User talk:Jimbo Wales/Credential Verification/Archive 4

Where should attestations be kept? (on-topic reboot)

This was a useful design discussion that got sidetracked. Here are the on-topic posts for the subject heading, re-copied from above. Apologies if I missed one. Derex 23:43, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Since the beginning of this discussion, it has been assumed that letters of attestation would be kept on a subpage of the user page for the user whose credentials were in question. This may be a bad idea. It would be easy for a user to add forged letters. The edit history could be tampered with, or the user could create a sockpuppet with a name almost identical to a user with a complex name and use that sockpuppet to enter his forgery. Few would look closely enough at the edit history. to detect this.

I propose that all letters of attestation be kept on the user page of the person who wrote the letter, either in the talk page or in a separate sub page, if this user plans on writing lots of letters. The letter writer would presumably police any unauthorized changes to their page. The user whose credentials are in question would simply point to these letters. --agr 13:09, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I concur, more so because every user sees changes on his page as soon as they occur, which limits the chance of abuse, or we have to create a new type of wiki-bureaucrat, the registrar, who is responsible for keeping and maintaining testates of editors. Alf^Photoman 13:18, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I also agree:

For Users who are using their real identities and have posted attestations (scanned degrees or other documents) on their User Page, a template certifying that his/her true identity has been verified by WP could be put both in his/her user and talk pages.

For anon Users, templates saying that their credentials have been verified by WP (such as the one already proposed above) could be added to both their User pages and talk Pages.Ivygohnair 13:30, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Philosophical debates aside, it does make practical sense, I think, for any evidence, or whatever, to be maintained in the userspace of the "verifier" (who can have the responsibility to monitor it) rather than the "verifiee". Metamagician3000 22:36, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Struck. Changed my mind, see below. Attestations are probably best transcluded off a subpage of the verifier. That way the verifier can easily watchlist them. This seems a bit related to Tbeatty's credentialstar design in that respect. Derex 23:43, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

No one has yet disagreed with this. So, I'll play devil's advocate and say that it makes the whole system a bit complicated. A verifier can always watchlist any evidence page he signs, the only inconvenience being that it will pop up when other people sign the page. Edit-history tampering would require an admin, and we've got much bigger problems than a fake credential if an admin is that dishonest. A close-mimic username is a more serious concern; the only place it would show up is the edit history where I suspect people don't look carefully. However, the solution would be to change that habit; one person could even use a bot to check for that problem on all verification boxes. A verifier with a very small edit count would be the red flag there. Derex 00:56, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Amnesty?

Maybe before we debate any further (sometimes restating the same arguments over and over again) we should really explore the question of people who have fictitious identities with false credentials in WP today. One user did bring this up earlier asking for a two week ban on all credentials, after which people who wish could resubmit verified credentials. Others have asked for rebooting WP user pages. This means that it is possible that a User claiming to be a PhD in the past, may not do so after the rebooting because he or she does not believe in verification, and not neccesarily because he or she lied. I think we have a real problem here which should not be swept under the carpet. The attitude of laxity in WP all these years may have well encouraged fictitious identities and false credentials and we should try to give these folks an honourable way out.Ivygohnair 22:22, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

You're discussing this on the wrong proposal. The idea here isn't that anyone who wishes to state credentials must get them verified. If people don't like verification, then they can just completely ignore this. -Amarkov moo! 22:28, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

This reboot word, after Jimbo uttered it first in this debate, is gaining a lot of momentum. How about rebooting Wikipedia and starting all over again?Dr.K. 22:35, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

LOL Ivygohnair 22:41, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks :) Dr.K. 23:06, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

interesting suggestion, doubt it will catch on though (smirk) Alf^Photoman 23:12, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

That's the idea. ;) Dr.K. 23:38, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I think there's a fairly easy out. First, this is a voluntary system. Second, anyone can simply remove them with the comment that the agree credentials aren't relevant on Wikipedia. Or, simply remove them without comment. I pulled my own many months back, just because I didn't see the point of posting them. Derex 23:47, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I think having a tag or not is an individual choice. Even if one chooses to keep it the way it is now is basically meaningless. For example in the Ph.D. holder category there is a Dr. Frog who claims he/she works out of his/her lilypad. So, like everything in life one has to view these things with a grain or two of salt. I personally keep it because I like the tag and if someone believes it is secondary to me. Dr.K. 01:19, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

A Suggestion

Mr Wales I have a suggestion: For people like me who reveal their true identities on our user pages, is it not possible to just to scan our credentials (I have an Honours degree in History from the University of Malaya and 3 diplomas in French Language and Literature from La Sorbonne) and put them on a sub-user page? This would be easier than going through the above process. Of course this is only for people who are prepared to reveal their actual identities.Ivygohnair 02:11, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

In fact this is probably more reliable that getting the attestation of two separate persons, as anyone can contact the respective universities/institutions for verification.Ivygohnair 02:22, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I think this would be a great idea as long as the copy is high enough resolution to spot Photoshopped fakes. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 03:47, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Do you have some basis for believing that such fakes can be detected in general?--agr 04:50, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

While there is no definite way to detect them and a determined fraudster could spend a few hours making an almost undetectable fake, a high-res fake is easier to spot than a low-res one. If the font used is significantly different, colors may be off, the resolution of the fake name could be higher than the rest of the image, or the name isn't centered right; those are all clues to a fake. Most would be easier to spot in a 800x600 image though than they would be in a 480x600 or less image. Just do a Google Image search for "PhD diploma" and you are sure to find a few. Just put in a new name in Photoshop and Poof! You're now a doctor of parapsychology. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 19:30, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

a doctor mirabilis would be cuter... besides the fact that it has always been faked. Alf^Photoman 19:40, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

That's precisely the point. Fakes can be easily found out by anyone who bothers to contact the institution or university concerned. It's like when Mr Wales suggested somewhere he could fax his Masters Degree in Finance. But there is a problem. Who does he fax it to here? So I have a suggestion: fax it to your User sub-page! lol! (I am taking a mini wiki-break for my croissant and cuppa). A bientôt!Ivygohnair 08:22, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

It's not so simple to verify a fake. In the U.S. many schools do not give out more information than the fact that a person with a p;articular name was awarded a certain degree. Then there are schools that are defunct. An annon editor can adopt someone elses name. There are editors who got their degrees 50 years ago.

Please provide a high quality copy. I would like to print out a copy and modify it with ink then rescan it so I too may have a high quality hard copy to prove what I wish to prove. WAS 4.250 06:41, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Good morning, yawn, it's 9.12 am in Paris. I did burn the mid-nite oil a bit. Let me have my copi-oh (Singaporean for cuppa) and then I will get back to you after scanning, I presume on your user-page I can find an email link.Ivygohnair 08:15, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

When they put up their diploma, you have to assume it's real even if it's photoshopped. Otherwise you're breaking Wikipedia:Assume good faith. 19:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Compelling reasons required?

Currently, the proposal states that verfication may be requested only given a compelling reason. I changed that to an admonishment to politely explain your reasons for the request and to AGF if denied. However, it has been reinserted. The example of a compelling reason is a newspaper interview. That is surely such a rare event as to make this exercise essentially pointless. Further, I think there is an inherent compelling reason with real-name users, simply to prevent impersonation which would surely be very upsetting to the impersonated. Moreover, concerns of pestering seem out of place, as a user who declines could simply leave a notice by the credential stating that he doesn't want to participate for whatever reason. In short, having a voluntary system is a good thing, but having a system which forbids anyone to ask without a "compelling" reason seems overkill. It also seems pointless unless we plan to enumerate completely what reasons are compelling, because otherwise it boils down to having a reason that seems good to the person asking. Well, they wouldn't ask otherwise, would they? Derex 02:09, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh no let's not start with impersonations. This will balloon this debate beyond recognition. Am I to assume that as long as someone uses their real name there will be automatic enquiries for further verification? This will place an additional burden on an already burdened subset of the wiki population i.e. the real name degree holders. Dr.K. 02:28, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I read that as meaning the possibility of an Emilia Brown seeing someone else calling herself Emilia Brown, panicking and wanting to know if she is being impersonated, or if they simply share the same name. But maybe I read incorrectly. — Armed Blowfish (talk|mail) 02:36, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm actually talking about an Emilia Brown who uniquely identifies herself by reference to credentials/employment. What's the burden? Someone might write you at the email you asking are you so & so on Wikipedia. You type "yes" and hit return. Person jots it down on the evidence page; end of story. Three key strokes and two mouse clicks. No need for it to happen more than once. We already do this for celebrities. At any rate, I'm not suggesting that this become policy; I'm saying that if someone has a reasonable concern of impersonation (if only to them) then that's a fairly compelling reason given the extremely low cost of typing "yes" on an email. In short, there are lots of valid reasons besides newspaper interviews and do we really want to get into enumerating which are acceptable? Derex 02:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe just "compelling reason" and leave it at that. But note that everything we agree is a "compelling reason" degrades AGF. Also, would anyone besides Emilia Brown be terribly concerned about this? A licensed journalist might choose "Emilia Brown" as a pen name, and I do not know of any famous Emilia Browns the journalist would be trying to steal credibility from. — Armed Blowfish (talk|mail) 02:56, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

How many students have you failed? In my experience, some take it very badly. I could definitely see someone register as their prof and make him look like a total jackass. Ex-husbands/wives are known to be a bit irrational and vindictive as well. At any rate, my concern isn't about stealing credibility, it's about defamation. The concern isn't a valid one for people making constructive edits and getting along on talk pages. It was just an example that, yes, there may be other valid reasons than newspaper interviews. Derex 03:01, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. How about giving an example of something that isn't a compelling reason, rather than something that is? See this change. — Armed Blowfish (talk|mail) 03:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC), 03:10, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

The possibility of impersonation is a good point. If you are just interested in writing articles, however, it does not matter if the person has credentials. You should ask them to provide sources for the information in the article, not for their credentials.

Overall, it seems to me that this proposal encourages distrust. So, in my opinion, AGF should be reiterated more to help counteract this.

— Armed Blowfish (talk|mail) 02:33, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

That was a fast reply! Here comes the second part: Anyway for the other part of the question I don't see why using the term compelling is such an impediment to enquiry. If the questioner feels the issue is compelling he/she will act. By using the word we create a threshold to indicate that for casual enquiries please do not disturb. Reasonable people know what casual is. I don't see why I would have to bear the burden of putting signs on my page warning people when to talk to me. That's why we develop policy. The policy takes care of these things if carefully crafted. Dr.K. 02:42, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

It already asks people to provide a reason, surely that suggests they should have one? I'd prefer to see it state don't pester people who have declined to participate than to raise a 'compelling' barrier, particularly with such a very rare example. If it's not a barrier, then why state it? I don't think it's much of a burden to type "This user chooses not to participate in credential verification" on the evidence page. Derex 02:57, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Fine, if the word compelling seems forbidding please substitute good or some other suitable term and please feel free to scrap the example. I like the do not pester idea actually. Anyway the point is that we should make it reasonably clear that a question such as Hi there, I'm curious, is this a real degree? should rather be discouraged. I leave it up to your judgement. Thanks for the opportunity to clarify this. Dr.K. 03:05, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I like Blowfish's general idea of giving a non-compelling example. But, I think it should be left at have a good reason, and casual curiousity isn't one. If someone repeatedly inserts unverified incorrect information into an article (that is repeatedly verifiably proven wrong), then that's quite a reasonable grounds for asking. AGF does not mean suspend all critical faculties. Derex 03:15, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree completely. Great discussion. Thanks: Derex and Blowfish. Dr.K. 03:26, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

In that case, I would just wave WP:V or WP:ATT around on a big blue flag and ignore the credentials. Asking for verification of the credentials might escalate the dispute. — Armed Blowfish (talk|mail) 03:45, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't have to be a dispute, and credentials are never a substitute for core policies. You might have some 6th grader basically playing games, not meaning any real harm. Part of Jimbo's rationale for this is that it good advertising to show that we do have some expert editors. So, I don't see any harm in asking an editor if reasonable doubts are raised. Derex 04:35, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Erm, I disagree with Jimbo. Encouraging this could increase systemic bias against people in developing countries, poor people, etc. One third of births in the world are undocumented (no birth certificates), according to UNICEF. Anyway, have expressed my viewpoint on that before, and this is still going through, so... oh well. — Armed Blowfish (talk|mail) 04:53, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Bon Jour!(just had my cuppa) :-)Actually Blowfish, people in third world countries who even have access to a computer and more importantly, are able to be editors of WP are already in the educated elite class and would be more likely to have degrees and PhD than the user population from USA (for instance) which tends to be heavily slanted towards the under 20s.Ivygohnair 09:41, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Good point. And there are plenty of highly educated people in those countries. I have 3 doctoral students right now (at an Australian uni), and they are from Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia respectively. Education is Australia's fourth largest export industry.[1] In my previous job at an American university, over half the doctoral students were from developing countries. Derex 10:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

And contrary to what is widely believed, not all want to stick in the West, many choose to go back to the their home countries out of patriotism.Ivygohnair 10:22, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

a small tuppence worth......

i've wandered in here from some rather confusing / worrying discussions that i was taking a look at, and thought i'd comment....

