly said "thanks Larry, we get your point, it's still irrelevant."
If you don't like my message, that's fine, but do not try to deny my right to get it out there.
You've gotten it to here. Thanks, message received.
- d.
David Gerard said:
Moreover, I assert that it is my right to raise hell not
only on this
list, but also on Jimmy Wales' user talk page--if this is really an open, transparent, democratic project devoted to free speech.
It isn't the last two of those things. You need to reread "What Wikiipedia Is Not":
It certainly has changed since I wrote it.
It looks as if you're trying to imply Wikipedia is not devoted to free speech, even in discussions about the community--even in discussions about the roles and public behavior of the most prominent representative of the community. Perhaps you need to rethink what you're trying to say, David.
This list is not a free ranting green ink zone.
I resent the implication, David, that I am "ranting." I am not.
--Larry
On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 1:24 AM, Larry Sanger sanger-lists@citizendium.org wrote:
It certainly has changed since I wrote it.
It looks as if you're trying to imply Wikipedia is not devoted to free speech, even in discussions about the community--even in discussions about the roles and public behavior of the most prominent representative of the community. Perhaps you need to rethink what you're trying to say, David.
No, he's exactly right. Wikipedia is not, and it has never been a free speech zone. It has never been a goal of the project to provide people a platform for people to say whatever they want. Wikipedia is absolutely not "devoted to free speech".
See, we're an *encyclopedia*, not a public forum. We may let anyone edit, but we're always going to be first and foremost an encyclopedia. Everything else is second to that.
If you want free speech, use your blog. You can say whatever you want there.
--Oskar
On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 4:24 PM, Larry Sanger sanger-lists@citizendium.orgwrote:
David Gerard said:
Moreover, I assert that it is my right to raise hell not
only on this
list, but also on Jimmy Wales' user talk page--if this is really an open, transparent, democratic project devoted to free speech.
It isn't the last two of those things. You need to reread "What Wikiipedia Is Not":
It certainly has changed since I wrote it.
It looks as if you're trying to imply Wikipedia is not devoted to free speech, even in discussions about the community--even in discussions about the roles and public behavior of the most prominent representative of the community. Perhaps you need to rethink what you're trying to say, David.
This list is not a free ranting green ink zone.
I resent the implication, David, that I am "ranting." I am not.
Wikipedia is not and should not be: * A battleground on which to fight external conflicts * A primary source * A social website or discussion board
Wikipedia is: * An encyclopedia
What you are saying falls into the first categories and not the last.
It's about the project, in a sense, regarding the history of it. But it's an aspect of the history that the rest of us were not there for, and which does not bear on anything significant for the project going forwards.
Trying to use the encyclopedia project, its people and project mailing lists, to fight a personal vendetta is blatant disregard for the encyclopedia project. It's insulting to us and the project.
You could be right on the facts. I don't have any knowledge either way. But even if you are, this is not the place for it, and your approach here was improper and abusive to the project. It has not helped your reputation, has not helped clear up the history, has not helped the encyclopedia in any way.
Please take this somewhere else.
George and Oskar, you are both making a fallacious argument. Of course Wikipedia, as a reference resource, is not a battleground, a primary source, or a discussion board. But WikiEN-L is, in case you didn't notice it, a discussion board, and it is different from the encyclopedia. It also has a great deal of political influence in the project. It is the closest thing you have to a town square. In that context, my argument is sound and yours completely misses the point.
--Larry
On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 3:13 PM, Larry Sanger sanger-lists@citizendium.orgwrote:
I'm sure I'll have more to say about posts to this list from the last 24 hours or so, but I did want to respond to this.
Various people said:
So, please, both of you, get yourself some blogs and hash
it out away
from wikipedia servers, and away from community at large. We don't need it.
Rant over.
Thank you!
Hear, hear (to both of you)!
You are misunderstanding what's going on here. Jimmy Wales has been lying about me and my role in this project. This is a SERIOUS PROBLEM, and I frankly resent your implicit dismissal of my concerns.
This isn't "just more of the same"; I am *not* asking for the community's resolution on the issue of "who is founder." That really *would* be inane, but it isn't what I am doing. You would know this, by the way, if you had actually read my open letter to Jimmy Wales.
