Lawrence Mark Sanger (/ˈsæŋər/ ; born July 16, 1968) is an American Internet project developer and philosopher who co-founded Wikipedia, along with Jimmy Wales. Sanger coined the name Wikipedia and provided initial drafts for many of its early guidelines, including the "Neutral point of view" and "Ignore all rules" policies. Prior to Wikipedia, he was the editor-in-chief of Nupedia, another online encyclopedia and the predecessor of Wikipedia. He later worked on other encyclopedic projects, including Encyclopedia of Earth, Citizendium, and Everipedia, and advised the nonprofit American political encyclopedia Ballotpedia. Sanger's other interests include theology and philosophy such as epistemology, early modern philosophy, and ethics. He taught philosophy at Ohio State University.
While in college, Sanger began using the Internet for educational purposes and joined the online encyclopedia Nupedia as editor-in-chief in 2000. Disappointed with the slow progress of Nupedia, Sanger proposed using a wiki to solicit and receive articles to put through Nupedia's peer-review process; this change led to the development and launch of Wikipedia in 2001. Sanger continued to serve as Nupedia's editor-in-chief and as an active contributor to Wikipedia in its first year, but he was laid off and left the project in March 2002. Sanger's status as a co-founder of Wikipedia has been questioned by Wales, but is generally accepted.