Unfortunately I believe the premise of this discussion is on very rocky ground. Credential verification is not something we should be striving towards.

People here edit as personas, and that's either ok or its not - most here clearly think it is ok...

Given that, from a certan perspective Essjay really didn't do anything wrong - his persona worked very hard for wikipedia - it was just his own confusion between his person and persona that caused the problem (ie. the mistake was allowing the fib to spill into the real world - on-wiki it really didn't matter...) - I wasn't surprised or upset by Essjay's fibbing, but was confused when he failed to see the distinction between wiki and real life... I particularly can't blame Essjay for his on-wiki behaviour when it was so thoroughly endorsed by people he proudly claimed to idolise, and I was pretty shocked at the general volte-face from the community which to this day seems confused and conflicted about what exactly Essjay did wrong.

As long as psuedonymous personas are allowed / encouraged around here then Credential verification is neither a laudable nor achievable goal.

best to all, Petesmiles 07:55, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

For a start, he lied for gain (not a white lie) and in my book that is wrong, maybe I am oldfashioned.Ivygohnair 09:49, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

As long as psuedonymous personas are allowed / encouraged around here then Credential verification is neither a laudable nor achievable goal. Here I am totally in agreement with you Peter, chirpyIvygohnair 09:51, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Correction, sorry: Change that to "pseudonymous personas with FAKE credentials"Ivygohnair 09:56, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Another mistake was to allow the fib to spill into content edits. If you falsely claim you are a doctor and professor of theology and canon law, and you edit on topics in those fields while referring to your false expertise, that is a problem. However, this proposal is broader than the Essjay affair, which is just the catalyst for hopefully constructive change. At this point, we are trying to construct the best verification system possible. Understandably, many are cautious. However, if experience proves the idea to be counter-productive, verification can always be deprecated. Cheers, Derex 08:28, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

The distinctions here are valid. The "lie for gain" changes the moral evaluation, but it doesn't change the functional value of the persona Essjay. In other words, we as people and as users condemn him the more for it, and certainly I do, too. The question is whether Wikipedia was ever designed or has ever been capable of dealing with such immorality. I would agree with Petersmiles that it isn't. It's not that we don't want to, but the tension between "anyone can edit" and "reliable" breaks out all over the place. I would rather say that the culpability of the liar for gain is shared by the gullibility of those who believed the claims, and that credulity is mitigated by the fact that a lot of people want desperately for us to have reliable personalities, reliable credentials, reliable experts. Well...why? Why do we want them? Why do we want them when the project is founded on the assumptions of the Cathedral and the Bazaar (or works that way, anyway)? The idea of the open source world was that an aggregation of nobodies would surpass the capital-driven somebody.

Don't get me wrong: there are all sorts of reasons that the marketplace paradigm doesn't truly work at Wikipedia. (It doesn't, you know.) Wikipedia works nonetheless, but not that way. However, we really can't start looking for the exalted Somebody or exalting one of our nobodies to majiscule status. Geogre 10:41, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

The Wikipedia conundrum

I think that we are in the middle of a made in Wikipedia puzzle. If we have to distill the essence of this debate into a single question, that question would be: How to formalise the informal? You see since the inception of Wikipedia, Wikipedians were rather informal in their exchanges with each other. They set up their user pages and informed their colleagues with various methods, including userboxes, about who they were, what they liked etc. To cut to the chase, now all of a sudden these essentially private messages conveyed through the userboxes are under scrutiny. Especially the degree related userboxes are under the closest examination. The question therefore arises: What are the limits of informal discourse in Wikipedia? To the orthodoxy here, this question is almost blasphemous, the notion being that everything is project space and nothing is left for user self expression. But if that's the case noone can dare express any personal likes or dislikes without the fear of being castigated that project space is being wasted on personal matters. What does it matter to the project that I like beagles? Wasted bandwidth you say? Pity. The same goes for the much maligned degree userboxes. If I am allowed a modicum of freedom inside Wikipedia I would like when I logon to see a few personal artifacts that mean something to me. If not I erase everything and copy and paste Wikipedia's main page on my userpage and that's the end of the debate. If I am allowed to use a small space that I call my userpage then if and only if I advertise my qualifications to the newspapers and I project them on Wikipedia mainspace I crossed the threshold from informal to formal. Conclusion: This proposal should concentrate on two things: Define what is formal and what is informal. And regulate the trespassers. Dr.K. 16:18, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

My addition to AGF does this. It tells the press, do not assume any Wikipedian's claims of credentials are true. The onus is on YOU to determine their truth or falsehood. C.m.jones 17:30, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Your addition addresses one part of the problem, but it normally shouldn't have been necessary, if the status of the user page were to be clarified. I think we should go one step further and define formal and informal spaces in Wikipedia and the limits of self expression through user pages. Only when these areas are clearly defined and delineated would we be able to project a coherent and unambiguous message to the world. It should also be made clear that no acrobats will be tolerated between the two domains of Formal and Informal in terms of degree claims. You wish to project your credentials to the outside world in any way? Welcome to Formal. Please wait to be verified and You only wish to see your virtual furniture when you logon, without ever venturing out? Welcome to Informal. No further action necessary. But Formal and Informal domains must be defined in policy. Dr.K. 18:14, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I see where you're coming from, and this does make a fair amount of sense. However, I do have some concerns. Essjay had written on his user page that he was a doctor and professor of theology and canon law. He then edited related pages extensively. Suppose he had never explicitly mentioned his background in article space. Would it then be reasonable to treat his user page claims as innocuous? I think not, though they might have been somewhat less problematic. One aim of this proposal is to demonstrate to the general public that there is some expertise underlying these articles. The general public isn't going to make any distinction at all about where the claim of expertise is made. Further, I don't think it's very likely that editors here will make the distinction either. If you want to be a doctor and lawyer on your user page, but only edit articles on unrelated topics that's absolutely fine by me regardless of whether your persona is true. However, if you start editing on legal aspects of clinical trials, or you otherwise implicitly carry that persona off your user page, then we have a problem. Derex 22:25, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

A lot of thoughtful comments. I think that if we make it clear that user pages are informal, people will, eventually, see them as such. By explicitly mentioning in the policy that self expression is allowed and that claims made in user pages are informal this will catch on. In addition by reinforcing export control of such claims in the policy we further strengthen this distinction. So you can claim Doctor of Theology degrees and so on all you want but the policy makes it clear that these are informal claims. Now the implicit use is an interesting new idea. However it can be approached as follows: If the edits are nonsense they can be treated as an implicit export of credentials and the credential verification mechanism can be invoked. On the other hand if competent then: AGF. Dr.K. 22:51, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

That also raises the possibility of an incompetent expert. Someone out of their field for some time that peddles obsolete ideas. Degree verification in such a case doesn't really work. Therefore we have singularities in the policy that have to be mitigated by common sense and practical experience gained from policy implementation. Dr.K. 23:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Whether we want to admit it or not, whatever claims we put on our user pages does have influence on the perception of us by other editors, and whether we want to admit it or not,this matters in article space as I explained earlier using User Makema as an example. This applies even if the "expert" edits outside his field of expertise. Do you honestly believe that a editor with a PhD will be looked upon and treated the same as a John Doe by others. It is like the example of the Salesgirl facing a guy in a suit and a homeless guy that I provided earlier. You can have a hundred rulings shouting out that credentials should not matter but human nature is human nature.Ivygohnair 23:14, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Human nature adapts to new ideas. If we delineate what is Formal and what is Informal and put it in policy, things will evolve. Evolution however by definition does not happen overnight. Dr.K. 23:26, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Changing or creating policy is a very difficult matter; witness the current furor over at WP:ATT. You can see the difficulty we're having even with a proposal that fits entirely within existing policy. Derex 23:35, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Indeed it is a difficult process. New policies especially have to be rationalized clearly, just to have a fighting chance for survival. Dr.K. 23:43, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Barriers to getting started

As I see it, seven things need to happen before this proposal is operational.

1. Consensus on #Trusting verifiers, and recruitment of a few trusted verifiers if appropriate.
2. Consensus on #Where should attestations be kept? (on-topic reboot)
3. A written statement on credential scans, per Ivy. done
4. A user box adaptation design, probably a small modification of existing ones.
5. A brief statement near the top of the proposal of why both credentials and verification may be helpful. Ideally, this should come from Jimbo, as it is plainly controversial.
6. A thorough copy-edit of the proposal, so it reads like a finalized document.
7. Endorsement by Jimbo, and his statement of encouragement to participate. I think he's likely going to have to give this the starting nudge once it's ready to go.

Am I missing any key elements, particularly important design elements that don't yet have consensus? Derex 06:38, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Just make sure that the methods used are illustrative, not exhaustive. There may be methods we haven't thought of. As long as they produce strong evidence that's fine.

I think the question of when/how far/in what circumstances we can trust verifiers of anonymous users is the big question. Pain in the arse though it might be for him, Jimbo might have to select some people - people he trusts and has vetted in some way - in the first instance. That's assuming it is unacceptable to the community (or to him) simply to rely on established users. If there were a consensus on this, the rest would fall into place, IMHO. But it might not be possible to have a consensus without Jimbo being part of it. He's the one who has to be able to say in public that we have a system that he believes adequately reliable. Metamagician3000 07:38, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it might be better to say "pain in the behind", Metamagician3000 :-)Ivygohnair 09:45, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree completely, and that's why the trust issue is listed first. It's the one key issue that's difficult to call consensus if Jimbo's not explicitly on board. You following this debate, Jimbo? Derex 08:16, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

A couple more things which could be key elements –

Consultation with those most affected – preferably after an initial copyedit, it would be good to circulate a brief note to the talk pages of those in Category:Wikipedians with PhD degrees mentioning the proposals with a link to the credentials "verification" draft page, and an invitation to comment or suggest improvements.

