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Essjay controversy

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Timeline
  • August 16, 2005: Essjay first posts on his Wikipedia user page that he is a professor of theology, with doctorates in Theology and Canon Law.
  • July 31, 2006: The New Yorker has a story about Wikipedia by Schiff, which features an interview with Essjay.
  • January 2007: Essjay hired by Wikia.
  • January 7, 2007: Essjay posts autobiographical details on his user page at Wikia, giving his real name, Ryan Jordan, his age, 24, previous employment history from age 19, and positions within various Wikimedia Foundation projects. These details differ sharply from previous assertions on Essjay's Wikipedia user page about his academic and professional credentials.
  • January 11, 2007: At Wikipedia Review a user posts a link to Essjay's Wikia userpage. Daniel Brandt sees the update, investigates further, and later contacts The New Yorker.[1]
  • February 2, 2007: Another Wikipedia editor challenges Essjay on his talk page about the discrepancy and he responds with an explanation.[2]
  • February 23, 2007: Wales announces his appointment of Essjay to Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee.
  • February 26, 2007: The New Yorker publishes the correction for its March 5 issue, which appears in its The Mail section of its print version. It is picked up by online sources within the next day.[3][4]
  • March 3, 2007: Wales asks Jordan to resign his "positions of trust". Jordan promptly retires from Wikipedia altogether and later resigns from his position at Wikia.[5]
  • March 5, 2007: Story covered by the The New York Times.
  • March 6, 2007: Jordan's hometown newspaper publishes an article casting doubts about his January 2007 claims on his Wikia userpage that he had worked for the United States Trustee Program and had been a Kentucky paralegal.[6]
  • March 7, 2007: Story covered in an Associated Press article.[7]
  • March 8, 2007: Story appears in two-minute segment on World News with Charles Gibson.[8]
  • March 12, 2007: The New Yorker publishes a formal apology by Wales in its March 19 The Mail section.[9]

The "Essjay controversy" was a February 2007 incident in which a prominent English Wikipedia administrator, Essjay (later self-identified as Ryan Jordan), was found to have made false claims about his academic qualifications and professional experience in a telephone interview with The New Yorker.[10] Essjay was also a salaried community manager with Wikia, a company run by Jimmy Wales, who played a central role in the founding of Wikipedia. As a Wikipedia editor, Essjay spent less time editing articles and more time addressing vandalism and editorial disputes.[11]

During an interview for a July 2006 article about Wikipedia, Essjay told The New Yorker, and had previously stated on his Wikipedia user page,[12] that he held doctoral degrees in theology and canon law, and worked as a tenured professor at a private university. It was later discovered that he was 24 years old, and had dropped out of community college with no qualifications.[6] The New Yorker published a correction in February 2007, which brought the issue to public attention.[10]

Reaction to the disclosure was broad-based, encompassing commentary and articles in the electronic, print, and broadcast media;[8] the incident was even referenced in an Australian court decision.[13] The Wikipedia community researched Essjay's article edits to check for errors, and debated proposals to improve the project's handling of personal identification. Jimmy Wales initially supported Essjay's use of a persona, saying, "I regard it as a pseudonym and I don’t really have a problem with it."[14] When it became clear that Essjay had used the credentials in article content disputes,[6] Wales withdrew his support and asked for Essjay's resignation from his positions with Wikipedia and Wikia.[11][14]

The New Yorker interview

Stacy Schiff, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist writing for The New Yorker, interviewed Essjay as a source for an article about Wikipedia ("Know It All" July 31, 2006) after he was recommended to her by a member of the Wikimedia Foundation. According to The New Yorker, Essjay "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."[10] Describing his academic credentials as including two doctorates, the article said that Essjay was spending fourteen hours or more a day on Wikipedia but was careful to keep his online life a secret from his colleagues and friends. Essjay was portrayed as often taking his laptop to class, so he could be available to other Wikipedians while giving a quiz. He asserted that he required anonymity to avoid cyberstalking.[10]

Identity revealed

When Essjay was hired by Wikia in January 2007, he made changes to his Wikia profile and "came clean on who he really was," identifying himself as Ryan Jordan.[15][16][17][18][19] Other Wikipedia editors questioned Essjay on his Wikipedia talk page about the apparent discrepancy between his new Wikia profile and his previously claimed credentials.[2][20] Essjay later commented on his Wikipedia user page about having fooled Schiff by "doing a good job playing the part."[21]

Social activist and Wikipedia critic Daniel Brandt then reported the identity discrepancy to The New Yorker.[1] In late February 2007 The New Yorker updated its article with a correction indicating that Essjay had subsequently identified himself as Ryan Jordan and further stated, "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."[10]

