Did you see this wiki/New Yorker stuff?

[Trunk]

Last summer, The New Yorker ran a piece about wikipedia. In that piece, they had this to say

One regular on the site is a user known as Essjay, who holds a Ph.D. in theology and a degree in canon law and has written or contributed to sixteen thousand entries. A tenured professor of religion at a private university, Essjay made his first edit in February, 2005. Initially, he contributed to articles in his field—on the penitential rite, transubstantiation, the papal tiara. Soon he was spending fourteen hours a day on the site, though he was careful to keep his online life a secret from his colleagues and friends. (To his knowledge, he has never met another Wikipedian, and he will not be attending Wikimania, the second international gathering of the encyclopedia’s contributors, which will take place in early August in Boston.)

Well, in the most recent New Yorker, they ran this. . .

The July 31, 2006, piece on Wikipedia, “Know It All,” by Stacy Schiff, contained an interview with a Wikipedia site administrator and contributor called Essjay, whose responsibilities included handling disagreements about the accuracy of the site’s articles and taking action against users who violate site policy. He was described in the piece as “a tenured professor of religion at a private university” with “a Ph.D. in theology and a degree in canon law.”

Essjay was recommended to Ms. Schiff as a source by a member of Wikipedia’s management team because of his respected position within the Wikipedia community. He was willing to describe his work as a Wikipedia administrator but would not identify himself other than by confirming the biographical details that appeared on his user page. At the time of publication, neither we nor Wikipedia knew Essjay’s real name. Essjay’s entire Wikipedia life was conducted with only a user name; anonymity is common for Wikipedia admin-istrators and contributors, and he says that he feared personal retribution from those he had ruled against online. Essjay now says that his real name is Ryan Jordan, that he is twenty-four and holds no advanced degrees, and that he has never taught. He was recently hired by Wikia—a for-profit company affiliated with Wikipedia—as a “community manager”; he continues to hold his Wikipedia positions. He did not answer a message we sent to him; Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikia and of Wikipedia, said of Essjay’s invented persona, “I regard it as a pseudonym and I don’t really have a problem with it.”

Both the original article, and editor’s note can be found here.

The article is filled with some real gems that in light of the new information really slam the integrity of the wikipedians, such as

(Wikipedians have acknowledged Essjay’s labors by awarding him numerous barnstars—five-pointed stars, which the community has adopted as a symbol of praise—including several Random Acts of Kindness Barnstars and the Tireless Contributor Barnstar.)

It’s hard to really glean what Wales thinks about this. We have his quote “I regard it as a pseudonym and I don’t really have a problem with it” but that’s in regards to Essjay’s invented persona. To me, impersonating an expert in a field is much more than taking a pseudonym.

Is it in wiki’s interest to do the least amount of work, or give their site credibility? Because in terms of maintaining their integrity, I think that a statement like, “we’ve removed everything he’s ever entered and are reviewing it for factuality” would go a lot further than saying that we don’t have a problem with people pretending to be Ph.D.s

[Tanaqui]

You seem to be missing a crucial bit of information about Wikipedia here: no one posting there has to be a professor to start with. Thus, why would it matter if he lied? Yeah, it’s kinda creepy, but the information that he wrote is still information. If it was wrong, it would have been changed (or not–not saying the place is perfect) whether he was a professor or not. If it was right, it stayed for the same reason. The dude’s actual identity has no bearing on how hard-working he is, or how much he has contributed to the site (e.g. for the awards.) That’s kind of the whole point of Wikipedia.

How could the mysterious Wikipedians you cite give “their” site credibility by doing something like removing all of his work? Large parts of it have probably been changed or edited or updated by now. And most of the other people working on it were certainly not elderly PhD’s of religion. Again, that’s kind of the point. Honestly, I am really confused by your post.

[Trunk]

We’re not talking about someone writing about how many homers Joe Morgan hit in 1975.

We’re talking about a guy claiming to have a Ph.D. in theology writing on the topic of theology. That’s the type of field where the “correctness” of something might just be a matter of opinion, and the false claims of his credentials give him false weight in matters of discussion.

Further, if one Ph.D. in a similar field sees that another has already put up an article, it might dissuade him from doing the kind of work that a credible site needs to have done.

And, we’re not talking about a guy writing one article aout Justin Timberlake, although he seems to have weighed in on that too. We’re talking about a guy who has over 21,000 “edits” or “articles” or whatever. A guy employed by wikia who has received accolades from the wiki community. . .for what? Busy work?

Does wiki want to be academic and trustworthy, or just a conglomeration of internet idiocracy?

[Tanaqui]

@Trunk

We’re not talking about someone writing about how many homers Joe Morgan hit in 1975.

We’re talking about a guy claiming to have a Ph.D. in theology writing on the topic of theology. That’s the type of field where the “correctness” of something might just be a matter of opinion, and the false claims of his credentials give him false weight in matters of discussion.

I do find it troubling that he made false claims about his credentials–as I said, creepy and unfortunate. But you make my own point for me in a second…

Further, if one Ph.D. in a similar field sees that another has already put up an article, it might dissuade him from doing the kind of work that a credible site needs to have done.

The entire point of Wikipedia is that if another Ph.D. sees the article, sees that it contains inaccuracies or is not written well, then s/he can change it. If the article was well-written and accurate enough that s/he doesn’t feel it needs to be changed, then why does it matter who wrote it? A 15 year old from Timbuktuk who happens to be an expert on the Nicene Creed has just as much write to add an article as does a Ph.D. After all, through most of human history, the brilliant work was done by people who did not have degrees in anything, but were self-taught. If this dude was posting accurate and well-written articles, then it doesn’t matter how many degrees he has or did not have.

