nathanr|ca

I was going to write something about this (I even had a draft post saved) but other blogs did a much better job.

Link: CORRECTIONS: Wikipedia expert fabricates his own bio – Valleywag
See also:

• Nonbovine Ruminations: Larry Sanger proven right about Wikipedia
• The Chronicle: Wired Campus Blog: Essjay, the Ersatz Academic
• Wikipedia 101: Check your sources | News.blog | CNET News.com
• Bogus Wikipedia Prof. was blessed then promoted | The Register

Last year's long New Yorker article about Wikipedia relied heavily on a Wikipedia contributor and administrator who goes by the handle of "Essjay." He had been recommended to the writer by Wikipedia management, and his bio described him as "a tenured professor of religion at a private university" with "a Ph.D. in theology and a degree in canon law." Unfortunately, it turns out that Essjay is actually 24-year-old Ryan Jordan, a gent who has no advanced degrees and has never taught canon law or anything else.

Jordan has lately been hired by Wikia, the for-profit incarnation of Wikipedia, and continues to hold his Wikipedia administrative positions. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has no problem with any of this, saying he regarded the Essjay persona and bio as a "pseudonym" (he even appointed Essjay/Jordan to Wikipedia's arbitration committee last week). Wales has shown a casual attitude toward altering one's own biography in the past, but this seems a little much. Further revisions may make everything okay, however!

UPDATE: JIMBO SPEAKS

See: this edit on Wikipedia:

I have blanked my entire talk page to make sure this statement gets adequate attention. Hopefully someone more clueful than me can archive things properly.

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. Even now, I have not been able to check diffs, etc.

I have asked EssJay to resign his positions of trust within the community. In terms of the full parameters of what happens next, I advise (as usual) that we take a calm, loving, and reasonable approach. From the moment this whole thing became known, EssJay has been contrite and apologetic. People who characterize him as being "proud" of it or "bragging" are badly mistaken.

On a personal level, EssJay has apologized to me, and I have accepted his apology on a personal level, and I think this is the right thing to do. If anyone else feels that they need or want a personal apology, please ask him for it. And if you find it to be sincere, then I hope you will accept it too, but each person must make their own judgments. Despite my personal forgiveness, I hope that he will accept my resignation request, because forgiveness or not, these positions are not appropriate for him now.

I still have limited net access… for a couple of hours here I will be online, and then I am offline until I am in Japan tomorrow morning. I beleive I will have a fast and stable Internet connection at that time, and I will deal with this further at that time.

Wikipedia is built on (among other things) twin pillars of trust and tolerance. The integrity of the project depends on the core community being passionate about quality and integrity, so that we can trust each other. The harmony of our work depends on human understanding and forgiveness of errors.