Another point before it goes into full use would be the design of a standard format for attestation pages – I'd suggest a standard infobox which would again emphasise the limited use of credentials and the priority of WP:ATT and WP:NPOV, give a disclaimer about info given in good faith but not to be relied on beyond limited purposes of Wikipedia, and automatically add a category. It might be worth having the page protected, so that it can only be edited by or with the agreement of an admin. The talk page could allow comments or objections to the claim of credentials to be raised. .. dave souza, talk 10:19, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Thinking about Dave's suggestion of an invitation to comment, I think item 5 is becoming important. My interpretation of this proposal is that it's really intended to be beneficial to actual experts as well as Wikipedia as a whole. However, it might seem a bit hostile to someone who didn't know the context. In other words, a word of appreciation as well as explanation to experts before demanding their papers might soften it a bit. Jimbo's said some of the right buzzwords (openess, transparency, trust) but I gather he's not planning to actively participate further in writing this. Derex 12:05, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Addition to Assume Good Faith - WP:AGF

In all cases where a Wikipedian claims credentials, they should be assumed to be only claims until they have been verified by reliable third-party sources.

The above, a slightly different version of User:C.m.jones/Claimed_credentials_of_Wikipedians, has been added to AGF. As far as I am concerned, based upon what there in fact is community-wide consensus for, this matter is closed. C.m.jones 16:14, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I have no quarrel with this draft per se: In all cases where a Wikipedian claims credentials, they should be assumed to be only claims. Wikipedians and the general public should place no credence or weight to such claims until they have been verified by reliable third-party sources. Except to say that when the verification process(es) has been agreed upon, ie verification process for anon users and non-anon users (which is still being discussed), this should be summarised and added to the policy statement.Ivygohnair 16:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

There never will be what you suppose. Anonymous verification of anonymous users is a house of cards, a pure show lacking substance, and Wikipedia will probably need to pay real-life people to verify anonymous users otherwise. If you are a real-life person, you can verify your claims as you have done yourself, by posting your degrees and so forth. I am telling you, you will never gain consensus beyond the statement I have added to AGF. C.m.jones 17:28, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

It's probably worth pointing out that AGF is an internal policy, designed to govern the interactions of Wikipedia editors amongst themselves. I hope we are not asking our readers to accept AGF. Which raises the question to whom this verification proposal is addressed? Fellow editors or our readers? I've been asking for a problem statement and this is one aspect that should be included.--agr 19:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Fine, little technicalities are easy to overcome. We create a new policy called WP:User credentials whose audience is everyone. All it says is In all cases where a Wikipedian claims credentials anywhere on the wiki, they should be assumed to be only claims. Wikipedians and the general public should place no credence or weight to such claims unless they have been verified by reliable third-party sources. Simple, cut-and-dry, and possible. I have yet to hear anyone DISAGREE with this simple proposal. Some say it does not go far enough, which may be true, but they are swimming upstream against consensus and fighting for something unrealistic. I mean, look at the archives of this Jimbo proposal. MANY more people were chiming in and nearly all of it was negative. Now, most have moved on to things they care more about in the classic ho-hum, and what is left are at most two dozen people chiming in, with still no consensus in sight. I say we get what we can now and address any future concerns at a later time. Here is where consensus on at least something can be reaached, and probably very quickly: User:C.m.jones/Claimed_credentials_of_Wikipedians - C.m.jones 19:58, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

You will get no consensus from me on it; I DISAGREE. Your continue to argue against a system of anon verifying anon, which is a defensible position. However, one of the proposals is to have real verifying anon. So, you are criticizing only one possible incarnation of the system, yet condemning the whole. Jimbo has asked, see top quote, that we use this page to design a good verification system. If you think that's impossible, fine, but please don't keep trying to abort discussion among others by insisting that success is impossible and consensus unachievable. Derex 21:23, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we should avoid negativism in discussions and words like "never", "impossible" and "unsurmountable difficulties" are pretty negative IMHO.Ivygohnair 22:28, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I object to this addition. It's essentially "as far as credentials are concerned, assume bad faith." It seems to me reasonable for most of us here to assume that credentials are legitimate until proven otherwise, at least as far as dealing with the content of articles is concerned. Verification of credentials would be nice if it can be attained, voluntary or not (I personally would pick voluntary), but all of the various proposals to disregard credentials entirely (and that's what this is) are objectionable because they encourage a climate of hostility and contentiousness. If we really mean "assume good faith", that has to include taking credentials at face value unless proven otherwise. Mangoe 21:38, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

The negativity does become a bit tiresome after a while. We all understsnd the problem that someone could create an elaborate hoax involving collusion or sockpuppetry. That was obvious from the start. Metamagician3000 07:35, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

apologies if someone has already done this.....

...but having thought about it conceptually and decided this was not really going to work, i thought i'd take a look on the ground and see what practical issues might be there..... i had a good look round and couldn't find many users claiming any credentials - and if they were it was in a conversational sort of way - certainly not in a professional resume kind of a way

are we sure that this is any kind of issue at all?

can anyone find some examples of any editors 'claiming' credentials in such a way that verification might be a good idea?

....also i'd note how focused this discussion is, we seem to have occupied a little corner of the wiki and are talking pretty much to ourselves, the ideas expressed seem to be finding it hard to take root in the community as a whole. Anyways - have a nice day all.... Petesmiles 00:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

FWIW (and it may not be completely responsive to your point), a lot do seem to have Ph.Ds when you go here. Metamagician3000 01:37, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Some users have alleged degrees or degree status as a club to beat up other people, but they're sort of rare. What you tend to get more of is user page stuff like, "I work at NOAA in their hurricane forecasting unit" or "I am MemberofMinorityGroup and have expertise on it/them." It's more alarming when those people get elevated for these claims than when people make such claims, IMO. (Me? I'm a giant who lives in the wasteland and tricks Thor. I am an expert on Frost Giants.) Utgard Loki 12:51, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Important real world claims on user pages should be sourced or deleted

See User:Asucena which says "I am an official of the Palestinian authority and a member of Hamas' political public relations division". WAS 4.250 07:34, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Real world user names are prohibited without evidence the person is the same as a real world user name (eg User:Samantha Fox). WAS 4.250 07:34, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Is that a proposed change or a quote of existing policy? Derex 07:54, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I am proposing "Important real world claims on user pages should be sourced or deleted" as a guideline or policy. WAS 4.250 08:15, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

"Famous living real world user names are prohibited without evidence the person is the same as the real world user name" is existing policy/guideline in that users with such names are blocked until they provide evidence that they are that person. WAS 4.250 08:15, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I've seen that in action. It makes some sense, and I think there are legitimate concerns about impersonation in general (as does DrK, clearly). Which guideline covers that? Derex 08:29, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

As I was saying before, can't we just slightly extend that rather than vainly trying to reach consensus over all this high-and-lofty stuff that has not a snowball's chance in hell. Can't we just quit it and be realistic? Here, let's try again to reach consensus over a very simple new policy, nothing more than an slight expansion to the above: Real-world_claims - C.m.jones 08:18, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I actually haven't seen a single person state a cogent objection to the idea of known reals verifying anons, except those who oppose all verification on principle. So, I don't know why consensus for some general verification scheme seems like such an impossibility. Derex 08:25, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Expert status

This edit [2] introduces the concept that "If claims are not exported from the user page the "expert" forfeits his/her "expert status" outside their user page, therefore they will be treated, and if needed reverted, like any other user which seems to me to go entirely against the concerns expressed here, introducing a privileged class of users with "expert status". The section seemed to be moving towards this position, so I've tried to clarify the desired approach by changing that statement to " Any edits or comments you make will stand or fall on their attribution and neutral point of view, not on your claim to credentials, though editors with degree credentials will be likely to have the advantages of training and access to sources. If you do mention your position or credentials in discussions, others can request verification of the relevant credentials." and making the requests for verification a second paragraph. .. dave souza, talk 18:17, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I should have put self declared expert status (In their user page/informal world). What a mess! Nice solution though. Dr.K. 18:25, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, glad that seems to have expressed what you were aiming at. ... dave souza, talk 18:32, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Confidential database of credentials?

I have an idea: Verify the credentials of some users and store the information in a confidential database. The information would be used to generate statistics, to be announced publicly, such as "X percent of the edits to Science-category articles last year were by users identified as having at least one university degree." Users would not be able to post verification of their status by this system on their user page. Advantages: Maintain equality of editors; Minimize any liability or other problems if errors occur in the verification; Reduce the incentive of users to exaggerate their credentials in this system. --Coppertwig 22:19, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Hm ... also viable, but it still does not solve our main problem, the homemade credentials. Alf^Photoman 23:24, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Difference between white lies that are acceptable

and lies for gain which are unacceptable.

If my adolescent daughter came up to me and asked "mummy are my thighs fat", I would not hesitate a moment to lie and say, "no honey they are perfect", even if she is a bit chubby because I already know she is going through so much adolescent angst. This in my opinion, is an acceptable lie. Similiarly, someone putting in his user page that he is a frog doctor with an MD from Timbucktoo, or that he is ready for the loony bin or on the verge of a total nervous breakdown (funnily, the latter is quite common in WP user pages, I wonder why, Hmmm). This is also acceptable and may be even welcomed because it might be funny.

However what Essjay did, as so eloquently elaborated by Derek in his last post, is not acceptable. I think this is the right time for WP to take advantage of the latest scandal to clean up the house. chirpyIvygohnair 10:15, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Your phrase "take advantage of the latest scandal to clean up the house" captures what I and, I suspect, many others find so alarming about this effort. There isn't general agreement that the house is dirty or in what way, and my fear is that we will implement ideas in reaction to a "scandal" that would not stand if presented on their own merits. For starters, I'd like to see a clear statement of exactly what problem it is we are trying to solve.--agr 12:37, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

The PROBLEM is there may be a lot of Users, (including admins and higher ups) in WP lying about there credentials for gain. This has probably been going on for years and Mr Wales brought up verification of credentials two years ago probably because he saw that this was a problem then. So this is NOT a new thing. The Essjay scandal blew this whole thing up(it was probably a scandal waiting to blow) and now we have a credibility problem not only within the community but also vis-a-vis the whole world. I need not even bring up the moral argument here. I think that the reputation of a site like WP is very important, for as one well-known critic of WP once brought up, "when masses of people, editors as well as readers, get turned off WP, it will just dissolve into a mess of nothing" (not his exact words but the jist of it). You may choose to adopt Pangloss' attitude in Candide but there are those among us who will nevertheless try to do otherwise because I suppose we do believe that WP is worth it.Ivygohnair 13:20, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

For gain? What gain is anyone getting? If there is payment to be had, a lot of us would like some, but I think no one gets paid (or almost no one). Geogre is right: this is Open Source, and the mistake was ever claiming we had someone with credentials, not having someone who lied about them. We excel more when we have real experts who deny their credentials than we do when we have people wheedling and scraping to people asserting credentials they do or do not have. Have you never known an idiot with a degree? I live in a college town, and I know a ton of people whose academic degrees are as meaningful as the degrees on a thermometer -- they're just stripes. On the other hand, if we proudly say to the world, "We are legion, and we are no one, and yet we produce a high quality encyclopedia, while you are few and esteemed and produce little quantity and no better quality," we really make a statement about the world that Pangloss wouldn't have dreamed and that Voltaire wouldn't have believed. Utgard Loki 12:46, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we may well "save" WP... and find we do not like it as we did. LessHeard vanU 14:01, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Yep, it's nice to be able to consider WP as our own "playground" with our well established cliques and "amis" to protect and bolster us, but all good things must come to an end (sometimes), sigh!Ivygohnair 14:35, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

and as the guy who does not mind to wear a helmet and likes the evident truth: they were not so good ... we always have to remember what we are trying to do here. This is not my space or our personal website. If people don't trust us this whole exercise is pointless. Alf^Photoman 14:49, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

But weep not my friends, let us march into the future with courage and follow Candide's final advice: "Il faut cultiver notre jardin" ("It is necessary to cultivate our garden"):-).Ivygohnair 14:46, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

This sounds like eugenics. Dr.K. 14:57, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

LOLIvygohnair 15:22, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Ivygohnair, please read about the Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. Please edit this page if you have something substantive to say. If all you have to say is "LOL", that is not appropriate to this talk page, and it wastes the time of the editors who are trying to follow a policy debate and are getting blather instead. Mak (talk) 15:26, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry Mak, I promise to restrain myself from now on.Ivygohnair 16:41, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Lighten up, Makemi. WAS 4.250 15:31, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Self expression should be encouraged, if nothing else it helps the conversation flow. Dr.K. 15:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

To get back to the subject, Wikipedia editors are not paid for their work and most are anonymous so there is little professional advantage in what they do, so it's hard to see where "lying for gain" enters here. Am I missing something?--agr 15:52, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

People are motivated by more than money, which is why we all edit here, so gain does not have to be lucre. Derex 02:57, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

"Lying for gain" hasn't made it into the proposal, so I don't want to spend more time on it. I think we need to be careful about the language we use and avoid inflammatory phrases as much as possible.--agr 03:27, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Can we add WP:IAC to the straw poll?

