Larry Sanger, one of Wikipedia’s cofounders, was banned from editing the site indefinitely after other editors determined he was canvassing, or in other words, calling on his followers off platform in order to influence Wikipedia’s content. 
Sanger has spent more than a decade criticizing Wikipedia for what he claims is an ideological, left-wing bias on a variety of topics, and on X has framed this recent ban as further proof of everything that’s wrong with Wikipedia. The
New York Post
took that bait and last night published an article with the headline “Left-leaning Wikipedia blocked founder from editing site—after he campaigned to make it more balanced.” 
Wikipedia editors obviously reject that framing and say that Sanger was banned for wielding his followers to sway discussion and decision making on Wikipedia. The discussion that led to the decision to ban Sanger concluded with what an editor called a “clear consensus” to ban Sanger.
“There is general agreement among participants that he has engaged in off-wiki
canvassing
and is
not here
to constructively build the encyclopedia,” the editor said in a note closing the discussion. “There is also a significant concern shared by many editors that his actions constitute calls for
outing
.”
While Sanger has been railing about bias on Wikipedia for years, the specific issue here is around his WikiProject Intellectual Diversity. WikiProjects are group efforts among Wikipedia volunteers to deal with certain issues on the site. For example, in 2024 I wrote about
WikiProject AI Cleanup
, a group of volunteers who focus on removing AI-generated content from the online encyclopedia. Sanger’s WikiProject Intellectual Diversity, as its name implies, aims to bring more intellectual diversity to the site, mostly meaning more right-leaning perspectives. 
Sanger’s WikiProject Intellectual Diversity and its goals alone do not merit a ban according to Wikipedia’s policies. The problem, according to Wikipedia editors, is that

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