Spontaneous Monotony

AUTHOR’S NOTE Apologies to any Planet Wikimedia users among you. I have no idea why PW took every Wikimedia-related post I have ever made and displayed them with today’s datestamp. All posts were correctly datestamped in the feed, it’s the aggregator’s fault.

Following the unjustified hounding-out ‘voluntary’ resignation of Essjay from Wikipedia, a number of essays have sprung up debating two questions:

• Whether ‘credentials’ even matter
• If they do, what Wikipedia should do regarding them

The arguments for and against are spread out over numerous Wiki pages, and often run on for a paragraph or three (guilty), so I’ll offer what I think is a fair paraphrase here to save you the bother of reading it all. If you think I’ve missed anything on either side then drop me a line (comments preferably, or by wikimail).

Credentials matter because:

• The current climate in Wikipedia is one of hostility towards credentialled experts, and this is causing many of them to leave
• Experts know more about the subject matter, and in a dispute are more likely to be correct than an amateur
• Since experts work with the subject matter every day (as opposed to an amateur who may just have started editing the article randomly), they are more likely to understand the finer details – anyone can get the basics of a subject by googling it, but only experts can understand it fully
• Wikipedia is supposed to be a serious project to build an encyclopedia, not a Slashdot-style free-for-all. Top-quality work is only achieved by a proper, credentials-based academic review process.

Credentials don’t matter because

• Wikipedia judges people on the quality of their contributions – this inherently conflicts with any notion of judging people on the size of their credentials
• ‘I’m a PhD, so shut up’ is in conflict with numerous Wikipedia policies (author’s note: I count five) and is completely unacceptable. A policy recognising credentials would allow such obnoxiousness.
• Wikipedia’s requirements for verifiability and reliable sources mean that only statements which are already supported by people who know what they’re talking about will be included in articles. Nobody, regardless of their credentials, should be able to circumvent these requirements.
• Someone who demonstrates knowledge in a particular area will be respected by other editors (without the need for a ‘credentials policy’) whether they are credentialled or not.

What Wikipedia should do about credentials
Different people have different ideas about what Wikipedia should do as regards credentials. Obviously your opinion of what to do will be affected by what value you place on credentials in the first place!

• The Wikimedia Foundation office should set up a verification service, which would ask people claiming to be credentialled experts to send proof of such by email, post, fax etc. (author’s note: in Jimbo’s essay – see below – he says that any future verification process should not involve the WMF office)
• Institutional email accounts could be used for verification. For example: someone claiming to be a university professor could supply a link to ‘his’ staff bio page on the university’s website. A trusted Wikipedia user could then email that staff member at their institution account, confirming if they are really the person they claim to be
• People who know the person ‘in real life’ could post statements on-wiki testifying as to their true identity. (author’s note: this of course assumes that trusted members of the community are telling the truth. If that were always the case then the Essjay scandal would have never occured)
• Current policies are sufficient – a credential verification process would not significantly benefit Wikipedia, and an ‘ignore all credentials’ policy would further the perception of hostility towards experts.
• Ignore all credentials. There is no practical means of verifying the identity of people claiming credentials (at least, none that would not involve posting personal info on a public wiki page thus making the person vulnerable to id fraud), therefore the only way to avoid a repeat of the Essjay scandal is to never give claimed credentials _any_recognition

External links
This article is a summary of the proposals below (and their associated talkpages). In brackets is a brief explanation of the content of each page.

• Credentials are harmless (advocating the status quo)
• Credentials matter (the real problem is not abuse of credentials, but lack of respect for them)
• Ignore all credentials (proposed guideline encouraging users to ignore credentials)
• Jimbo’s ‘Credential Verification’ page (credentials should not have any power on Wikipedia, but verifying them helps to maintain Wikipedia’s culture of mutual trust)
• MikeURL/Credentials (encouraging respect for credentials and suggesting means of verification)

This entry was posted on Monday, March 26th, 2007 at 3:29 pm and is filed under Computers and Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.