[spoaceman7777]

Wow, they're on a roll over there. Just two days ago they permanently banned the cofounder of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger.

Per his tweet: "Well, that’s that—I’ve been blocked by Wikipedia “indefinitely” for unstated reasons, by the “consensus” of a mob. There was no due process, no prosecutor, no dispassionate judge, no jury, no interpretation of law. All my judges were self-selected and hated me."

Link to his June 22nd tweet on the matter: https://x.com/lsanger/status/2069061483422425287

[john_strinlai]

>for unstated reasons

the reasons were clearly stated, which he knows because he replied to them in the discussion.

whether you agree with the reasons is one thing, but this tweet is just a lie, and only serves to discredit him.

[JumpCrisscross]

> the reasons were clearly stated

…what are they?

[john_strinlai]

off-wiki canvassing for his proposal. its in the title of the issue and the summary is right at the top of the page.

"There is clear consensus for a community ban of User:Larry Sanger. There is general agreement among participants that he has engaged in off-wiki canvassing and is not here to constructively build the encyclopedia. There is also a significant concern shared by many editors that his actions constitute calls for outing."

[JumpCrisscross]

I’m not versed enough in the culture to understand what this is and why it’s a fireable offense.

[john_strinlai]

you don’t really need to know the ins and outs of the culture.

the discussion for his ban was public and he actively participated in it. the reasons for the ban are clearly stated in that discussion. he knows the reasons because he argued against them. so, saying they were “unstated reasons” is a lie.

the issue is linked by the sibling comment if you want more context and links to definitions of canvassing, bludgeoning, etc

[spoaceman7777]

The charge against him is specifically "Stealth canvassing", which, beyond the use of the word "Stealth", is clarified several times as: """Stealth canvassing: Contacting users off-wiki (by e-mail, IRC, or Discord, for example) to persuade them to join in discussions (unless there is a specific reason not to use talk pages)"""

Between calling it "stealth" and specifically calling out email/IRC/Discord, it makes it pretty clear that it is not referring to public platforms.

Iterpreting it as a ban on any public discussion of Wikipedia by Wikipedia editors, anywhere on the public internet, is a very dishonest move by the people involved in that thread, and you can tell the real reason for it by reading the many comments simply lobbing politically charged accusations against him.

Seeing folks over there policing violations of taboos that are enforced by a very small minority of the English speaking world (around 15-25% of the US for the combined equity-progressives and further left groups) makes me worry about this wonderful site, which has taught me so much over the years :(

[john_strinlai]

i don’t really care to get into litigating the issue itself (i have not made up my mind). my only point is that the reasons were stated and discussed publicly, so saying they were “unstated” is a lie

[spoaceman7777]

well, i do! >:D ;)

[_djo_]

While the merits of Sanger's banning are worth debating, Sanger is dishonestly representing the process here. The reasons, rather than being 'unstated', were stated repeatedly and were not unreasonable. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_no...

[Telaneo]

It was even directly linked to in the post on his talk page, that he took a screenshot of. Hardly unstated.

To be fair, there's a lot of text in that thread, but that is pretty unavoidable if the accusations have any sort of merit. He also actively participated in it, so he's probably actually read the majority of it.

[wqaatwt]

Maybe the implication here is that supposedly the real reasons are personal/political and the stated ones are just the justification?

[_djo_]

Then he should justify that. When I read through the discussion though it seems that the stated reasons were arguably sufficient to justify the action taken.

Sanger has been given a lot more leeway over the years, because of his status as a co-founder, than anyone else would have been given.

[aircraft]

That seems completely irrelevant to the post. Plus, isn't that the guy who hasn't been involved in the project since 2002? If it's been 2 decades, maybe it's time to find something else