Posted on 03/07/2007 8:03:37 PM PST by Calpernia
Following revelations that a high-ranking member of Wikipedia's bureaucracy used his cloak of anonymity to lie about being a professor of religion, the free Internet encyclopedia plans to ask contributors who claim such credentials to identify themselves.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said in interviews by phone and instant message Wednesday from Japan that contributors still would be able to remain anonymous. But he said they should only be allowed to cite some professional expertise in a subject if those credentials have been verified.
"We always prefer to give a positive incentive rather than absolute prohibition, so that people can contribute without a lot of hassle," Wales wrote.
Wales suggested such a plan two years ago, but the idea suddenly gained currency after the recent discovery that a prolific Wikipedia contributor who wrote under the pen name "Essjay" and claimed to be a professor of theology turned out to be a 24-year-old college dropout, Ryan Jordan.
Jordan's fraud came to light last week when The New Yorker published an editor's note stating that a 2006 Wikipedia profile in the magazine had erroneously described Essjay's purported academic resume. The New Yorker said a Wikipedia higher-up had vouched for Essjay to the author of the piece, Stacy Schiff, but that neither knew Essjay's real identity.
In addition to contributing thousands of articles to the sprawling Web encyclopedia, Jordan had recently been promoted to arbitrator, a position for trusted members of the community. Arbitrators can overrule an edit made by another volunteer or block people who abuse the site.
Jordan also was hired in January by Wikia Inc., a for-profit venture run by Wales. He has since been dismissed.
Jordan has not returned an e-mail seeking comment from The Associated Press. But in a note on his Wikipedia "user page" before it was officially "retired," he apologized for any harm he caused Wikipedia.
"It was, quite honestly, my impression that it was well known that I was not who I claimed to be, and that in the absence of any confirmation, no respectible (sic) publication would print it," he wrote.
Wikipedia is full of anonymous contributors like Essjay, whose user page also once proclaimed: "My Wikipedia motto is `Lux et Veritas' (Light and Truth) and I believe more individuals should contribute with an intention to bring light to the community and truth to the encyclopedia."
The anonymity of the site is a frequent cause of mischief - from juvenile vandalism of entries to the infamous case involving journalist John Seigenthaler Sr., who was incorrectly described as a suspect in the Kennedy assassinations. And that has raised concerns about the credibility of the site.
But anonymity is also considered one of the main forces behind Wikipedia's astonishing growth, to nearly 1.7 million articles in English and millions more in dozens of other languages. Wales has said he is an "anti-credentialist" - because anonymity puts a reader's attention on the substance of what people have written rather than who they are.
Wales said Wednesday that belief is unchanged. But, he said, if people want to claim expertise on Wikipedia, they ought to be prompted to prove it. If they don't want to give their real names, they shouldn't be allowed to tout credentials. Had that policy been in place, Wales said, Jordan probably would not have gotten away with claiming a Ph.D. in religion.
"It's always inappropriate to try to win an argument by flashing your credentials," Wales said, "and even more so if those credentials are inaccurate."
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ping
Oh dear. How will I ever prove to them that I really am Eleanor Roosevelt ?
The self appointed experts said so.
/sarc.
Well not really. But only self appointed experts will run the Net.
Let John Edwards channel you.
Darn it...My claim to being Henry the 8th (I am, I am)is being challenged.
Next we're going to find out your name really isn't "Festus".
Are you saying yours isn't "poindexter"?
There goes my last chance to describe my latest perpetual motion machine.
Uh, I meant my alternative fuel breakthrough.
BTTT
I would hope, though, that I would not need to be a doctor to make minor correction on articles based on a small mountain of knowledge I've gleaned studying a very narrow and specific type of cancer that killed a relative. I found, for example, this particular type of cancer listed as a "rare" neuroendocrine tumor when in fact it is always neuroendocrine in origin and kills roughly 32,000 Americans per year.
I'm afraid that this latest scandal is eroding the whole Wikipedia ethos, and exposing the naivete that marked it from its beginning.
The idea was that some folks know a lot about a little bit of stuff, and other folks know a lot about a little bit of stuff, and between us all we know everything that is known. That allowing anyone to edit will make the system self-correcting. That there need be no hierarchy, no approval process, no one to enforce standards.
The naivete came in not recognizing that some folks will have political agendas, some will have personal gripes, some will be intent on fraud, and some are just nucking futs.
In the early days of the Web, there was a prevalent Rousseau vibe. As if all the corrupting influences on Man came from a corrupt system, and if we could just live outside anyone's law and make information free, as it wants to be, we could all share in a glorious info-utopia. This was not a left-wing vision. In those days, the dominant political philosophy was libertarian.
And then came the spammers and the scammers, phishers, neo-nazis, child pornographers, terrorists, frauds, cheats, sneaks, spies, liars and various other forms of predators. And we learned, as if we needed further proof, that making people anonymous and unrestrained reveals their true nature.
That nature is a lot closer to what Calvin and Hobbes (The theologian and the philosopher, not the comic-strip boy and his tiger) though it was than to what Rousseau thought it was. The evidence is manifest.
It sounds like your mindset is similar to mine. When faced with doubt, fear and uncertainty, I hit the 'Net and then hit the books. Because more knowledge is always better than less, and however much I trust the doctors, I want to have a well-formed and well-informed position before I ask for an opinion. That way, I'm in a better position to decide whether I need a second opinion.
My mom died from a subarachnoid aneurysm in 2001, at age 52. She went into a coma after the first bleed, and died after the second, weeks later. Should I be allowed to edit an article on the topic? I did my homework. I know more about the condition than the average layman, and maybe even more than the average GP. Not even close to knowing more than any marginally competent neurosurgeon.
Those are tough decisions. They require someone in charge. They require, in a word, editors. And that's where I think Wikipedia is naive. In the era of easy information, sources are important. And "some dude named FrodoR00lz" is not a credible source.
The 'talent' on the dems side is just amazing!
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