On 3/5/07, Conrad Dunkerson conrad.dunkerson@att.net wrote:
1: Having these 'verified credentials' visible will INEVITABLY lead to incidents of 'I am a verified expert and you are not'. Frankly, I have as much problem with Essjay saying, 'we should do it this way because I am an expert on theology' AT ALL as with it not being true. We just should not be giving greater weight to 'experts' (verified or not). That encourages 'original research' and 'POV pushing' on the esoterica of their fields. Experts should work by providing relevant citations and establishing consensus around text which presents all relevant views... just like everyone else. If you give them a special status that inherently becomes less likely and there aren't enough admins to patrol every edit against it.
Many people have mentioned this potential drawback, but I suggest that claims of "I am a verified expert and you are not" will be treated by the community in exactly the same way that we currently treat "I am an expert and you are not". In the history of Wikipedia there is, and always* has been a culture of, not so much anti-expertism, but anti-people-who-try-to-impose-their-view-just-because-they-have-such-and-such-qualification.
Basically, I think that this part of the culture is so well ingrained that a verification system is not going to change it.
-- * Go back to, say, the mailing list archives from when they began and you'll find discussions about our approach to experts, particularly experts claiming their word must be accepted as gospel simply because they are an "expert" and getting rebuffed by the community.