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Lawrence Mark Sanger (born July 16, 1968 in Bellevue, Washington and raised in Anchorage, Alaska) is best known as the cofounder of Wikipedia, along with Jimmy Wales. Sanger received his B.A. in philosophy from Reed College in 1991 and Ph.D. in philosophy from Ohio State University in 2000, writing a thesis on Epistemic Circularity: An Essay on the Problem of Meta-Justification.
Sanger had been hired by Wales' company, Bomis, as editor-in-chief of Nupedia, a project to create a free encyclopedia. Responding to frustrations with the slow progress of Nupedia, in January 2001 Sanger proposed the creation of a wiki to spur the development of articles, and this turned into Wikipedia. By virtue of his position with Nupedia, Sanger spearheaded and named the project, and formulated much of the original policy.
For the next year, Sanger continued to work on and promote both the Nupedia and Wikipedia projects until Bomis had to discontinue funding for his position in February 2002. Sanger resigned as editor-in-chief of Nupedia and as "chief organizer" of Wikipedia (he never claimed an official title) shortly thereafter. [1] (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/My_resignation--Larry_Sanger) Sanger's stated reason for ending his participation in Wikipedia and Nupedia as a volunteer were that he could not do justice to the task as a part-time volunteer; later [2] (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/30/142458/25) he admitted that that there had existed "a certain poisonous social or political atmosphere in the project" which had also accounted for his departure. Nupedia made little progress without his leadership and shut down the following year, but Wikipedia continued to grow and gain momentum.
In December 2004 Sanger wrote a critical article for the website Kuro5hin. [3] (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/30/142458/25) While claiming "to appreciate the merits of Wikipedia fully" and to know and support "the mission and broad policy outlines of Wikipedia very well," Sanger maintained that there are serious problems with the project. There was, he wrote, a lack of public perception of credibility, and the project was put "difficult people, trolls, and their enablers" into too much prominence; these problems, he maintained, were a feature of the project's "anti-elitism, or lack of respect for expertise." The article was the subject of much controversy in the blogosphere and led to some reaction in the news media as well.
Meanwhile, Sanger has rejoined the academic world and is currently a lecturer at Ohio State University, where he teaches philosophy courses. His professional interest is epistemology with concentrations in early modern philosophy and ethics. In his spare time, he plays and teaches Irish traditional music on the fiddle in Columbus and Dayton, Ohio.
Sanger was the founder and executive editor of "Sanger's Review of Y2K News Reports" (formerly at sangersreview.com [4] (http://web.archive.org/web/20001025181634/http%3A//www.sangersreview.com/)), a resource for Y2K watchers, and also manages a site about the Donegal fiddle tradition.
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