Why Is Wikipedia Broken? | Dr Larry Sanger | Modern Wisdom Podcast 118

1. 0:00 – 1:19

   Why Wikipedia’s “consensus” fails on disputed topics

   1. LSLarry Sanger0:00

      One of the reasons why Wikipedia is so messed up is that there is no formalized way of arriving at a decision about disputed questions. So you go there, you've got a question about, you know, what, what should the, the definition of racism be? Extremely hot topic. It should be possible for people to come up with a bunch of different options, and maybe have a, a round robin competition or something like that, and, and actually get a legitimate choice. That's not what they do. They pretend that it is possible to have a consensus about these things, and, but the consensus is determined basically by the people in power on the topic. You know, whoever, whoever has the most seniority or seems to have the most allies, or whatever, those are the people who basically declare the consensus. So it's not a consensus. It's just putting a, a cynical description on what is not a, a consensus at all. The decision making process needs to be reduced to very specific editorial decisions to be made, and then taking legitimate votes based on that.

2. 1:19 – 4:04

   The “ex-founder” label and distancing from Wikipedia

   1. CWChris Williamson1:19

      I'm joined by Larry Sanger who is the ex-founder of Wikipedia, among many other things. Larry, welcome to the show.

   2. LSLarry Sanger1:29

      Oh, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:30

      Really good to have you here. First things first, I've never heard the term ex-founder before. (laughs) What, could you explain, can you explain what that means please?

   4. LSLarry Sanger1:38

      Yeah, I, I made it up yesterday. (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson1:41

      (laughs) Oh my God.

   6. LSLarry Sanger1:42

      Or the, or okay, a couple of days ago.

   7. CWChris Williamson1:44

      Yeah.

   8. LSLarry Sanger1:45

      Um, I, I did a, a face, or a, a, uh, Twitter, uh, poll about it. And, and, uh, over 50% of the people thought it was a, it was a good title for me to claim. Um, so I was once considered, um, by everyone co-founder, even Jimmy Wales. Uh, but then, then he started denying me the founder, uh, the title, um, uh, like in 2005, which everyone thought was ridiculous. Um, but he, he was insisting on it. Um, so it's a little bit of a dig at him, um, for that. But it's also, um, whenever I tell people online that I'm co-founder of Wikipedia, um, especially in the last, I don't know, three or six months, um, they've started getting hostile toward me personally.

   9. CWChris Williamson2:43

      Mm-hmm.

   10. LSLarry Sanger2:43

       Um, it's like, um, you know, Wikipedia's out of control they say now. Um, and, uh, you know, you're, "You must be the devil if you actually started it." Um, and, and so I, I'm, I, I'm distancing myself from it because I have been a critic of Wikipedia, um, for, well, I'm one of the first critics of Wikipedia frankly, um, uh, uh, outside of the, or very original naysayers. But, uh, you know, um, yeah. And, and then, and then I've been gone for a long time, so sometimes when, when, um, I tell people I'm co-founder and, and, uh, but now I'm working on whatever my latest project is, they get confused and they think, "Oh, so you," they seem to assume that I just left it, like, a couple years ago.

   11. CWChris Williamson3:35

       Mm-hmm.

   12. LSLarry Sanger3:35

       No, I left in 2002. Um, I, I, I permanently distanced myself from the project in 2003, and I've been working on all kinds of other things since then, so.

   13. CWChris Williamson3:46

       Okay.

   14. LSLarry Sanger3:47

       But I got it started.

   15. CWChris Williamson3:49

       Yeah, and also world's first ex-founder. Um, which is (laughs) -

   16. LSLarry Sanger3:53

       (laughs)

   17. CWChris Williamson3:53

       I think so.

   18. LSLarry Sanger3:54

       That's right.

   19. CWChris Williamson3:54

       I think (inaudible) (laughs)

   20. LSLarry Sanger3:55

       I founded, I founded the term.

   21. CWChris Williamson3:57

       Yeah, you are, the world's-

   22. LSLarry Sanger3:58

       (laughs)

   23. CWChris Williamson3:58

       You're the ex-founder founder. (laughs)

   24. LSLarry Sanger4:03

       (laughs) Right.

3. 4:04 – 4:16

   From philosophy mailing lists to Nupedia’s mission

   1. CWChris Williamson4:04

      Um, so before we get into Wikipedia and where it's at at the moment, and also your exit, could you, could you tell us the genesis story? Could you tell us how it, how it started on your side?

4. 4:16 – 10:12

   Nupedia’s bottleneck and the birth of Wikipedia via wiki software

   1. LSLarry Sanger4:16

      Okay. Um, well, um, I first met Jimmy Wales in the mid-1990s through our, our common interest in, in philosophy. Actually it was, uh, Ayn Rand. I joined one of his mailing lists and later on made one myself, and he joined that, about philosophy. And, um, we lost touch for a few years, um, but then, uh, I was sharing a idea that I had for, uh, what would later become a blog, um, around, uh, early 2000. And, uh, one of the people that I shared the idea with was Jimmy Wales, and he wrote back and he said, "Don't work on that. Work on this thing. Um, uh, you'd be, you know, editor-in-chief of an encyclopedia." And I was like, "Wow, this sounds great." Like, that was practically my dream job. It's something... If I wasn't gonna be a, a professor of philosophy, which by that time I decided not to be even though I, I was all but dissertation at the time. Um, uh, it would be, you know, like, uh, uh, an editor of an encyclopedia. That's sounded great. Um, so it was my job to, to start, uh, Nupedia, N-U-pedia, um, and that was to be built on the principles of open source, uh, software. Um, so there was this guy, uh, um, who wrote a, a, a, an essay called, called The Cathedral and the Bazaar. His name is Eric Raymond. I was told to read this. It's still a great thing to read. Um, a- and it explains how, um...... volunteers can get together to build great things online simply by sharing, uh, a common vision, and a common need, solving common problems, um, but in a way that, that results in something that, that lives in the commons. Um, and so, that, that's the, that was the idea. And, um, the problem was, we wanted Nupedia to be as trustworthy as possible. So we had this seven-step, really arduous editorial process, um, and not many people wanted to go through it, so we generated only a few dozen articles, um, in the first year, um, and that wasn't good enough. So, so, we were well agreed that there needed to be a new, um, uh, source of content for the project, um, and so I made some different proposals, and Jimmy Wales, he, he, you know, dismissed them all because they, it would involve more coding. And then a friend of mine, um, January 2nd, 2001 told me about this software called Wiki Software, very uber geeky, um, where you go to, uh, a web page and you click an edit button, and you can, you can edit the text of the page right there on the page, and hit save, and your changes are instantly live. Um, and it was an insane-sounding idea, but, you know, okay. I've ... Even by that time, I had been living online for, um, you know, the better part of 10 years, and, and, uh, and so it wasn't that hard to imagine how it actually might work.

