David Gerard wrote:
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.
Well, not entirely. Essjay's letter to professors pointed back to his profile for people to verify his credentials. In theory a credential verification system might have helped some.
Not that I'm for one, particularly; I think the cost/benefit ratio is much worse than for SV's prove-it-to-the-world approach.
It's hard enough to get editors to listen to experts when they damn well should be smart enough to.
No argument there.
William