Larry Sanger: Difference between revisions

Lawrence Mark Sanger was born in [[wikipedia:Bellevue, Washington|Bellevue, Washington]], on July 16, 1968. His father Gerry was a [[wikipedia:marine biologist|marine biologist]] who studied [[wikipedia:seabird|seabirds]] and his mother raised the children.<ref name="Spence 2021" /><ref name="Chris Lydgate">{{Cite magazine |last=Lydgate |first=Chris |date=June 2010 |title=Deconstructing Wikipedia |url=http://www.reed.edu/reed_magazine/june2010/features/deconstructing_wikipedia/index.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131101054851/http://www.reed.edu/reed_magazine/june2010/features/deconstructing_wikipedia/index.html |archive-date=November 1, 2013 |access-date=November 1, 2013 |magazine=Reed Magazine}}</ref> When he was seven years old, his family moved to [[Anchorage, Alaska]], where he grew up.<ref name="Marshall Poe" /> He was interested in philosophical topics at an early age and decided "to study philosophy and make it my life's work" at the age of 16.<ref name="Wade Roush" /><ref name="Alan_Boraas">{{Cite news |last=Boraas |first=Alan |date=September 2, 2006 |title=Hometown kid an Internet revolutionary |url=http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=AS&p_theme=as&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_text_search-0=Larry%20AND%20Sanger&s_dispstring=Larry%20Sanger%20AND%20section(all)%20AND%20date(9/2/2006%20to%209/2/2006)&p_field_date-0=YMD_date&p_params_date-0=date:B,E&p_text_date-0=9/2/2006%20to%209/2/2006) |url-access=subscription |access-date=March 25, 2007 |work=[[Anchorage Daily News]]}}</ref><ref name="Schwartz2015" />

In high school, he participated in debate, which Sanger says influenced his views on neutrality due to these debates exposing him to different issues and arguments from both sides:<ref name="Schwartz2015" /><blockquote>And so I'd look up articles about those things, and I was always furious when I came across an article that failed to present one side fairly or at all. The worst instances were when [the author] would just come out and say what their position is. It just struck me as being really unfair.</blockquote>Sanger graduated from high school in 1986 and attended [[Reed College]], [[academic major|majoring]] in philosophy.<ref name="Alan_Boraas" /> In college he became interested in the Internet and its potential as a publishing outlet.<ref name="Wade Roush">{{Cite news |last=Roush |first=Wade |date=January 1, 2005 |title=Larry Sanger's Knowledge Free-for-All |url=https://www.technologyreview.com/2005/01/01/231769/larry-sangers-knowledge-free-for-all/ |access-date=March 25, 2007 |work=[[Technology Review]]}}</ref> Sanger set up a [[listserver]] as a medium for students and tutors to meet for tutoring and "to act as a forum for discussion of tutorials, tutorial methods, and the possibility and merits of a voluntary, free network of individual tutors and students finding each other via the Internet for education outside the traditional university setting".<ref name="Tutor-L">{{Cite web |last=Sanger |first=Larry |date=August 30, 1995 |title=Tutor-L: Higher education outside the universities |url=http://scout.wisc.edu/Projects/PastProjects/NH/95-09/95-09-01/0018.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091123051329/https://scout.wisc.edu/Projects/PastProjects/NH/95-09/95-09-01/0018.html |archive-date=November 23, 2009 |access-date=March 25, 2007 |website=Internet Scout |publisher=scout.wisc.edu}}</ref> He started and moderated a [[Libertarianism|libertarian]] philosophy discussion list, the Association for Systematic Philosophy.<ref name="Marshall Poe" /><ref name="Schwartz2015" /> In 1994, Sanger wrote a manifesto for the discussion group:<blockquote>The history of philosophy is full of disagreement and confusion. One reaction by philosophers to this state of things is to doubt whether the truth about philosophy can ever be known, or whether there is any such thing as the truth about philosophy. But there is another reaction: one may set out to think more carefully and methodically than one's intellectual forebears.</blockquote>Around 1994, Sanger met Jimmy Wales after subscribing to Wales' [[mailing list]] titled Moderated Discussion of [[Objectivism|Objectivist]] Philosophy (MDOP).<ref name="Schwartz2015">{{Cite news |last=Schwartz |first=Zach |date=November 11, 2015 |title=Wikipedia's Co-Founder Is Wikipedia's Most Outspoken Critic |url=https://www.vice.com/read/wikipedias-co-founder-is-wikipedias-biggest-critic-511 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151114004055/http://www.vice.com/read/wikipedias-co-founder-is-wikipedias-biggest-critic-511 |archive-date=November 14, 2015 |work=[[Vice (magazine)#Website|Vice]]}}</ref> Sanger received a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy from Reed in 1991, a Master of Arts from Ohio State University in 1995, and a Doctor of Philosophy from Ohio State University in 2000.<ref name="Glyn Moody">{{Cite news|last=Moody|first=Glyn|date=July 13, 2006|title=This time, it'll be a Wikipedia written by experts|url=http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1818630,00.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070222023201/http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1818630,00.html|archive-date=February 22, 2007|access-date=March 25, 2007|work=The Guardian|location=London}}</ref> Beginning in 1998, he and a friend ran a website called "Sanger and Shannon's Review of Y2K News Reports", a resource for people such as managers of computer systems who were concerned about the [[year 2000 problem]].<ref name="Marshall Poe" />