Preface
As you could probably tell by my edit count and (frankly terrifying) number of userboxen, I have a lot of respect for Wikipedia, as well as both Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. Thus, when I learned that Sanger had written what he deemed the "Nine Theses" (even though there are actually nineteen on the page, ten of them being underdeveloped), I immediately gave them a read (in fact, I recommend you do the same before reading this). What follows on this page are my unfiltered thoughts on the theses (avoiding personal attacks and bad faith arguments), starting with:
1. End decision-making by "consensus."
In the section of this thesis entitled "The Problem", Sanger falsely claims that consensus is commonly declared among controversial topics that have no consensus, and links to the policy page on consensus. Essentially, what his claim boils down to is that Wikipedia claims that general consensus and unanimous consensus are the same, despite the fact that the policy page he linked to explicitly states: "Consensus on Wikipedia does not require unanimity". Sanger acknowledges this later, still grasping onto any semblance of hope that true unanimity, which is impossible on literally anything, is the only reasonable method of making decisions on what to add to an article.
Anyway, this thesis is not one of the ones that inspired me to write this essay, it more so just serves as a way to identify Sanger's utopian beliefs on what should be included and performed on the website. I'm not opposed to renaming consensus to something more understandable to avoid this confusion, however. Moving on!
2. Enable Competing Articles.
My opinion on this subject has changed a lot recently. Here's my current thoughts: Let's say for the sake of argument that I believe that the sun is a myth invented by the globalist elite for the sake of claiming that there is no god. Since my opinion is just as valid as science, when taking thesis 3 into account, it should have its own article, right? Not to mention that Sanger's childish belief regarding a shadow organization called "GASP", standing for Globalist Academic Secular Progressives, claiming that they are preventing this from happening. Allow me to dissect this notion. Globalist: Sanger is broadly correct here, but makes the fatal error of assuming that Wikipedia is almost entirely edited by Americans. By claiming that editors are trying to spread their political agenda by stating objective facts, Sanger opens the door to objective falsehoods being given just as much weight as facts. Academic: I could mock this point for trying to act like "academic" is a bad thing, but that feels too much like a cop-out.
3. Abolish Source Blacklists.
I get where Sanger is coming from here, but it's a slippery slope. If we allow any sources, it could make vandalism and bad actors harder to spot. I will now provide a list of claims that, if WP:RSP is abolished, will be perfectly fine to say on Wikipedia.
1. There is proof that Atrazine is turning both frogs and humans homosexual in an effort to drive humanity to extinction. (I had a link to InfoWars here, but it's on the blacklist, so I can't include it)