Wikipedia May Require Proof of Credentials

narramissic writes "According to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, a new policy is currently under discussion by the community of users who regularly write and maintain Wikipedia that would require contributors to the site who claim certain credentials to prove they really have them. The new policy comes after one of Wikipedia's most prolific and respected editors, who went by the pseudonym 'Essjay,' was found not to be the 'tenured professor of theology' he claimed to be but a run-of-the-mill 24 year-old from Kentucky. Said Wales, 'To discover that someone had been deceiving the community for a long time really was a bit of a blow to our trust. Wikipedia is built on the idea of trusting other people and people being honest and we find that in the most part everyone is, so it was a real disappointment.'"

Comments

Re:The part that I'm not really clear on

[idiotnot]

You do realize that it's possible to weave a lie by telling the perfectly-cited truth......

Google for "Noam Chomsky" to get some good examples.

Re:Agreed and....

[Richard Steiner]

Uh, moderators... This story is about the requirement for verifying identification in an online context, and about the difficulty of sometimes doing so.

How is my posting off topic? Wikipedia isn't the only site that has (or will have) this problem...