   2. CWChris Williamson7:56

      Mm-hmm.

   3. LSLarry Sanger7:56

      Um, so he, he got me excited enough a- about the idea that I, I started thinking, "Well, this could solve the problem that we were having with Nupedia."

   4. CWChris Williamson8:05

      Mm-hmm.

   5. LSLarry Sanger8:05

      And so I, um, ran home actually, um, and made a one-page proposal to Jimmy Wales, um, basically saying, "Set up this software for me to, you know, work on, um, a new project." Um, you know, and it originally it was gonna be the Nupedia Wiki, but then the editors of, of, uh, Nupedia, they, they, they were mostly PhD academics. They didn't wanna have anything to do with anything called a wiki.

   6. CWChris Williamson8:41

      Hmm.

   7. LSLarry Sanger8:42

      Um, it, it just did not have the sort of credibility and, and heft that they wanted to be associated with, and they were really good people actually. There were some famous scholars even among them. Um, and, um, well, so we decided, uh, fine, we still wanna do this, um, it just won't be associated with the Nupedia brand. Um, and so I came up with the, the name Wikipedia and we launched it, and, um, internally on January 10th, I guess it was, um, I had already populated it with help pages and things like that, and we added some more, some first articles, and then we, we launched it to the broader world and the, the, uh, the Nupedia community included, um, on January 15th. And, and, um, because there were already, like, 2,000 people on the Nupedia mailing list, which I had collected in the previous year, uh, I and, and, uh, and an, an assistant that, that we had, um, collecting people, um, we, uh, we, actually we were able to start, um, you know, hit the ground running basically. Um, and yeah, it just, I mean, it grew faster than anyone expected it to. Um, and it was sort of my job in the beginning to teach the, the very idea

5. 10:12 – 11:54

   Early Wikipedia culture: teaching neutrality—and the rise of bad actors

   1. LSLarry Sanger10:12

      of an encyclopedia article to people who wanted to use it, 'cause it was just basically an online blank bulletin board that anyone could write anything to.

   2. CWChris Williamson10:22

      Hmm.

   3. LSLarry Sanger10:22

      So you could make dictionary definitions, you could write personal essays, you could do whatever, and, and just gradually I pushed people toward, um, you know, writing. An encyclopedia article begins with something like a definition or a general description of the term, you know, um, and, and, uh, and systematically lays out the, the basic facts and explain basic policies like neutrality. So, I, I was a big advocate of that and I'm the, the main author of, of the, uh, original version of, of, uh, Nupedia and Wikipedia's neutrality policies, um, and various other policies too. So, it, it has changed a bit since the, the, uh, first year, um, since like, the end of the first year, but not that much actually. So, it's interesting. The biggest thing that has changed since then is that, um, it, it was sort of taken over by people that back then I would have considered to be trolls. Um, and, or at least, um, people who, uh, did not always have the interests of neutrality, um, and a, a, a serious, um, approach to the subjects at heart, um, often had axes to grind and also were just difficult to get along with unless you played their game. So, that's when, uh, that, all of that started toward the end of the very first year of the project.

6. 11:54 – 14:10

   Why Sanger left: funding crash, governance problems, and an ignored ultimatum

   1. CWChris Williamson11:54

      Really? Even that soon?

   2. LSLarry Sanger11:55

      Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And, uh, that's actually why I ended up, um, distancing myself. So, after, like, uh, I worked on it for the first 14 months, got it really going. Um, Jimmy Wales actually, um, basically did a-... he's given me credit for coming up with the idea, and later denied the same thing, and, and, um, that I was, like, essential to the project. But then it actually turns out that I wasn't essential to the project. I mean, it was set up. That's the nature of a wiki. It was set up so that it could be, to a certain extent, self-managing. It's-

   3. CWChris Williamson12:33

      Mm-hmm.

   4. LSLarry Sanger12:33

      ... pretty robust, um, you know. And, um, but I, I, uh, permanently distanced myself from the wiki, um, community, like, a year after being laid off, because they couldn't afford to pay me, basically. Um, they, the bottom fell out of the, the dot-com boom of the late '90s and early 2000s. And, um, yeah, so they lost their contracts and were not able to pay any of the new people. Um, anyway, uh, yeah, and then a, a year after that, I, I basically said, "This, this project is, you know, becoming dominated by people that I would have considered bad actors before. Um, and, uh, you're, you are absolutely driving away some of the very best people that we recruited for Nupedia. Um, and if this is the case, then it's gonna end up being a real problem, you know?" Um, and I think I, I was right. So I gave, I gave, um, Jimmy Wales an ultimatum. He said, "You do something about these problems or I'm gonna distance myself from the project permanently." And he simply denied that there were any of the problems, uh, that I listed. And, um, so I said, "Okay. Bye-bye." And, um, I, uh, I've been kind of a critic ever since.

7. 14:10 – 18:23

   Ideological drift: from subtle tilt to pronounced bias

   1. CWChris Williamson14:10

      It's interesting to me when we have these, these big projects ... You know, uh, I recently had Roger McNamee on from Facebook, uh, an early investor in Facebook, uh, a personal advisor to Mark Zuckerberg. He's the person that brought Sheryl Sandberg in. And he said the same thing. His, his story tallies up with yours, that very soon after he was involved in a project which would end up changing the face of the internet, he was able to see a particular trajectory that this project was moving on which concerned him, and he highlighted it very early. And again with that, the people who he highlighted it to, the powers that be, said, "Don't think it's a problem." Apparently, they, uh, his, his analogy was that they treated him like a PR, uh, a PR concern to be dealt with.

