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Larry Sanger returns with "Nine Theses on Wikipedia"; WMF publishes transparency report

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By HaeB and Bri

WMF publishes transparency report for January–June 2025

TKTK
"Origination of user information requests" by country (from the report)

The Wikimedia Foundation has published its transparency report for the first half of 2025, about "requests we receive to alter or remove content from the projects, and to provide nonpublic information about users."

The section on requests for user information ("such as IP addresses or user agent information") reports that 64 user accounts were "potentially affected" by such requests, but only one "actually affected". Among the 20 government requests received, the largest number (8) came out of India. The Foundation "partially complied" with only one request, out of France, and "fully complied" with 0. This was down from 2 granted requests in the second half of 2024: one from Brazil ("fully complied") and one from India ("partially complied"). The latter had received a great deal of community attention, including an open letter with the largest number of signatures in Wikimedia history (Signpost coverage).

The Foundation proudly points out that "Compared to other companies, we received relatively few requests, and granted relatively low percentages", citing numbers from LinkedIn, Meta and X (formerly Twitter), who during a comparable recent half-year timespan granted 723, 251,028 and 10,581 requests for user information, respectively.

A look at the previous transparency reports from the last half decade (the report for the first half of 2019 seems to have been removed or never published) confirms that such low numbers are the norm for the Wikimedia Foundation - although the second half of 2023 seems to have been an outlier, in that no less than 896 user accounts were "actually affected" by the 5 requests granted:

timespan Total requests Requests granted User accounts potentially affected User accounts actually affected
July to December 2019 35 2 ? ?
January to June 2020 30 1 72 2
July to December 2020 32 2 3,119 4
January to June 2021 30 3 38 5
July to December 2021 18 1 33 2
January to June 2022 31 0 38 0
July to December 2022 29 0 3,816 0
January to June 2023 41 3 8,712 4
July to December 2023 32 5 985 896
January to June 2024 26 2 186 2
July to December 2024 23 2 33 4
January to June 2025 30 1 64 1

The Foundation's transparency report also provides other kinds of information, e.g. about "Requests for content alteration and takedown", or about "Orders from EU Member States" that it received under the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA).

– H

Larry Sanger is "baaaaack!" with "Nine Theses on Wikipedia"

Larry Sanger has been largely inactive as a Wikipedia editor since his departure in 2002 as Wikipedia's "chief organizer" who (as employee of Jimmy Wales) had crafted several of its core policies. On September 29, he updated his user page to announce that

I'm baaaaack! [...] For most of 2025, I have 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 [cf. Signpost coverage], this is not merely negative. It is a realistic plan to make Wikipedia better. I hope you will take it seriously.

The nine theses, expanded upon in great detail in the document (which "is 37,000 words, something like a 150 page book" according to Sanger), are:

