“All he has done is try to start a right-wing/conservative pressure group within Wikipedia.”

Larry Sanger, one of Wikipedia’s cofounders, was banned from editing the site indefinitely after other editors determined he was canvassing, or in other words, calling on his followers off platform in order to influence Wikipedia’s content.

Sanger has spent more than a decade criticizing Wikipedia for what he claims is an ideological, left-wing bias on a variety of topics, and on X has framed this recent ban as further proof of everything that’s wrong with Wikipedia. The New York Post took that bait and last night published an article with the headline “Left-leaning Wikipedia blocked founder from editing site—after he campaigned to make it more balanced.”

Wikipedia editors obviously reject that framing and say that Sanger was banned for wielding his followers to sway discussion and decision making on Wikipedia. The discussion that led to the decision to ban Sanger concluded with what an editor called a “clear consensus” to ban Sanger.

  • ryannathans@aussie.zoneEnglish
    1·
    3 hours ago

    Discussions about potential bans are supposed to remain open for at least 72 hours. While consensus that Sanger had violated Wikipedia policies was clear, Sanger was banned at some point before that deadline. He was then briefly unbanned, and then again indefinitely banned once 72 hours had elapsed and the discussion about the ban closed.

    There is clearly some extreme bias on Wikipedia when they can’t even follow this very normal and regularly practised rule

    • XLE@piefed.socialEnglish
      7·
      2 hours ago

      He was then briefly unbanned, and then again indefinitely banned once 72 hours had elapsed

      What else were they supposed to do? Give him a get-out-of-jail-free card for a procedural mistake that they already rectified?

      • otp@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        1 hour ago

        Give him extra time to make up for how long the early ban was? Or maybe give him an extra 24h as a courtesy? I dunno, lol

        • FaceDeer@fedia.io
          1·
          22 minutes ago

          To do what? They had established that he was performing activities that needed to be stopped, he’s not owed more time to do those activities in.

        • 4am@lemmy.zipEnglish
          2·
          58 minutes ago

          Was he even blocked from doing anything useful for those several hours?

          You have 72 hours to make your case, he had plenty of time to do so before those 72 hours were up, even with the incorrect ban. Another fee hours isn’t gonna make a difference.