David Gerard wrote:
Essjay got all the community jobs going because he earnt them through doing lots of hard work well. His edits using his claimed credentials were few compared to that. But the latter were enough to have him asked to resign all the former.
Not to mention that he gained the trust through the hard work in part because of his credentials - all edits being equal, I'm going to have a higher level of informational trust from someone who has a PhD than someone who does not. Think of it as a form of AGF - I'll assume good faith over any edits until there's reason not to, and that "reason not to" line is certainly going to be extended further to someone with various credentials than someone without.
It's typical human nature at worst, and perhaps some may consider it "common sense."
-Jeff