Reaction

Wikipedia community

Speaking personally about Jordan, Wales said, “Mr. Ryan [sic] was a friend, and still is a friend. He is a young man, and he has offered me a heartfelt personal apology, which I have accepted. I hope the world will let him go in peace to build an honorable life and reputation.”[22]

Essjay had promptly responded to the controversy with a statement on his Wikipedia user talk page, in part reading:

…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…[23]

Reaction from within the Wikipedia community to the widespread disclosure of the Essjay/Jordan identity discrepancy was sharp, voluminous, and mixed. While most editors denounced at least some of his actions, responses ranged from offering complete support to accusing Jordan of "plain and simple fraud."[24]

As the controversy unfolded the Wikipedia community began a review of Essjay's previous edits and some felt he had relied upon 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."[24] For instance, Essjay had recommended sources such as Catholicism for Dummies,[25] a book granted the nihil obstat and imprimatur by the Roman Catholic Church.[26] Essjay defended his use of the book by telling fellow Wikipedia editors in a disagreement over the editing of the article Imprimatur: "This is a text I often require for my students, and I would hang my own Ph.D. on it’s [sic] credibility."[24][27]

Wales was "...reported to be considering vetting all persons who adjudicate on factual disputes."[28] "I don't think this incident exposes any inherent weakness in Wikipedia, but it does expose a weakness that we will be working to address," Wales added.[22] He insisted that Wikipedia editors still would be able to remain anonymous if they wished. "We always prefer to give a positive incentive rather than absolute prohibition, so that people can contribute without a lot of hassle", Wales commented. However, he also warned that “It's always inappropriate to try to win an argument by flashing your credentials, and even more so if those credentials are inaccurate.”[7] Wales argued "contributors to the site who claim certain credentials will soon have to prove they really have them."[15] However, Florence Devouard, chair of the Wikimedia Foundation, was not supportive of his credential proposal, saying, "I think what matters is the quality of the content, which we can improve by enforcing policies such as 'cite your source,' not the quality of credentials showed by an editor." A formal proposal that users claiming to have academic qualifications would have to provide evidence before citing them in content disputes was eventually rejected by the Wikipedia community.[29] Vigorous debate over how to improve Wikipedia continued.[30]

As a follow up to his initial comments to The New Yorker, Wales wrote this apology to the magazine, which appeared in its March 19, 2007 issue:

I am writing to apologize to The New Yorker and Stacy Schiff, and to give some follow-up concerning Ryan Jordan (Editors' Note, March 5). When I last spoke to The New Yorker about the fact that a prominent Wikipedia community member had lied about his credentials, I misjudged the issue. It was not O.K. for Mr. Jordan, or Essjay, to lie to a reporter, even to protect his identity.[9]

Wales expressed his regret that Essjay had "made a series of very bad judgments."[9] He also commented that he hoped Wikipedia would improve as a result of the controversy.[9]

Wikipedia critics

Larry Sanger, editor-in-chief of online encyclopedia Citizendium,[31] and a co-founder of Wikipedia who left the project in 2002,[32][33] called Essjay's response "a defiant non-apology"[34] and elsewhere characterized Essjay's actions as "identity fraud."[35] Writer for The Register and Wikipedia critic Andrew Orlowski criticized Jimmy Wales for hiring Essjay at Wikia and appointing him to the Wikipedia arbitration committee after Essjay had apparently admitted his previously claimed academic and professional credentials were false.[35] Orlowski wrote that Essjay's actions betrayed a dangerous community mindset within Wikipedia, quoting Sanger as saying, "Wikipedians have plainly become a very insular group: they have their own mores and requirements, which are completely independent of the real world. Indeed, that's what this story is about, after all: real-world identities and credentials are rejected as unnecessary by Wikipedia."[35]

Dan Blacharski of ITworld wrote, "Legitimate writers, scholars and industry experts have very little motivation to contribute to Wikipedia — leaving the project with wannabes and posers like Essjay with too much time on their hands to churn out content."[36] Internet activist Seth Finkelstein said that Wikipedia "fundamentally runs by an extremely deceptive sort of social promise," of which he says Essjay is a product.[37] Finkelstein later wrote in The Guardian, "Wikipedia is selling heavy contributors a dream that their donated effort will give them the prestige of an academic…But all that'll happen is they will work for free, while elsewhere the Wikia investors will reap the rewards." He described Essjay as "that dream’s poster child," who had been encouraged by Wikipedia to play out a detailed fantasy role along with "a cadre of acolytes willing to devote their lives (without payment) to the organization's projects."[21]