   2. LSLarry Sanger15:03

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson15:04

      Um, and, uh, replied ... He sent ... I don't know whether you did this, but I think he actually created quite a, an extensive press release/proposal which, for him, was, um, a thesis laying out where the issues lay. It was his conceptualization of exactly what was going on. Uh, and apparently the reply that he got from, from Mark and from Sheryl was, uh, similar to how a, a bad, uh, you would, you would deal with something in a press release, bad press release, which I thought was really interesting.

   4. LSLarry Sanger15:33

      Interesting.

   5. CWChris Williamson15:34

      Yeah.

   6. LSLarry Sanger15:35

      Yeah, well, uh, I, uh, I was nice. I didn't, like, uh, go to the, uh, make a public spectacle of, of the thing in, in 2000. I, I mean, I, I think I considered it. Um, I didn't actually go public with any criticisms until 2004. Um, and that really pissed Jimmy Wales off. One of the things he, he responded, um, to that, uh, on, and it's, it's on a, a now defunct, um, group blog called Kur5hin, K-U-R-5-H-I-N, .org. Anyway, um, and he basically said, "Yeah, I was thinking of, of, uh, you know, hiring you back and getting you back involved, uh, but not now." Um, and I said, "Well, I wouldn't have come back if you had asked, dude."

   7. CWChris Williamson16:27

      Yeah.

   8. LSLarry Sanger16:27

      Um, because, uh, the, the problems were not getting better. Um, and, uh, some of the things that I saw, which is a tendency to ignore the neutrality policy, um, have gotten worse. I mean, that's, that's been a problem since, I would say, um, a couple of years after I left. It started when, when one could begin to see an ideological tilt to at least some of the articles. Not always. Um, but that, that goes back to, like, maybe 2004 or 2005. Um, then it started getting really pronounced, like 2010. Uh, lately though, like in the last three or four years, basically eh, eh, at the same time that mainstream media has decided to abandon, um, all pretense of objectivity, um, Wikipedia has more or less followed suit as far as I can tell.

   9. CWChris Williamson17:29

      That's so, that's so upsetting for me to hear. So first off is, I, I did a little bit of background reading into this particular situation, had a good chat with Vizzy who's the guy who put, put me and you in touch. And, um-

   10. LSLarry Sanger17:40

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CWChris Williamson17:42

       ... uh, as a part of that, I, I've definitely seen recently, I was watching Steven Crowder, um, and he was, he said something, this is only the other day, about the fact his Wikipedia page has been locked down, apparently. It's had malicious edits made to it and is now locked down. And this is, I'm, I'm not even kidding you, Larry, this was a week ago, and I heard this for the first time. And I, um, you know, spend a fair bit of time on the internet and I swim in these sort of circles. Hadn't heard anything.

   12. LSLarry Sanger18:06

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson18:06

       And you're talking about something which is nearly two decades deep now, with regards to this particular pathology that's going on. So, I'm thinking about this and then-

   14. LSLarry Sanger18:16

       ... it's gotten worse though, is- is what I'm saying.

   15. CWChris Williamson18:19

       Oh, yeah.

   16. LSLarry Sanger18:19

       Yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson18:19

       Oh, yeah. It's- it's... B- you saw the seeds of it, right? Back in the day.

   18. LSLarry Sanger18:22

       Oh, yeah.

8. 18:23 – 22:16

   What a “perfect wiki” needs: Citizendium’s real names and constitutional governance

   1. CWChris Williamson18:23

      So, can you explain to us, in your world, what would make the perfect wiki, and how does that, uh... how does that contrast with what you saw, and then how has that begun to diverge further as- as time's gone on?

   2. LSLarry Sanger18:37

      Well, I'll give you, first, what I think is- would be the perfect wiki, and then I will- I will give you, um, uh, the way I think encyclopedias generally should go, which is not necessarily in the form of wikis at all.

   3. CWChris Williamson18:54

      Got you.

   4. LSLarry Sanger18:55

      Um-

   5. CWChris Williamson18:55

      Got you.

   6. LSLarry Sanger18:56

      So, um, let me tell you about a couple of projects that I worked on, and the- the- the very best, uh, version of a wiki encyclopedia might combine both. Um, so I actually started a- a competing wiki project called Citizendium, um, as in the Citizen's Compendium.

   7. CWChris Williamson19:14

      Nice.

   8. LSLarry Sanger19:14

      Um, back in 2006, 2007, um, and that was just when Wikipedia was enjoying its steepest growth curve, so it never really took off. But it had a really great start, um, and, uh... So the distinctive features that it had really weren't enough to really distinguish it from Wikipedia, but they were important differences. Um, one was you had to use your own real name. So anonymity... Anonymity was not- was not, uh, permitted, except in special cases, in which case, um, we- we allowed pseudonyms. Right? So if somebody wanted... If somebody were a- a political dissident, they would have to trust me, at least, and I would like, um, you know, approve of an account, um, and- and then they could just, like, um, use a pseudonym. All right. Um, a- a- that, I think, just takes care of a heck of a lot of the problems. It did, in- in that, um, y- years that I was working on Citizendium. Um, and- uh, the other thing that- that helps, basically, solve a lot of the problems with Wikipedia is making all of the people who contribute to the project agree to a- a statement of fundamental principles, and, um... Now, Wikipedia itself has, you know, some bedrock policies, um, that- that it has stated, but the, uh, the... Um, its commitment to neutrality, in particular, is, uh, is really, um, on the ropes. So, um, I- I think that, uh, if people were made to- to agree in advance with, uh, policies that, uh, you know, are specifically devoted to, um, strict notions of neutrality and, um, and other, uh, important policies, uh, it goes a long way, basically. Um, and then a- a third thing is, um, we had a... essentially a- a- a constitutional system of governance, a project governance. Um, it w- it's not mob rule. Um, there are actual elections. Uh, people, um, uh, people can actually change the rules through a legitima- legitimate process. They can adopt new projects through a legitimate process, and there... That doesn't really exist on Wikipedia, as crazy as that might sound. It just doesn't. Um, so, um... And that's i- in large part because they don't have one person, one vote. The reason for that is that, well, they allow anonymity. So

