Wikipedia May Require Proof of Credentials 317
narramissic writes "According to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, a new policy is currently under discussion by the community of users who regularly write and maintain Wikipedia that would require contributors to the site who claim certain credentials to prove they really have them. The new policy comes after one of Wikipedia's most prolific and respected editors, who went by the pseudonym 'Essjay,' was found not to be the 'tenured professor of theology' he claimed to be but a run-of-the-mill 24 year-old from Kentucky. Said Wales, 'To discover that someone had been deceiving the community for a long time really was a bit of a blow to our trust. Wikipedia is built on the idea of trusting other people and people being honest and we find that in the most part everyone is, so it was a real disappointment.'"
Agreed and.... (Score:5, Funny)
Wonder how many of them will turn out to be just some 24 year old from Kentucky.
Re: Agreed and.... (Score:2)
Like this one [wikipedia.org]?
How do I prove it? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:How do I prove it? (Score:4, Funny)
How can I prove IANAL?
Allow an ambulance to go by without salivating or getting an erection?
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How would one go about doing this?
I'm not under 1000, but I *could* have gotten a lower ID on Slashdot legitimately had I decided to register on this site right away. However, I didn't create an account until I had been reading here for some time. But how would I prove that? :-)
Folks who were active on other contemporary sites at the time might recognize my name (from IWE or from other places),
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I believe what he means to say is "Hey Kids, get off my damn lawn
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Send me $50 & I'll joebertize a letter of authenticity & mail it back to you to display as proof.
Re:Agreed and.... (Score:5, Funny)
Aha! You obviously did buy your low id, or you would have known that you were moderated "Offtopic" because the moderator didn't agree with you.
Obligatory (Score:3, Funny)
Credentials?!?! We don't need no stinkin' credentials!!!
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Sir, you can't edit that article, you don't have the credentials!
>> IT'S OKAY, I'M A LIMO DRIVER!
Re:Obligatory (Score:4, Interesting)
It's off-topic because there are Wikipedia nazis with mod points. Since they can't edit jokes away, they will stamp them out with moderation. Every faction has its zealots; they jealously guard the "reputation" of their favorite thing, and don't appreciate anyone who disagrees with them or derides it in any way.
Somewhat odd. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Somewhat odd. (Score:5, Funny)
The beginning philosophy of Wikipedia was that everyone had something to contribute to human knowledge, and credentials (the sort of things that get you opportunities to publish in respected journals) should not matter as much as the accuracy of your statements.
Now, though, it seems like they only feel like that if you lie about your credentials. This seems fine, except that the only reason you would care if someone lied about their credentials is if you felt that readers would automatically give their opinions more weight because of their (false) credentials. Is this a tacit admission that the "content over credentials" philosophy doesn't actually work in the real world? There is certainly an argument to be made.
Re:Somewhat odd. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is fine.
If you post an opinion, and point out that actually, you have some basis for your comment, such as an academic qualification, then you are assumed to know more about your relevant field than the 'Man on the Street'.
If a friend of mine who has a PhD in Nuclear Physics is having a discussion with someone, and it strays into his subject area, I will tend to assume he's the one who's right, simple because he _has_ spent a lot of year studying the subject.
If my workmate who flys a helpdesk tells me that I'm looking a bit funny, and might have cancer, I will give it a fairly minimal amount of credence. If my GP says the same, then I will listen.
I don't care overly if you have a degree in theology or not, if I'm arguing religion down the pub. However, if you claim 'basis' for the weight of your arguments that don't exist, then I will be very annoyed, and feel as though I've been lied to.
Re:Somewhat odd. (Score:4, Interesting)
However, when it comes to moderators and administrators, things are a little different. They break this concept of equality that is the foundation of the philosophy. They can exert influence over points of contention, and even more so, they can assert their authority by limiting the voice of a regular wikipedian. They are in a position of power. So the rules have to change for them.
It isn't intuitive, but ideally, it is the fact that they are in a position of power that lends credibility to their claimed credentials, as opposed to their credentials putting them in that position. Remember that credentials are ideally meaningless for a regular wikipedian. That means that their elevation to a moderator or administrator would be made based on the content of their contributions. Credentials are still meaningless during this process. But once they've ceased to be a regular wikipedian, and they begin exerting their powers over regular wikipedians, then their credentials need to come into play.
This shouldn't mean that one has to have a Ph.D. or some other credential to be a moderator or administrator. However, this does mean that once someone becomes a moderator or administrator, all such claims need to be verifiably true. Just because someone doesn't have a degree in anything doesn't mean that person would make a poor moderator. But it does mean that the person should not be able to influence debates on astrophysics in the role of a moderator.