I am speaking out first time, publicly, by saying that Jimmy Wales has been lying about me in a way that is self-serving.
This is far from the first time that you've spoken about it publicly, Larry.
If you don't care about that, that's your prerogative. You don't need to announce to the world that you don't care. There *are* a lot of people who *do* care. I'm speaking to *those* people.
Chosing this venue, however, is an assertion by you that wikien-l is populated by people who do care - and the responses are indicating otherwise.
Moreover, I assert that it is my right to raise hell not only on this list,
but also on Jimmy Wales' user talk page--if this is really an open, transparent, democratic project devoted to free speech. If he wants to take responsibility, as he does, as sole founder of the project, to represent himself that way to the world, and in other respects speak on behalf of the project--which he does, whether you like it or not--then he ought to be held to a higher standard than most.
If you don't like my message, that's fine, but do not try to deny my right to get it out there.
Your attitude shows a complete disdain for the purpose and subscribers to wikien-l. This is not a public bulletin board. This is not a printing press you own. If we tell you this is not the right place, then you have no property rights over the medium or our inboxes to insist that we continue to receive your messages here.
If you believe that you have a right to "raise hell" on this list... I request that the list moderators moderate Larry immediately.
That's not what wikien-l is for.
2009/4/10 George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com:
If you believe that you have a right to "raise hell" on this list... I request that the list moderators moderate Larry immediately.
So far it's only been respect for his role in the founding of the site that's stopped that from happening.
I'd hope he'd know how to comport himself with more dignity.
- d.
2009/4/10 doc doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com:
David Gerard wrote:
So far it's only been respect for his role in the founding of the site that's stopped that from happening.
You mean co-founding, surely? ;)
*cough* The whole event was before my time, so I won't assert anything I don't have sufficient third-party references for!
- d.
George Herbert wrote:
That's not what wikien-l is for.
So, to raise a more important point, which should be more pertinent to the purpose of this list, and of more immediate concern to Wikipedia's integrity.
I thought I should alert the august and serious readers of this list, to the fact that we now have a "Requests for Comment" on the pressing question of whether or not we should include Richard Gere's rumoured altercation with a Gerbil in his biography.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Richard_Gere#Gerbil
I mean, why discuss founders and co-founders when we have other Serius Bizniz on the wiki?
Scott
Larry Sanger wrote:
I'm sure I'll have more to say about posts to this list from the last 24 hours or so, but I did want to respond to this.
Various people said:
So, please, both of you, get yourself some blogs and hash
it out away
from wikipedia servers, and away from community at large. We don't need it.
Rant over.
Thank you!
Hear, hear (to both of you)!
You are misunderstanding what's going on here. Jimmy Wales has been lying about me and my role in this project. This is a SERIOUS PROBLEM, and I frankly resent your implicit dismissal of my concerns.
This isn't "just more of the same"; I am *not* asking for the community's resolution on the issue of "who is founder." That really *would* be inane, but it isn't what I am doing. You would know this, by the way, if you had actually read my open letter to Jimmy Wales.
I am speaking out first time, publicly, by saying that Jimmy Wales has been lying about me in a way that is self-serving. If you don't care about that, that's your prerogative. You don't need to announce to the world that you don't care. There *are* a lot of people who *do* care. I'm speaking to *those* people.
Moreover, I assert that it is my right to raise hell not only on this list, but also on Jimmy Wales' user talk page--if this is really an open, transparent, democratic project devoted to free speech.
It is not, and you have no "right" to anything other than as an ordinary user of Wikipedia. [[WP:SOAPBOX]] and [[WP:POINT]] spring to mind. Your personal disagreements have no place either in Wikipedia or on this list, so I strongly advise you to take them elsewhere. As an Admin, I'd have no qualms about blocking you indefinitely if this does not immediately stop. Whereas you might also have sockpuppets and meatpuppets, their blocking would follow as sure as night follows day. But the bottom line is that this disruption is unseemly and intolerable. Some of us have an encyclopedia to build, and personal disputes are inimical to that purpose.
Please stop wasting our time.
