Wikipedia Crisis in 60 Seconds
How do you sum up the calamity that has gripped English-language Wikipedian the last few days. In the spirit of 60 Second Shakespeare, I give you The Question of Essjay:
Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Stacy Schiff, writes a detailed feature story in The New Yorker (July 2006) about Wikipedia, describing how its online denizens are “devoted…to a higher good.” In “The Know it All”, respected Wikipedian User:Essjay is profiled, where Schiff relates (with information from his user bio page and from phone interviews) that he is a “tenured professor of religion at a private university” and holds a “Ph.D. in theology and a degree in canon law.”
Problem is, it’s all false. In early 2007, Essjay accepted a job with Wikia, the for-profit spinoff by Jimmy Wales and Wikipedian Angela Beesley. Facing the reality of having to work in-person with colleagues, he comes clean claiming to be Ryan Jordan, a 24 year old from Louisville, Kentucky, with a background as a paralegal and perhaps no college degree at all. He posts a new “real” biography with still seemingly too much to fit into two dozen years of existence.
Wikipedia’s spiritual founder Jimmy Wales, travelling in India at the time and likely working off imperfect information, defends Essjay in public and to the press, “I regard it as a pseudonym and I don’t really have a problem with it.” Shortly after, Essjay is elevated by Jimmy to the ranks of serving on the Arbitration Committee, the highest level of service for deciding on community matters. Wales stated later on his Talk page, “EssJay has always been, and still is, a fantastic editor and trusted member of the community…He has been thoughtful and contrite about the entire matter, and I consider it settled.”
Meanwhile Wikipedians erupt in debate on mailing lists, User talk pages of Essjay/Jimbo and the Community noticeboard. Blogs are raging, with original Wikipedia editor-in-chief Larry Sanger, best-selling authors of Freakonomics and tech pundit Nick Carr outright questioning if Wikipedia supports and endorses identity fraud. Wikipedians, usually quick to circle the wagons to protect their own from media distortion and unwanted identity exposure, don’t come to rescue Essjay this time around. Meanwhile, Essjay has remained coy, refusing to make statements of clarification, until pressed to do so a few days later. Ultimately, he claims it was a defensive persona to evade online stalkers and trolls, not an uncommon problem in Wikipedia.
But his “My Response” post is hardly contrite, and only raises more ire of folks who feel he feels no remorse in deceiving a reporter and fellow Wikipedians. “I *am* sorry if anyone in the Wikipedia community has been hurt by my decision to use disinformation to protect myself…I have no intention of going anywhere, because to do so would be to let the vandals, trolls, and stalkers win.”
Essjay has his supporters. Even his skeptics appreciate his widely recognized good work in the community. But the trust has been violated. Scores of fellow users don’t buy the cover story, and many start using Wikipedia’s years-deep database to comb his edit history and past behavior. They dig up numerous accounts of Essjay using the “professor persona” and false credentials to gain the upper hand in articles and policy debates. It was no longer an external crisis, it was an internal crisis of confidence. And still, he has access to the most powerful tools concerning privacy and trust — checkuser and oversight.
The community seethes. Debate rages. Straw polls are taken as to what to do. Jimmy Wales’s early support is crucial and keeps Essjay’s standing intact, for now. But the god-king is in India, without good access to the news in the kingdom.
So it’s come to this.
It started by Essjay deceiving a respected print reporter and legendary fact-checking publication. Many shrugged. The reporter should have demanded more verifiability. But as the facts started to come out about Essjay’s behavior, it clearly was not a simple identity cover story. It was a whole new level of deception. And suddenly many Wikipedians are questioning the integrity of the human being behind the persona, the one now employed by Wikia.
It’s said three points define a pattern. In this case, a pattern of bad behavior. Will there be a third point? Dear reader, there is a third. And it’s perhaps the most serious of them all.
UPDATE: Thanks to Larry Sanger for pointing out the comment from Wales was from the New Yorker, and I’ve added an updated quote from Jimmy Wales’s Talk page. A few hours after this blog entry was posted, Jimmy Wales posted another message saying he had changed his mind given new facts that came to light and, “I have asked EssJay to resign his positions of trust within the community.”
March 3rd, 2007 03:04
so you want us to guess the third point?
Look, as I said before, people sometimes treat the Internet space as a wonderful place to do knowledge work. But most people see it as artificial, more of a game space than a true place of identity.
So, what’s the third point?
