From Wikitruth

[edit] LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE

No more dinners with Jimbo.

[edit] A Previously Gullible World Opens Its Eyes to Wikipedia's Potential for Fraud

Like popcorn kernels going off underneath a hot lamp, the sounds of jaws hitting the floor have been cascading all around the Internets this week, as a scandal has shaken some of the widely-held belief in Wikipedia's usefulness and dependability, especially as regarding its fearless leader, King Jimbo.

It seems that someone was not being truthful about who they were, and were in fact painting a completely false story about their credentials, age, and knowledge. This itself is not news; if we were to get a dollar for every time someone on Wikipedia made up their own history and the history of others out of thin air, you would receive your copy of the Wikitruth hand-delivered in your mornings by a butler carrying a tray of Rolex watches.

When the august magazine The New Yorker hired Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Stacy Schiff to write a piece on Wikipedia, she cranked out a very well-researched, very expansive article called "Know it All," which represented weeks of work and interviews with, among other people, a tireless Wikipedian editor named Essjay.

But Essjay was no ordinary Wikipedian sausage-factory worker, quietly making the occasional edit or engaging in the occasional tiff. Essjay was one of Wikipedia's top editors, credited with being a fastidious twiddler (sixteen-thousand articles with his prints on them), a dependable resource (elected to be an Administrator), and a speaker for all things Wikipedian and Good. And on top of that that he was a tenured professor of religion at a private university with a collection of degrees that a top-flight child prodigy couldn't hope to aim for in later years:

• Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies (B.A.)
• Master of Arts in Religion (M.A.R.)
• Doctorate of Philosophy in Theology (Ph.D.)
• Doctorate in Canon Law (JCD)

These are not just meaningless phrases to a lot of hard-working folks out there; these represent years of work and tons of borrowed money. The fact that someone would have so many degrees implied that this was a person to listen to.

Essjay seen bowing his head in shame at a Wikia meeting (far left back row)

Later, Essjay was considered to be such a gift, such a pride to the Wikipedia Cause that he was hired to work for Wikia, the for-pay arm of Wikimedia. (Wales and his cohorts claim no link between the two organizations, but as we'll see, we should not believe them on the face of their statements.) It was then that things got interesting. Apparently the addition of paycheck caused this individual to provide a, shall we say, slightly modified biography:

My name is Ryan Jordan, and I am a Community Manager for Wikia, from just outside Louisville, Kentucky. I am also an active user on the English Wikipedia, where I hold many positions, including administrator, bureaucrat, checkuser, and oversight.

It turned out this professor, this learned man of religious studies, was nothing of the sort. A 24-year old layabout, with the copious spare time to edit Wikipedia endlessly and build up a fiction for himself as he saw fit.

While nobody here at the Wikitruth believes for a second that Ryan Jordan is his real name, the fact that he would so callously claim to be a degreed professor, and claim so in letters he would send to others with the same credentials, shows a person willing to lie or claim whatever it takes to win.

• How many arguments on Wikipedia matters did Essjay win by citing his credentials?
• How many conversations (private and public) did he engage in speaking as a professor?
• What benefits or doors opened for him as people saw an opportunity to talk to a Ph.D.?

[edit] Liars and Charlatans welcome, says Jimbo Wales

But most shocking of all is the response of Jimbo Wales to all of this. A huge, effusive yawn.

For how many organizations can you possibly begin working, especially one where the core mission is the spreading of accurate information to the world, and not immediately be fired when it's discovered you lied about having 4 academic degrees and a position of tenure? Well, at least one, that's for sure.

King Jimbo is used to having his way. All he has to do is wave his hand, make a declaration and then walk away, problem solved. And that's what he tried to do here.

In the discussion currently raging on Wikipedia, Wales does not have much to say. In fact, he has very little to say at all:

EssJay has always been, and still is, a fantastic editor and trusted member of the community. He apologized to me and to the community for any harm caused. Trolls are claiming that he "bragged" about it: this is bullshit. He has been thoughtful and contrite about the entire matter and I consider it settled. — Jimbo Wales

Don't worry about issues of credibility, of bragging about pulling one over on the New Yorker's fact checkers (and EssJay most certainly did do this). The King says we're done and the matter is "settled". Done. Finis. Go back to your workstations and your positions and get back to work, free content army. The general's got new wars to fight.

[edit] The Money Trail

This has not been as widely reported, but the Wikimedia foundation made a $5,000 donation to a collection of IRC servers used heavily by Wikipedian editors and administrators, Freenode. A reference is on this page, although the link to the actual message no longer works. Freenode is run by several people, who do not include Essjay, but there are a number of highly-placed administrators of the Freenode network... including Essjay. Not bad for a tax-free donation!

[edit] The Memory Hole Widens

As we've shown on the Wikitruth before, Jimbo Wales and company have absolutely no problem with deleting, for all of time, anything they don't like that gets in the way of them winning an argument. The shaking, Cheetos-stained fingers of the Blogosphere are pointing at him, and he doesn't like that. Wales and Wikia will squirm, twitch, and eventually start removing anything on Wikipedia that makes this whole thing look as bad as it is. Already letters and statements are being deleted, right in front of our eyes, and this will continue. The Wikitruth has saved what it can, but we can only do so much.

This is what Wikipedia is, at the end of the day: a place where liars are rewarded, where hard-earned expertise means as much as a made-up stringing-together of phrases to win an argument.

[edit] References