9. 22:16 – 26:29

   Everipedia and “an article about anything”: blockchain and radical scope expansion

   1. LSLarry Sanger22:16

      that's one of the- one of the problems there. Um, uh, so the other project that I wanna tell you about is one, uh, that I've been working on, um, since late 2007. So I have been, uh, chief information officer of Everipedia, um, and, uh, Everipedia is the encyclopedia of everything, that's why it's called Everipedia, and it's now blo- built on the blockchain, so it's the first blockchain encyclopedia. Uh, it is a fork of Wikipedia, um, and, uh, we have decided to allow contributions from all different sources, from all... uh, about, uh, uh, all different topics. Um, so we're much more open, um, as to contributors and topics, uh, whereas Wikipedia tends to shut people down quickly. They tend to be much more closed than they used to be, anyway. So we- we are- are going back to some of the- the more positive ear- early, um, tendencies, I guess, of- of, uh, Wikipedia in that regard. Um, but, uh, one- s- one thing that Wikipedia never had was this idea that you could have an article about absolutely anything, so I have an article about my left thumb, just to demonstrate-

   2. CWChris Williamson23:43

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   3. LSLarry Sanger23:43

      ... that it is possible to have an article about anything, and it changes the nature of- of the project. So if- if Everipedia really takes off in a big way, um, and it very well could, then, um, the- the result might be the- the mass creation of not five million articles in- in the English, um, encyclopedia, but 500 or five billion articles about everything, all proper names, as one- one of the co-founders put it.... um, anything that has a proper name would have an article that would be attached to it.

   4. CWChris Williamson24:22

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   5. LSLarry Sanger24:23

      Um, so, um, so here's the, here's another thing that, that is not part of that system yet, but which I think any system of, of, uh, collaborative encyclopedic, encyclopedia writing has to have, and that is a, um, a, a democratic dispute resolution system. Um, usually what happens, and this is why Wikipedia... One of the reasons why Wikipedia is so messed up is that, um, there is no formalized way of, of, uh, arriving at a decision about disputed questions. So you go there, you've, you've got a question a- a- about, you know, "What, what should the, the definition of racism be?" You know, extremely hot topic. Um, it should be possible for people to, you know, come up with a bunch of different options and maybe have a, a round robin competition or something like that, and, and, um, actually get a legitimate choice. That's not what they do. They pretend that it is possible to, um, have a consensus about, um, about these things, and, um, but the consensus is determined basically by the people in power on the topic, you know, whoever, whoever has the most seniority or seems to have the most, uh, allies, uh, or whatever, um, those are the people who basically declare the consensus. So it's not a consensus. It's just putting a, a cynical description on, uh, what is not a, a consensus at all. Um, so, no, there... It, it needs... Uh, the decision-making process needs to be reduced to very specific editorial decisions to be made, and then taking legitimate, legitimate votes, um, based on that. And, and-

10. 26:29 – 32:35

    How Wikipedia editing works now: protection, inner circles, and fiefdoms

    1. CWChris Williamson26:29

       So for, for me, I, I, I've never submitted an article to Wikipedia, or I've never tried to make an amendment to Wikipedia. I think probably-

    2. LSLarry Sanger26:36

       Mm-hmm.

    3. CWChris Williamson26:36

       ... maybe back in the day when I was a teenager, I'd have wa- searched to see if I was on Wikipedia for any reason. But, um, other than that, and other than using it for definitions, like probably most people-

    4. LSLarry Sanger26:46

       Mm-hmm.

    5. CWChris Williamson26:46

       ... I haven't. Can you just briefly explain what the process is? Let's say I want to... I go on and I search for racism and I think, "Oh, I, I have some, some information which relates to this that I think is missing." How, how w- do I go about trying to edit the article?

    6. LSLarry Sanger27:01

       Um, well, it's... In one way, it's as simple as it could possibly be. You don't even need to make an account, um, except for protected accounts, like the one that you were mentioning before. You just go to the page. You press the Edit This Page link. Um, up, up comes an edit box. You type in what you want, and you hit Save. And your, your edit will be saved immediately. And it used to work pretty much that way-

    7. CWChris Williamson27:29

       Okay.

    8. LSLarry Sanger27:29

       ... back, back in the day, um, and then, uh, gradually things became more and more locked down. I think it really started happening maybe in, like, 2008, 2010, and now it's just, it's really difficult to, to... Uh, for, for anybody who is not in an inner circle, as it were, to, uh, edit any important article at all, really. I mean, you can propose edits, and maybe if they're... I don't know. Um, but yeah, it's hard. Um-

    9. CWChris Williamson28:02

       It's interesting. I, I, 'cause I would've thought-

    10. LSLarry Sanger28:04

        You, you'd get banned.

    11. CWChris Williamson28:05

        (laughs)

    12. LSLarry Sanger28:05

        I'll tell you something. If you were to go in and edit the definition of racism in the article about racism, I'll bet you'd be banned, just for trying.

    13. CWChris Williamson28:13

        Really? (laughs)

    14. LSLarry Sanger28:15

        Yeah, I'm pretty sure. I am pretty damn sure. I'd love for somebody to prove me wrong.

    15. CWChris Williamson28:23

        Someone try. There's gotta be thousands of people listening right now. Someone go and try and edit a, uh, an article about, uh, about something contentious-

    16. LSLarry Sanger28:29

        Oh, oh-

    17. CWChris Williamson28:29

        ... and send us a screenshot.

    18. LSLarry Sanger28:30

        Well, you know, don't do it that article, okay? You know, no, no, no.

    19. CWChris Williamson28:32

        Not that one. Do it about something or do it about, like, how to make jelly or, you know, something, something that's kind of, yeah, nondescript. Um, so-

    20. LSLarry Sanger28:39

        No, no, no, it, it has to be something... To, to, to be a real test, it has to be something that is controversial. Just don't do racism, geez. (laughs)

    21. CWChris Williamson28:47

        Fine, yeah. Not that one. Not that one. Something else. Um, so I can immediately see, and the listeners will be able to think as well, if you allow people to make instant edits, the-

    22. LSLarry Sanger28:55

        Yeah.