“For a company attempting to transition from online co-operative into a genuine media business—one that is supposed to be founded on the bedrock of reliability and trust," Business Week columnist Steve Maich wrote, "the Essjay affair raises serious questions. If credibility isn't an essential part of Wikipedia's business model, does it have a hope of surviving? And if the answer is 'yes,' what does that say about devaluation of truth in the Wikisphere?”[38] Andrew Keen, author of the Cult of the Amateur, considered the entire Essjay controversy as being a prime example of what he views as ignoring expert guidance in favor of the “dictatorship of idiots.”[39] L. Brent Bozell III, president of the Media Research Center, criticized Wikipedia as a dangerous system in which "off-setting and off-putting material" can be added to create "intellectual mischief." Writing in the wake of the Essjay affair, Bozell lamented: "It's enough to make used-car salesmen cringe."[40]

Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam criticized the Essjay affair as being part of what he characterizes as the problems of "crowdsourcing” and the “wisdom of crowds,” stating also that the crowd accepts authority unquestioningly: “Who would you rather have write your encyclopedia entries? Bertrand Russell, T.H. Huxley, and Benedetto Croce, who wrote for the Britannica? Or ... EssJay?”[41] In the Daily Telegraph (London), Cassandra Jardine wrote: “Essjay has provided a reminder that any given entry could have been written by someone as ignorant as ourselves. On the other hand, no one has taken issue with his edits, only his assumed persona, so perhaps the real lesson of this democratic medium is that college drop-outs might be as authoritative as professors.”[42]

Academics

On March 2, 2007, a report in The Chronicle of Higher Education commented "the incident is clearly damaging to Wikipedia's credibility—especially with professors who will now note that one of the site's most visible academics has turned out to be a fraud."[43]

Ross Brann, a professor of Judeo-Islamic studies at Cornell University, said, "This [process of scholarly review] is completely removed [at Wikipedia]… They could make up your life if they wanted to." Brann said that Wikipedia "has no place in the University," and he believed the Essjay incident would do nothing to change the unfavorable opinion that academics generally hold about the online encyclopedia. Several students interviewed at Cornell indicated that they would continue to use Wikipedia as a quick source of information, though they would not cite it in scholarly work.[44]

However, not all commentary from academics was critical. Nicola Pratt, a lecturer in international relations at the University of East Anglia stated, "The ethos of Wikipedia is that anyone can contribute, regardless of status… What's relevant is their knowledge as judged by other readers, not whether they are professors or not – and the fact the student was exposed shows it works."[45]