Another related policy proposal, Wikipedia:Ignore all credentials, has appeared. We seem to be developing the same kind of impasse there which has appeared on some of the other proposals, but it would be nice to formalize this with a vote. Mangoe 21:26, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

voting is evil

Especially at this stage when discussion of verification process is not finished. Remember WP is not an exercise on democracy. So I don't think we should waste our time.Ivygohnair 22:04, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

If you will read WP:IAC, you'll see that it is about editor behavior and doesn't address verification directly, except to imply that there's no point to doing it. I'm not suggesting a vote because I think the majority should prevail, but rather to get a sense of how much disagreement there is over the issue. Mangoe 15:12, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Why are we opposing this proposal so vehemently?

Is it out of fear or just stubbornness and the knee-jerk reaction against any proposal that tries to improve WP? The proposal being explored as it stands should not cause much disruption and should not threaten anyone, as I understand that it will be a gradual voluntary process for anon and non-anon users to verify their credentials. (Correct me if I am wrong). Users are not obliged to verify their credentials if they don't want to (so no witch hunt). But the objective is surely to have a gradual process (if the proposal is workable) towards a more transparent and "honest" WP. As the new procedures, kick in and are seen to be working, more users will be encouraged to go for verification and less users be encouraged to lie about their expertise (especially new users).

The other side of the coin?: If we reject this proposal, what are the consequences?

Firstly, we will be sending a message to the world at large (which no doubt is scrutinizing us very closely, possibly this very debate) that we will continue to tolerate and even encourage false expert credentials in WP. I don't think a NYT journalist is going to bother about the fine distinction between User and Article space.

Secondly, what message will we be sending to our own WP community? That we can claim false credentials on our user pages? Will this not serve as an encouragement for this practice to be more and more widespread in time as new users feel they can put any credentials they want on their user page with impunity? Don't forget that Essjay was first outed by Daniel Brandt who will no doubt have a field day tracking down prominent users with false credentials and it may not be long before another Essjay-type scandal explodes.Ivygohnair 09:49, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Point of order: While Daniel Brandt played a substantial role in getting the word out about Essjay's fraud, Essjay outed *HIMSELF*. To wit, after Essjay accepted a paid position with Wikia, his Wikia User page persona morphed from a 30 something tenured professor to a 20 something poser with no credentials. This fact was brought to Brandt's attention in a thread that Brandt had started months earlier at the Wikipedia Review. Brandt then brought these facts to the attention of The New Yorker, and shortly thereafter the shit really hit the fan. Meanwhile, various Wikipedians visited Essjay's Wikipedia User page to ask why his Wikia and Wikipedia profile did not match.

In the final analysis, what made Essjay's fraud so newsworthy was the fact that Jimbo originally dismissed it as being not that big of a deal. Given that I am inclined to ignore all credentials, I can easily understand why it took Jimbo so long to recognize Essjay's fraud as being a serious matter. What I can't understand is how "voluntary" credential verification will make Jimbo any less negligent when it comes to due diligence. To wit, even after Essjay "voluntarily" disclosed his fraudulent credentials to Jimbo, Jimbo hired Essjay as a paid Wikia employee and appointed Essjay to ArbCom. Consequently, I find it rather insulting to my intelligence that "voluntary" credential verification is repeatedly being offered up as an illusory solution to Jimbo's negligence. // Internet Esquire 15:32, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

The version we have at the moment is not very radical - there does not need to be any real policy change. Obviously the more it is given support by people who carry some weight here, the more it will be taken seriously. For what it's worth, I am happy with the version as of this moment and see no need for further changes. There will doubtless be some, I just want to record that we now have a draft that I am prepared to consider "complete" and could live with in this form. Metamagician3000 09:54, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

If one of the main tests is whether it would help avoid another Essjay scandal I think this version fails in that it places no additional pressure on very highly placed Wikipedians to "verify". It would, however, have made it more difficult for him to use credentials in edit disputes. It might be enough but i would still like to see some kind of clause that encourages Bureaucrat, CheckUser, Oversight member, or Arbitration Committee member to verify claims on their userpage. I think those two things together would stop would-be Essjays before they even started.MikeURL 13:55, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes I think if we continue to doggedly "cludge" on with this, we might reach consensus yet despite the nay sayers :-)Ivygohnair 10:01, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

"knee-jerk reaction against any proposal that tries to improve WP": That's a fine way of insulting all the contributors to this discussion who have argued that the proposal, even if voluntary, can be actively harmful to Wikipedia for reasons that I need not repeat here. Of course, none of us can predict the future, so only history can tell who was right (it is also possible that there won't be a noticeable difference either way). --Itub 10:14, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, no insult meant, so please don't take it as such.Ivygohnair 10:32, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Few here have managed to be unfailingly polite, though it is to be strived for. It's been frustrating for some that discussions of how to do this best repeatedly turn into discussions of why not to do it. It's been frustrating for others that a change is underway that they feel is detrimental. Best to let the small stuff slide all around. Derex 10:22, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

In my case I think that it undermines my understanding of the principles of Wikipedia ("The Encyclopedia That Anyone Can Edit") in that it constrains WP:Good faith and addresses only a small part of the Community whilst possibly alienating a larger part. However I think that a credential verification system should be implemented, because that is the only way we are going to find out! If it works and I am wrong then fantastic; if it goes wrong then I will help in trying to get the genie back into the bottle. I realise that there is a fair amount of imputus from "up top" so it is a good idea to get the best system we can and test it in the field. After that it can be reviewed, improved or scrapped as appropriate. It will need the views of the anti faction if it is going to be vigorously tested. LessHeard vanU 14:11, 22 March 2007 (UTC) ps. What if the Emperor isn't wearing any clothes? It is possible.

out of fear or just stubbornness.

Nothing like framing your question in such a way as to alienate everyone who disagrees with you. It's on a par with have you stopped beating your wife. Did it occur that people might have entirely legitimate reasons for objecting?

knee-jerk reaction against any proposal that tries to improve WP

There is an explicit assumption that this proposal inherently improves WP. I would contend that the point has not been demonstrated, and a number of people have indicated ways in which it harms WP in the wider sense. It would be helpful to frame the question in a less judgemental way.

Anyway, to the point of the question. Why do I object to this proposal?

• The requirement has yet to be demonstrated, in fact Jimbo has as yet been unwilling to articulate anything firm. We're being given bland platitudes that it will be a good thing with no corresponding metric to validate that assertion.
• Straightforward rules creep. I prefer to minimise rule sets where possible, and unrequired rules which don't add any real value clutter the operational conduct, in this case in developing a corpus of knowledge.
• There is no strategy related to the impact of this proposal on the other policies and guidelines within WP, there is also a degree of naivety being demonstrated, failing to recognise that if this is implemented in policy it will start to influence others.
• It's not extensible. Everyone is focussing on PhDs which is all very well in a limited subset of areas, it makes no recognition of any other characteristics which may be useful where people have real world knowledge and experience. As an example, I'm a Management Consultant and I'd be unwilling to associate my firm with my activities here. However it does give me considerable experience and understanding of organisational change, knowledge management and collaborative technologies.
• Implementing cconcepts and policies as a trial rarely results in them being withdrawn if they're demonstrably not useful. There is a tendency to continue to try to make them work, leading to continued confusion and wasted effort. I'm reluctant to agree to an implementation on the basis of seeing how it goes.

I hope I've demonstrated that some people oject to this for entirely legitimate reasons which have thus far been ignored in every response from Jimbo.

ALR 14:49, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

About the first point, I have already apologised and no offence was deliberately meant at anyone. I do agree wholeheartedly with you though about non PhD credentials, and especially working experience. An MD or a lawyer in the States for example, has to have a first basic degree before starting Medicine or Law studies which in themselves can be as vigorous, if not more, than some PhD programmes. So limiting the proposal to PhDs is not right; but I think there are people here who have mentioned that verification should eventually be extended beyond PhDs.Ivygohnair 15:27, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

The first point was more an observation on the change progress, I am conscious that this consultation is a fig leaf and this policy is going to be imposed but there are better ways to do it than alienating those who object.

Anyway, I've taken the time to articulate my objections, are you not going to respond to them?

ALR 17:36, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Derex here, I'll respond to your points. Others are welcome to add in-line to the debate as well.

• The requirement has yet to be demonstrated, in fact Jimbo has as yet been unwilling to articulate anything firm. We're being given bland platitudes that it will be a good thing with no corresponding metric to validate that assertion.

• It has been argued to be a good thing, with reasons given; see discussion with agr above. Calling those reasons "platitudes" is argument by insult, and thus not very compelling. I have no idea by what "metric" you measure anything here; can you give an example of what you mean by that word?

• Straightforward rules creep. I prefer to minimise rule sets where possible, and unrequired rules which don't add any real value clutter the operational conduct, in this case in developing a corpus of knowledge.

• It's not a rule. Rules are mandatory.

• There is no strategy related to the impact of this proposal on the other policies and guidelines within WP, there is also a degree of naivety being demonstrated, failing to recognise that if this is implemented in policy it will start to influence others.

• I'm sure many would be eager to have a discussion of this if you start one. What rules do you think this will influence, and how will it do that?

• It's not extensible. Everyone is focussing on PhDs which is all very well in a limited subset of areas, it makes no recognition of any other characteristics which may be useful where people have real world knowledge and experience. As an example, I'm a Management Consultant and I'd be unwilling to associate my firm with my activities here. However it does give me considerable experience and understanding of organisational change, knowledge management and collaborative technologies.

• Because a proposal does not solve all problems does not imply that it solve no problems. That you are disinclined to pseudonymously reveal your details to a 3rd party does not mean that others should be denied the opportunity to verify their own credentials. This is about choice, and one of its strengths is that you are free to choose not to participate, though others may choose to verify. This extends in a very straightforward fashion to essentially any claim which can conceivably be supported with evidence.

• Implementing cconcepts and policies as a trial rarely results in them being withdrawn if they're demonstrably not useful. There is a tendency to continue to try to make them work, leading to continued confusion and wasted effort. I'm reluctant to agree to an implementation on the basis of seeing how it goes.

• Every policy, guideline, practice, and proposal here started as a trial. You cannot learn without experimenting. By this argument, nothing should ever change.

