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

[Matthew Brown]

On 3/5/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> I'm not sure I've provided enough context to fully explain the
> proposal. The idea is not to _require_ anything, but to only ask for
> confirmation if people make the claim _themselves_, and then only for
> people in positions of trust, or those whose credentials have been
> called into question. Anyone is free to reach any level of trust
> without professional credentials.

Frankly, this proposal is impractical and unworkable.  I am not about
to go through all this nonsense to verify stuff - all it's going to do
is to make people less willing to state things about themselves on
their user pages.

For instance, I have a B.Eng. in Computing from Imperial College,
London.  I have stated this on every job application I've submitted
throughout my professional career (thirteen years or so by now) and
have NEVER been asked to verify it.  To be honest, I'm not sure I
could, easily; I don't know where my actual degree certificate is.  I
suspect my parents have it, actually.  I guess I could phone up the
college and ask them to fax something, but this is way too much of a
pain in the behind to actually be worth doing for uncompensated
volunteer effort at Wikipedia, especially since it's of complete
irrelevance to what I'm actually doing here.

If we start requiring that admins must verify every single statement
about themselves they make - or even if this is restricted to only
claims of professional expertise - this is going to result in the
following:

1. Admins will simply remove any statements that aren't worth the
effort of verifying. Net gain for the project: zero.
2. People with expertise won't want to become admins, widening an
already-existing gulf.  The perception in some circles that people
become admins because they don't write articles will increase.
3. Only those seeking greater authoritativeness than their writing and
argumentative skills already command will find the cumbersome process
attractive.  Thus, the querulous, the trolls, and those with dubious
qualifications will be the ones getting that 'verified' badge to wear
to use as a stick in arguments.

I am, since I occupy a position of responsibility, quite willing to
verify my identity to the Foundation/Jimbo in private - but verifying
other stuff is frankly not worth my scarce time and effort.

-Matt