Wikipedia admin lies about credentials, gets hired by Wikia

[Rogue 9]

...and Jimbo Wales doesn't give a blue damn about it.

I'm not going to quote the article here since the formatting would be difficult to reproduce, but let me sum up: An administrator on the English Wikipedia by the screen name of Essjay has, for years, claimed to hold four university degrees that he simply never earned, including two doctorates. He managed to put this over on the editors and fact checkers of the New Yorker magazine when they did this article on Wikipedia last year. And when the truth came out?

Nothing was done. He continues to hold both his administrator position and his job at Wikia. I know that normally nobody needs confirmation of just how bad Wikipedia can be, but this crosses even the normal barriers for blatant disregard for the truth.

[Stofsk]

People still care about wikipedia?

I was actually surprised to get into a pseudo argument with some of my friends over wikipedia a couple months ago. Someone suggested looking up something on wiki and I said 'Yeah, but don't rely on it, it is a pretty poor system.'

[Rogue 9]

As long as people are willing to rely on Wikipedia (and way the hell too many are) I will care about Wikipedia, because with literally millions of people getting information from it, it has the potential to do enormous damage.

[Stofsk]

Yeah, but literally those millions of people are shooting themselves in the foot.

I referenced wikipedia exactly once in an academic essay, and that was just some unnecessary quotation of a statistic that wasn't even necessary to the essay, but added to pad out my essay with one extra source. The marker circled it and said it wasn't a proper academic source, although he must have understood that the only reason for including it was to throw in a number the essay didn't really need, so he was lenient. Nevertheless, since then I've never referenced wiki.

And major references come from the set texts anyway, and other references come from the recommended texts or useful websites the unit guide provides. If people are going to rely on wikipedia in academia, it's their own damn fault. I had my wake up call, and responded appropriately.

[Destructionator XV]

I actually use wikipedia often. It gives quick, generally accurate (for the things I look at - science fiction, some basic science and math, and computers (though keep away from any Microsoft articles like the plague; they are riddled with things that are very simple but also completely wrong - the editors are either completely fucking stupid (wouldn't surprise me) or just lying (also common when Microsoft products are concerned) and editing it back leads to NPOV bullshit, so not worth my time, but the overview lists of open source stuff is decent, and the theory and programming articles are generally pretty good), and also some quick facts on population or area of countries, though I often hit the CIA for that stuff instead).

It provides what I want often much faster than google for most things, so I generally hit it first. And there are so many fucking mirrors of it that googling will often turn up 10 wikipedia links on the first page anyway.

But wikipedia is ok enough for lots of quick things, so I use it. And of course, I am not writing anything academic; I write about science fiction, so if I am wrong, the response is usually a resounding 'meh'. And I don't get involved in their policy bullshit at all, since it is just useless to argue online with anyone without something like SDN's DR6 (the provide evidence, concede, or get the fuck out rule) and people who know how to and actually do enforce it.




Anyway, on topic, I thought employers checked your credentials before hiring you? All I can really say is woooow.

[Something Awesome]

I actually use wikipedia often. It gives quick, generally accurate (for the things I look at - science fiction, some basic science and math, and computers (though keep away from any Microsoft articles like the plague; they are riddled with things that are very simple but also completely wrong - the editors are either completely fucking stupid (wouldn't surprise me) or just lying (also common when Microsoft products are concerned) and editing it back leads to NPOV bullshit, so not worth my time, but the overview lists of open source stuff is decent, and the theory and programming articles are generally pretty good), and also some quick facts on population or area of countries, though I often hit the CIA for that stuff instead).

I just wanted to emphasize Adam's obscene use of parentheses, changing color for every level. And on top of that, you didn't finish the original sentence, though I assume you wanted an "information" or something at the end.

Anyway, last semester in a freshman writing class, for some of the papers we were allowed to use wikipedia as a source, since the professor was technologically literate; he knew wikipedia stores the history of pages, so it's a lot better than most websites that change content or disappear altogether. This way, he can check the sources and see exactly just what we saw. The focus of the writing was more on writing persuasive essays, so it wasn't as important that the information be completely correct as it was the conclusions were logical and persuasive.

[Josh]

If one has a taste for internet drama, every day on any sort of wiki provides pretty much a lifetime supply.

Noble idea. Nearly impossible in practice. Like Adam I'll use it for a quick reference, but if it's anything serious and important, I'll definitely dig further.

[Hedgecore]

Has anyone seen the Conservapedia?

Hilarious.

(found this in the A.V. Club's Hater column)

The entry for Fox News, and their Examples of Bais in Wikipedia are particularly great.

Kind of off topic, but...also kind of not?

[frigidmagi]

Some of the baised listed are more then true enough others like

Polls show that about twice as many Americans identify themselves as "conservative" compared with "liberal", and that ratio has been increasing for two decades.[1] But on Wikipedia, about three times as many editors identify themselves as "liberal" compared with "conservative".[2] That suggests Wikipedia is six times more liberal than the American public.

this one are just full of hot air and nothing else.

Here's the thing everyone should walk away with from this. Everything you read and watch from CNN and BBC to the blog entires on this sight has a bias and an agenda. That is part of being human. Part of your job is to try to figure out that bias and decide how heavily it's influencing what you're being told. Some organizations like Fox News are easy to figure out (by the way if you believe they're fair and balenced can we have a private discussion, I have some truely grand familial bottom land to sell you in Tenn.) Others like BBC are less easy to figure out, mainly because in the BBC's case they do honestly try to control their bias, that's what professionals should try to do.

Everyone who writes at Wiki as a bias and because their adminsteration never really cared about trying to control those bias and keep them in check Wiki is now a mess.

[Rogue 9]

Well well, what have we here?

Wikipedia to seek proof of credentials

By BRIAN BERGSTEIN
AP TECHNOLOGY WRITER

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."