On 3/8/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
For me, the external problem went well beyond the press. Essjay claiming
he had a couple of doctorates was not so good, and using them in content disputes was worse.
Would somebody please provide a source for the claim that he used his fake credentials to "strongarm people" or to influence "content disputes?" I could simply repeat my belief that this assertion is far overstated, but instead Ill simply demand that people actually support their accusations with evidence. The citations Ive seen have been damning from a credentialist standpoint, but I have yet to see evidence that he used his fake credentials in the context of actual disputes. In contrast, over the years haven't we seen plenty of crackpots with claimed credentials abuse these in a way which has been much more disruptive?
But I think the real problem came when he claimed to
be a tenured professor, trying to make both himself and Wikipedia look better by drawing on the social standing we give to professors. That he did it in the press is what made the problem such a big deal externally, but you can't blame them for reporting things people care about.
The press didnt take it as a story in which Essjay misrepresented himself to the press. They ran it as a story in which Essjay's wiki credentials were somehow based on false academic credentials. The fact is that we don't base wiki credentials on academic ones, and it is precisely this reason why Wikipedia has slightly more than 24 peer reviewed articles.
As the Chronicle of Higher Education wrote, "But the incident is clearly
damaging to Wikipedia's credibility -- especially with professors who will now note that one of the site's most visible academics has turned out to be a fraud."
This is nonsense. Essjay's standing was never based on his academics, it was based on his work and community involvement. Wikipedia's credibility doesn't rest on credentials, but on its content. Which suffers not thanks to its many anonymous and knowledgeable contributors, credentialed or otherwise.
Looking at [[User:Jimbo Wales/Credential Verification]] it looks like
the proposal would try to cover situations like this, so I think credential verification could have at least helped were it widely used.
Im with Anthere on this one, its just unimaginative reactionism.
-Stevertigo