[Wikipedia-l] An idea

[Stan Shebs]

Jimmy Wales wrote:

>
>Some years ago, Amazon.com instituted a system that they were calling
>something like "Real Names intitiative" for user reviews.  In order to
>increase the public perception of trust in those reviews, they made it
>possible (but optional!) for people to go through a process to identify
>themselves by their Real Names.
>
>We could do something similar, but also allow for the inclusion of
>credentials.  People could *optionally* go through a process to confirm
>their credentials.  When you do this, a small icon appears by your name
>in the edit history, and when you click on it, you get to a new tab of
>the user page, which contains a list of the confirmed credentials.
>
I've been thinking off and on about something like this in connection
with a review process idea.

So here's a low-key way to do this - just have standardized "CV"
subpages, where [[User:CleverHandle/CV]] has CleverHandle's real
name at the top, optionally address/city/country, jobs worked at,
formal credentials, etc. The content should be limited to what is
verifiable by third parties, so "BS UCLA 1977" and "Engineer at Fluor
1985-1989" is OK, but not "saved company a million dollars", the
kind of dicey stuff that people pad their resumes with. :-) I don't
think it's really necessary for anybody to prove it ahead of time,
the everpresent possibility of a skeptical Wikipedian (or reporter)
discovering a fabrication and telling the whole world should be
sufficient disincentive.

The CV won't necessarily be reflective of one's actual activity.
My only formal credentials are in computer science, and most of
my WP time goes into anything but CS, but CS articles have benefited
from me casting an expert eye on amateurs' efforts. Nor will it
reflect self-taught areas, but that's OK; the point is to highlight
the reservoir of generally-accepted expertise available. Lists
linking to CV subpages could become a useful way to locate subject
matter experts; oftentimes I don't see a CS-related question I can
answer because I don't happen to watch the talk page where it's asked.

Stan