    23. CWChris Williamson28:56

        ... uh, opportunity for trolls there i- is, is prevalent. Uh, it's obvious, right? That you can just have someone go on and change every word of the to poo, and then it just destroys the article. Um, so-

    24. LSLarry Sanger29:09

        Yeah. Oh, that's easy to fix. Yeah.

    25. CWChris Williamson29:12

        Okay. Is there... There's a revert button, is there, of some kind-

    26. LSLarry Sanger29:15

        Exactly.

    27. CWChris Williamson29:15

        ... I'm gonna guess on the back end?

    28. LSLarry Sanger29:17

        Yep.

    29. CWChris Williamson29:17

        Okay.

    30. LSLarry Sanger29:18

        Exactly. There's, that's it. It's all made, been made automatic. 'Cause it's much easier for, for you to, to, uh, revert somebody's illicit change than for the person to make it in the first place.
11. 32:35 – 36:42

    The Encyclosphere: Sanger’s new plan for a decentralized encyclopedia commons

    1. LSLarry Sanger32:35

       um, there's just a game that you have to play in order to get anything done on Wikipedia, and that game appeals to only a, a very few people. So, uh, uh, if I may, uh, let me, let me explain what's going on now with me, because it's, it's... Uh, it develops... You're basically asking what is my notion of the, the perfect wiki or the perfect encyclopedia system, so here it is. So I, I said that I have been the chief information officer of Everipedia. Well, actually, uh, as we speak now, I am no longer, um, so I, I resigned, uh, in, in, um, uh, September, in order to start the, uh, Knowledge Standards Foundation, and we are gonna be developing something that I call the Encyclo-Sphere. Now, the Encyclo-Sphere will be... Uh, hopefully, um, ha- have as a partner Everipedia, but also Wikipedia, and Ballotpedia, and Britannica, and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and the rest of them. Not necessarily partners in the sense that we'll have a, an, a written agreement with them, but what we're gonna do is, we're going to take, uh, metadata about all of their articles and make it freely available as part of a public commons everyone can use. And if their articles are free, as in the case of Wikipedia, Everipedia, and Ballotpedia, and actually quite a few others, um, if it is free then you'll be able to see, uh, the articles themselves. Uh, they will also be shared and made available as part of a public commons. Um, so what do I mean by public commons? I actually mean something like the blogosphere. So you can... You know, right? If you start up a blog, um, if you don't tell it not to, then, um, WordPress for example will publish your posts, um, using, um, a, a standard called RSS, Really Simple Syndication, right? Uh, so it makes what's called a feed, and that feed can be slurped up by, uh, by blog readers. And so you can go and look at Feedly, for example, um, and, uh, Feedly will allow you to subscribe to different news sources and blogs, right? And then your blog gets collated in with other things that you might wanna read and so forth. Well, we need to build that kind of system for encyclopedias. That's what needs to exist. See, if you wanna work on an encyclopedia now, you have to work a- and, and you wanna t- work on the, the, uh, biggest, most influential encyclopedia in the world, well, that's Wikipedia, and you have to work with that weird crew, with their strange policies, um, uh, with... You know, and, and put up with their ideological editing and so forth. You have to work on one article per topic. They don't allow multiple articles or, you know, competing articles or anything like that, of course, right? Um, well, I submit that there are probably millions of people who, if given the chance, would be writing encyclopedia articles about what they know, if they could be submitted into a general commons in the same way that people submit blog posts into the general commons of the blogosphere. So what we need to do is create an Encyclo-Sphere that enables the millions of people who would like to write encyclopedia articles but who don't wanna put up with the BS of, of, uh, Wikipedia.... so that is the idea. That's what we're building.

12. 36:42 – 44:22

    Multiple competing articles and ranking by audience cohorts

    1. CWChris Williamson36:42

       How do you get around... So you would presumably have multiple articles on the same topic, um, multiple-

    2. LSLarry Sanger36:48

       Right.

    3. CWChris Williamson36:48

       ... encyclopedia entries on the same topic. For me, I- I may be judging what I consider to be an encyclopedia incorrectly. But presumably, there should eventually only be one for most things. Is that increa- is that the wrong way to look at an encyclopedia?

    4. LSLarry Sanger37:05

       Uh, I think that's the wrong way to look at it.

    5. CWChris Williamson37:07

       Interesting.

    6. LSLarry Sanger37:08

       Um, yeah. So, here's the problem. Um, I- I personally am an objectivist about truth. I believe that there is such a thing as a mind-independent reality, and, um, we can get, uh, closer or farther away from- from a correct description of it. All right? So there is a mind-independent reality, and it constrains what we can know about it. Um, but, uh, the problem is that there is no generally accepted methods, and certainly no political entities that everyone can agree with for determining what that truth is. Right?

    7. CWChris Williamson37:53

       Mm-hmm.

    8. LSLarry Sanger37:54

       Um, and- and, uh, the best way to, um, arrive at, uh, the truth is to get all the views on the table, um, to be, uh, uh- um, as- as open as possible to proposals, and then allow people to- to rate those different, um, articles. And then, um, we can, if we have, uh, a- a proper user account system set up, right? Then, um, if I've confirmed that I am in fact Larry Sanger, then I could say, uh, things like, um, "Well, I'm an American. I'm male. I'm, you know, over 50. I have a- a PhD. I have degrees in philosophy. Um, I'm a member of this organization. I have- I went to these colleges," and so forth, right? Um, and then based on those categories, um, or political party, religion, whatever, based on such categories, you can say, "Okay. Show me the top-rated article according to all of the, you know, white male Republicans or how about Black female Democrats?"

    9. CWChris Williamson39:16

       Mm-hmm.

    10. LSLarry Sanger39:17

        Or, um, you know, on- on ... And on certain topics, those categories probably won't matter. On other topics, they'll matter a lot.

    11. CWChris Williamson39:25

        Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    12. LSLarry Sanger39:25

        And i- it would be really, really interesting, I think, to compare the top-rated article about jihad according to, let's say, um, uh, American college professors versus imams living in the Middle East.

    13. CWChris Williamson39:45

        Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    14. LSLarry Sanger39:46

        Um, I'll bet they would be different, um, and it would be really interesting to compare those articles, right? What would the- what would the top-rated article according to those categories of people be? Um, and, uh, so not only would it enable us to articulate different points of view, it would actually incentivize by creating a- a worldwide but completely decentralized, leaderless, centerless, uh, contest to write the best article about every topic from every point of view. So you wouldn't be- you wouldn't just get an article, um, that is approved by American college professors or whatever.

