Hi everyone,
I'm baaaaack!
I co-founded Wikipedia long ago. While I was gone for a long time, I did keep abreast what's been going on and how the system works, as a student and critic of Wikipedia and of the internet generally.
But as of fall 2025, I have returned, with the aim of helping Wikipedia in various ways to reform.
Most recently, I have been working on WikiProject Intellectual Diversity. This is not yet an approved WikiProject, but I am confident we will get enough supporters to make our application successful. If you too want Wikipedia to be reformed in ways that will make the project more open and welcoming to those of a more intellectually diverse body of contributors, please join!
For most of 2025, I developed Nine Theses on Wikipedia, which is partly an extended criticism and partly a reform proposal. Unlike much of my previous writing and speaking about Wikipedia over the past 20 years or so, this is not merely negative. It is a realistic plan to make Wikipedia better. I hope you will take it seriously.
All the best,
Larry Sanger (talk) 17:24, 6 May 2026 (UTC)
P.S. Here's what I posted when I left in 2002. Still good advice:
All the best to Wikipedia and Wikipedians. May you continue
- to be open and warmly welcoming, not insular,
- to be focused singlemindedly on writing an encyclopedia, not on Usenet-style debate,
- to recognize and praise the best work, work that is detailed, factual, well-informed, and well-referenced,
- to work to understand what neutrality requires and why it is so essential to and good for this project,
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- to treat your fellow productive, well-meaning members of Wikipedia with respect and good will,
- to attract and honor good people who know a lot and can write about it well, and
- to show the door to trolls, vandals, and wiki-anarchists, who if permitted would waste your time and create a poisonous atmosphere here.