On 3/10/07, Philippe Beaudette philippebeaudette@gmail.com wrote:
Erik, the only thing I would add is that perhaps instead of simply
saying "verified >credentials on X date", it should say "Verified Masters Degree from >FirstCollegeofWhateverState on X date". I'd hate to see people adding degrees >post-verification of their first one, and it not being immediately clear that THOSE degrees >are not verified.
Who will carry out this verification? It's going to be a lot of work. Will we investigate which institutions are properly accredited? How will we define that, given that we're dealing with the entire world? Will we require editors to say what their degrees are in too? Someone who says on his user page that he has a PhD and who edits all the time in history subjects will be assumed to be an historian; but what if his PhD is in physics and he has no expertise in history?
I think we could just as easily introduce a culture of strongly discouraging people from saying anything about their academic or professional backgrounds unless they're prepared to give sufficient personal details on their user pages to allow others to check if they want to. In other words, if you're not prepared to say a lot about yourself, say nothing; don't drop uncheckable hints.
I worry that the formal verification thing will take us down the Citizendium road. I think it will inevitably lead to two-tier editing, and this would be a great shame, not least because the editors who present themselves as experts are often not the best editors, so the two-tier ideology would be misleading and unhelpful, as well as unpleasant.
Sarah