    15. CWChris Williamson40:35

        Mm-hmm.

    16. LSLarry Sanger40:36

        It would be the best one according to them. And there would be this constant competition to write a- a better one. So, um, yeah, there's all kinds of things to- to be said about that, but I'll- I'll just leave it at that and let you ask questions.

    17. CWChris Williamson40:54

        I think it's cool. It- it kinda sounds a little bit like Reddit, I guess, where you kind of upvote, you upvote particular articles, and the ones that are the most active... Although I guess you wouldn't have the time-degrading element of that. How-

    18. LSLarry Sanger41:05

        Well, the difference, there's a difference. Uh, Reddit is, uh, uh, doesn't constrain the, uh, the type of thing that is submitted to a subreddit, right? This is just encyclopedia articles.

    19. CWChris Williamson41:19

        Understood. I agree. Um, how- how useful do you think that this would be, or are there any concerns about how useful this would be for a typical layperson? I wanna find out about Christopher Columbus, right? I don't wanna find out about the... (sighs) I might do, but broadly, I probably want the most aggregated understanding of what Christopher Columbus did. Now-

    20. LSLarry Sanger41:44

        Mm-hmm.

    21. CWChris Williamson41:44

        ... there may be someone way, way out there who believes Christopher Columbus went back in time from the 22nd century and etc., etc. Do you understand what I mean?

    22. LSLarry Sanger41:53

        Yeah. Yeah.

    23. CWChris Williamson41:53

        That you have this potential for disinformation to leak in there.

    24. LSLarry Sanger41:56

        Yeah.

    25. CWChris Williamson41:56

        Um, conspiracy theories and alternative points of view, whilst valid, is that- is, uh, an encyclopedia the place for those?

    26. LSLarry Sanger42:08

        Um, well, let's put it this way. Uh, some things that were once considered encyclopedia theories are now regarded a- as- as, uh, true. Um, any encyclo- a- a- any conspiracies... Uh, sorry, I think I misstated that. Uh, so any conspiracy theories of the past, rather, um, th- uh, uh, they- they're now regarded as, uh, uh, that ha- have been discovered are- are no longer conspiracy theories. They're just true.

    27. CWChris Williamson42:39

        Mm-hmm.

    28. LSLarry Sanger42:39

        Right? But at one point, they were conspiracy theories.

    29. CWChris Williamson42:42

        Yeah.

    30. LSLarry Sanger42:42

        Right? Okay. So it, uh, uh, the- the point is that, uh...... that, um, uh, yes, there is a way to, to approximate, um, the mainstream view on any subject, right?
13. 44:22 – 52:14

    Standards, implementation, and independence from power and money

    1. CWChris Williamson44:22

       Is it technically, is it technically a challenge for whoever, whoever the unfortunate person is that's got to code to try and code this thing?

    2. LSLarry Sanger44:29

       Well, um, it's not one thing to code, um, e- except insofar as we're talking about the standards-

    3. CWChris Williamson44:36

       Mm.

    4. LSLarry Sanger44:36

       ... right? Um, 'cause, you know, there's... when... and when you're talking about the blogosphere, again, to go, to return to the analogy I like to draw, it's, um, there's no one set of software for the blogosphere. There's just the standards.

    5. CWChris Williamson44:51

       Mm.

    6. LSLarry Sanger44:51

       There's just the specification, RSS and Atom, and that's it. Um, so that actually is not gonna be easy, just making sure we have the right standards, um, uh, expressed. So I, I've, um, actually started a, uh, a WordPress blog actually, um, and you might not even be able to tell that it's a blog by the time we're done with it we're adapting it so much. But, um, yeah, it's gonna be a, a big old group discussion, but, uh, a serious long-form discussion about what this now does, should look like. And I'm... uh, I've already started reaching out to a lot of people, um, and we're gonna try to get as many relevant experts involved, um, a- and, uh, make sure that, that, um, we've got everything nailed down as much as possible. But also in a way that, that, that isn't, um, that isn't interfered with by, uh, big money interests, uh, and, and, um, a- and the power brokers of the world. Just don't want them involved at all. So, uh, we're not gonna accept any corporate money. We're not going to accept any money from governments. Um, any, any large contributions we accept, um, from individuals or, um, or maybe fou- family foundations or whatever, w- we're gonna actually check them out (laughs) , gonna make sure that they're not another Epstein, um, you know, that, that kind of thing. Um, we want the money to be clean and we want to make sure that it... there's no quid pro quo involved. Um, so because knowledge is power, um, right? And, and if, if we actually succeed in developing the, the project that, that I'm talking about, uh, it could be extremely powerful actually. And, um, I think there might be people after, uh, after it to, um, e- exert influence so that, um, there's, uh, special favors done to certain people.

    7. CWChris Williamson47:12

       Mm-hmm.

    8. LSLarry Sanger47:12

       Um, and that's, uh, that isn't gonna happen. I want it to be as neutral of, uh, and democratic of a standard as, um, a- as the classic standards of, of, uh, you know, defining the internet have been.

    9. CWChris Williamson47:30

       Understood, yeah. So when you're talking about the Knowledge Standards, uh, Foundation itself, the actual, uh, platforms I'm going to guess that you're dealing with, Wikipedia and stuff like that, in terms of repurposing their content and pulling them across, are they all within a format which is usable at the moment for you to rip that metadata out?

    10. LSLarry Sanger47:51

        Um, not really, no. In fact, that-

    11. CWChris Williamson47:52

        So do you need, do you need to get them on board with what you're going to do?

    12. LSLarry Sanger47:58

        No, uh, not necessarily.

    13. CWChris Williamson47:59

        Understood.

    14. LSLarry Sanger48:00

        I mean, it would help.

    15. CWChris Williamson48:02

        Yeah.

    16. LSLarry Sanger48:02

        Um, we could probably use their help, but I don't think it will be necessary. Uh, in the case of, of, uh, MediaWiki, that's the name of the software that, that Wikipedia uses-

    17. CWChris Williamson48:12

        Mm-hmm. Cool.

