On 3/8/07, Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
The only thing that causes real problems is when
people claim to have
credentials they don't have to the press.
I don't think it is only about the press. I think it is hurtful to the
community when people lie. I know a lot of people whose feelings were
really hurt by the lies told in the current case, and it makes them
wonder about other people. That's sad.
A modest proposal: allow users to link to Wikipedia articles about
themselves (an "identity link"). We may want to segregate off the identity
articles (because of notability concerns), but we have excellent systems in
place for verification and attribution for articles in the general space.
Then we just need to establish mechanisms for verifying the identity links;
or we can state as policy that such claims have to be taken with caveat
emptor, but if someone is found to be falsifying such a claim, that is
immediate grounds for banning.