[Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Accountability: bringing back a proposal I made nearly 2 years ago

[Erik Moeller]

On 3/5/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 2) Making up professional credentials is prohibited, and may result in
> > a ban. (This may or may not be covered by existing policy, but judging
> > from the Essjay case, it is probably not sufficiently clear.) This is
> > independent of whether or not the user asks for credentials to be
> > verified. We may investigate claims that are dubious when they are
> > pointed out to us.

> No. No community support for this and appears to be policy cruft.
> Better to go with. "makeing up credentials mad result in bad things
> happening please don't".

I don't think community support can be gauged fairly from the response
to the Essjay situation. Essjay was a highly respected contributor,
and many were inclined to respect and defend his desire to create a
fake identity without an informed debate about the nature of
credentials, and why it is important that we treat such statements
with care.

I believe this debate needs to take place now, independently of the
Essjay incident.

> Oh man please no. Way too buracratic. People wanting to avoid it will
> would have to remove such claims even when true before running for
> adminship which wont look good.

Why won't it look good? I don't believe there's a problem with
removing claims, or perhaps adding an {{UnverifiedCredentials}}
template.
-- 
Peace & Love,
Erik

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