If you’ve done any searches on the web you’ve been to Wikipedia, the huge on-line, free content encyclopedia on the internet, with seven million articles. The idea was formed in 2001 by two friends in a Mexican restaurant as a site where everyone in the world could contribute articles, features and information in an open and unrestricted forum.
One of the founders of Wikipedia was Larry Sanger, and it would take you about thirty seconds to realize that Sanger is a very high Green. That makes sense, from the logic behind Wikipedia to its early evolution.
But within a year, Sanger left the company because he believed it no longer had credibility when he started to question the accuracy and integrity of many entries and contributions in Wikipedia. Hee walked away after disagreements with his partner as to who can contribute to the site, even before it became the giant it is today. It wasn’t, and isn’t, about money, fame or success. For Sanger, as most every Green, it’s always about credibility and doing it right.
Or in the words of Sanger himself: “Wikipedia began as a good-natured anarchy, a sort of Rousseauian state of digital nature. I always took Wikipedia’s anarchy to be provisional and purely for purposes of determining what the best rules and the nature of its authority should be. What I, and other Wikipedians, failed to realize is that our initial anarchy would be taken by the next wave of contributors as the very essence of the project – how Wikipedia was “meant” to be.” Or to word it in a less Green way: Kind of like running an accounting department with no paper or audit trail.
What did the high Green Sanger do? He thought of a better and more credible site and launched citizendium. This one however, has firm editorial rules and mandatory disclosure of the real names of editors, whereas Wikipedia allows anyone with a fictitious user name to contribute untraceable content.