Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
[...] a notable right-wing commentator out in the "real world", was editing pages related to Moore and his films. That Wikipedian, who until recently edited under his real name and openly disclosed his occupation, affiliations, and outside publications, suddenly decided not long ago that he wanted to be retroactively anonymous, so he changed his username and insisted that all the various policies protecting editors against "outing" apply now.
And this, sadly, is the hole that will sink our acceptance of anonymity.
It has been very exciting to see all of the organizations busted recently for fiddling Wikipedia. But anybody sinister and mildly smart is going to get an account now. Our strong protection of anonymity will definitely be seen as exploitable. If we continue on our current course, someone is eventually going to get exposed for manipulating Wikipedia, and we will get tarred and feathered for actively aiding and abetting them.
For a while I've been considering proposing that all admins, or at least all new admins, have public identities. That's not because I particularly like the idea. Anonymity creates a lot of opportunity for good. But I can no longer persuade myself that one of the world's top publishers of reference information can be run by anonymous internet identities. Not because it doesn't work, but because it undermines public trust.
Essjay was a huge black eye for us, and nobody could question that he was a generally good guy who meant well. When it is discovered that some admin is actually an intentional fraud used to manipulate coverage, it will be an even bigger mess. And the way we're going, it's only a matter of time.
William