"1. End decision-making by 'consensus.'"
Sanger argues that Wikipedia's "notion of “consensus” [cf. WP:CONSENSUS] is an institutional fiction, supported because it hides legitimate dissent under a false veneer of unanimity."
"2. Enable competing articles."
Sanger proposes that "Wikipedia should permit multiple, competing articles written within explicitly declared frameworks, each aiming at neutrality within its own framework", because "Wikipedia is now led by [...] uncompromising editors. As a result, a favored perspective has emerged: the narrow perspective of the Western ruling class, one that is "globalist," academic, secular, and progressive (GASP). In fact, Wikipedia admits to a systemic bias, and other common views are marginalized, misrepresented, or excluded entirely."
"3. Abolish source blacklists."
A criticism of Wikipedia's "Perennial sources" page (which serves to summarize community consensus about the reliability of frequently discussed sources). In particular, Sanger objects to its treatment of some specific news publications on the US political right: "Wholly 'deprecated' sources include, for example, Breitbart, the Daily Caller, and Epoch Times. 'Generally unreliable' outlets include much of Fox News reporting and all of the New York Post and The Federalist [...]".
"4. Revive the original neutrality policy."
Sanger argues that "The present policy on neutrality [WP:NPOV] should be revised to clarify that articles may not take sides on contentious political, religious, and other divisive topics, even if one side is dominant in academia or mainstream media. Whole parties, faiths, and other “alternative” points of view must no longer be cast aside and declared incorrect, in favor of hegemonic Establishment views."
(Earlier this year, a two-episode podcast interview of Sanger with the Discovery Institute had highlighted the Wikipedia article on intelligent design as an alleged example of such failings.)
"5. Repeal 'Ignore all rules.'"
Sanger relates how he had posited this "humorous rule" himself back in 2001 "to encourage newcomers. Ironically, my joke now serves to shield insiders from accountability" in its present form (WP:IAR).
"6. Reveal who Wikipedia’s leaders are."
Sanger holds that "the Wikipedia users with the most authority)—“CheckUsers,” “Bureaucrats,” and Arbitration Committee members [...] *should* be identified by their real and full names, so they can be held accountable in the real world."
(On the talk page, he clarified that he does not "support doxxing people who rely on their anonymity in the system", decrying as inaccurate a media report from earlier this year which had implied that he was supporting such efforts.)
"7. Let the public rate articles."
"8. End indefinite blocking."
("Indefinite blocks should be extremely rare and require the agreement of three or more Administrators, with guaranteed periodic review available.")
"9. Adopt a legislative process."
Sanger argues that this is needed because "Wikipedia’s processes for adopting new policies, procedures, and projects are surprisingly weak. [...] Incremental policy tweaks cannot deliver the bold reforms Wikipedia needs. No clear precedents exist for adopting significant innovations. The project is governed by an unfair and anonymous oligarchy that likes things just as they are."
Somewhat surprisingly, this is also the only part in the entire document where Sanger - very briefly - mentions Citizendium, the wiki-based online encyclopedia he launched in 2006 (initially as a fork of Wikipedia), and which intentionally deviated from Wikipedia in several ways that seem consistent with his current theses - such as a real name policy for all contributors, or a "community charter" with "legislative authority" (Signpost coverage: "Citizendium adopts charter, Larry Sanger's leading role ends"). As this Signpost writer argued in a talk at Wikimania 2009 ("Lessons from Citizendium"), the project can thus be seen as a "long-time experiment testing several fundamental policy changes, in a framework which is still similar enough to that of Wikipedia to generate valuable evidence as to what their effect might be on [Wikipedia]". But in the lengthy rationales for his nine theses, Sanger unfortunately fails to cite any learnings from his several years of efforts to make Citizendium succeed as its editor-in-chief - or from the various other encyclopedic projects he has worked on since his departure from Wikipedia.

Various Wikipedians have so far commented on the talk page and in a village pump thread.

Sanger also announced his theses in an article at The Free Press (see "In the media" in this issue) and in a thread on Twitter/X, where he added:

Wikipedia could change. It's not impossible.

But only if you make a lot of noise both on social media and on Wikipedia itself. The current narrative is controlled by a few hundred people. What if 1000s (politely) descended on Wikipedia?
These are, in fact, very reasonable, commonsense proposals from anybody's point of view. We can put pressure on Wikipedia at all levels to adopt them. If they do nothing or refuse to change, there will be consequences.

I am Tucker Carlson's interviewee today—we talked about both criticisms and this reform proposal.

The 93 minute interview with Tucker Carlson touched on topics such as Carlson's theory about "Wikipedia’s Dark Alliance With Google" - alleging the existence of "a deal with Google that allows them to be the top search result" (Sanger agreed that "you very well could be right", but offered the alternative theory that Wikipedia might in its early days have benefited from a "feedback loop" with Google's algorithm, by being the first website to cover various topics).

Other parts of the interview caused "MAGA [to] Melt[] Down Over Wikipedia ‘Blacklist’", as summarized by The Daily Beast. These reactions included Elon Musk announcing that at his company xAI, "We are building Grokipedia [..] Will be a massive improvement over Wikipedia". Sanger reacted wearily: "Let’s hope it won’t be as biased as Grok itself."(Several weeks earlier, Musk had commented on the All-In podcast about possibly using Grok to "rewrite Wikipedia to remove falsehoods and add missing context". See also earlier Signpost coverage of Musk's grievances: "Op-ed: Elon Musk and the right on Wikipedia", "Wikipedia is an extension of legacy media propaganda, says Elon Musk")

In a 2013 tweet, Sanger had announced that "I am finished with Wikipedia criticism. Quote this back to me if I happen to lapse." Reform, however, was not mentioned. – H

Temporary accounts rollout soon

Editing with Temporary Accounts instructional video

Temporary accounts, formerly known as "IP masking", has been tentatively scheduled for rollout on English Wikipedia on October 7 (see announcement). The feature is already active on several Wikipedias and involves removing IP visibility for people who choose to edit without logging in.

