User talk:Gary Goodman/Draft 3

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Revision as of 10:05, 10 July 2007 by imported>Hayford Peirce (An interesting account that needs a little minor copy-editing)
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Gary, I wrote this as a sort of cathartic reaction to this whole scenario while it was happening and have just been sitting on it. It is not really appropriate for me as a CZ staff person to post it in article space. Have at this as you wish.  —Stephen Ewen (Talk) 02:37, 10 July 2007 (CDT)

A very interesting account. It needs some very minor copy-editing. Hayford Peirce 11:05, 10 July 2007 (CDT)

The Essjay scandal has been the most publicized controversy about Wikipedia to date. It began in early 2007 when it became known that a prominent English Wikipedia editor, administrator and short-lived Wikia employee going by "Essjay" had lied about his age, background, and academic and professional credentials to 2000 Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Stacy Schiff during an interview she conducted for The New Yorker magazine for an article about Wikipedia. The public revelation of Essjay's deception, along with the breadth of media coverage that soon followed, spurred a flurry of public debate about Wikipedia. Critics decried the incident as evidence of their concerns about Wikipedia's accuracy, article-creation system, non-vetting of its contributors and administrative personnel, and even the legitimacy of the Wikipedia project as a whole. Wikipedia itself went into a shocked phase of introspection over numerous of the very same issues, which as remain without closure.

Background

Wikipedia

Wikipedia was launched by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger in January 2001 as a multilingual, Web-based, free content encyclopedia that anyone with access to one of its project Websites can edit. Changes made to Wikipedia articles undergo no formal peer review and are immediately viewable on the World Wide Web. Under this deliberately open model, Wikipedia's growth has been nothing short of exponential. Within only a month, Wikipedia had 600 articles, and year later in January 2002, 20,000. On November 20, 2004, the English Wikipedia alone reached 400,000 articles, and by March 1, 2006, that number had reached 1-million. Based upon Randian objectivism, Wikipedia's undergirding philosophy is that most of its contributors are well-meaning, and that unmoderated collaboration among them will gradually improve the encyclopedia such that it is both reliable and reputable. Organizationally, Wikipedia is headed by the Wikimedia Foundation, which includes an eighteen-member advisory board with less than ten employees, each headed de facto by Jimmy Wales. Sanger left the project in 2002.

Given its radically egalitarin method of encyclopedia-building, Wikipedia has been subject to often intense criticisms since its 2001 inception, and increasingly through its years of growth. While able to point to some successes, Wikipedia's article creation system and resulting content, especially on living personalities and controversial topics, have been subject to several well-publicized controversies. On November 29, 2005, John Seigenthaler Sr. wrote an op-ed in USA Today to criticize Wikipedia about a biography written contributors had written about him, which stated he had been suspected of direct involvement in the assassinations of both John and Bobby Kennedy. In late 2006, pro-golfer Fuzzy Zoeller voiced similar concerns when he filed a libel suit against the owner of an IP address, from which allegedly defamatory remarks were posted to his Wikipedia biography article.

Wikipedia runs on MediaWiki software, the sort of "guts" of Wikipedia which make it a dynamic wiki capable of producing its contents through the interactions of its users. One feature of the MediaWiki software is that it provides for each account-holding editor to create a special "user page" where they may write personal material, including information about their background, education, and accomplishments if they choose. That feature would prove instrumental in the Essjay Controversy that eventually developed.

Essjay

In February, 2005, Ryan Jordan of Kentucky signed up with the user name "Essjay" for an account as a Wikipedia editor, the title Wikipedia gives to all of its article contributors. Shortly thereafter, he added details to his invented online persona. "I am a tenured professor of theology at a private university in the eastern United States," he wrote on his userpage, where he additionally indicated he held a Ph.D. in theology and an additional doctorate in canon law. Almost straightway, Essjay went on to prove himself an extremely useful and prolific editor in the eyes of most Wikipedia contributors and its leadership. He applied to become an administrator, a user with power to delete materials and ban users, and was confirmed by majority of Wikipedia users who voted during his nomination. All the while, he exhibited what seemed a proclivity for articles on Catholic topics, which he said was his area of degreed expertise, and cited his credentials either by inference, reputation, or sometimes overtly within content disputes. Essjay began to quickly move up within Wikipedia's ranks.

July 2006 New Yorker article

During that time, in mid-2006, The New Yorker contacted the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia's parent organization, to request contact with a model Wikipedia volunteer. The renowned magazine planned a feature article about Wikipedia. Obliging, the Foundation referred the magazine to Essjay, who then contacted him by email. Phone interviews followed between Schiff and Essjay over what Essjay claimed was six hours. Irrespective of their actual length, Schiff queried Essjay about his real-life background, credentials, and activities. In response, Essjay directed Joyce to his Wikipedia user page, where he said he had profiled such material (see images of Essjay's user page). Relying on what Joyce described as the Wikimedia Foundation's strong commendation and authentication of Essjay, she accepted Essjay's user page material as truthful and cited it in her article titled "Know It All", published in The New Yorker's July 31, 2006 issue.

After the positive press, Essjay continued to move up within Wikipedia's ranks. Jimmy Wales appointed him to Wikipedia's twelve-member Arbitration Committee, a body of jurists of sorts with powers to decide and enforce major disputes between Wikipedia contributors. The roles of bureaucrat and then steward soon followed, each representing higher levels of power Essjay held over other Wikipedia's contributors and, ultimately, its content. Once, he said he sent a letter to a professor in which he used himself and his credentials to defend Wikipedia as a reliable academic source. Around this time, Essjay began claiming he had once been an account manager with a Fortune 20 company, where he was part of a ten-member team that managed $500-million in annual sales, and that prior he had worked as a paralegal for five years, including nearly a year with Louisville firm that represented doctors in medical licensure matter and a three months in special position with a United States Bankruptcy Trustee. All the while, to most, Essjay remained the model Wikipedia contributor. Prior only a volunteer, Essjay was hired in January 2007 by Jimmy Wales for a paid position with Wikia, founded by himself and Angela Beesley. Only, neither Essjay's rise nor his story went unnoticed to certain of Wikipedia's critics.