And, we’re not talking about a guy writing one article aout Justin Timberlake, although he seems to have weighed in on that too. We’re talking about a guy who has over 21,000 “edits” or “articles” or whatever. A guy employed by wikia who has received accolades from the wiki community. . .for what? Busy work?

Does wiki want to be academic and trustworthy, or just a conglomeration of internet idiocracy?

Busy work? Presumably his work was actually of some use–that’s why people were giving him accolades. I’m not a religious scholar and have little interest in it, so I can’t go check on his accuracy, personally. But the very nature of Wikipedia implies that other people were checking on his work, all the time. If the stuff he did was inaccurate, then it will be corrected. But I don’t see any proof that it was inaccurate, just because he didn’t really have a Ph.D. That’s your take on it.

“Wiki” does not want anything. There is no panel of experts that defines the activities of Wikipedia. Everyone in the entire world can be part of wiki. Unsurprisingly, they don’t exactly have a set leader. Seriously–go to Wikipedia.org. What is the first thing you see, practically? Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. And who writes Wikipedia? The volunteers, who “don’t have to be experts or scholars.” Again–this is the entire point of Wikipedia. It’s built into the mission statement, practically. Otherwise Wikipedia would just be yet another encyclopedia. If you have a problem with that, feel free to debate it (there have been many threads on the subject) but of course Wikipedia is not going to take any action on this. It would go against the entire point of Wikipedia.

[saoirse]

@Tanaqui

After all, through most of human history, the brilliant work was done by people who did not have degrees in anything, but were self-taught.

Um, could I get a cite for this?

Anyway, the idea behind wikipedia is that the credentials of the posters are of no concern, only the accuracy of their information. It may not work that way in real debates, but that’s the guiding principle, and Wales obviously believes in it or he would be doing something else.

[Trunk]

@Tanaqui

Busy work? Presumably his work was actually of some use–that’s why people were giving him accolades. I’m not a religious scholar and have little interest in it, so I can’t go check on his accuracy, personally. But the very nature of Wikipedia implies that other people were checking on his work, all the time. If the stuff he did was inaccurate, then it will be corrected. But I don’t see any proof that it was inaccurate, just because he didn’t really have a Ph.D. That’s your take on it.

I think this is way too rosy a view of what goes on at wiki. As if expert-bots were just skimming every article in their field in real time, and making the proper edits that were forevermore locked against the interventions of the next essjay.

Who are the people calling into question the accuracy of articles by someone like essjay? Another person “pretending” to be an expert on the subject?

If you want to treat the site as nonsense, then more power to you. I thought that the battle for wikipedia was to gain a measure of credibility in the world.

Perhaps essjay was a guy who contributed to the article referenced in this NYTimes piece. (times select required)

It has to do, tangentially, with theology anyway.

Where were the experts then? Where were the people who should have combed over this article, and found the inaccuracies that didn’t turn up until students started handing in incorrect term papers? And. . .how many of these mistakes are still out there?

[Jodi]

@Tanaqui

You seem to be missing a crucial bit of information about Wikipedia here: no one posting there has to be a professor to start with. Thus, why would it matter if he lied? Yeah, it’s kinda creepy, but the information that he wrote is still information. If it was wrong, it would have been changed (or not–not saying the place is perfect) whether he was a professor or not. If it was right, it stayed for the same reason. The dude’s actual identity has no bearing on how hard-working he is, or how much he has contributed to the site (e.g. for the awards.) That’s kind of the whole point of Wikipedia.

I think this is belied by the fact he lied in the first place. If it was indeed irrelvant whether or not he had an advanced degree in the field, he wouldn’t have said he did when he didn’t. That seems to indicate that, while you might not think the lie gave him additional authority, he himself disagreed.

It seems obvious to me that when people evaluate the accuracy of information they are given – especially in the anonymous world of teh internets – one way we do so is to take into consideration the background and authority of the person presenting the information. In the course of researching the definition of Transsubstantiation, you find two definitions. One is posted by a seventeen year old high school junior; the other by a professor of theology. Which definition are you more likely to trust? Technically, either may be correct, but since you have no way of knowing which is correct, you look at who is presenting the information and evaluate the likelihood that they actually are qualified to speak with authority on the subject. It is NOT merely writing under a pseudonym, it is writing under claimed expertise and authority he does not in fact have. IMO, there’s a magnitude of difference between the two.

So, yeah, it underscores the inherent unrealiability of Wiki. It justifies the decision of many high schools and colleges to refuse to consider Wiki a legitimate research source. (You may get the information from Wiki, but you’d better get your orginal citations someplace else.) It also highlights for me how completely indifferent the Wiki managers are to accuracy or intellectual integrity – not really a great characteristic for compilers of any sort of “pedia”.

[Trunk]

I’d also add that Tanaqui seems to be espousing the attitude, “go ahead and write it. If it’s wrong, someone will fix it.”

That would be in opposition to, “if you don’t know enough about it, don’t write it at all, and wait for an expert to do it.”

[Trunk]

Article in the Times today about this.

Wales is backing off his original statements of support.

The money quote,

In a discussion over the editing of the article with regard to the term “imprimatur,” as used in Catholicism, Essjay defended his use of the book “Catholicism for Dummies,” saying, “This is a text I often require for my students, and I would hang my own Ph.D. on it’s credibility.”

[Captain_Amazing]

@Tanaqui

If the stuff he did was inaccurate, then it will be corrected.

I don’t know that that’s true. I posted incorrect information in a Wikipedia article about 6 months ago to see how long it would be before it was corrected, and, even though the page has gone through multiple edits, the false information is still there.