Erik Moeller wrote:
On 3/1/07, fangaili@gmail.com fangaili@gmail.com wrote:
I consider it a big deal. If Essjay had only misrepresented himself within Wikimedia, that would be one thing. But he also went outside the Wikimedia community and presented himself (several times) as someone he is not, with credentials he does not have.
...
I have great respect for the work Essjay has done. However, misrepresenting himself to outside entities is simply unacceptable.
I agree. I find Ryan's behavior unacceptable and unconscionable.
I find myself looking on it as "foolish" rather than "unacceptable". There *are* stalkers and freaks who go after WP editors, and our attitude has generally been that if it's not happening on WP itself, it's not our problem. So I can understand why Essjay thought of the false identity idea as a way to protect himself, and I might well have done it myself when I was his age, not thinking through all the possible ramifications. And he's not violating any WP policy, right?
I'm not even sure we *could* write a policy requiring truthfulness on WP user pages. What if I said I worked at a job until 1993, and somebody out to get me calls the company and they report my last day as 4 Jan 1994? Should that be a bannable offense? Do we want to get into whether my intent was to misrepresent, or simply a faulty memory? In any case, somewhere we should counsel that deliberately providing false personal info on oneself is a Very Bad Idea, with all sorts of possible consequences, and that it's better to not say anything at all.
Stan