On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 5:57 PM, Phil Nash pn007a2145@blueyonder.co.uk wrote:
It is not, and you have no "right" to anything other than as an ordinary user of Wikipedia. [[WP:SOAPBOX]] and [[WP:POINT]] spring to mind. Your personal disagreements have no place either in Wikipedia or on this list, so I strongly advise you to take them elsewhere. As an Admin, I'd have no qualms about blocking you indefinitely if this does not immediately stop. Whereas you might also have sockpuppets and meatpuppets, their blocking would follow as sure as night follows day. But the bottom line is that this disruption is unseemly and intolerable. Some of us have an encyclopedia to build, and personal disputes are inimical to that purpose.
Please stop wasting our time.
Who are you on wiki?
-Mike R
On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 12:13 AM, Larry Sanger sanger-lists@citizendium.org wrote:
Moreover, I assert that it is my right to raise hell not only on this list, but also on Jimmy Wales' user talk page--if this is really an open, transparent, democratic project devoted to free speech.
This is completely untrue. Both wikipedia and this mailing-list are run by the Wikimedia foundation, a private entity, meaning that they (and, by extension, the moderators and the administrators on wikipedia) can absolutely decide what does or does not go on here.
This is a concept you should be very familiar with. On the Citizendium Fundamentals page ( http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Fundamentals ) you find this little nugget of information: "...there will be a process for rapidly removing rulebreakers from the project. While most people will enjoy the privilege of contributing to the Citizendium if they are able to make a positive difference, there is a blanket right neither to contribute nor to participate in the project's governance." As I understand it, you are quite happy to suspend the editing rights of anyone that's causing trouble or causing strife within the community (something I don't have any problem with; it's your project, do what you like).
Wikipedia is likewise not a free speech zone, nor is it some sort of grand democratic experiment. Just because anyone can edit initially, it doesn't mean that we have to keep what you say live on our site. Same thing goes for our mailing-list.
If you spend even a little time on our site, you'll find that there have literally been hundreds (if not thousands) of extremely destructive trolls who have made exactly the same argument that you are making. "You're restricting my freedom of speech! I'm gonna report you to the Hague!" By acting like this, and using this argument, you're rapidly becoming part of that group. Is that something you desire? Let me ask you, if someone made that argument on CZ, what would you do?
I admire both you and Jimmy quite a bit, but on this issue, you're both acting like petulant children. Grow the fuck up.
--Oskar
Moreover, I assert that it is my right to raise hell not only on this list, but also on Jimmy Wales' user talk page--if this is really an open, transparent, democratic project devoted to free speech. If he wants to take responsibility, as he does, as sole founder of the project, to represent himself that way to the world, and in other respects speak on behalf of the project--which he does, whether you like it or not--then he ought to be held to a higher standard than most.
If you don't like my message, that's fine, but do not try to deny my right to get it out there.
--Larry
Larry,
You know better than that. In any event you've raised your hell and gotten your answer, both from Jimmy Wales and the Wikipedia community. There has to be an end to any fuss. This list is for discussion of the English Wikipedia. Given Jimmy Wales's reluctance to engage you and the rejection by the community in general of your assertions, it is time to drop those issues with respect to this list.
"Never wrestle with a pig: You both get all dirty, and the pig likes it." And I'm NOT talking about YOU liking it.
Fred Bauder
Fred Bauder wrote:
Given Jimmy Wales's reluctance to engage you and the rejection by the community in general of your assertions, it is time to drop those issues with respect to this list.
Well, I'm about to bow out. But I did want want to say that you are completely wrong that the Wikipedia community in general has rejected my *assertions*. In fact, my impression is that half or more of the people who have weighed in have said, among other things, "I think Larry has a legitimate complaint."
I think I'll take this to Foundation-L and see if the Board will have the integrity and balls to make an official statement.
--Larry
Objection, what I think most people have said is that they think you are probably correct in this little issue about being a co-founder, but to be honest they don't really care & would prefer not to have their inbox filled with rubbish. Most people seem to think that complaining here is pointless & annoying! What is true is that they have rejected your drive to get Wales/Foundation board to apologise & say you were right all along because they can't see the point & just want you to stop damaging Wikipedia to get publicity for Citizendium.
