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# Larry Sanger

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Editor-in-Chief of Nupedia and (with Jimbo Wales) instigator of Wikipedia. Ph.D. 2000, M.A. 1995, Philosophy, Ohio State University. B.A. 1991 Philosophy, Reed College. Home town is Anchorage, Alaska.

I've inflicted a series of philosophy lectures first on Ohio State students, and now on Wikipedia. I've written a few 'pedia-related columns.

I'm currently in Las Vegas--to move somewhere else probably around November. I've lived in many places after leaving Anchorage, especially Portland, Oregon and Columbus, Ohio (but also Munich, [Minneapolis, Minnesota]? and [San Diego, California]?). I lived in [Izhevsk, Russia]? recently from the end of April until the end of July, 2001--see also [Izhevsk, Udmurtia]. I also recently made a great nine-day trip to Ireland, in early August. I'm a fiend for Irish traditional music, and I plays fiddle roughly in the Donegal fiddle tradition. I can move around like this because I work online.

I'd prefer if you gave your messages to me below, but if e-mail would be more appropriate, you can feel free to add to my persistent backlog at lsanger at nupedia dot com.

Now I am soliciting your help! Yes, yours! I want to know where to live. Since I can live virtually anywhere, I want to know where to live. Some criteria include (in approximate order of priority): inexpensive living; friendly people; snow in winter (enough for cross-country skiing); a good Irish traditional music scene; a large university library nearby; mountains; ocean; English-speaking (always a plus, anyway); low taxes; family-friendly. So, how can you help? By filling out the following articles more completely (since they are high on my list of possible places to live): Anchorage, Alaska (already filled out, by myself); [Seattle, Washington]? (near there, anyway; Seattle's very expensive but maybe there are places within an hour of Seattle); New Hampshire and Boston; Pennsylvania including the [Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania]? area; [Denver, Colorado]?, [Boulder, Colorado]?, or somewhere near there; and Portland, Oregon (though since I was an undergrad there I already knows most of the pluses and minuses of Ptld). Yes, you can help by writing encyclopedia articles that I can read to help make up my mind! -- Thanks in advance!

Yes, I agree, he is he, nobody would argue with me! :-P

He is he, but this is twee, we'd all agree.

Larry's favorite philosopher is Thomas Reid, isn't he? Maybe!

I'm not envious because I live here, in Russia!

- /Old comments that used to be at this point on the page.
- /More old comments

### All sorts of comments people saw fit to add to this page

Utah valley (the more developed areas within an hour or so of [Salt Lake City]?) meets the first three criteria to some extent or another. I don't know about the Irish music, but there are decent classical music and ballroom dance resources. BYU and the U of U have large libraries. Definitely there on the mountains, and there are lots of lakes, but no ocean.

Online quizzes suggest the Utah valley, but, right, it is one place in the U.S. least likely to be graced with "The Maid Behind the Bar." There's also the problem of all those Mormons, some of whom, I understand, don't take kindly to nonbelievers such as myself living amongst them. Maybe I'm just bitter that that Mormon girl in high school wouldn't let me kiss her.

Somewhere within driving distance of Seattle is sounding better and better--that, and my old hometown of Anchorage. --LMS

I'm moderately surprised you aren't considering Boone, North Carolina, as a possible place to live.

Seems to meet your specs mentioned earlier, although I must admit one might have some concerns about living in that area of North Carolina (home of Jesse Helms, and the state housing the most hate-groups of all states in the union.. most of which are concentrated in the mountains).

My sister went there for college. Always seemed like a nice place to live to me.

