Wikipedia Watch: Editor Who Posed As Professor Is Kentucky Dropout
Above Cartoon by Peter Steiner. The New Yorker, July 5, 1993 issue (Vol.69, no. 20) page 61
From today's Courier Journal (Louisville, Kentucky):
He touted himself as a tenured professor with doctorates in theology and canon law.
But the volunteer editor and fact checker for the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia turned out to be a 24-year-old dropout from Centre College and Lexington Community College.
In a long feature last July, The New Yorker described how Ryan Jordan -- identified online and in the magazine article as Essjay -- was renowned for rooting out errors and obscenity from Wikipedia, whose entries are contributed and corrected by readers and volunteer editors.
Last week, however, after Jordan's credentials were exposed as fictitious, the magazine ran a correction -- and yesterday Jordan, who had written or edited about 16,000 entries, resigned.
Wikipedia has said no questions have been raised about the accuracy of his work.
Critics of Wikipedia said the deception was fitting, given the site's history of errors that include reporting that the prime minister of Norway was a pedophile.
Devoted contributors, including Louisville computer programmer Steve Magruder, who has written many entries about the city, said they feared Essjay's deceptions could damage the encyclopedia's credibility. [Rick chuckles..."You think?"]
Another Wikipedian, as they call themselves, denounced Jordan last week on the site, saying: "I hope you understand how you are –––– all over the thousands of people who have made a real effort to turn Wikipedia into a credible source."
Responding on his Wikipedia page, Jordan initially defended his deceptions by saying he had to protect himself from online stalkers. He told The New Yorker he routinely got death threats from people he banned from the site.
Wikipedia's co-founder, Jimmy Wales, also said at first on the site that he had no problem with Jordan's invented persona.
But yesterday, Wales asked for Jordan's resignation.
Read the entire article by Andrew Wolfson.
Ahh... the democratization of knowledge...
You know the issue is not that Jordan is a dropout. There are lots of intelligent, well-educated, successful folks who never finished college (consider Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and many of my friends and family). No, the fact that Jordan is a dropout only adds to the irony that he was impersonating a tenured professor with multiple doctorates. And this adds to the growing concern from myself and others regarding the use of the Wikipedia as a serious source of information (I think it's great for pop-culture references).
And even if Jordan's work was 100% accurate, his subterfuge calls everything he's written/edited on the Wikipedia into question. Someone will have to go behind him to verify his work. He was responsible for cleaning up the nonsense that any bozo can add/edit on the Wikipedia. But you'd think they at least check out the checkers!
I can guarantee this wouldn't happen at Britannica.com...