Cheers, Derex 03:14, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm grateful that you took the time to respond, although being completely honest you haven't actually helped alter my view at all, this remains misguided because there is no requirement articulated. In response to your first point I'm afraid that characterising platitudes as an insult ddoesn't actually lend any substance to the reasons given. I'm also disappointed that Jimbos failure to answer my question might be cited as a justification. He failed to address the supplementary question later on. Specifically:

• If credentials don't have any bearing on content then how does this proposal lend any credibility to articles? It might lend an impression of credibility, but the content policies trump it.
• Essjay embarrased Wikipedia by speaking as a representative, recommended by the foundation. His allusions to credentials were, given the volume of his contributions and the context within which they were used, pretty insignificant. As I see it the only strength that this proposal has in that respect is that Jimbo can be seen to have done something, but Jimbo has expressly identified that this does not apply to due diligence around representation of WP to the media.
• Strengthening any tradition of open-ness is quite bland, and I think any proposal which has the potential to compromise privacy and personal security is as likely to harm any culture of that kind as it is to enhance it.

In terms of metrics, we probably need an appreciation of what level of credential fraud there is already, and then how it might be influencing article quality. Essjay is one example from thousands of active editors and he's only been found to have alluded to his credentials in content discussion a handful of times. Given that content is governed by content policy I really don't see how this proposal can impact on information integrity, hence there is no way to demonstrate the value. This is particularly important with the suggestion that this is implemented to see what happens, if there is no way to determine success or failure then it is likely to end up in an endless limbo of opinion. Pretty much as it is now.

If it's not a rule (policy, guideline or even essay) then it has no impact on Wikipedia, other than to provide a nice badge for the old user page, and there is no way to demonstrate a rather nebulous trust effect, then I fail to see how it is useful.

With respect to strategy, I've tried to raise it a number of times and my concerns have not been addressed, from Jimbo down. tbh I asked Jimbo a number of questions and got no satisfactory answer.

So that should make clear why I'm uncomfortable with any effort to launch this just to see what happens. I have no problem with change, indeed I positively encourage it, but shange should be founded in operational justification and be demonstrably valuable, with a method for assessing that value in operation. I'll acknowledge that any assessment of operational value is lacking in WP at present, but this is particularly weak.

ALR 11:20, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Editing topics

The current version on Verification triggers, includes the phrase If a degree claim happens only on a user page and the person does not edit topics related to that expertise, verification is not needed. This is unfair to experts that while not claiming expertise explicitly outside their user page now they come under pressure to identify themselves before they proceed to edit an article. I suggest changing this back to the original: If a degree claim happens only on a user page and stays there verification is not needed otherwise we are going to disadvantage experts claiming informal credentials vs people claiming nothing at all. If an informally declared expert makes incompetent edits then that should trigger the verification mechanism. If not AGF should suffice as per discussion with Derex above. Dr.K. 14:00, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

How about just changing it to: if a degree is claimed anywhere on Wikipedia a verification is needed. If you don't want to verify your credentials nobody forces you to put them anywhere. And fair is when there are no exceptions. Alf^Photoman 15:29, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

This makes it compulsory and I think we are still in the voluntary stage for the moment, and for all kinds of reasons, we should stick with voluntary. I think it should be changed to "If a degree claim happens on a user page the person may choose to have the claim verified." Ivygohnair 15:41, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm a lawyer and although I don't make a big deal about it, the fact is mentioned on my userpage and occasionally I refer on a talk page to a real-world experience I've had in a case. Being a lawyer implies holding a law degree. Under your interpretation of this proposal, would I be subject to sanctions if I made such a comment in the future? Newyorkbrad 15:35, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Not to be pedantic, but not all lawyers have law degrees. With ever more stringent bar admissions standards, it's becoming more and more rare, but there are still a handful of lawyers who have become legitimate members of the bar without holding any degree whatsoever. For example, there are educational requirements for bar membership in California, both general and "law-related," but no degree requirements per se. As such, one could complete the educational requirements to sit for California's baby bar after completing 60 units of general education at a junior college and working as a law clerk for a year; after passing the baby bar, two or three more years of law clerking would make one eligible for the regular bar exam. // Internet Esquire 16:08, 22 March 2007

(UTC) Thanks for the info. Now I know what my older sister is up to: she is sponsored by the LA Sheriff's Department where she works and doing it part time.Ivygohnair 17:04, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

You are right as to California, but in New York, where I am eponymically located, all lawyers have law degrees: the "clerking" option, while still on the books, hasn't been successfully used by any applicant for decades; and even that option in New York would require a bachelor's degree and one year of law school. (I can be pedantic too. :) ) Newyorkbrad 16:13, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Nobody is talking of sanctions! Ivygohnair 15:41, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

That is what I hoped and assumed, but occasional use of words like "needed" or "necessary" raises the issue of what happens if one user deems proof of a given user's credential to be "necessary" and it is not provided. Newyorkbrad 15:46, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Then it ends there. Verification is still voluntary. Dr.K. 15:52, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

If there are no sanctions then what's the point, and indeed if there is no encyclopedic purpose then what's the point. If OTOH it's intended to give people a nice chiny badge on their user-page to help them feel good about themselves then can't we at least be honest about that?

ALR 17:43, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

That's not the intent. Please read Jimbo's statements on the matter, quoted above. I also highly doubt that many experts derive their self-esteem by showing off on Wikipedia. These people do not live in their mother's basement. Derex 03:20, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Didn't notice this earlier. I'm trying to make the point that there is no value in it, clearly I forgot the Irony tags.ALR 15:35, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I imagine that it tries to establish the concept of expert supervision, where even if not involved directly, the certified expert is there at least as a quality controller and to discourage nonsense (something like an article quality guardian). Dr.K. 23:57, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with the current statement that it is illegitimate to ask someone for a verification if they edit extensively in a topic, but only mention it on a user page. They can decline the request, but it's certainly a reasonable request and we shouldn't state otherwise. ... amended. I have updated it with wording that may be more broadly acceptable. Derex 03:30, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Lacking structure - If not policy or guideline then what?

Given the fervent denials that this proposal is to be either policy or guideline, then what is it intended to be? I think one of the main issues is that without a clear indication of what it is then it lacks structure and is going to be of limited use.

ALR 18:34, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Good point. At the risk of stating the obvious this seems to be a voluntary process, akin, (my guess), to a best practices statement. Dr.K. 18:57, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I guess it would be the similar to Wikipedia:Deletion process which is now labeled as a "Process" Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 19:19, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

In the absence of any substantive responses I'm suggesting that this is an essay, since there is a place for that in the established governance struture. It appears that proposal is not agreed at preesent however I'd be grateful for an articulation of where it should fit if not a plicy, guideline or essay?

I've put in place an introduction to contextualise the situation, I've also tried to cut the underlying principles down to a basic foundation although I'm unconvinced that this does anything for content credibility.

The process of verification section is pretty clunky at present.

Please note that any edits I'm making do not imply support for the proposal, I still have grave reservations which have not yet been addressed.

ALR 11:02, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Are there appropriate roles for Wiki-projects?

A principle place where expert input is valued, and informally evaluated, is in the various Wikipedia projects. It seems that the projects might have important roles to play in the verification of credentials:

• perpaps members of the projects could evaluate the credentials of other members.
• perhaps the project pages could become the repository of such evaluations.

This seems to conform to the idea that "the process must be scalable, therefore it must be firmly in the hands of the community."

--SteveMcCluskey 01:42, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Great points. It will centralise credential verification and reinforce article quality control. Dr.K. 02:19, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely. It would be good to solicit input on this during the comment period. Each project might have a real name 'notary' or two to help with this. (Though some people might prefer to verify outside their field in the interest of privacy.) Derex 03:48, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

"Evidenced by" vs. "Verified"

Earlier in this discussion I proposed that the link in the degree user boxes say "Evidenced by" instead of "Verified." There is nothing in the proposal as it stands at the moment to suggest what level of evidence suffices to verify a set of credentials. I don't think the attestation on User:Metamagician3000 passes muster as "Verified," for example. Allowing users to stamp their credentials "Verified" based on meager tests will, in my opinion, hurt our credibility, not enhance it. Using "Evidenced by" would make it clear that the reader is expected to use their own judgement in deciding what credence to give to the claimed credential and that Wikipedia as an organization is not expressing an opinion. I'd like to see this reflected in the proposal.--agr 03:40, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I believe this point has general consensus per previous discussions. Some steps have already been taken in this direction. Feel free to integrate it further as appropriate. Derex 03:46, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

If someone wants to change the wording of that userbox, go ahead (as far as I'm concerned, and subject to any contrary views). I'm certainly not wedded to the word "verified". I'm not even that wedded to keeping the userbox, as it was originally just a trial of the process, though then again I'm becoming quite fond of it as I get used to seeing it on my userpage. :) Metamagician3000 03:52, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I hope it's clear my comments were in no way critical of what you did. On the contrary, it was very valuable to see the process worked out.--agr

No worries - and I'm sorry I got grumpy a couple of times when people were testing the integrity of the process. It's actually good that it was tested to the point where I hope everyone can see not only that we reported back that it went smoothly but also that - unless we were colluding in a fairly elaborate way - it was probably all legit. I also accept that elaborate collusion (or complex sockpuppetry) isn't possible to rule out completely, so if you think "verified" is too strong a word I totally understand. Metamagician3000 04:52, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I think that your particular experience would qualify as "verified" under any reasonable definition. The benefit of "evidence" is that it is generically applicable, including to cases where some might quibble about the word. Scanned copies of documents spring to mind here, given photoshop. Derex 09:36, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Userbox design and content.

Since this hasn't been discussed much, I think the education userboxes should be extended to include something like:

This user has a <DEGREE> degree in <FIELD> from <GRANTING INSTITUTION>.

Click here for Verification information.

This would follow the way the boxes are currently set up, with the degree name being specific to the box, and with the field and granting institution being the first two additional parameters. The "Click here" message should only appear if a third verification page parameter is added to the userbox. (sorry, I'm not up to coding userboxes).

Sample content, based on my CV, shows the size of text involved (my PhD is about as wordy as they come):

• This user has a Doctor of Philosophy degree in the History of Science from the University of Wisconsin — Madison.