So no, it's not so much of a breakdown in the philosophy of wikipedia, as it is that the original system was imperfectly implemented. A background check on moderator/administrator candidates would be more like a natural part of the ideal system based on the wiki philosophy, but that was not discovered until now.
Why do you say that? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, other admins are precisely who shouldn't be judging this, because other admins are as likely as not to be doing the same thing. Admins by their nature are the powerful, and power corrupts. In the case of wikipedia, the "good" administrators are silent for fear of causing a "wheel war" or provoking the naughtier admins into a flamefest; the bad admins, meanwhile, stand up for each other when their abuses are caught, claim t
Re:Somewhat odd. (Score:4, Insightful)
anyone who has edited wikipedia for a while and claims it works is either deluded in denial or lying.
FACT: on the vast majority of subjects the authoritive sources are not freely availible on the public web. Acessing them takes significant time and/or money.
FACT: wikipedia very rarely (if ever) cites non web based sources, sometimes they are mentioned in a general references section but not cited. Even in the unlikely event that they are cited then almost noone can check up on them without either a long wait and/or payment neither of which most wikipedia editors would be likely to do for wikipedia alone.
FACT: while there has been a push for more citation on wikipedia in recent times all this results in is citations of websites that are not authoritive and often contain misinformation (have a look at howstuffworks.com for a while and see how much misinformation you can find). Even if a website is authoritive how do you know this without subject area knowlage?
FACT: even if you were to cite books and journals without knowlage of the field you can't know if the journals and articles cited are respectable or not. The effort of publishing reduces the ammount of junk but it doesn't eliminate it.
lets try 10 clicks on random page
1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terpsichori_Chryssou
i bet most of theese articles could be edited by anyone but especially a self proffessed expert in the field to say anything that person wanted with little resistance.
wikipedia is great for certain things (computer geek subjects are VERY well covered) but you really need to take care if using information from it for anything important, especially once you go outside of its core subject area or when you delve into anything controversial.
sorry /. screwed up part of my post (Score:3, Informative)
1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terpsichori_Chryssoul aki-Vlachou <-- no citations, two external links only one of which is in english. The english one doesn't look very authoritive the greek one looks like some kind of newspaper but a local expert would be needed to determine its quality.
2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_Route_11 <-- no citations, one external link to a cite that directly claims to be unofficial.
3: http://en.wikipedi
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1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terpsichori_Chryssou l [wikipedia.org] aki-Vlachou
Britannica.com: No result
2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_Route_11 [wikipedia.org]
Britannica.com: No result
Seriosly though, it's a road you can verify it by looking at a map. Not to mention the link to the State Highway system wiki as this is a stub article.
3: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C4%93len [wikipedia.org]
Britannica.com: No result
too lazy to do the rest...
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Re:Somewhat odd. (Score:5, Insightful)
After going through Essjay's edits, it was clear that he was using his "tenured position" to influence edit wars.
Re:Somewhat odd. (Score:5, Informative)
from the edit: (Score:5, Informative)
"This is a text I often require for my students, and I would hang my own Ph.D. on it's credibility."
Original link. [wikipedia.org]
As it turns out... he had no such Ph.D.
the real problem (Score:3, Interesting)
"and I offer as my reference the text "Catholicism for Dummies" by Trigilio (Ph.D./Th.D.) and Brighenti (Ph.D.)."
Now, did *anyone* ever do the trouble of finding out if this is correct? Because, if it is, whether he's Phd or not doesn't matter; he has a basis for his claim. If it doesn't turn out to be true, then it's an inherent problem of wikipedia, where people can get their opinion voiced by citing non-exist
re: Somewhat odd. (Score:2, Insightful)
I think you're missing the point. How can you tell if someone's information on a given topic is accurate and worthwhile if you yourself know nothing about the topic? You trust their credentials. That's how.
Unless you're a medical doctor, you have no way of knowing if what your doctor tells you about your body is true or meaningful other than the fact that you trust him. The same goes for most other topics.
We can't all be experts on everything. For the things we aren't experts in, we trust credentials.
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Probably a good idea (Score:4, Interesting)
Not all credentials are academic (Score:2)
However, not all credentials are academic. Let's say you looked up the history of a large company and I was an employee of that company for 30 years. I probably have insights into the company that can't readily be backed up by a diploma, but in fact I'm the best source. And that's probably true for anything historic. To use an exact example, if you're writin
Unverifiable claims (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's not verifiable or reproducable, any scholar should automatically distrust it. Let people claim what they want.
