A founder of Wikipedia who calls himself the “ex-founder” and has been a vocal critic of the platform since leaving it over 20 years ago has been barred from editing its articles.
Wikipedia can be edited by nearly anyone, with changes vetted by the community. However, the site’s editors formed a consensus this week to restrict the access of co-founder Larry Sanger.
The reason given was not Sanger’s long-standing broadsides against Wikipedia—which he frequently criticises over an alleged left-wing bias—but a procedural violation. A Wikimedia Foundation press officer said Sanger had been canvassing an outside audience to sway internal policy votes.
Days before the decision, Sanger submitted a proposal called “WikiProject Intellectual Diversity” aiming to introduce more viewpoints to the site. He publicised the project to his 93,000 followers on X, which was ruled a violation of community canvassing guidelines. Consequently, he was declared “not here to build an encyclopedia”, another serious policy violation.
Sanger reacted on X after the decision, writing, “There was no due process, no prosecutor, no dispassionate judge, no jury, no interpretation of law.”
Wikipedia was founded in 2001 by Sanger and Jimmy Wales, operating as a nonprofit with a decentralised system of editing by mostly anonymous volunteers. A press officer noted that policies are enforced through open, consensus-based decision-making and “apply uniformly to all contributors, regardless of their affiliation or history with Wikipedia.”
Sanger left Wikipedia in 2002. Last June, he called the website “one of the most effective organs of Establishment propaganda in history”, but returned last autumn, aiming to help the platform reform.
Dariusz Jemielniak, an expert on Wikipedia’s community and a former Wikimedia Foundation trustee, noted that the English-language site allows volunteer administrators to remain anonymous, a policy Sanger has long opposed.
“What I find surprising is when he came back, he wasn’t editing, he just started to boss around,” Jemielniak said.
In a statement, Sanger countered: “A mob has blocked me for trying to bring an intellectually diverse group of thinkers and editors to the site. Subscribing to their groupthink is now an official requirement for being a member in good standing.”
While temporary blocks are common to prevent immediate disruption, a site ban — which is what Sanger received — is a formal, total retraction of editing privileges across Wikipedia.
The platform has previously barred users for public relations, self-promotion, or whitewashing narratives. In 2009, Wikipedia blocked all IP addresses operated by the Church of Scientology for aggressively rewriting articles to reflect its preferred doctrine. In 2012, a Wikimedia UK board member resigned after being caught using his status to promote the government of Gibraltar while on its tourism board's payroll.
Despite such high-profile incidents, nearly 250,000 volunteer editors contribute to the platform every month without controversy.
The New York Times