Breaking the story: from "Essjay" to Ryan Jordan

In January 2007, staunch Wikipedia critic Daniel Brandt began publicly voicing concerns about Essjay at his Website, Wikipedia Watch. A month later, a small number of Wikipedia editors began to express their own misgivings, the number of which increased as the days progressed. Meanwhile, Brandt had already begun documenting his concerns about Essjay in a series of private communications to the The New Yorker.

February 2007 New Yorker correction

With Brandt having apparently piqued the alarm of The New Yorker, in February 2007 it issued a rare correction. Its July 31, 2006, article "Know It All", contained an important error, it said. Essjay was, in fact, 24-year-old Ryan Jordan of Kentucky. He held no advanced degrees and had never taught. Later revelations revealed that Jordan was a college dropout who had often used Catholicism for Dummies to source his editorial work on Wikipedia articles, having once stated, "This is a text I often require for my students, and I would hang my own Ph.D. on it's credibility". Jordan's claim to have had a three month special position with a United States Bankruptcy Trustee in Louisville also proved false, when the Trustee office denied Jordan's claim.

Jordan's initial reactions

At the beginning of the revelation, Jordan had bragged on his Wikipedia user page about fooling Schiff, saying he must have been "doing a good job playing the part". Travelling within India at the time, Wales' initial reactions was, "I regard it as a pseudonym and I don’t really have a problem with it." Wales voiced support for Essjay, citing how valuable he had been as a Wikipedia contributor. Yet as the controversy continued to erupt, Essjay apologized to Wales and wrote on his user page,

I *am* sorry if anyone in the Wikipedia community has been hurt by my decision to use disinformation to protect myself. I'm not sorry that I protected myself; I believed, and continue to believe, that I was right to protect myself, in light of the problems encountered on the internet in these trying times. I have spoken to all of my close friends here about this, and have heard resoundingly that they understand my position, and they support me. Jimbo and many others in Wikipedia's hierarchy have made thier [sic] support known as well...

Reaction from critics of Wikipedia

The controversy that had already started continued to unfold. Critics of Wikipedia had been heavily weighing in since day one. The blogosphere was particularly replete with critics' words. Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia, responded to Wales position on the controversy on his Citizendium blog:

There’s something utterly breathtaking, and ultimately tragic, about Jimmy telling The New Yorker that he doesn’t have a problem with Essjay’s lies, and by essentially honoring Essjay after his lies were exposed.... Doesn’t Jimmy know that this has the potential to be even more damaging to Wikipedia than the Seigenthaler situation, since it reflects directly on the judgment and values of the management of Wikipedia?

Wales later issued a new statement on his user talk page.

I have been for several days in a remote part of India with little or no Internet access. I only learned this morning that EssJay used his false credentials in content disputes. I understood this to be primarily the matter of a pseudonymous identity (something very mild and completely understandable given the personal dangers possible on the Internet) and not a matter of violation of people's trust. I want to make it perfectly clear that my past support of EssJay in this matter was fully based on a lack of knowledge about what has been going on. Even now, I have not been able to check diffs, etc.

I have asked EssJay to resign his positions of trust within the community. In terms of the full parameters of what happens next, I advise (as usual) that we take a calm, loving, and reasonable approach. From the moment this whole thing became known, EssJay has been contrite and apologetic. People who characterize him as being "proud" of it or "bragging" are badly mistaken.

The next day, Sanger responded:

Jimmy’s statement implies that the only thing that occasions his request for Essjay’s resignation–just ten days after appointing him to the Arbitration Committee–was his newfound knowledge that Essjay “used his false credentials in content disputes.” That apparently is the only thing that would ”violate people’s trust.” Since Jimmy declared he didn’t “have a problem with it” to The New Yorker, it seems Jimmy finds nothing wrong, nothing trust-violating, with the act itself of openly and falsely touting many advanced degrees on Wikipedia. But there most obviously is something wrong with it, and it’s just as disturbing for Wikipedia’s head to fail to see anything wrong with it.

Wikipedia's reactions

As a result of the controversy, Wikipedia users began a review of Essjay's previous edits and discovered evidence he flaunted his fictional professorship to influence editorial consideration of edits he made. "People have gone through his edits and found places where he was basically cashing in on his fake credentials to bolster his arguments," said Michael Snow, a Wikipedia administrator and founder of the Wikipedia community newspaper, The Wikipedia Signpost. "Those will get looked at again."

Jimbo Wales responded by first defending Essjay, but recanting his support when he said he discovered Essjay had cited his credentials as a way to gain the upper-hand in content disputes in Wikipedia's otherwise philosophically flat system. Days later, speaking from what Associated Press reporter Brian Bergstein called his role as de facto leader of Wikipedia, Wales reported to Bergsteinthat Wikipedia planned a response to vet the credentials of all who claimed them on Wikipedia. Bergstein's report was reprinted worldwide.

Essjay's resignation

Following the intense scrutiny from bloggers, internally from Wikipedia, Wales later wrote on his Wikipedia User talk page, "I have asked Essjay to resign his positions of trust within the community." Jordan resigned the same day.

Ongoing story

References

User talk:Jimbo Wales.

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