That last little bit might have been my view :-) but the rest is the impression I get from people, correct me if I'm wrong anyone
On 11/04/2009 01:33, Larry Sanger wrote:
Fred Bauder wrote:
Given Jimmy Wales's reluctance to engage you and the rejection by the community in general of your assertions, it is time to drop those issues with respect to this list.
Well, I'm about to bow out. But I did want want to say that you are completely wrong that the Wikipedia community in general has rejected my *assertions*. In fact, my impression is that half or more of the people who have weighed in have said, among other things, "I think Larry has a legitimate complaint."
I think I'll take this to Foundation-L and see if the Board will have the integrity and balls to make an official statement.
--Larry
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 5:38 PM, Tris Thomas Tris@waterhay.co.uk wrote:
Objection, what I think most people have said is that they think you are probably correct in this little issue about being a co-founder, but to be honest they don't really care & would prefer not to have their inbox filled with rubbish. Most people seem to think that complaining here is pointless & annoying! What is true is that they have rejected your drive to get Wales/Foundation board to apologise & say you were right all along because they can't see the point & just want you to stop damaging Wikipedia to get publicity for Citizendium.
That last little bit might have been my view :-) but the rest is the impression I get from people, correct me if I'm wrong anyone
Newsflash: Sanger didn't open the door to this 'founder' dispute.
A man has a right to defend himself.
Larry's open letter is appropriate here. He's addressing Jimbo in front of the community regarding Jimbo's behavior that involves the community. It's a pity Jimbo doesn't have the courage to show his face here. If those IRC logs are correct he seems to have plenty to say behind Larry's back.
Finally, Larry's words are clear and purposeful, if a little long. Davide Gerard on the other hand is making comments that are snide and arrogant and attributing Larry's complaints to something other than his complaints. David, please stop.
Fred Bauder wrote:
Given Jimmy Wales's reluctance to engage you and the rejection by the community in general of your assertions, it is time to drop those issues with respect to this list.
Well, I'm about to bow out. But I did want want to say that you are completely wrong that the Wikipedia community in general has rejected my *assertions*. In fact, my impression is that half or more of the people who have weighed in have said, among other things, "I think Larry has a legitimate complaint."
I think I'll take this to Foundation-L and see if the Board will have the integrity and balls to make an official statement.
--Larry
Foundation-l is not different from this list with respect to the questions you are raising. It is meant for discussion of subjects regarding all Wikimedia projects, not for personal disputes.
Fred Bauder
This is not a mere "personal dispute," Fred.
Anyway, I'm out of here.
-----Original Message----- From: wikien-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Fred Bauder Sent: Friday, April 10, 2009 8:51 PM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] An open letter to Jimmy Wales
Fred Bauder wrote:
Given Jimmy Wales's reluctance to engage you and the rejection by the
community
in general of your assertions, it is time to drop those
issues with
respect to this list.
Well, I'm about to bow out. But I did want want to say
that you are
completely wrong that the Wikipedia community in general
has rejected
my *assertions*. In fact, my impression is that half or
more of the
people who have weighed in have said, among other things, "I think Larry has a legitimate complaint."
I think I'll take this to Foundation-L and see if the Board
will have
the integrity and balls to make an official statement.
--Larry
Foundation-l is not different from this list with respect to the questions you are raising. It is meant for discussion of subjects regarding all Wikimedia projects, not for personal disputes.
Fred Bauder
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 6:13 PM, Larry Sanger sanger-lists@citizendium.orgwrote:
Moreover, I assert that it is my right to raise hell not only on this list, but also on Jimmy Wales' user talk page--if this is really an open, transparent, democratic project devoted to free speech.
It isn't, and you don't. I find this part of your argument the strangest. You require approval and a 50 word-biography in order for someone to post on your talk page at Citizendium. The ability to use a user talk page is clearly a privilege which can be granted or can be taken away.
If you don't like my message, that's fine, but do not try to deny my right to get it out there.
Your right to get your message out there stops at the point where you try to use someone else's website to do so.
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
Suck it up, and take your petty fight elsewhere! I don't know what happened in the early days of wikipedia, and I don't much care to. You have different versions of the same story, and the constant carping is getting tiring. And wikipedia and wikipedians are getting caught right in the middle. Wikipedia is getting a bad rep because of all this, and many different users are locked in an endless struggle trying to do either Jimmy's or Larry's bidding.
