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You too can be a Wikipedia theology expert
Posted on March 7, 2007 4:41 PM
All it takes is a copy of Catholicism for Dummies and a credulous Wikipedia audience to be a religious expert.
I guess that makes Bono's Mirrorball Man the Second Coming of Christ. This is still a pretty slick con a 24 year old guy with no real degrees managed to pull not just on Wikipedia, but on a real journalism type thing, The New Yorker...
The Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Stacy Schiff was referred by the Wikimedia Foundation for an interview for the article to Wikipedia administrator Essjay, a member of Wikipedia's arbitration committee and generally trusted member of the community....The Outlaw Jimbo Wales who started Wikipedia sounds like he's been seriously backpedaling after his initial response over the whole mess. Facing the potential wrath of a Pulitzer Prize winner and her lawyers probably yanked ol' Jimbo right out of Nirvana...
One regular on the site is a user known as Essjay, who holds a Ph.D. in theology and a degree in canon law and has written or contributed to sixteen thousand entries. A tenured professor of religion at a private university... ...
EssJay had fabricated a persona which he described on his user page on Wikipedia, presenting himself as a tenured professor at a private US university. After the news broke, EssJay claimed that the false details were intended to avoid cyberstalking.
I have been for several days in a remote part of India with little or no Internet access. I only learned this morning that EssJay used his false credentials in content disputes. I understood this to be primarily the matter of a pseudonymous identity (something very mild and completely understandable given the personal dangers possible on the Internet) and not a matter of violation of people's trust. I want to make it perfectly clear that my past support of EssJay in this matter was fully based on a lack of knowledge about what has been going on.As Homer Simpson said, "Mistakes were made."
I'm going to use that on Lucas if he ever has to ask me about a post on this blog. "Sorry dude, I was deep into the Upanishads in a remote part of India after I posted that."
Now that the Outlaw Jimbo Wales is back in touch with reality, he's fired Essjay, aka Ryan Jordan, from his positions of trust in Wikipedia. At least he wasn't pretending to be a 14 year old boy on MySpace or anything.
Fired, Wikipedia, Essjay, Jimbo Wales