For further reading on the discussions and rationale leading up to this, see previous Signpost coverage from 2020, 2024, and 2025. – B, H

Brief notes

This is a page from the Human Rights Impact Assessment's executive summary, featuring a "Recommendation on the Use of GenAI in Wikimedia Context"
  • WMF AI/ML HRIA: The Wikimedia Foundation's legal team has published "a Human Rights Impact Assessment on the interaction of AI and machine learning with Wikimedia projects", prepared by an external research organization in August 2024.
  • Wikimedia Denmark warn against copyrighting faces: Wikimedia Europe has published its EU Policy Monitoring Report for September 2025. Among multiple other legislative and policy developments that might affect Wikimedia projects, it highlights that "Denmark’s parliament is expected to pass a bill that extends copyright protections to personal characteristics, such as voices and faces. [...] Wikimedia Denmark has participated in the public consultation, pointing out that the exceptions and limitations foreseen in the draft proposal would be insufficient to protect all current users on Wikimedia projects."
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  • Hmm... Sanger's view on "P" in GASP may be a call for exclusion of queer people participating in editing. As for abolition of blacklisting far-right sources, this may indirectly enable fascism to unwary readers. Ahri Boy (talk) 07:03, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is unlikely. jp×g🗯️ 07:47, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • The G of course is an old antisemitic trope. Bearian (talk) 07:40, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    In right-wing circles, it is antisemitic. In left-wing circles, there is an aversion to global corporatism, which may be called globalism. At any rate, there are groups who fear what an emerging global point-of-view can become or is becoming. Why else would we see forces around the world encouraging moves toward fascism and/or libertarian capitalism, and away from social democracy (as an umbrella term)? The short answer is they fear the world being decidedly against their narrow interests. Stefen 𝕋ower's got the power!!1! Gab • Gruntwerk 20:51, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • It must be decades now that Larry Sanger has written anything about Wikipedia that was not utter nonsense, but now he's apparently become full fascist, cozying up to Tucker Carlson . Why give this moron such a platform? Let him spread his nonsense on "Truth Social" etc. --Anvilaquarius (talk) 09:12, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • old guy demands respect whilst shouting at the moon. Not seeing a reason why this editor has any standing nor why we as a community should give these ideas any oxygen. He obviously has a right to air his views in a personal essay. The rest of us have a right to critique it or ridicule it or just ignore it. JMWt (talk) 09:41, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think it's healthy to consider an outsider's point-of-view, even if most of Sanger's ideas are junk. I actually am open-minded to a few of his ideas (see below) but there are certainly no "diamonds" in there. If he would have just stayed involved with Wikipedia over the past two decades, his perspective would be a lot stronger and a lot more respectable. Stefen 𝕋ower's got the power!!1! Gab • Gruntwerk 21:02, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • If Twitter is any example as to what de-wokeifying a platform results in, I think I am fine with Wikipedia keeping its current biases. The anti-woke crowd is welcome to make an alternative and compete in the free market. They can even use MediaWiki, it's FOSS! But no, they want affirmative action and quotas within Wikipedia for themselves. Ironic. Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/my edits) 10:37, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Multiple alternatives in fact exist. Conservapedia is perhaps the best-known. Izno (talk) 18:35, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Not exactly competition for a neutral POV (a necessity for something calling itself an encyclopedia). But yes, it exists. Stefen 𝕋ower's got the power!!1! Gab • Gruntwerk 21:08, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • oh boy... demanding editors ignore their own "lying eyes" with threats of doxxing. how fun. FractalDreamz ✯ 11:27, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Re: Sanger; WP:DFTT. --Goldsztajn (talk) 12:40, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why are we giving a former Wikipedia admin from a different time period, who certainly knows and acts in bad faith, a soapbox here? "9 Theses" isn't a user essay, and we know Larry is going to publish this shit anyway. Please, for the love of sanity, for this website, remove this crap. – The Grid (talk) 12:44, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I