You're assuming that the general public gives a damn enough to affect the reputation.
Ec
Larry Sanger wrote:
It is not pointless to get the record corrected and to hold our leaders to high standards of honesty. This may require courage, but it is essential to having a truly open, transparent community that has any chance of deserving the label "democratic."
One thing about history and Wikipedia, is that we are supposed to let historians write it. Really, if you are asking me personally to choose between your version of history, and what you say is Jimbo's, I would prefer a third-party, dispassionate account. So much for history. If you also want to advocate for something else, relative to the Wikipedia community, go ahead. This comment is so obviously policised and personalised, that I'd prefer to keep a clear wall between it and the "foundation myth".
Charles
On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 9:44 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Larry Sanger wrote:
It is not pointless to get the record corrected and to hold our leaders to high standards of honesty. This may require courage, but it is essential to having a truly open, transparent community that has any chance of deserving the label "democratic."
One thing about history and Wikipedia, is that we are supposed to let historians write it. Really, if you are asking me personally to choose between your version of history, and what you say is Jimbo's, I would prefer a third-party, dispassionate account. So much for history. If you also want to advocate for something else, relative to the Wikipedia community, go ahead. This comment is so obviously policised and personalised, that I'd prefer to keep a clear wall between it and the "foundation myth".
Charles
I agree totally with Charles, here. When "How Wikipedia Works" goes into its 23rd printing :) hopefully we will be able to rely on other people's dispassionate sifting of the historical record (what there is of it; much of what is disputed is over what was said in personal conversations, though seemingly not much public effort has been made so far to find out what the other parties in those conversations think). Larry and Jimmy are not the only early Wikipedians, and someday hopefully there will be a better detailed history of the whole endeavor in the black-hole, missing-edit-history years. (I can see this being printed by one of those obscure university presses, on thick paper with extensive footnotes...) In the meantime, of course, the public will continue to learn about the project through the news and their own searches, as they always have, and the rest of us will go about our business.
The Wikipedia story is not exciting because of any single person's contributions to the projects; it's the aggregate over time that matters, and outside of the larger context of the project, none of our contributions (no matter how much, or how little) are worth much. (Founding doesn't mean much if other people don't run with it; and contributing to a wiki doesn't get you very far if others don't also build the web). But this is not a negative aspect -- as Andrew Lih said at the end of "The Wikipedia Revolution," we are _all_ lucky to have been a part of such a revolutionary project, and we should all take personal pride in that.
-- phoebe
phoebe ayers wrote:
The Wikipedia story is not exciting because of any single person's contributions to the projects; it's the aggregate over time that matters, and outside of the larger context of the project, none of our contributions (no matter how much, or how little) are worth much. (Founding doesn't mean much if other people don't run with it; and contributing to a wiki doesn't get you very far if others don't also build the web).
I think the interesting point here is something like "when but more particularly how does the [[founder effect]] wear off?" Microsoft is now post-Gates, in one sense. The WMF is obviously post the "Wales and Sanger show", in another. Arguably wikis can evolve rather faster than corporations (but certainly they don't always). Wikipedia has been particularly dynamic in an evolutionary sense, but on the other hand there have been people heard to say that it is now hard to change it (I did, last year ...). Maybe we're more like a "swarm of gnats" (http://www.keithhilen.com/Java/Gnats/Gnats.html).
Anyway, that's flesh on the bones of my earlier argument: the history isn't bunk, but the place became sufficiently complicated at least five years ago for the echoes of the early day to have become distinctly muffled.
Charles
On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 9:44 PM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
<snip>
I think the interesting point here is something like "when but more particularly how does the [[founder effect]] wear off?"
Minor point:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founder_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founder%27s_syndrome
You clearly meant the latter, but both articles are fascinating.
Carcharoth
The article [[History of Wikipedia]] has the /encyclopedic/ content on this, which has been broadly stable since 2007 (revision as at today: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_Wikipedia&oldid=282...).
While drawing attention to a page is a renowned and effective way to guarantee disruption on that topic, that is how /Wikipedia/ presently represents the history. Anyone can edit it, if it is not encyclopedically written.