-- Fleeb

  I have never heard of [Boone, North Carolina]? (why not tell us more about it?)--I have not considered the South on the principle that it is hot there. :-) But the South in the mountains--an idea, except that there ain't no Irish music there. I do know there's a reasonably lively scene in the Chapel Hill area. Maybe it's close to that? --LMS

Larry - why is it that in some cases older revisions are not listed in the "Other Revisions" view of a page? Are these still available? It would be valuable to be able to refer to the complete change history of a page, for a variety of reasons. (For example, when creating an entry for a page for Wikipedia_NEWS, I like to check the history of the topic, and this is tough when it shows only revisions 50-57.) -- BryceHarrington

  I don't know, and I wish somebody would tell me. I totally agree. The complete change history of a page seems invaluable. Maybe you could raise the issue on Wikipedia-L? That seems like a good place to talk about it. --LMS

Larry - how important are POINTY mountains in your future location - that is, what about Eastern Skiing? I relocated to Upstate New York from Atlanta (another land of hellish traffic without Seattle's topographical excuses) and have taken up x-country to stay sane in winter. Cornell's library is incredible, local beer is good, there is music g-a-l-o-r-e in Rochester, and we won't mention the tax structure. Maybe Vermont? MichaelTinkler

  I have thought of upstate NY for just the reasons you mention, but on the other hand, it's not called the People's State of New York for nothing (OK, so it's not called the People's State of New York at all--officially--but you get the point). Maybe I shouldn't care; I had a pleasant time in Russia, after all. On the other hand, I had rather little to do with the government there. New Hampshire is actually the only state in the northeast I've really seriously considered--somewhere a few hours from Boston might be perfect. On the other hand, I'd prefer not to be considered an outsider for the rest of my life, as New Englanders are reputed to treat people. Colorado is sounding better and better...

On quick reading "[Value Theory]?" article is a very valuable contribution. I agree that is the most important part of philosophy. However, it calls for one policy matter to be addressed: should not articles be a wee more encyclopedic and less editorial. I wanted to add a short sentence with a link to a separate entry [scientific axiology]?; however, I could not do it without reading the whole text and making sure I add at the right place instead of just increasing entropy. As a result, I added nothing and decided to read the whole article first. If busy life prevents me from completing the read or forces me to do it superficially, I will never contribute fearing defacement. If your article was built of clearly delinated short points that would emphasize its structure, or even if it was split into several articles, I might know where my insert is relevant. I do Random Page jumps to see what could be improved but ... this works only for very short articles. Improving upon larger bodies is a major investment. I might gladly write something big myself but then again ... what prevents me is a thought that others will endlessly "improve" and distort the original flow of thought. Last but not least, editability of Wikipedia is also its weakest point: I have to always be cautious about reliability of data. Mea culpa: I tried to add a few words about Darwin and wrote 1931 instead of 1831 in reference to the Beagle trip. I am very curious where the project is heading, but the rules of evolution say that the Britannic will survive. It got some traits beneficial to its niche. So there will be an infinite competition between free and commercial material Piotr Wozniak

  Ugh, this article requires huge amounts of revision, I agree. --LMS

Well, it doesn't fit any of your criteria besides being English speaking and having UPenn's library, but I still recommend Philadelphia. We need more educated folk around here, because they all go to New York for reasons I don't understand. Think of living here as being charitable. -Seckstu

  There is one great advantage to Philadelphia, aside from the fact that Penn is there and that it's a cosmopolitan town: the Irish music scene is fantastic and it's one of the few places, I understand, in the U.S. where there are any significant numbers of people who play in the Donegal style. Besides, I've liked almost all the Pennsylvanians I've met, and the taxes aren't as high as other places. So, who knows. --LMS

Welcome Back, Larry. What do you think of all the activity that is going on? I'm really surprised and happy. --AstroNomer

  Thanks! I am amazed, really. I think we are getting closer to the point where we really will need some way of sorting out the RecentChanges. If we get ten times the traffic, we really won't be able to maintain quality control. I will expound in a little essay--thanks for the inspiration.
  But now it turns out that writing the essay has changed my mind. (That happens sometimes.) I'll be interested to see what you have to say.

Welcome back, Larry. I'm pleased with the activity too; I imagine there's plenty here to keep you busy. ;-)

Ugh, you're right about that, lots to keep me busy, although I probably won't be able to dive right back into it very deep, because I have to deal with Nupedia stuff too (not to mention e-mail, which has been kept down to amazingly manageable levels--a mere 150 messages or so, after deleting the spam and other deletables). --LMS

Interesting...what brought you to finally write about you in the first person?

It was getting tiresome, I guess. :-) --LMS

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