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Average 24 y/o from Kentucky vs PHD in theology (Score:3, Insightful)
Fallacy of "Dan Everyman" (Score:2)
Now, let it not be said that all professors are geniuses. There are a good many who are incredibly fucking brilliant in their area of research, but it's a wonder they can tie their shoes in the morning and I'm pretty sure couldn't figure out how to change a light bulb.
I'd trust Dan Everyman to work on my car's engine at a mechanic's shop, if that was his job. I wouldn't trust him to bui
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Just because engineering and science degrees will land you a career making lots of $$$ doesn't mean that all other disciplines are useless, or as you say, a group of morons.
Are History profs useless? Ancient literature profs? Art profs? Human society values all knowledge, not just scie
Re:Fallacy of "Dan Everyman" (Score:4, Insightful)
But did you consider any of that? No. I guess I should expect no less than to find such arrogant left-brained snobbery on a site like this, but rarely is it made so blatant. I happen to know someone who did a PhD in theology at an elite ivy-league, met others in her department at social functions, etc. They were all incredibly smart in ways that you silly dilettantes here can barely dream of. Imagine if, instead of wasting 5-9 hours a day staring into a screen, jerking off, watching YouTube, and updating your blog, you spent all that time reading and discussing classic works of philosophy and history by some of the greatest minds in both the eastern and western tradition. For years on end. Uhh, yeah
Re:Average 24 y/o from Kentucky vs PHD in theology (Score:5, Insightful)
Leaving aside for the moment the question of whether a degree in theology is worthless, would you really believe "Dan Everyman" over the doctor when the question was one of theology--that is, the area that he had spent several years researching deeply?
I can understand not giving any extra weight to his opinion when the matter at hand is international politics, particle physics, or comparative programming languages, but if you wouldn't trust a doctor in his own field, then I think you have a really warped view about knowledge, its worth, and how it's obtained...
Dan Aris
Actually theology is rather useful (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, theology is a useful subject. You may believe that religion is bunk (and if you really are a professor of theology, you probably know WHY you believe it) but millions of people do not, and understanding the background to their beliefs and probable behavioural patterns can be very useful. It's just like a marketing man for a burger chain might believe the product is horrible and never want to eat there, but can influence people's behaviour by making use of knowledge about their psychology and beliefs, and so get more footfall.
You only have to look around at things like abortion laws, education, attitudes to other cultures etc. to see that an understanding of the belief patterns of many Americans is an important subject. Why do so many Americans believe garbage like Creationism despite the sheer hugeness of the knowledge base of modern science, and the way that all the different disciplines (astronomy, geology, biology) reinforce one another? If any Government decided to try and find out, instead of kowtowing to the idiots, I would expect them to have a few liberal theologians as well as psychologists and sociologists on the panel.
And no, Bible study is not theology and more than playing stone,paper,scissors is experimental psychology.
The part that I'm not really clear on (Score:5, Insightful)
Was this a breakdown in that process? Were other users trusting him "just because" he claimed these credentials?
He repeatedly used his "credentials" (Score:5, Informative)
That's why this is such a big deal.
He also claimed the credentials as "proof" of his maturity and trustworthiness to handle a lot of the business that went on. This despite his being one of Wikipedia's very corrupt administrators' circle and routinely granting support to obviously corrupt behavior by others.
Basically, simple intimidation (Score:2)
What you end up with is people siding with him for no other reason that he "has credentials" regardless of what he does. He could post the most inane shit somewhere else but the majority of people wouldn't go so far as to look.
wikipedia has no place for anonyminity. There should be no "may do it", if someone is an adminstrator then they must prove their credentials.
Hell, the bias of some admins on wikipedia is beyond b
Re: He repeatedly used his "credentials" (Score:2)
Maybe he and the Catholics should break away and create their own alternate-reality 'pedias, like certain right-wing nutcakes did [wikipedia.org].
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Additionally, he became well known enough that people simply stopped questioning him. Seeing "oh, it's Essjay" would lead people to not look as deeply into the factual basis, trusting him to "source it tomorrow".
My problem, however, is that his bio didn't even make sense. He claimed to be a pre-eminent Catholic scholar at a private university,
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Re:The part that I'm not really clear on (Score:4, Informative)
[1] Talk:Imprimatur [wikipedia.org]
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Fixed that for you.
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Link to proposal (Score:5, Informative)
D'ohh! (Score:2)
Trusting Others.. (Score:2)
here's a better idea (Score:2)
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And when those people can't agree, who's going to make the final decision?