How you personally, or Jimmy personally, represent it /off wiki/, is your own off-wiki real world disagreement, and not a matter of editorial interest. It reflects on the two of you, but that's a personal view and unencyclopedic OR.
More to the point:
On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 7:04 PM, Larry Sanger sanger-lists@citizendium.orgwrote:
The reputation of Wikipedia as an endless source of scandal and
dishonesty, coupled with this open letter, in which I decided to use whatever weight my views have in the "court of public opinion" to confront the project's leading light. Deny it if you must, but you have a problem on your hands.
(Snip) My biggest complaint is that Jimmy has lied about me, and a lot of people have believed him. I am determined finally to hold Jimmy Wales to account for it.
I don't agree with your characterization of the encyclopedia as being universally held, nor even that this would be the widest held view out there, sorry. I see gradual traction from the "real world" endorsing, not rejecting it, if a trend must be found.
Your determination to "hold" anyone to anything (account or otherwise) is of course a matter for yourself and those involved; it's not salient to Wikipedia editing. Since Jimmy doesn't edit the pages much if at all these days, and the Foundation is independent of editorship (as you surely realize), none of this is relevant to encyclopedia writing. It's all politics and desires for perceptions and personal matters, to put it crudely. You say the encyclopedia's credibility and your reputation are at stake, but the encyclopedia entry is fairly well written and the reputational issue that is so important to you, is a "real world" dispute that most editors who write the content have no stake in at all.
Answering your point to Sam Korn: Could I live with being a member of an encyclopedia whose two founders have both at some point acted poorly or said things that were ill considered, or sought personal reputation and aggrandisement? Yes -- because /none/ of that is going to matter a damn when someone looks up the Carbon atom, or Hamlet, or even the entry of the history of Wikipedia itself.
I'm not engaged by you or Jimbo, I'm a volunteer writer on a project to produce an encyclopedia. Take the dispute and so long as the encyclopedic pages' content is reasonably well written, put the dispute somewhere else and I promise to ignore it completely.
My personal view on who needs to change their stance in this, and who has not acted to the highest standard (one or both of you) is formed, but would not help the projects /encyclopedic content/.
FT2
Larry Sanger wrote:
All,
Earlier today, I had no joy in trying to post this "open letter to Jimmy Wales" on Jimmy's own user talk page: the man himself deleted it. That is not the sort of behavior I would have expected of the head of an allegedly open, transparent community devoted to free speech.
Free speech? That's a novel idea. We frequently tell recalcitrant editors that the First Amendment does not apply on Wikipedia, and many of our policies, e.g. [[WP:SOAPBOX]], [[WP:TRUTH]], [[WP:NOR]] are inimical to free speech. However, this is beginning to bore the hell out of me as being not far off Jorge Luis' Borges description of the [[Falkands War]]. I suspect I'm not alone. Whinge as much as you like on your own blog, go to the media if you like, but I am dangerously close to issuing several entirely policy-related blocks. Permanent ones. PS Please wish me a Happy Birthday.
I know it will only be a small satisfaction, but I wanted to mention that in the French speaking user guide book I recently co-wrote with Guillaume Paumier, you are recognised as a co-founder. There is even a paragraph clearly mentionning you.
I invite you to check: http://fr.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikipedia, and in particular http://fr.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia/D%C3%A9couvrir_Wikip%C3%A9dia/Ex...
If you are generous, you may even buy it (book available on Amazon for example :-)). See references here: http://www.pug.fr/titre.asp?Num=1072
As for the other points... I have had enough opportunities to see that what the public/journalists say and believe is frequently highly different from the reality and I fear we all have to live with this. For many, Jimmy is still the one doing all the work at the Wikimedia Foundation, and sometimes even the one approving any article before publishing. LOL. People need icons to focus on, and Jimbo is a better icon than most of us. Live with it.
Ant
On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 7:08 AM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.comwrote:
I have had enough opportunities to see that what the public/journalists say and believe is frequently highly different from the reality and I fear we all have to live with this. For many, Jimmy is still the one doing all the work at the Wikimedia Foundation, and sometimes even the one approving any article before publishing. LOL. People need icons to focus on, and Jimbo is a better icon than most of us. Live with it.
Before long it'll be Erik taking all the credit anyway.