On 11/03/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
Well, there is also the problem of a Wikipedia administrator writing to professors as a fellow professor. That was pretty bad in my mind, and could have also led to a public black eye even if the media had checked credentials.
This is a falsehood on the part of the person writing the email. This is not a problem that can be addressed with any sort of credentialing system on the site itself.
For completeness, some also see using false credentials in an editing dispute as a problem. Personally, I haven't yet seen a case where it actually ended up harming the articles.
It's hard enough to get editors to listen to experts when they damn well should be smart enough to. "Actually, the opinion you came to by a process of anal revelation is not in fact as good as the opinion of this here famous expert on the matter." "FUCK YOU I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME! DELETE THE EXPERT AS NON-NOTABLE!"
- d.