Simple steps (Score:5, Interesting)
2. Lock articles once they're solid. I watch about 20 pages and almost all of them have dozens of revisions a day, all of which is to undue vandalism. People like Jim Carrey (for instance) are not making news daily. Just lock the damn article, then when someone proposes something new to add in the discussion page, unlock it and add it. That is, discussion pages should be unlocked, and stable articles should be locked.
3. community == good, disorder == bad. We can't have an orderly encyclopedia if anyone and everyone can edit the content. Sorry, them's the facts.
4. Derive clear policies concerning articles about commercial entities. Often, an article about a company amounts to nothing more than a single paragraph and a link to their products/homepage. When you try to confront them about spammin wiki they counter with all sorts of allegations of bias, double standards, etc.
Tom
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Damn hippies...
Also, how does Jimmie spend >$70K a year on travel?
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Bullshit. I fix things all the time when I see them. I've become convinced it doesn't do shit for good, though. Anytime you get near anything that even hints of controversy, Wikipedia breaks because there are gangs of people who will try to control an article.
There's a great former admin who's written all about it, he describes it a hell of a lot better than I ever could. His blog's
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Maybe it would help if bans took place immediately. E.g. whenever there is a clear vandalism (e.g. adding swearwords or nonsense) just ban the IP or account for a day imm
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This is where Wikipedia dies. In reality, mods are almost never stripped of power, no matter how badly they abuse them, because the other mods stand up for them, protect them, and they support each other's abusive actions.
What Wikipedia really needs is a third group; those who have no moderator powers, but stand in oversight of moderators/admins, observe thei
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Meh, I'm confused as to why anyone thought the wiki style of mass contributors was a good idea. Imagine if anyone could contribute code to say the Linux kernel, GCC or any other large scale project. They'd all die of massive reccuring
*((int *)0) = 0x31337;
bugs or whatever. And while yes, some OSS projects (kernel) suffer from NIHS not all of them are like that and the little modicum of control they do exert prevents the trivial "I'm an
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And again you're back to... who decides when to unlock and/or lock an article? An expert, or any one of the hundreds of sad people who like to play "editor" on Wikipedia who may or may not have any kind of education or credentials whatsoever?
Wikipedia is an idea that is inherently flawed. It simply can't work. A thou
Who cares? (Score:2)
If somebody is correctly referencing their truthful edits it doesn't really matter what their credentials are.
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Well Y'all.... (Score:2)
The proposal (Score:2, Informative)
Re: The proposal (Score:5, Funny)
Can I cite a Wikipedia article about me as proof of my credentials?
So, this basically validates the criticism... (Score:2)
How do you verify the credentials ... (Score:5, Insightful)
How am I supposed to know for sure if Knuckles really is a "big fag with a boner for tails", or if Big the Cat is "totally awesome".
Wikipedia is a joke. Look up Knuckles the Echidna, then look up William Shakespeare, and see where our society ranks on an intellectual level of 1-10.
I used to think it was a great idea. At this point, I wouldn't trust anything I read in there to be true. I was looking up some stuff about hydrocarbons, alternate fuels, etc, out of pure curiosity w.r.t the science behind some of it, and found nothing but moronic defacement and rants about Bush, kyoto, etc.
Require credentials and end Wikipedia. I sincerely doubt that any of the editors or contributors have any credentials. Those types of folks tend to get published in real world journals, magazines and books.
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I can't speak about most of the articles on Wikipedia one way or another, but I will say, as someone who does research in quantum physics, that the wiki articles on quantum mechanics and quantum information topics are characteristically pretty good in terms of content (th
A fundamental conflict... (Score:3, Insightful)
This change, whereas it will make Wikipedia a far more reliable tool for information, would also as I see it destroy a fundamental principle on which it was founded.
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The other side of this is while wikipedia is a nice concept, what is it for?
If you were in school and about to take an important test, would you trust it as a reference to study from?
If your doctor used it as a reference source, would you continue goi
Theology (Score:3, Insightful)
My question: Did he do a good job? (Score:2)
Judge by the quality of work, credentials mean nothing more than that you've paid someone enough money to gain them.
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Run-of-the-mill? (Score:2)
Funny irony (Score:2)
What's the big deal... (Score:4, Funny)
Who cares? (Score:4, Funny)
Main problem is right there (Score:2)
This is the biggest fundamental flaw in the entire project.
Guess they are too lazy. (Score:3, Funny)
Wait a minute! (Score:5, Funny)
Are you telling me Essjay claimed to be a theologian, but all he really did was peddle bullshit?
