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

[Jossi Fresco]

On Mar 5, 2007, at 12:58 AM, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> In response to the EssJay scandal, I want to bring back an old  
> proposal
> of mine from 2 years ago for greater accountability around  
> credentials:

There are two issues that I believe are being mixed in this  
discussion, and that may require a different treatment.

1. Identity
2. Credentials

1. Identity -- The Amazon.com RealName (TM) is designed to guarantee  
the *indentity* of the person, by the simple means of providing a  
credit card account that Amazon uses to verify the account holder  
name via CSV.

The main idea behind RealName is that if you are willing to put your  
real name up there with your comments, reviews, etc. you will be  
extra careful on what you write, and readers of your reviews will  
take that into account when reading them.

A "Confirmed Identity" system could be easily added to WP. If we had  
such a system in place, the Essjay scandal would have never  
happened ... TNY fact checking team would have only needed to run a  
check on Essjay "RealName"... rather that take his user page at face  
value.

This "Confirmed Identity" can be displayed alongside the username in  
edit histories, as well as an icon on the user's page. Implementation  
is quite simple.

2. Credentials -- This is a tougher one to implement and somewhat  
against the grain of the community culture; most of our content is  
not developed by experts with credentials, but by people that are  
passionate about the subjects they edit.

Going for an "identity" system, rather than a "credentials" system  
will also remove the possible negative consequences in edit disputes:  
"I have a PhD. in Greek literature, and I tell you that you are wrong  
about Parmednides". After all, if you are Joe Blow, tenured professor  
at the University of Guam, and you have a "Confirmed Identity" tag  
certifying that you are indeed Joe Blow, your credentials can be  
easily verified by whomever wants to make the effort to do so.

-- Jossi