• This user has a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

I think this is the information people want to know about a person who claims expertise on the basis of educational credentials, and that will really fill the box. Adding the verification address to the display, as in the sample at User:Metamagician3000, seems to add too much clutter.--SteveMcCluskey 16:21, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I've tried a test as Template:User degree/PhD 2 but it doesn't handle links to university names well if you need "the" before the name ("the" shouldn't be hard coded since not all universities take "the"; e.g. Harvard University) and it doesn't include code to activate a link to the verification page. Once we get the PhD working well, someone can make mass changes for other degrees. --SteveMcCluskey 17:53, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

It should be as granular as you want it to be. The more you give away facts like the field and institution, the more you start to give information that, together with other things you've let drop, could reveal your identity. The less you do it, the less helpful it actually is. In my case, if I really cared about being verified at all - as opposed to having done it more in an effort to be helpful than anything else - all I'd want to verify would be the existence of a genuine PhD (i.e. not from a diploma mill but from a reputable institution). In my case, I make no claim to edit (much) in the field in which it was awarded, or anything like that, though I do claim to have a sense of general scholarly standards from having gone successfully through the ordeal of a PhD program. However, someone else who really does want to sink their teeth into articles in their field, and to act as a resource in that corner of the encyclopedia, might want to verify a lot more detail. Horses for courses, methinks. Metamagician3000 23:22, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that if one doesn't want to put details in their template, they shouldn't have to. What I had in mind was something like the changes of default text in reaction to parameters that you find in the User talk namespace family of warning templates. That way you could provide as much or as little detail as you feel appropriate, and the template would adapt its output to the details provided. Personally, I tend to think more details are more useful, but then I prefer to edit in areas where I have some competence and I've never fully understood the desire to edit under a pseudonym. --SteveMcCluskey 00:15, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Problem statement

There seem to be about 250 in Category:Wikipedians_with_PhD_degrees. That's not a huge number. I poked around at about a dozen at random. They all seem like useful contributors, some in the field of their specialty, some not. Most did not make a big deal of their degree, it was just another userbox. I'd be surprised if more than a couple out of the 250 were impostors. On the whole, I would say the self-identified PhDs are a very valuable resource here and should be treated with respect, not suspicion. I'm still waiting to hear what problem this "verification" scheme is trying to solve.--agr 03:11, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

For the first point, please see #Trust me, I'm a doctor.... For the second point, please see User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Credential_Verification/Archive_3#Reboot, see the top of any recent archive of Jimbo's page[3], Essjay controversy, and the thousands of comments in various credentials-related Talk pages and archives. Derex 03:55, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I've been following this discussion for some time. You'll see my comments scattered about. I have yet to see a coherent problem statement that we can judge proposals against. I don't think that's an unreasonable request.--agr 05:23, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

It's not an unreasonable request. However, plainly these problems have been discussed, though not in an orderly fashion. So, I inferred from your statement that you hadn't heard of any problems that you truly hadn't heard of any problems, that is that you hadn't been following the issue. Since Jimbo in particular has stated his rationale for this, one constructive approach would be to explain why you find his existing statements incoherent. Then, we can sort out whether it's a misunderstanding or a fundamental disagreement. Derex 05:42, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

All I have seen from Jimbo, and I went back to his original proposal of March 7, is a statement that we should discuss "how to best achieve credential verification". I have not seen any clear statement of the problem credential verification is supposed to solve. It's certainly possible I missed it; if so it couldn't hurt to reproduce it here. Or better, I would think it should be in the proposal. How do we judge proposals if we don't know the goal?--agr 09:20, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Here's a few things Jimbo said, though they're scattered all around. Many other people have made arguments in favor as well. I agree that it would be helpful to have a simple statement of purpose. But I think the crux is this "People should be encouraged, around issues that matter, to be open and transparent" (from below). Derex 09:55, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

“ Something I don't see adequately addressed as yet. What problem is this supposed to deal with; abuse of credentials in content discussions, or lack due diligence in appointing individuals to positions of implicit and explicit authority in Wikipedia? ”

— ALR

“ (reply) Neither! I am trying to be as clear as I can about this but I don't know how else to say it. The problem is that we the Wikipedia community were hoaxed by someone claiming to be a PhD when he wasn't. We need to find a way to help avoid that in the future. One way to avoid that is to have a standard custom for how people should verify such claims, or else at a minimum state publicly that they are not willing or able to verify the claim. This has nothing to do with checkuser or access to private data, nothing to do with being an admin, etc. (positions of implicit and explicit authority in Wikipedia). It has to do with transparency and trust: both public and internal trust. ”

— Jimbo (A fair bit more of this is here)

“ The idea is this: people wonder, and not unreasonably, who we all are.

Why should the world listen to us about anything? People think, and not unreasonably, that credentials say something helpful about that. As it turns out, we mostly do know something about what we edit, and although we never want Wikipedia to be about a closed club of credential fetishists, there's nothing particularly wrong with advertising that, hey, we are *random* people on the Internet *g*, but not random *morons* after all.

”

— Jimbo [4]

“ I think the great merit to the proposal is that wikipedia is steeped in openness and transparency. People who tell lies about themselves undermine that openness and transparency. People should be encouraged, around issues that matter, to be open and transparent. Explaining to others, when true, how you came by your expertise in a certain field, is a good and healthy thing. (I disagree strongly with those who think that credentials are only used to beat up other contributors... this is an insult to the many fine PhDs we have working around here who adhere very strongly to be best standards of scholarship.) And we now have a means by which the community can adhere. ”

— Jimbo (source)

---

So, is the following a fair summary? Can it go in the proposal?

This proposal addresses the following problems:

1. preventing another incident like the Essjay controversy where a high profile editor is found to have falsified credentials.
2. increasing our credibility with our readers, some of whom wonder who we are
3. strengthening the tradition of openness and transparency among Wikipedia editors

--agr 12:21, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

That covers the major points I think. We should be careful to strike a positive tone with those we're asking this of, and your point 2 is a good opportunity for that. Sure, put it in. Derex 12:28, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. It tightens up the proposal by fixing some structural loose ends. Good job. Dr.K. 17:44, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Additional information from that page

1. about half either use their real names, or give them on their user page.
2. about 20% have made very few edits
3. of those who give their subjects, over half are [Philosophy|Linguistics|Math|Astronomy] Very few are humanities.

Extrapolations

1. Most of those whom I know to have a PhD in Chemistry or Biology do not use that userbox or do not give degree information on their user page at all. #The few I know to be in humanities do not use the box, and do not say so. Some have a blank user page.
2. Conclusion: There is an academic field-dependent dimension to feeling secure about giving your name and credentials, and this correlates wit the perceived WP prejudice against academics and academically-based articles. DGG 03:44, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed replies....

Edits by phd claiming editors seem to represent such an inconsequential proportion of what we do here that i think something else is going on. Essjay struck a nerve, and undermined wiki's reputation, and there's a feeling that something should be done - hence ideas like this which i don't really think anyone here seriously expects to be adopted by many.... as i've said already, you either allow pseudonymous editors or not - it actually further undermines wiki's reputation to be seen to be setting up a flabby, have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too kind of answer. I think software developers refer to ideas like this as a Cludge - a clumsy 'works a bit but not completely' solution. I truly don't wish to disrupt, but wanted to say what i thought..... I'll duck out for now, but will happily chat further to anyone if they'd like..... best all, Petesmiles 07:10, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia itself 'works a bit but not completely'. We're just trying to make it work a bit better. So, it's all a kludge, but it turns out to be a rather useful one. Cheers, Derex 09:15, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I have argued for ages now (in Wiki-time) that credentials are meaningless. On Wikipedia, there are no people: there are names and words. We are only words here. Therefore, it is purely the work, only the work. I know that the articles I've written in a particular set of fields would pass peer review in a journal or a paper encyclopedia, and I can get frustrated arguing with people who have incomplete knowledge of academic standing and publication process, but it would be foolish and dishonest to try to "win" those arguments by making a claim that I have X or Y degree or A or B job or attend(ed) C or W school. I have a mixture of lack of respect and sympathy with people who resort to making a claim. I have outright contempt for people who make those claims pre-emptively, who try to identify themselves as an expert. This is not the expert-driven encyclopedia on the web -- that was tried before and is being tried again, but neither of them has come near to this project's popularity among readers or contributors.

We work best when multiple voices and reasonable people are looking. Anyone huffing and puffing and inflating with claims of credentials is thinning out voices, trying to cut down on discussion. This is antithetical to the founding concept of the whole-world reviewed encyclopedia. Geogre 15:25, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

On the contrary, on Wikipedia there are only people, some of whom for various reasons -- some serious and some capricious -- choose not to use their real names. Whatever they call themselves they are people and as moral actors can be held responsible for what they write.

• If they claim, anywhere in Wikipedia, that they hold certain credentials, they should be held responsible for that claim and be ready to defend it.
• If they make a claim about physics or history or computer games in an article, they should be held responsible for that claim and be ready to defend it, under WP:V or WP:ATT or whatever it's called now.

--SteveMcCluskey 17:27, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Inclusion and exclusion

In order to give this some purpose I've added one value that I think expertise can bring, in terms of identifying sourced material which is inaccurate. However this does fly in the face of Attribution where the principle is essentially verifiability, not truth.

In practice how would we antiicpate using this opportunity, clearly there needs to be a credential hurdle to cross both in terms of qualification and topic area.

Any suggesitons?

ALR 13:00, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

As I see it, since experts have a wide range of familiarity with the literature on a topic, they are ideal people to bring in other sources that illustrate either:

• the opinions cited in an article are minority opinions, or
• the sources in which cited opinions appear are not considered to be reliable sources by experts in the field.

Certainly we don't want experts to argue that "I'm an expert and I know the truth." I've already learned about my own field from arguments on Wikipedia with zealous holders of non-standard interpretations.

Maybe I'm naïve but I don't see much of a problem here. --SteveMcCluskey 16:01, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Bringing in sources is fair, but there are some things that there just won't be sources for since they're so minority nobody spends any time actually refuting them in a published format. An alternative would be the need for some OR to demonstrate that X source cannot be correct, but nobody has actually published that demonstration.

ALR 16:07, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

As I have said previously, and reinforcing what SteveMcCluskey said, that the major advocates of two sides of any controversy are often experts, both with qualifications and experience, that fundamentally disagree on interpretation and validity of sources. The mis or un-educated arguments are quickly demolished by expert examination, it is when experts disagree that there may be problems - and ones which cannot be solved by having credentials verified. LessHeard vanU 00:52, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I've used the catfight on Knowledge management in this discussion before, but it's a good demonstration of this. Yet another reason to reject and verification pollicy.ALR 09:36, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

LessHeard: Thanks for quoting me, but let me clarify a minor, but important, point. In the cases to which I've referred the situations involved editors who "knew the truth" arguing with editors who claimed some expertise in the field. Their arguments -- like the questions from the student in the back row of class -- helped me learn; they drove me to read sources to answer their questions. They were disputes about rival intperpretations; but they weren't disputes among experts.

The difference is that experts have read widely in their discipline and know of the literature that they haven't read. Amateurs tend to read deeply in a narrow aspect of that discipline, sometimes -- and these are the problem cases -- "cherry picking" quotations to support their particular point of view. Experts, because of the breadth of knowledge that they can draw on and cite, do have a special role in Wikipedia. --SteveMcCluskey 15:18, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I realise that there may not have been (m)any citable examples of Wiki editing where two (groups of) experts support opposing interpretations of data, as opposed to experts in their field having to compete with less well read editors over article content, but there is plenty of evidence within articles (usually in the science and technology field) in Wikipedia where orthodoxy is/was jealously guarded by any number of qualified experts, until the new way of thinking won the day.

As for cherry picking; an "expert" only recognising standard texts from "reliable sources" as legitimate is as much a constraint as taking any part of said texts and ignoring the rest in order to sustain an argument. This I have had experience of; where experts wanted to disallow prejudiced and incorrect documents that had fostered a controversy - the acknowledged existence of such documents and not their validity being the crux of the argument. That had to go through three AfD's before the experts were persuaded that the origins of the controversy was notable against their expert opinion of the validity of the propoganda.

With every suggestion that an expert has a default conclusive opinion on the validity of references, and the pre-eminence of one school of thought over another (providing there is not another just as austere an authority declaring for the opposition) it has to be realised that there might be a degree of self interest in an expert attesting to the supremacy of the faction to which they belong, even when that faction is the historical and prevailing majority.