kinda agree with 9. But not in the sense of a whole legislature, but defining ArbCom as a sort of Supreme Court and possibly having a president of English Wikipedia to better communicate with the foundation, help us shape new features, and give us more of a united front against censorship. I believe that we need to take a more aggressive stance on censorship than the foundation is currently doing and directly call governments out. The rest of his proposals are a flamming pile of garbage though. Mikeycdiamond (talk) 13:35, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Of all his theses, this one seems to be the most reasonable and the most likely to garner widespread support. It would institutionalize a de facto reality that we sometimes like to pretend doesn't exist: certain editors have more authority than others. I prefer the "admins as janitors" perspective and believe that a healthy dose of humility is mandatory on a project where we're all volunteers. But having a non-WMF face for external communication is not a terrible idea. How we'd establish a legislative body is beyond me (ranked voting, perhaps?). ~ Pbritti (talk) 16:05, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • We're basically librarians. I'd rather see a title like "Chief Librarian of English Wikipedia". Fewer political overtones. We are a "free knowledge" movement but that should be the limit of our politics as a group. Overall, though, like I say below, I'd rather not see Wikipedians being further distracted away from the usual project work so they can go legislate or vote on every policy change. Direct democracy, as cool as it sounds, isn't tenable, especially in a project where we need a lot more active editors. Stefen 𝕋ower's got the power!!1! Gab • Gruntwerk 21:46, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've been looking at his last edits in mainspace. As far as I can tell, it was this in 2012. Since then it has been a few comments on talkpages and latterly his own userspace subpage which arguably is an attack-page on core policies of en.wiki. Seems a good case can be made for WP:NOTHERE JMWt (talk) 13:54, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • The stuff about NPOV taking a stance against pseudoscience because of Mahrer in 2017, or recent activist journalism is just factually wrong, isn't it. The earliest versions of that page, still preserved over on Nostlagia Wiki, start off with a letter from Jimmy Wales and then there is immediately a whole debate about how to do a neutral presentation of pseudoscientific concepts. This predates the version of the page that Sanger is calling the "original" version. Somewhat sad to see that a founder can't appreciate the good that the project has done. Maybe with any creative endeavor, a creator is prone to focus on the gap between what is and what could be. Rjjiii (ii) (talk) 14:35, 2 October 2025 (UTC) Edit: nobody has to resign or identify themselves, especially not right now. People are losing their jobs just for disagreeing with the current president. Rjjiii (ii) (talk) 15:14, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Multiple family members sent me his words in TFP. Most of his ideas read like those of someone who hasn't participated on the project in two decades (which is not necessarily a bad thing). However, there's a substantial measure of naivety in rejecting foundational maintenance standards like the RSP blacklist. I think we should reconsider some possibly partisan deprecations, but in no world should The Onion or–heaven forbid–Wikipedia be cited on the project. Indefinite blocks are crucial in addressing both low-level but high-burden vandals and longstanding rabble-rousers alike. And, of course, these blocks are "indefinite", not "infinite"–as there has always been an appeal process. Perhaps more transparency and some democratization in appeals could benefit us, but I've felt that the community handles such things fairly well. As for the mandatory IDing, Sanger's own words seem to suggest that "canceling for thee, but not for me" may be an intended outcome. I think he genuinely wants to improve the project. However, I find it unlikely that his theses will gain traction with many of those who are willing to give the time and effort necessary to maintain a free and open encyclopedia. ~ Pbritti (talk) 15:57, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Larry Sanger/Nine Theses Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:24, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So, do we switch from "Hello IP!" to "Hello TA!"? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:37, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

At this point, Sanger is reasonably considered an outsider and thus is bringing an outsider's views, which on a basic level I welcome, and we should see more of such. That said, following is my first blush take of Sanger's ideas:

