[WikiEN-l] Correction to New Yorker Article

[Delirium]

Jeff Raymond wrote:

>stvrtg wrote:
>
>  
>
>>4. If Essjay misrepresented himself in any substantial way in arguments
>>related to his claimed expertise, how is it that noone qualified in that
>>area suspected he wasnt a Phd/Thd?  I suspect the reason is because his
>>ventures into misrepresentation were quite limited to the cantankerous. I
>>suspect also that this fact might bother people who might have thought they
>>could tell just by looking at someones pixels.
>>    
>>
>
>Because, generally, we don't expect people to lie about their academic 
>credientials.  How many editors in that area who would know if he were 
>making it up do we even have?  And, again, Essjay was (yes, the word is 
>now was) a very trusted member of the community - he kept the charade up 
>enough where few, if any, would bother questioning him anyway.  That's a 
>problem, and it's disturbing that you don't recognize it.
>  
>

But we don't just defer to experts, even trusted ones, especially in 
situations where other people are also experts.  If I came across 
another person claiming to be an expert in artificial intelligence, I 
would still check their edits, and sometimes contest them---whether 
they're telling the truth about their credentials is actually pretty 
irrelevant, because there are plenty of CS PhDs with non-mainstream POV 
views on the subject.  I'd imagine theology is similarly contentious.

In fact wasn't this exactly what Larry Sanger criticized us for a while 
back---that we *don't* actually defer to experts?

-Mark