In 2001, Larry Sanger, a co-founder of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, made a modest announcement about the project’s launch.

“Wikipedia is up!” he wrote. “Humor me. Go there and add a little article.”

Last week, Sanger was banned from editing entries on procedural grounds — among the most severe sanctions against a user — while campaigning to bring broader ideological diversity to the platform.

“I’ve been blocked by Wikipedia ‘indefinitely’ for unstated reasons, by the ‘consensus’ of a mob,” Sanger wrote on X. “There was no due process, no prosecutor, no dispassionate judge, no jury, no interpretation of law. All my judges were self-selected and hated me.”

The ban against Sanger highlighted disputes over alleged leftist bias at Wikipedia, particularly on topics related to Israel.

Wikipedia has vast influence on online knowledge. It is one of the most heavily trafficked sites in the world and serves as a first stop for online research among members of the public.

It is also used as a source for other platforms such as Google searches, AI chatbots and Apple’s Siri, giving its articles downstream influence.

Wikipedia brands itself as a free encyclopedia manned by a community of volunteers. The premise behind the platform is that editing by thousands of users will provide ideological balance and a “neutral point of view.”

Of the 260,000 active users, though, the number of administrators for Wikipedia’s English-language articles is a far smaller 813.

Sanger wrote in The Free Press last week that an “anonymous mob” of around 400 active administrators, most of whom use pseudonyms, effectively controls the site.

Sanger wrote that Wikipedia had become “globalist, academic, secular, and progressive.”

He said “disfavored” views included pro-Israel voices, Christian sources, Hindu organizations and the Republican Party, while issues like Iran, abortion and immigration were covered from a “progressive-left perspective.”

Sanger coined the name Wikipedia and drafted some of its early guidelines, such as its commitment to neutrality. He left Wikipedia in 2002, but continued to speak publicly about the site and had recently returned to editing, including on topics related to Israel.

He had been a vocal critic of the platform’s alleged leftist bias for years, and last month announced an initiative called WikiProject Intellectual Diversity meant to “guide Wikipedia’s policies toward allowing a more diverse set of views than those currently permitted on the site.” He promoted the project online and in the media.

Administrators charged Sanger with “off-wiki canvassing,” a prohibited action........

© The Times of Israel