  1. 1, 2, 3, 6 and 8 are totally out of the question for me. In my estimation as a longtime editor, they are just bad ideas. And I suspect Elon Musk and his ilk froth at the mouth over 6. No, Elon, you are not getting that information. No, no, no. I have always supported transparency in government, but this is not government, and there is no "government force" protection for our officers. On the other hand, I would encourage voluntary transparency, and would consider that courageous.
  2. On 4, perhaps Wikipedia could do a better job on presentation of other perspectives, but I also think an encyclopedia should reflect the prevailing view on what is factual or is predominantly held to be true at the time it is "printed" (i.e. media is a product of its time). Extensive coverage of minority positions due to them maybe eventually having more weight is prospective. And we don't do prospective writing. We write based on current knowledge and prevailing views. That is what an encyclopedia is. That all said, does Wikipedia have a Western bias? If you mean English Wikipedia, yes, and that's because English is a language that dominates the West. Good luck getting English writers to magically think and write outside Western perspectives. If you really want to talk about bias, though, the true bias of all of Wikipedia is corporate bias. As corporates swallow up most of the media we depend on for sourcing, we are unfortunately going to tend to reflect their POV, which is anti-labor and anything else not approved of by corporate owners. As a movement, we need ways to counterbalance this.
  3. On 5, I am open-minded to a community-wide review of IAR. I've come to appreciate that we have policies and guidelines and the expectation they be followed, as this helps lead to a cohesive, coherent overall product. Not following them on purpose should be considered extraordinary. Abrogating a policy or guideline outside of community consensus for that abrogation should be frowned upon. At the same time, we should have clear avenues and directions for challenging policies and guidelines... especially guidelines. So, if an editor defiantly wishes to write against a guideline, we can tell them: "Follow the guideline, or challenge the guideline – those are your only two choices. You may not ignore them."
  4. 7 actually sounds like a cool idea, although I don't think it should be a bare numerical rating but rather a set of ratings based on various factors we consider important, with the examples of "Well-sourced?" or "Balanced presentation?".
  5. 9 has a kind of reason to it, but this isn't a democracy, it is a meritocracy. Weighting things down with a legislative process would work against GTD (getting things done). And due to the ongoing shortage of active editors, we need Wikipedians being WP:HERE, rather than "there", legislating.
  6. As for Sanger pushing 1000s to descend on Wikipedia politely, I'm guessing the audience actually enthusiastic about his overall ideas would be anything but polite and will tend to cause more damage than find ways to push for changes via consensus. The few who break through constructively are unlikely to change any consensus, of course, unless and until they are prepared to become active editors and eventually get to a place of understanding of what they are talking about on any given topic of relevance. It's like expecting hordes of the unwashed to storm libraries with an expectation of getting them to change away from their chosen classification method or alter material use policies. It's a weird call. If not unhinged.
  7. Re: "If they do nothing or refuse to change, there will be consequences." I hereby LOL at such false bravado, and retort "You and what army?" Change here is slow in many areas, but there is no refusal to change. Also, this is effectively a library catering to readership. The idea we need to have continual, rip-roaring change is rather antithetical to maintaining a calm atmosphere of spreading knowledge and evolving ways to enhance that. We are a body of thinkers and teachers. This is not sport. And we shall not kowtow to Goths, Vandals and X hooligans. Come here to work constructively, or we will (politely) show you the door.

Stefen 𝕋ower's got the power!!1! Gab • Gruntwerk 19:49, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Further, re: Grokipedia, I welcome the competition. But given the state of AI at this point, I don't see it as actual competition in the near term. No matter the compendium, if readers get a sense of not being given a factual presentation of the subject, that will cause challenges for that compendium. Wikipedia is obviously not immune from that, but unlike AI, we are or can be self-corrective. AI algorithms can be improved, but you have no human editors of a given subject discovering a problem (perhaps one AI can't detect) and then fixing it. And when Musk says "remove falsehoods and add missing context", I frankly snicker as someone who has watched Musk over the years. He is obviously wanting to apply a right-wing tilt and give a lift to pseudoscience or other widely rejected positions, just as he has done on X. He as the richest person ever wants everything to bend to his POV, and we are not doing that, and that makes him fume. Fume on, Elon. Stefen 𝕋ower's got the power!!1! Gab • Gruntwerk 20:26, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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