    18. LSLarry Sanger48:13

        ... um, um, yeah, we can, um, uh, we can write basically a, a scraper for MediaWiki sites that extracts the, the right metadata. Um, thing is people do use Me- MediaWiki in different ways. Uh, so that, that would itself need to be adapted. I'm pretty sure we're gonna have to, to adapt our, our scrapers for, for basically all, all the d- different sites. And I'm not just talking about a, a meta search engine though. To, to be very clear, um, what I want to exist is, like, uh, plug-ins for, for, um, for WordPress or for m- uh, browser, uh, browser plug-ins that you could use when you're working on a Medium article, for example. You press a button, um, it imports the data on the page into a form, and then you fill out other fields to make s- and make sure that everything is, is correct. Um, and then-... it republishes it on a feed, in a feed. And then that feed could maybe, another thing that it could do is ping one of the e- one of the feed aggregators, right? And that would pull, uh, in different encyclopedia feeds from different encyclopedias. But also, and this is the point, individuals. If you just wanna put up an encyclopedia article about your hobby, and you, like, "Okay, I don't know a lot about a lot, but I can write, you know, a dozen articles about, about, you know-"

    19. CWChris Williamson49:46

        Table tennis or something.

    20. LSLarry Sanger49:47

        "... playing cards." Yeah, yeah, yeah. Trainspotting.

    21. CWChris Williamson49:49

        Yeah.

    22. LSLarry Sanger49:49

        Whatever. Um, then, then, uh, uh, uh, that's fine. You'll be able to that. And they will be collated in and ranked against, um, uh, all the others.

    23. CWChris Williamson50:02

        I think, I, I, I just can't get over how big of a technical undertaking this is. Like, it sounds-

    24. LSLarry Sanger50:07

        Yeah.

    25. CWChris Williamson50:07

        It just sounds like... Because obviously from your side, philosophically, it, it is very interesting. Um, another thing that I've got in my head at the moment is the, is how similarly this matches up with what's happening with blockchain technology at the moment, uh, with, with decentralization of currencies and stuff like that.

    26. LSLarry Sanger50:25

        Yeah.

    27. CWChris Williamson50:26

        Um,

    28. LSLarry Sanger50:26

        This is why I joined Everipedia, right? Um, and Everipedia is, is still committed to, to, um, using this sort of system. But when I, when I joined Everipedia, um, I, I said, "Okay, so this is the project I really wanna work on." So they said, "Okay, well, you develop the ideas, and, and, and, you know, you can give speeches about it," and that's what I did. But, but, uh, also early on, I said, "Eventually, um, somebody is going to have to actually define the standards, the, uh, common standards that are used."

    29. CWChris Williamson50:59

        Mm-hmm.

    30. LSLarry Sanger50:59

        "If, if, for people are gonna be submitting articles to the Everipedia network-"
14. 52:14 – 1:12:59

    Decentralization beyond encyclopedias: Twitter, strikes, traffic trends, and privacy tech

    1. CWChris Williamson52:14

       It's interesting, isn't it, that this particular pathway's acting across multiple different domains, so to speak, within tech? This, this push towards decentralization.

    2. LSLarry Sanger52:25

       Yeah. Look, it's just a, it's a, it's a movement, basically, to, to, um, take power back. Um, take it out of the hands of Mark Zuckerberg and, uh, and his ilk, right? Um, yeah, it's a, uh, I, I think it's a huge problem that they have, um, decided to ignore our privacy rights. And, um, even though our content is what they, uh, have built their m- you know, multi-billion dollar corporations on, they insist on censoring us. It's the arrogance is mind-boggling to me. Um, and, uh, that wouldn't fly if you were talking about blogs, would it?

    3. CWChris Williamson53:23

       Yes, yes.

    4. LSLarry Sanger53:24

       If, there's no central blogging authority, why the hell does there have to be a central tweeting authority, or a central, um, you know, uh, social update, Facebook update kind of authority?

    5. CWChris Williamson53:37

       Yeah.

    6. LSLarry Sanger53:37

       It doesn't have to be. So-

    7. CWChris Williamson53:38

       It's, it's, increasingly now, I'm hearing this discussion about, is it, uh, pipeline versus platform, or p- uh, pipeline versus publishing, um, which is the analogy which is being used, that, um-

    8. LSLarry Sanger53:50

       Mm-hmm.

    9. CWChris Williamson53:50

       ... they are either simply the delivery vehicle for whatever people put on there, or they're a publishing platform which curates the content which goes out. And apparently, there's some very different rulings, uh, legislatively, uh, in terms of copyright, in terms of, uh, a whole host of other things, um, which every platform right now, YouTube, uh, Twitter. There's, again, to go back to Steven Crowder, he unloaded a load of stuff in this one, one video I watched the other week. He was talking about, uh, he was, showed his analytics on his YouTube channel, and apparently, YouTube has made a, a f- essentially a forthright declaration of the fact that they will be restricting political speech in the build up to the American election. And I was thinking, like, that's m- it's crazy. It, it, it-

    10. LSLarry Sanger54:37

        It's absolutely insane, yeah.

    11. CWChris Williamson54:38

        And, but that's because maybe, for me, I don't see the... I, I hope that these particular organizations are these big transparent enablers of, of, of information freedom, right? That's what I think. But-

    12. LSLarry Sanger54:54

        Mm-hmm.

    13. CWChris Williamson54:55

        ... as these organizations-

    14. LSLarry Sanger54:55

        That's what we all thought 10 years ago.

    15. CWChris Williamson54:58

        Well, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And as these organizations grow, they need tax breaks, they need favors. They potentially get into some legislative problems. They need to favor off someone, someone needs to favor off them. They grow a bit more, they grow a bit more, they get someone on the board. And you can see how these sort of this, the beautiful princess of purity dressed in all white, kind of gets a bit more mucky.... as time goes on, and the dress gets a bit dirty and torn, and then she's, you know, grown an extra arm and kind of become this horrible-

    16. LSLarry Sanger55:29

        (laughs)

    17. CWChris Williamson55:29

        ... gargoyle after a while. And it is, (hisses) it's bizarre, and it, it's, you know, again, same that Roger McNamee said, the same thing Tristan Harris is talking about at the, the, um, Center for Humane Technology and a lot of the people that, uh, that I'm very interested in at the moment, yourself are now added to that list, Larry. It, it's interesting-

    18. LSLarry Sanger55:46

        Mm-hmm.

