Wikipedia: Are you who you say you are?
A few days ago, a senior Wikipedia editor was “outed”. Essjay, as he was known, had claimed to be a professor of religious studies. In fact, his name is Ryan Jordan, and he is a 24-year-old college drop-out. An interesting question arises about how Wikipedia works and about the information it makes available. Ryan, although not who he claimed to be, was actually a pretty good editor, by all accounts, and did a great job of fixing up entries and applying the stringent Wikipedia encyclopedia rules for content, style, format, referencing, etc.
Wikipedia allows for anonymity, and, in fact, almost every one of its editors uses a pseudonym – in fact, their identities are jealously guarded. This assists in making sure that any editing decisions are dealt with (more) objectively than they might be, if there was potential for personal appeals. The anonymity creates a phoney equality, putting everyone on equal level. I wonder if this incident will change how Wikipedia works, with some Big Brother top-level/behind-the-scenes vetting of (at least) the editors? I doubt it. In this connected world, people are judged more on their outputs (the value of the job they did) than their qualifications or inputs. But, the fact that Ryan lied and therefore displayed a lack of integrity should raise some concerns. Given how Wikipedia operates, one wonders why he felt the need to do that in the first place.
Some interesting ethical issues await…
As an aside, the fact that at least one editor is very much NOT who he claimed to be is worrying. And a little disturbing for people (like me) who have had entries removed from Wikipedia for spurious (IMO) reasons.
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Wikipedia is not infallible, because it is run by people. People who are highly qualified in their field are just as likely to make mistakes and be biased if their anonymity is guaranteed. Anonymity does funny things to ordinary people.
Wikipedia’s popularity makes it the target for people who want to “skew” public perceptions or control certain types of facts. The fact that it is as open as it is makes this extremely difficult, but not impossible. If you compare it to Digg or any other popular participation site I think you’ll find it works a lot better.
Donn,
I agree. I am a huge fan of wikipedia, and use it almost daily as a reference. I have contributed new entries, as well as added to existing ones.
However, in the world’s most well know, and most well used open source project, the situation with an editor (not just a contributor, but an editor) who has lied MUST give an opportunity for pause.
It will not derail the project. And I actually think it will the model to be resilient and robust. But it cannot simply be brushed aside and ignored.
I actually use my real name.
The deal with Wikipedia is that anyone can be an editor, whether they are ‘official’ or not. While some see it as less than authoritative, therefore not worth reading, I see it as having lots of worth. But it is a work in progress. There are many good articles which do not need edits, with the exception of minor ones, or modifications when there is new information. And, I’ve discovered there are more “Wikipedia’s” out there. One is Citizendium, created by a man who claims to have been a co-founder of Wikipedia.