The Cunctator wrote:
On 4/21/05 10:01 AM, "Alphax" alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
The Cunctator wrote:
On 4/21/05 3:28 AM, "Mark Williamson" node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
On 20/04/05, The Cunctator cunctator@kband.com wrote:
On 4/20/05 12:12 AM, "Mark Williamson" node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
You guys make Larry into a greedy, despicable man who has hated Wikipedia all along but stuck with it because it was profitable, and since then has done everything in his power to bring about its destruction. According to you guys, he also walks around telling people how he started Wikipedia, and cackling maniacally at the end of every other sentence.
I'd love to see references for the above claims (inferences?). I think you might be distorting what other people have said.
It's very simple. Just ask somebody who uses this list and has a g-mail account to search for "sanger" or "larry".
Of course, what I said is exaggerating a little, but not a lot - it really does sound like that except perhaps the cackling part.
Okay--you've got a gmail account. Would you do the search?
I have both a gmail account and access to a text dump of the list - what should I search for? I'm curious what you think we'll find.
According to Mark W., if you search for "sanger" or "larry", you should find people calling or implying that Sanger is a "greedy, despicable man who has hated Wikipedia all along but stuck with it because it was profitable, and since then has done everything in his power to bring about its destruction."
I'm interested in seeing if the above claim is accurate.
I found:
Delirium wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
It's a good thing you're back, Larry.
I had begun to tire of Phil Sandifer's endless attacks on your character. I don't believe these will continue in your presence.
I see no reason for them not to. It's quite clear that Larry Sanger has not put in a minute on Wikipedia for which he was not paid. He resigned and ended all involvement with the project immediately after he stopped receiving a paycheck for it, and his contact with the project since then has primarily taken the form of either attacking it or claiming credit for various parts of it (while still not actually being involved in it).
-Mark
and
Phil Sandifer wrote:
Perhaps people began questioning it when they notice that he only uses the honorific to get press for his criticisms of a project that he does not contribute to, and in fact seems to have only contributed to when it was financially useful to him to do so.
-Snowspinner
On Apr 19, 2005, at 5:14 PM, Pete/Pcb21 wrote:
Larry Sanger has again written at length about the history of Wikipedia in two articles posted on Slashdot.
Part I : http://features.slashdot.org/features/05/04/18/164213.shtml?tid=95
Part II : http://features.slashdot.org/features/05/04/19/1746205.shtml? tid=95&tid=149&tid=9
Some blogworld commentary is at http://www.corante.com/many/archives/2005/04/18/ sanger_on_wikipedia.php
- including a follow-up by Sanger, giving his take on the "was he or
wasn't he the co-founder" debate, in particular
"I was virtually always referred to as a co-founder until last year. What has changed?
Wikipedia was my idea (in the very robust sense explained in my memoir), its main founding principles were in large part mine and enforced by me, and I did more than anyone to organize it. It simply would not have existed if I had started it, indeed while being employed by Jimmy. It was on that basis that I was for several years credibly and repeatedly called "co-founder" of the project.
The fact that I was Jimmy's employee, which I freely admit, does not mean I was not also a co-founder of the project.
Until last year, again, this was my honorific, and until this year, nobody has bothered questioning it. I wonder why."
Pete
and
Phil Sandifer wrote:
Hasn't Jimbo indicated a preference for not calling Larry a co-founder?
-Snowspinner
On Apr 19, 2005, at 5:40 PM, Brion Vibber wrote:
Pete/Pcb21 wrote:
Larry Sanger has again written at length about the history of Wikipedia in two articles posted on Slashdot.
[snip]
- including a follow-up by Sanger, giving his take on the "was he or
wasn't he the co-founder" debate, in particular
I don't think any reasonable person would object to calling Larry a "co-founder of Wikipedia". To call one troll on a blog comment a "debate" is to blow things extraordinarily out of proportion.
Larry hasn't been involved in the project in some three years (3/4 of its lifetime), and most Wikipedians today have had little or no interaction with Larry. As a result, he's seen now as an outsider, and his criticisms are easily (mis)interpreted as attacks against a community he's not part of.
I've only skimmed these posts, but they seem to boil down to historical trivia ("we had 24 articles not 12!") and saying we should do things that are already on the roadmap (eg, a more formally-vetted release in addition to the rough-and-tumble development Wikipedia).
It'd be nice if people could avoid making a mountain out of a molehill over this. Larry's not our enemy.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
and
Oh wait, that's it. Nothing much that appears to support the "greedy larry" theory.