    19. CWChris Williamson55:47

        ... that this movement is toward decentralization, toward more transparency, and I wonder if we'll see some of the large organizations either dig their heels in, aggressively try and claw at particular projects, or what some of the reactions will be, because there's no chance that they're gonna go down without a fight.

    20. LSLarry Sanger56:09

        Okay. I have a, a data point on that. Um, it's interesting.

    21. CWChris Williamson56:13

        Amazing.

    22. LSLarry Sanger56:13

        Um, so, uh, last spring, um, I had this idea that we really need to decentralize social media. Um, and I gave a speech at SXSW in Austin, Texas, um, and I, I asked just out into the public space, um, I asked Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter three questions. So, question number one was, "Will you agree, Jack, to let us republish our tweets into a common data format that could be used on other platforms, like Facebook, or, uh, uh, brand new, uh, platforms?"

    23. CWChris Williamson56:59

        Okay.

    24. LSLarry Sanger56:59

        "And will you also enable us to import posts into our Twitter feeds on twitter.com or the Twitter app, um, from other sources? So, uh, say my friend isn't using Twitter but is posting a lot on Minds, and I wanna see all of, all of the, the social media activity in one place. Will you enable us to import those posts?" And then, a third, I said, "Will you just generally give us a hell of a lot more control over the algorithm that, uh, the algorithms that, that, uh, shape our, uh, our feeds?" Um, and, uh, somebody, you know, wrote down the questions and, and tweeted them at Jack, and Jack responded. He said, "Yes." So I, I actually clarified. I said, "Okay, here's question one. Do you agree?" and said, "Yes." "Here's then question two. Do you agree with that?" "Yes." Uh, uh, "Question three, do you agree with that?" "Yes." So he, he was on the record, on Twitter, saying yes to the decentralization of Twitter. Um, it hasn't happened yet, though.

    25. CWChris Williamson58:09

        (laughs)

    26. LSLarry Sanger58:10

        (laughs) It hasn't happened yet. And I'll tell you more. I'll tell you something else. I had a, a half-hour-long discussion. I, so, um, out of the blue, I got a, uh, a message from Jack, um, a, a direct message, and, uh, proposing that we, we, uh, chat. So I had a half-an-hour-long discussion with him on the phone. And he read to me what sounded like a, uh, a plan that somebody had written, um, that, uh, went into details, um, uh, ab- about the sorts of things that I had, um, uh, asked questions about. Like, this is, I mean, it sounded great, like it was, it was a real plan. Of course, they haven't talked about this plan, um, publicly.

    27. CWChris Williamson59:09

        That's serious stuff. You've got Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, on the phone for half an hour to speak about something you brought up at SXSW to do with decentralizing Twitter.

    28. LSLarry Sanger59:21

        Yep.

    29. CWChris Williamson59:22

        That is, that's-

    30. LSLarry Sanger59:22

        Nobody-
15. 1:12:59 – 1:15:27

    Wrap-up: where to follow Sanger and the Knowledge Standards Foundation

    1. CWChris Williamson1:12:59

       L- Larry-

    2. LSLarry Sanger1:12:59

       Yeah.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:12:59

       ... today's been awesome. Can you tell, we've, we spoke about your blog and the Knowledge Standards Foundation. Where can people go, they wanna learn a little bit more, where should they head?

    4. LSLarry Sanger1:13:07

       Um, well, I, I hope they would do, uh, a couple of different things. Um, um, y- you can look, uh, at, at, at my blog if you're just interested in my thoughts about life, the universe and everything, actually mostly, mostly tech and education 'cause I homeschool my boys. Um, but, um-Uh, if you wanna just, like, keep up with me, then please, um, subscribe, uh, or f- follow me on Twitter. Uh, it's @LSanger. And then, um, also on Twitter is, uh, KS_Found, as in Knowledge Standards Foundation. Um, if you could follow that. I just put out a, a call for people to, to, like, um, to follow that. And for some reason, it, it went viral, and I went from 60 followers to, like, I've almost got 150 now. Or I, sorry, uh, uh, 1,500, uh, so, uh, in just a couple of days.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:14:06

       Not bad growth.

    6. LSLarry Sanger1:14:07

       So, yeah, yeah. Not too bad.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:14:09

       That's your mate, that's your mate Jack. That's your mate Jack going, "Ah, Larry's a good guy. Had a good chat-"

    8. LSLarry Sanger1:14:14

       (laughs)

    9. CWChris Williamson1:14:14

       "... with him a couple of months ago. We'll keep up, we'll keep up. We'll let the algorithm-"

    10. LSLarry Sanger1:14:16

        No problem.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:14:17

        "... work for him for another couple of months."

    12. LSLarry Sanger1:14:18

        I, any, any sort of, of image that I share is, is locked down as sensitive content. (laughs) I swear to God.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:14:28

        (laughs) Oh, jeez.

    14. LSLarry Sanger1:14:29

        I just said, I just posted something. Um, it, it was ju- just saying, "Thank you for putting us up o- over 1,000." That's what it said. That's all it said. And it was marked as sensitive content.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:14:41

        Some X-rated sharing that you've obviously got going on there, Larry. I've g- I've had a f- ... few ex-guests that have done that as well. Um, but yes. Everything that we've spoken about, Knowledge Standards Foundation, uh, your blog, Larry, and your Twitter will be linked in the show notes below. Uh-

    16. LSLarry Sanger1:14:54

        Good.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:14:54

        ... I'm excited. I'm, I'm looking forward to seeing what happens over the, the next few, the next few months. It'll be, uh, it'll be exciting to see if you guys manage to change the, the space of the encyclos- encyclosphere?

    18. LSLarry Sanger1:15:07

        Encyclosphere.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:15:07

        Encyclosphere.

    20. LSLarry Sanger1:15:08

        Just like the blogosphere. Encyclosphere.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:15:10

        I love it. Larry, thank you so much for your time. (instrumental music plays)

Episode duration: 1:15:27