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 <[email protected]>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 > -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 ([email protected]) > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
