Gary Kirk

Essjay

Saturday, March 3rd, 2007

A Wikimedian, Essjay, has been the subject of much controversy over the last day or two. In the summer he gave an interview to Stacey Schiff, a journalist with US paper The New Yorker. In it he said he was a “tenured professor of theology”. Recently, after taking up a paid position with Wikia, it was revealed he is in fact a 24-year-old kid named Ryan Jordan, as his userpage currently says. He is no professor, and he has no degrees. Of course, there is no obligation to be “real” on Wikipedia - rightly so. The debate has erupted after The New Yorker published an editor’s note on the article’s page on their website. Essjay is a long-standing and respected Wikimedian - he (was - as of today) an arbitrator, bureaucrat, checkuser, oversight - in positions of trust, for those unfamiliar with WP) and the issue is whether he used his fake credentials in content issues. I am simply reporting how I see it here; for detailed information you can read the wikiEN-l mailing list archives - particularly this thread started by Jimmy Wales.

Posted in Wikimedia, Wikipedia | No Comments »

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