A coda: A letter from Jimbo has been published in the New Yorker this week.
Regretfully, it seems not to be online, so I'm copying it out below.
Hopefully the New Yorker will cut me a little slack for this :)
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It's titled "Making Amends."
I am writing to apologize to "The New Yorker" and Stacy Schiff, and to give
some follow-up concerning Ryan Jordan (Editors' Note, March 5). When I last
spoke to "The New Yorker" about the fact that a prominent Wikipedia
community member had lied about his credentials, I misjudged the issue. It
was not O.K. for Mr. Jordan, or Essjay, to lie to a reporter, even to
protect his identity. I later learned more about the deceptions involved and
asked Mr. Jordan to resign from his positions of responsibility at
Wikipedia. He has since resigned from his position at Wikia as well. Mr.
Jordan is a wonderful and thoughtful young man who made a series of very bad
judgments. I consider him a friend, and I hope that the world will allow to
move forward in peace and dignity to regain his honor through a life well
lived. Wikipedia is built on trust and love. Our trust has been broken, and
only love can rebuild it. The community has begun discussing a proposal of
mine that we adopt some verification measures for claimed credentials, so
that Wikipedia may further improve from this painful experience.
Jimmy Wales
President of Wikia, Inc.; board member and chairman emeritus of the
Wikimedia Foundation, St. Petersburg, Fla.
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My editorializing: though perhaps obvious, it's worth remembering that each
one of us -- each editor, each administrator, each board member, each critic
-- acts both as an integral part of this community and as a representative
of it to the outside world. Our collaborative, non-hierarchical, often
tenuous and always multifaceted community is thus only as strong, as
trustworthy, and as kind as each one of us. Let's remember what Essjay did
right, as an excellent Wikipedian; and let's learn from his mistakes how to
behave better ourselves. To me, Jimbo's key words in the above are "further
improve" -- the exact mechanism doesn't matter as much as the good faith
that this project can, and will, improve.
-- phoebe