In this, the qualifications of an individual (verified or not) is only a marker toward an expertise of the orthodoxy of a subject. While this would suffice for the vast majority of referals there should be acknowledged that even the certifed expert may not be infallible. I acknowledge that this position is not sufficient in itself to disallow or diminish the contribution of an expert in debate, but as an example of how this proposed verification system only seems to serve a rather hollow (IMO) function in promoting an appearance of authority in the editing standards of Wikipedia to the outside world. LessHeard vanU 17:26, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

merge with Wikipedia:Ignore all credentials to Wikipedia:Credentials

Jimbo supports "Ignore all credentials". He also apparently supports "Credential Verification". Reading the headlines, this sounds completely inconsistent, and is likely to leave everyone scratching their heads. Reading the content, they're not necessarily inconsistent because "ignore all credentials" is somewhat misleading, as it doesn't mean always ignore all credentials. If it did, it would be worse than pointless to have both. Readers shouldn't have to compare and contrast two different proposals with superficially inconsistent titles in order to figure out what role credentials play here. Moreover, their are some actual inconsistencies between the two as currently written, and an enormous amount of redundancy. It would be simpler all around to merge the two and be done with it. While one could argue that "verification" is only intended to address process, it clearly doesn't limit itself that way. I also think it's unrealistic to expect that it ever will (at least sustainably). Derex 06:10, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Derek, I think they may not be all that inconsistent. Because the first, if I read it correctly, means ignore credentials when it comes to edit dispute, ie nobody should say "I am a PhD so shut up". So definitely the two should be merged dropping the first title of course. BTW where did Jimbo speak?Ivygohnair 06:52, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Ivygohnair - The talk page for WP:IAC is where the current drama is playing out.

Derex - While I am opposed to any form of credential verification as being hostile to the egalitarian philosophy of Wikipedia, voluntary or otherwise, IAC does not address the issue of credential verification head on. Rather, IAC hopes to render credential verification moot as a way of gaining the upper hand in edit disputes, just as it hopes to render fraud and puffery moot as issues arising out of unverified credentials. In other words, while I am openly hostile to credential verification on Wikipedia, my IAC proposal is a compromise that could peacefully co-exist with it. // Internet Esquire 07:08, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

There are definitely inconsistencies on important points of detail, and more than just detail; in particular, the IAC proposal in its current form basically says that no credentials have been verified, which will not be the case in the world we are imagining. If the concept of IAC is "don't be intimidated by credentials in a content dispute" and "don't try to win a content dispute by pulling rank", I guess it is acceptable, though I don't think you can ever stop people completely from referring to their education and life/work experience. Metamagician3000 07:01, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I think that's the content Jimbo supports. Of course, that's also covered in this proposal. I don't understand why he would prefer that we maintain two discussions of credentials rather than one, even if they are nominally focused on two different aspects. He may have imagined that this would stick strictly to the mechanics, but I think that's most unlikely to be sustainable. This dual treatment is bound to cause confusion. Derex 08:51, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't suppose the word "ignore" is technically negative but it still sounds negative to me. It is also somewhat contradictory because we are really not encouraged to completely ignore any and all credentials. We are only encouraged not to use appeals to authority in an edit dispute.MikeURL 14:23, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

alternate proposal using principles as he foil

Just some thoughts. I didn't get a lot of comment on my alternate proposal and Derex deleted it as it didn't have much comment either negative or positive. I would like more comments but I will outline it in terms of principles instead of implementation dteails.

1. . Editors that wish to have their credentials verified, should be able to ask for verification.
2. . There should not be separate userboxes for verified and unverified credentials. This will unavoidably create classes within the community and is not good. Rather, the claims and verification should be separate processes.
3. . Edited after for clarityEditors who choose to offer themselves to the community as an expert through the use of credential userboxes should put it in their user space. The verification should be in the user space of the verifier. An editor that makes a claim about themselves puts the credential userbox on his user page (no distinguising user boxes). An editor who verifies that claim puts a verification token in their (verifiers) user space. Editors are free to remove claims and verifications at any time from their user spaces but not in other editors user space. This is the same way User pages are handled today. This is necessary to prevent fraud in both verification and claims. It also allows editors to easily track the experts that they've identified and verified in their user space.
4. . Credentials and their individual verification must be linked so that it is easy for the community to see the verification of claims (i.e. which editors verified the claim, and how many separate editors were there).
5. . Verification is not necessary to make a claim about a credential.
6. . Credential verification is a tool used by the community to seek out help by experts in their field. It is not for dispute resolution. It is not a reliable source. Rather it is to be used by the community to help the community and individual editors reach their own decisions about article content. Credentials and their verification is used to sway the opinions of editors, not to decide content. Disagreeing with a verified, creditial editor about content is no different than any other disagreement and is resolved the same as other disagreements.
7. . The community is not obligated to verify an editors credential claim. Rather, the desire of the community to establish an editors credentials is up to the individual editors in the community. If someone claiming a credential is not sought out for their expert advice, the community may be indifferent to their claim and that is okay. There is no need for vanity verifications since there is no difference between the verified and unverified credential userbox.
8. . Criteria for credential verifications are left up to each editor making the verifications.
9. . Criteria for assessing the credentials and the verifications associated with it are left up to each editor that is relying on the expert editor for advice.
10. . Credential and their verification is not any more reliable than any other content generated for Wikipedia.
11. . This proposal in no way solves any particular problem that has occured in the past. Just like the anti-vandalism policies have not solved vandalism, this proposal is a tool to improve the efficiency of the encyclopedia. Trust is a founding principle of Wikipedia that is not altered by credential verification.

---

I had previously posted the implementation of this on the User page. I think it may have been confusing or put people off because of the implementation details. I decided to repost in the form of principles because I think it is fundamentally different than the implementation currently on the user page. I believe this statement of principles reflects what I've read on these discussion pages and answers most of the concerns that people have. Comment? --Tbeatty 05:07, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

It could just be bad wording, but number 3 seems to be implying that even editors who don't care if their credentials are verified must list the credentials they claim in some kind of standard format. If that's intended, I dispute it. -Amarkov moo! 05:12, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Bad wording. The whole idea is that the claim is for the benefit of the community. To me, that means that if hte person uses the standard userbox, they are making an psuedo offer of expertise to the community as they are now in a category of whatever userbox they chose. --Tbeatty 05:33, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I envision it so that people who use userboxes today, don't have to change. An editor who wants to consult an Physics PhD for an edit, he can find one through the existing userbox system. He can then see if anyone has verified his credentials, try to verify them himself or whatever he likes. There is no affirmative duty of anyone. they can choose or not choose to participate. Editors who choose not to participate in verification simply won't have any verification tokens assiciated with them. No stigma. No "separate but equal" userboxes. The decision making about whether to trust that editors credentials is in the hands of the other editors and this just allows them to be more selective in who they choose for advice. --Tbeatty 06:12, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I think that most of the proposals of Tbeatty not only are logical but also make common sense and we should consider them seriously.Ivygohnair 07:51, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Apologies T; I took it from your reply to my query that you were abandoning the idea. Would not have deleted it otherwise. As I said there, I think it has some merits. Derex 09:39, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

No worries. It's probably better as I wanted to restate as this anyway. --Tbeatty 15:18, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I find most of the philosophical points here well taken. Many of them are already in the proposal, though some are not as clearly stated. The key operational point goes to the discussion in #Where should attestations be kept?. I think most agree that having them on a subpage of the verifier would either be preferable or acceptable. Mechanically, the design issue is exactly how to place the links to the verifications. For each user verified, the verifier could add a standard wiki subject heading to an attestation subpage to his own userpage. Each userbox links to an evidence subpage. The verifier places a standard wikilink on that evidence page pointing back to the correct entry on his attestation page, such as User:Derex/notary#Tbeatty. Derex 04:16, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Anonymous Credential Verification is a Non-Starter

While considering some of the objections to WP:IAC, I began to realize that deference to experts is not necessarily a bad thing and is sometimes a necessity. However, deference to the expertise of alias-wielding anonymous contributors to Wikipedia whose bona fides cannot be scrutinized is (without question) a very bad thing, and any attempt to verify the bona fides of said anonymous contributors does more harm than good. I know of what I speak.

Most of my clients are lawyers who are published authors and recognized experts in their areas of practice. Some of them have even published pseudonymous works. However, when publishing pseudonymously, none of them have sought recognition as an expert based on their bona fides. Rather, they point to authoritative references with signature bylines -- sometimes their own -- that can be properly scrutinized. I remain mystified as to why the need for this sort of intellectual accountability is so hard for some people to understand. // Internet Esquire 08:08, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

People want to have their cake and yet eat it too. People want wikipedians to be able to be 13 years old and anon or else have a physics phd yet actually only edit political articles; while at the same time try to get credibility for wikipedia based on the credentials of its editors. And claim credentials don't count cuz we attribute to reliable published sources. This was never well thought through by a few but was thought through by the community as a whole which has firmly rejected it. WAS 4.250 08:27, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

If specious arguments against strawmen constitutes "thought through", then I wholly agree with you. Derex 09:03, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

The heading for this thread could be read two ways: (1) credential verification of a Wikipedian who uses a pseudonym is a nonstarter, or (2) credential verification by a credential-checker who uses a pseudonym is a nonstarter. I agree that (2) is a nonstarter but (1) is not much different than the commonplace situation of verifying the credentials of a person who changed her name upon marriage, if the credentials were earned under the maiden name (except that a government-issued marriage certificate is usually available). --Gerry Ashton 13:29, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Let me recapitulate: As credentials are not a fungible commodity, any attempt to verify the credentials of a pseudonymous Wikipedian is a non-starter. To wit, unless one is a credentialist, the naked assertion of a credential means nothing. Rather, the way that credentials take on any meaning whatsoever is when they are awarded in the context of scholarly research; unless the work product of one's scholarly research is available for scrutiny, the credentials on which that research is based are synonymous with an irrational appeal to authority. As I am wont to say, the work is the important thing. // Internet Esquire 17:19, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

So are you saying that the only interesting credentials are those held by scholars with published works which can be accessed online or in a library? It would be of no interest whatsoever that a person earned a master's degree in electronics, but never published (perhaps the person worked for a company that preferred to keep everything a trade secret, or went to work for the NSA)? Sorry, I don't agree; some credentials have some value even though the person who holds them has never published. --Gerry Ashton 17:46, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I did not say that "the only interesting credentials are those held by scholars with published works which can be accessed online or in a library," nor is that what I meant. Those are your words, and they are not an accurate recapitulation of my thoughts on the matter of the inherently dubious value of credentials. Once again, the credentials of an anonymous and pseudonymous individual, whether verified or not, are useless as an indicator of that person's expertise. More specifically, if someone were to assert expertise based on a decontextualized master's degree in electronics, that claim would be useless. I say this as someone who has worked with quite a few people who held advanced technical degrees and found their expertise wanting. As I have said before on more than one occasion, the work is the important thing. // Internet Esquire 18:27, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I take it that you are unwilling to accept the determination of expertise by anyone else, and the putative expert's work must be accessible to you in some form so that you can evaluate it for yourself. So no meaningful claims of expertise can be made in Wikipedia about fields that don't tend to produce publications, or any other work product that would be accessible to the public (such as plumbers, electricians, and amateur radio operators), even though credentials are available in those fields. Do I understand your position now? --Gerry Ashton 21:36, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

There are many ways to validate expertise. However, if a field of expertise fails to produce any sort of published work, it would be impossible to provide any sort of encyclopedic coverage of that topic, as everything written about that topic on Wikipedia would qualify as original research. In any event, an anonymous and pseudonymous validation of expertise is fatally flawed in that it insulates the supposedly validated expert from any sort of impeachment. That is the sum and substance of my position. // Internet Esquire 23:20, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

You do realize that most doctoral theses are never published, or even posted on the web? At any rate, this is preposterous, the idea that Wikipedians are going to sit around and dissect the merit of someone's doctoral thesis to decide if someone is really an expert. You'd already have to be an expert to do that competently anyway. It's not as if experts have been handed complete power here; they have no special privileges. If you don't place any credence in a thesis you haven't personally inspected, that's fine. You are absolutely and unconditionally free to ignore any credentials and any level of verification completely. However, other people should be equally free to credit expertise without personally inspecting the thesis, if they judge it appropriate. Derex 23:38, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