March 3rd, 2007 03:41
[...] After considering the new facts that have come to light, Jimmy Wales has changed his stance in the Essjay Affair. Before, Wales had said in his Talk page: “EssJay has always been, and still is, a fantastic editor and trusted member of the community…He has been thoughtful and contrite about the entire matter, and I consider it settled.†[...]
March 3rd, 2007 04:08
Jimbo’s (predictable) real concern appears to be that Essjay “used his false credentials in content disputesâ€, pointing to his concern to further “check diffs†of Essjay.
Jimbo claims he did not understand this matter to be one “of violation of people’s trust†and that his “past support of EssJay in this matter was fully based on a lack of knowledge about what has been going onâ€.
Oh c’mon.
And this seems to point to something that indicates otherwise: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=112282076&oldid=112281864
And when Jimbo claims he did not understand this matter to be one “of violation of people’s trustâ€, which “people†is he talking about? Only Wikipedians who may have been bluffed by a pull of false credentials? Apparently so, which only confirms the insularity of the system.
Does Jimbo feel Essjay violated the trust of The New Yorker reporters to whom Essjay lied? On this he is silent and it speaks loudly. How about to The New Yorker’s many, many readers? Again, on this he is silent and it speaks loudly.
March 3rd, 2007 05:02
so is the third point that Jimmy Wales only believes in himself and Wikipedia?
March 3rd, 2007 17:08
[...] My 60 Second saga of Wikipedia introduced Essjay. He was accused, at best, of being deceitful and, at worst, a liar. A new third revelation sadly points to the latter. And it gives me no joy to report on the latest and most serious issue. Essjay makes an outrageous claim against the reporter in this controversy that cannot go unaddressed. (This claim is talked about extensively in special episode 12 of the Wikipedia Weekly podcast talking about the Essjay incident, but is detailed below.) As March started, the crisis broke and the community was buzzing. After a few days of silence, Essjay responded with a single brief message. Many felt it was not contrite, sounding more like a classic conditional “political apology”: I *am* sorry if anyone in the Wikipedia community has been hurt by my decision to use disinformation to protect myself. […] [...]
March 3rd, 2007 17:15
Doug, As you can see from Comment #5, the third transgression has been posted.
March 4th, 2007 11:45
[...] But after accepting a job at Wikia (a for-profit project of Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley), he told them about his real identity. Essjay is a 24-year-old from Kentucky with perhaps no college degree at all. I don’t want to repeat others, so take a look at the best summary of the whole story: Wikipedia Crisis in 60 Seconds. Here is a The New Yorker article on the subject. [...]
March 5th, 2007 00:24
[...] It gives me no pleasure to relate this, but the saga has come to an conclusion for now: the user Essjay has left Wikipedia and his recent position at Wikia.com. [...]
March 5th, 2007 09:16
[...] Apparently, one of the online encyclopedia’s contributors/ administrators isn’t what he appeared to be. Here’s a blog post that sums up what’s going on. [...]
March 5th, 2007 13:29
[...] Todo esta falsa personalidad se difuminó cuando fue contratado por Wikia, un spin-off de los creadores de la Wikipedia, y admitió que era un joven de 24 años sin ninguna titulación universitaria. La reacción ante esta revelación ha sido múltiple. Es cierto que Essjay ha contribuido muchÃsimas horas de su tiempo a la Wikipedia, primero como contribuidor, y luego como administrador. Es una más de las personas que han hecho grande a la Wikipedia, y mucha gente le sigue admirando y teniendo respecto. Por otra parte, mucha gente se siente también lógicamente traicionada ante actuaciones como la citada anteriormente. Es posible que todo el contenido de la Wikipedia directa o indirectamente debido a él sea perfectamente correcto, pero ahora será posiblemente necesario verificar aquellos artÃculos en los que haya intervenido como moderador, y quizás reabrir algún debate. [...]
March 15th, 2007 00:09
[...] You can read more details of this in Andrew Lih’s blog and follow up post. Andrew is actually a Wikipedian himself who uses the name Fuzheado, a fact he discloses on his blog. Which is the direction that Wikipedia says it will now take – identity disclosure if credentials will be claimed. [...]
September 19th, 2007 13:15
and i don’t know, how to make it bette. Nurit Hailey.
January 5th, 2008 14:45
[...] Update: This is exactly why Wikipedia cannot and should not be trusted in the courts or the law reviews. Fear of the unknown in this instance is fully justified. [...]