Hmmm... is this the same Jimbo Wales who... (Score:5, Interesting)
- Deleted from the records his own statement that his birth certificate was incorrect, two years later, and then got pissy about people who were quoting that statement?
- Encourages wikipedia admins to ban anyone who disagrees with them on content as a "troll"?
- Called one of his detractors a "disease" in your IRC channels, then denied he said it (even though it was logged) and created an entire "biography" on the person devoted solely to libeling them, in violation of publication laws and wikipedia's own "standards" for biographical entries?
- Suggested in logged, publicly available email lists for the project that "lone wolves" should start filing dishonest "complaints" with the hosting ISP against a site critical of wikipedia admins' behavior?
- Does nothing when false reports are filed by admins using the "advanced" tools like CheckUser, or when admins engage in stalking behavior or worse?
- Claims now to be the "sole founder" of Wikipedia, even though years of Wikipedia's own press releases show otherwise, since they credited Larry Sanger as "co-founder" or "one of the founders" for years prior to his creating Citizendium out of disgust for the cronyism and corruption in Wikipedia?
- Makes tons of money "sharing" Wikipedia's content to sites like Answer.com for a cut of the advertising revenue, then fraudulently claims that the site needs more money to run?
Sorry. Wikipedia's doomed. Doesn't matter what kind of damage control Jimbo tries now, he's corrupt, the admins are corrupt, the system is corrupt, and that's that.
Re:Hmmm... is this the same Jimbo Wales who... (Score:5, Insightful)
He called it a (Score:3, Funny)
Heh.
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Depends. (Score:3, Informative)
Some sites are pure smut, but are at least honest -- you know up front how much it'll cost you, and what you'll be getting.
And some sites are pure crap -- typosquatters, thumbnail galleries, nothing but piles of ads and spyware.
Re:Hmmm... is this the same Jimbo Wales who... (Score:4, Informative)
However, one you could add would be the whole Ayn Rand thing. The promotion and protection of factually dubious and biased material in this regard goes right up to Mr Wales himself.
But I applaud the poster of the original parent. I wholly agree with him. I wish more people spoke up with their criticism of Wikipedia. It is not what it portrays itself to be.
A proper public investigation and expose of Jimbo and some of the things that go on in Wikiland is long long long overdue. It is Wikiality, an insidious weakening and poisoning of truth - sometimes deliberate (see Ayn Rand), and often just through incompetence.
Journalists, please start investigating Mr Wales and his associates in depth!
Re:Hmmm... is this the same Jimbo Wales who... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmmm... is this the same Jimbo Wales who... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hmmm... is this the same Jimbo Wales who... (Score:5, Funny)
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Wikipedia exists upon reputation. (Score:5, Informative)
Eventually, the corruption will be too much, and Wikipedia as it now exists will cease to be. There may be something called wikipedia down the road, but the grand scheme - the idea of an encyclopedia in which errors are corrected by a horde of readers who see something wrong and fix it - can't function as long as those who have true editorial control, the administrators, are a hopelessly corrupt group of individuals led by another hopelessly corrupt individual.
Wikipedia's hordes of corrupt administrators already make more enemies than friends every day for the project. Actions they take like banning their critics, making the appeals processes that are supposed to hold the administrators a non-public affair (they recently "closed" membership of their unblock-en-l list for one example), and rigidly enforcing a group of shibboleths which if a user does not speak, they will not be given the time of day? Not going to work.
It is in the nature of power to corrupt; wikipedia's problem is that they gave power to already-corrupt people, and all the power has done is just made them even worse.
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Wikipedia started off good then the powerful got so full of themselves as the project rose in prominence that they became corrupt, arrogant and out of touch. Admins protect their friends and make sure all appeals are squashed. Ever try to get an admin to account for his actions? If you are not banned, you will be soon after. I have seen it time and time again.
I once tried to become an admin but to rise up through the ranks you have to become a certain kind of person, a kind of narcissis
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I'm also an expert in *snap* nameology!
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The first kind is what most people are talking about and consist of some kind of degree or certification. This proves nothing and is destructive to society and education in general.
The second kind is conveyed by intelligent people being able to look at a body of work and being able to say someone actually knows what they are talking about. You get this from being published and your work reviewed. You get this by having the respect of coworkers that kn
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> Flattened, bleached, dead trees are shrinking in influence.
I think (hope) you mean that electronic media is the primary means of information dissemination. However "paper" != "formal". Most new info does come from formal sources, just electronic ones.
Course, i might be wrong, and you might mean that the definitive source of all valuable information is "a guy i met down the pub". I hope not though.