See also

Template:Wikinewspar2


Notes

  1. ^ a b Ian King, Template:Waybackref
  2. ^ a b "Profiles do not mesh..." Essjay Wikipedia talk page. 2007-02-02. Retrieved 2007-07-26.
  3. ^ Nicholas Carr (2007-02-27). "Essjay disrobed". Rough Type. Retrieved 2007-07-26.
  4. ^ Jeff Bercovici (2007-02-28). "Ode to Wikipedia Riddled with Errors". Radar. Retrieved 2007-07-26.
  5. ^ Jimmy Wales (2006-03-06). "EssJay situation". WikiEN-l. Retrieved 2007-07-26.
  6. ^ a b c Wolfson, Andrew. "Wikipedia editor who posed as professor is Ky. dropout", The Courier-Journal, March 6, 2007 Cite error: The named reference "louisville" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  7. ^ a b Bergstein, Brian (March 7 2007). "After flap over phony professor, Wikipedia wants some writers to share real names". Associated Press. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  8. ^ a b "ABC News broadcast on Essjay". Retrieved 2007-03-08.
  9. ^ a b c d Wales, Jimmy (2007-03-19), "Making amends", The New Yorker, p. 24 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link).
  10. ^ a b c d e Schiff, Stacey. "Know it all: Can Wikipedia conquer expertise?", The New Yorker, July 24, 2006.
  11. ^ a b Cohen, Noam. "Wikipedia ire turns against ex-editor", International Herald Tribune, March 6, 2007
  12. ^ Archived copy of Essjay's Wikipedia user page, The Internet Archive.
  13. ^ Federal Magistrates Court of Australia MZXMM v Minister for Immigration & Anor [2007] FMCA 975 13 June 2007
  14. ^ a b Ratcliffe, Mitch (March 5, 2007), Wikipedia: Why does Essjay need to "protect himself"?, Zdnet.com. Retrieved March 7, 2007.
  15. ^ a b Williams, Martyn (2007-03-09). "Wikipedia Founder Addresses User Credentials". PC World. Retrieved 2007-03-09.
  16. ^ Zaharov-Reutt, Alex. "Wikipedia: did one of its admins lie?", March 2, 2007, retrieved March 6, 2007.
  17. ^ Goldman, Russell (March 6 2007). "Wikiscandal: A Prominent Editor at the Popular Online Encyclopedia Is a Fraud". ABC News. Retrieved 2007-03-06. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  18. ^ Elsworth, Catherine (March 8, 2007). "Wikipedia 'expert' admits: I made it up". The Age. Retrieved 2007-03-16. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  19. ^ "Fake professor in Wikipedia storm". BBC News. March 6, 2007. Retrieved 2007-03-16. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  20. ^ Michael Snow (2007-03-05). "New Yorker correction dogs arbitrator into departure". Wikipedia Signpost. Retrieved 2007-04-29.
  21. ^ a b Finkelstein, Seth (March 8, 2007). "Read me first". Technology. The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-08-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  22. ^ a b Doran, James (March 6, 2007). "Wikipedia chief promises change after 'expert' exposed as fraud". Tech & Web. The Times. Retrieved 2007-03-18. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  23. ^ Keen, Andrew (March 7, 2007). "Laughter and forgetting on Wikipedia". ZDNet. Retrieved 2007-03-13. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  24. ^ a b c Cohen, Noam (March 5 2007). "A Contributor to Wikipedia Has His Fictional Side". Technology. The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-03-06. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  25. ^ Trigilio, John (2003-04-28). Catholicism for Dummies. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing. ISBN 0-7645-5391-7. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  26. ^ "Can a book with this title possibly be good for the Church? Well, wonder no more!". Retrieved 2007-07-25.
  27. ^ "Talk:Imprimatur". Wikipedia. 2005-04-12. Retrieved 2007-08-28.
  28. ^ Staff (March 7 2007). "Wikipedia's 'bogus' editor ousted". Freelance UK. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  29. ^ Cite error: The named reference Credentials was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  30. ^ Cohen, Noam. "After False Claim, Wikipedia to Check Degrees", The New York Times, March 12, 2007.
  31. ^ Bergstein, Brian (March 25, 2007). "Citizendium aims to be better Wikipedia". USA Today. Retrieved 2007-03-25.
  32. ^ Bergstein, Brian (March 25, 2007). "Sanger says he co-started Wikipedia". ABC News. Associated Press. Retrieved 2007-03-26.
  33. ^ "More than just a war of words". The Sydney Morning Herald. April 21, 2007. Retrieved 2007-04-23.
  34. ^ Orlowski, Andrew (March 6, 2007). "Farewell, Wikipedia?". Music and Media. The Register. Retrieved 2007-03-18. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  35. ^ a b c Orlowski, Andrew (March 2, 2007). "Bogus Wikipedia Prof. was blessed then promoted". Music and Media. The Register. Retrieved 2007-03-18. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  36. ^ Blacharski, Dan (March 6, 2007). "Blog Insights: Wikipedia's great fraud". ITworld.com. Retrieved 2007-03-18. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  37. ^ Finkelstein, Seth (March 1, 2007). "What The New Yorker Article Fraud Tells Us About Wikipedia". Infothought. Seth Finkelstein. Retrieved 2007-03-18. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  38. ^ Maich, Steve (March 19, 2007). "Wikipedia's trouble with the truth". Business Week. p. 39. {{cite news}}: |section= ignored (help)
  39. ^ Levy, Steven (March 26, 2007). "Invasion of the web amateurs". Newsweek. p. 16. {{cite news}}: |section= ignored (help)
  40. ^ Bozell III, L. Brent (March 25, 2007). "Not your dad's encyclopedia". Pittsburgh Tribune Review.
  41. ^ Beam, Alex (March 12, 2007). "Tricky truths behind Wikipedia". Boston Globe. p. E5. {{cite news}}: |section= ignored (help)
  42. ^ Jardine, Cassandra (March 8, 2007). "Fount of all wisdom – and foolery". the Daily Telegraph. p. 21. {{cite news}}: |section= ignored (help)
  43. ^ Read, Brock (March 2 2007). "Essjay, the Ersatz Academic". The Chronicle of Higher Education. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  44. ^ Albanes, John (March 15, 2007). "Wikipedia Stays Popular Despite False Sources". The Cornell Daily Sun. Retrieved 2007-03-18. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  45. ^ MacLeod, Donald (March 7, 2007). "Students marked on writing in Wikipedia". The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-03-18. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Text "E-Learning" ignored (help); Text "EducationGuardian.co.uk" ignored (help)

References


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