After flap over phony academic credentials, Wikipedia to ask some writers to share real names


Following revelations that a high-ranking member of the Wikipedia's bureaucracy used his cloak of anonymity to lie about being a religion professor, the online 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 online 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.

...

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. Anyone who wishes to can contribute to topics.

...

"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...

The anonymity of the site is a frequent cause of mischief - from juvenile vandalism of entries to an infamous case involving journalist John Seigenthaler, 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.

...But, he said, if people want to claim expertise on Wikipedia, they ought to be prompted to prove it. If they do not want to give their real names, they should not be allowed to tout credentials. ...

"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."

-http://www.technologyreview.com/Wire/18286/

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