Academic Credentials and Wikiality

An anonymous reader writes "A prominent Wikipedia administrator and Wikia employee has been caught lying to the media and 'other' professors about his academic credentials. Wikipedia's Essjay has been representing himself as 'a tenured professor of theology at a private university in the eastern United States; I teach both undergraduate and graduate theology. My Academic Degrees: Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies (B.A.), Master of Arts in Religion (M.A.R.), Doctorate of Philosophy in Theology (Ph.D.), Doctorate in Canon Law (JCD).' His real identity came to light after Wikia offered him a job: It turns out that he is really 24 years old with no degree living in Louisville, KY. Wikipedia's co-founder, Jimbo Wales, says 'I regard it as a pseudonym and I don't really have a problem with it.' How will this affect Wikipedia's already shaky reputation with the academic world?"

Comments

Credentials are over rated... for some fields...

[blahplusplus]

Credentials are great if you need to develop a specific complex skill set for your job and need to think in a certain way using a certain set domains they teach you when you go through the academic obstacle course in the academic system (Set domains as in a set domain in set theory of math, except, vis, not with decimal symbols but with accrued experiential data patterns).

The truth is credentials and experience for many jobs are purely manufactured to keep the economy going, that is the big secret of government schools and market economies. The school-market caste system within certain job classifications. You need to divide people into functionaries in order to maintain society.

Most people who graduated high school with fairly decent marks could easily teach the first 3-4 grades in public school, and hell probably more, with a few 6 month course in teaching, public speaking and presentation, they could teach most of what is taught in public school with the exception of perhaps science.

LMAO

[Sodade]

If the "people that agreed with him" did so just on the basis of his "credentials," then maybe they should question the value people place on education - particularly the Liberal Arts (even moreso for fuzzy crap like religious studies). It's not like he was claiming to be a doctor, biologist or engineer. Now, if the "people that agreed with him" did so on the basis of his convincing arguments, then maybe the guy was smart and learned enough to make convincing arguements. In this case, maybe this proves that "credentials" don't mean as much as the weight that society tends to place on them. Maybe people tend to attribute value to "credentials" if they have some too? Maybe it is a way to validate their own schooling?

Re:Leave him alone!

[Surt]

Liar and extremely effective worker.

Note that the same academia which is complaining about this has already published numerous studies on how lying benefits society, and certification harms society.