Well, sure, it looks like one thing, but ...

I took a quick look at what the "Wikiproject intellectual diversity" was actually monitoring. Specific articles or categories about things Mr Sanger finds interesting,right? Well, indeed: specifically it's all arbcom, admin elections, policy pages. You can check it out here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Larry_Sanger/WikiProject_...

Then he canvassed people from outside wikipedia to help with that project.

So he claimed to be doing one thing, but in reality it was more of a thinly disguised power play by the look of it.

This doesnt make sense… ?

Clearly all significant names involved with Wikipedia, including admins, have some kind of ulterior motives, to some degree above literally zero.

Unless you believe in literally perfect altruism 100% of the time.

The degree can vary from one to another, but that seems like a much higher bar to confidently pin down.