This debate has become far too theoretical to have any real practical value. I'm afraid we are trying to recreate society's debate about the value of expertise inside the microcosm of a Wilipedia talk page. Even a casual observer of the legal system can see that in a given trial there are two kinds of experts: Experts for the defence and experts for the prosecution. These experts are diametrically opposed in their arguments. Does that make them incompetent? Someone must be wrong. Truth can't have two diametrically opposing answers. Is one expert wrong? Should he be disqualified? Was one expert's thesis better than the other's? The answer is it doesn't matter. Bringing an expert is like bringing a considered point of view from someone with some training. Society gets the appearance of some quality control. If the experts differ at least you know the debate will be on a level better than the Gerry Springer show. That's all. Dr.K. 00:20, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

The strength of this proposal is choice. You don't like credentials. Ok, ignore them. You don't find a certain type of evidence. Ok, ignore it. You think expertise is useless, even if you do believe the credentials. Ok, ignore it. BUT, other people may find modest evidence useful for modest purposes. All we are trying to do is describe a simple practical procedure that makes such evidence available to those who value it. If you personally do not value it, that's fine, you are absolutely free to utterly ignore it. All people should have the same choice to assess information and evidence for themselves, and make whatever determinations they see fit. Literally everyone is in complete agreement that core policies apply to everyone, so I can't fathom why the standard for evidence should be 100% certainty of the PhD, much less scrutinizing the quality of the thesis. Instead, any reasonable information should just be presented as evidence, with no final conclusion drawn. Derex 01:25, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree. Just like in society after someone establishes some type of bona fide evidence of their expertise normally there is no requirement to show their thesis to the casual observer. That's why you showed it to the Ph.D. committee in the first place. Society respects that and they don't ask you to show it again. In Wikipedia we should do the same. Dr.K. 02:41, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Credential verification stamp of approval

There is no right for anyone to claim that a credential has been verified according to Wikipedia. At best we supply sources for claims. WAS 4.250 02:49, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Concern with the word "verification" has been discussed two or three times before. There appears to be a consensus for the word "evidence" now, without any final "stamp" of verification. See for example previous discussions in #"Evidenced by" vs. "Verified" and #Trusting verifiers Derex 02:54, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

True, true Derex, but as you know (but others sometimes forget), it's not because content policies apply to claims of users about themselves. I do wish people wouldn't mix up concepts designed to regulate mainspace editorial content and concepts, such as AGF, that are designed to regulate interaction between users. Metamagician3000 13:15, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

A reminder: anonymity is inherently not a good thing

In all this discussion it's maybe better to remind ourselves that anonymity is behind the psychology of mobs (which isn't pleasant) and is an essential factor in every bad mass movement on record, from the weeniest pogrom or spontaneous lynching, up to the biggest genocide. If you need a popular introduction to decades of social-psych research, I can suggest The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil. It tells (among other experiments) the tale of the Stanford Prison Experiment of 35 years ago, which randomly divided students into anonymous "prisoners" and "guards," and was soon able to coax Abu-Ghraib-like behavior out of pretty ordinary people, just by giving them permission, empowerment, and too little oversight. And that's sort of what happened to Wikipedia, where we spend more than half of our time cleaning vandalism from people who otherwise wouldn't think of spray-painting the Sistine chapel, or beheading Michelangelo's Pieta, because in "real life," they're not actually crazy, but just your neighbors (a few people are always that crazy, but a very much smaller minority than you see HERE). The vandals you see on Wikipedia were made that way largely by the artificial conditions here, in which most of the courtesies of civilization have been temporarily removed, rather as in a untraceable telephone conversation between strangers.

But these artificial conditions are what give us such nutty results in our political elections, where your vote is really not connected to you, and you are free to vent your deepest and most primal and most stupid lowest-common denominator urges. And usually do You know: the kind of stuff that determines what's on your Boob Tube. And gave you the re-election of George W. Bush. And a war based on the unsupported allegations of some yahoo whose username was Curveball, and who didn't have to be responsible to anybody, because he was anonymous and still is. Great. You like that world? You've got it. You want it here on Wikipedia also? Well, you've got it here, too.

But remember why we have it. Wikipedia was originally an experiment to see what would happen if Nupedia standards were relaxed, and some poor schlub didn't have to write and take credit and blame for the total accuracy of an entire article. That's too much. And unfortunately, the experiment (which wasn't *totally* designed, but rather sort of default-constructed in a minimalist way) consisted of easement of the editing standards all the way down to anonymous IP editing-- a total fall in standards which might well NOT have been necessary. How can I guess that? Well, because now and again we "lock" a badly vandal-targeted article down to "long time name-user" only editing, and it seems to harm it not at all, in either content or progression. Rather the opposite. So that works fine. I propose that the entire Wikipedia could work that way. Gasp.

And we perhaps the whole thing could go even farther. Why not see? For the price of a $1 credit card donation to the Wikimedia Foundation, you could in theory lock your creditcard name to your username, and readers could then have that level of confidence that you're a person whose driver license was good enough to get that account, which in turn is be tied to a social security number (in the US). Though, of course, none of this information would be available here, online. Anymore than it is now, even though many people donate to the Foundation NOW. Is that system perfect? No, identity theft happens. But it works well enough to run an economy, which means well enough so as to be a vast improvement on what we have HERE NOW, and well enough as to be a first-pass cut at the sort of transparent and honest system that we'd like.

As an experiment, we could THEN see what the quality is like, in articles in which small changes are made by people editing under their own names, as happens all over academia, and even in the op-ed section of your local newspaper. It's not that scary a concept. Originally we were told that Wikipedia was not constructed that way, in order to draw in the editors who were too SHY to change commas and run-on sentences, under their own monikers. Actually, what happened is that it drew in a lot of people who didn't have credit cards, because they didn't have jobs, and were editing from their messy room upstairs, before their parents called them down to dinner. A lot of volunteer labor is in that pool. But not all of it.

In any case, the experiment of having only "real" collections of randomly-organized people edit some articles in real-time on the internet has never been tried (despite what you've been told), and it's probably worth doing, as an experiment. The bane of my own existence is people telling me what the results of scientific experiments will be, before they've been done. I really detest people who think they're God. The way adults ideally handle problems where they don't know an answer, so to do an experiment to find it out. That's how we got our industrial and scientific revolutions these last five centuries, not to mention the renaissance and reformation. I'm a fan of the process-- how about you?

At which point we finally come round to the subject of this page, which is credentialism, and the objection that it might be a horrid and horrible thing, because it would tend to draw people into editing under their own real-world identities. Well, that's probably so. But we don't know the answer to the next question, which is: SO WHAT? Until we do, there's little point in nattering on about the first part of it.

Please remember that the world of adults, starting with USENET but ending with the real world of academia, publishing, politics and law, where the normal infighting and incivility and financial and physical consequences make Wikipedia look like the child's playground that it is, is the one that we use on Wikipedia when we need a CITE, according to WP:ATT. So it does work after a fashion, and we pay homage to it and to its work-product. Let's not have any arguments that somehow it has structural defects, which make it totally non-portable here. We wouldn't be using its results, if that were so.

In the world of adults, things are usually done by people with faces, and we rightfully have learned to start to worry if they start to do them from behind hoods with just eyeholes. When people lose their identities, as at the gulags, or even the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, or when things are done behind doors close to the public, in writing, as with your traditional star chamber, we know it's time to fix things. And though Wikipedia will never have that kind of power, the basic principles behind what causes power-abuse here, are just the same. SBHarris 03:04, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the potential for Wikipedia-based genocide is rather low. Derex 03:11, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Furthermore, I think the dangers for anonymous posters wishing to avoid political persecution are demonstrably real, and outweigh the hypothetical concerns laid out above. Let's keep in mind that not everyone who contributes to Wikipedia is living under a regime tolerant of the freedom of the press and speech. —ptk✰fgs 03:19, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

My response was too flip, because I do understand his point. Anyone can already place all the personal information they want on their user page. There's no reason that can't be "evidenced" in the same manner as any credential. That is, find someone who cares and they can vouch on the "evidence" subpage for whatever identification evidence you present. Any requirement of non-anonymity would be a disaster. I would certainly quit. Derex 03:25, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

That experiment is called Citizendium and it is just down the road. C.m.jones 04:05, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I just signed up there as an editor. You know, with everybody's real names and all, it already looks like a much more friendly place than here. We'll see, but I think I like it. Yeah, I KNOW I like it. Somebody asked Sanger there "How do I know I won't somehow get harrassed for something I wrote in an article?" Sanger said "How do you know that wouldn't happen for something your wrote in an article for ANY magazine?" The truth is that the world just doesn't care. And the level of paranoia here is really intense. Sheesh. Grow some BALLS, folks! And I mean that in the kindest, most civil, way :) SBHarris 05:26, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I must've been misinformed. I always thought the best way to write an article was to grow some brains. Dr.K. 05:47, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. Perhaps Harris has a point, "Dr. K." Would you really have what you just said if you used your real name and your statement were tied to success in your real life, which is tied to your real name? If what you said on Wikipedia followed you in real life, would you still say everything you say? I think not. Perhaps it is this ability to be anonymous that is at root of WP's problems after all. AAR, I certeinly do not believe you are a real "Dr." after what you just said. - C.m.jones 09:22, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Why yes, I believe he would. Look at his user name, Jones. It's real. Derex 10:05, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

And aren't "Dr"s allowed to have a sense of humour/irony/Wickedness like other mortals?Ivygohnair 11:13, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

What exactly did I say? Did I use any profanities? It just was a method response. It is called reductio ad absurdum. Anyway now I am going to use a profanity (albeit not mine and not explicitly either), Grow b---- to write articles? Is this an oxymoron? What about female Wikipedians? Let us just not go there. And like Derex said careful Googling will lead you to my degree, don't worry about that. Thanks for the opportunity for this interesting exchange. Dr.K. 11:24, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

The debate about anonymity in WP doesn't belong here, there is no appetite for imposing a registration barrier.

As for pseudonimity, I'd disagree with the principle that it doesn't add value. The content barrier is set in the NPOV and ATT policies and whilst they both have significant weaknesses one does not need to be explicit about ones identity to apply them. There is value in expertise, predominantly in turning the usual morass of bullets and de-contextualised statements into a coherent and representative argument, but again one needn't be fully explicit about identity. There are cultural issues, in part because we have editors from most stages of the education process and in most life stages, there is a tendency amongst certain segments to see the world in binary terms, and I think that segment is what causes most of the frustrations in disputes over content and representation.

Many people have sound reasons for privacy around their identity, military personnel in the UK have lived with a terrorist threat on the mainland for nearly forty years. On a less dramatic note I edit heavily in Freemasonry related topics, should it become known in my workplace that I am a freemason then it's likely that I would suffer a level of discrimination and experience challenges around selling work. It's notable that Citizendium does allow some pseudonyms based around personal security.

ALR 11:50, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Good points. They also reinforce the argument that anonymous editors should not be viewed as lacking spheres. Dr.K. 16:58, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

And I hope you all realize that I mean metaphorical balls, of the sort that Condi Rice and Hilary Clinton have, even though you may not agree with the processes and opinions which originate from their (somewhat washed and opposed) but fully-functional brains. Courage is one of those things which is supposed to be a virtue but is really value-neutral. It's an enabling factor, like any other form of power. You need some of it to get anything of substance done, either good or evil.

I'm afraid there's no prayer of totally separating the credential issue from the anonymity issue, so get used to it. But since the anonymity issue needs to be tackled in another context anyway (that of giving people wikipedia power without identities), I think it will be sorted out there simiultaneously.

And for the rest of you writing under pseudonyms, let me say, after my own experience of writing for 15 years on USENET under my real name, the following: "Hey, just suck it up, quit whining about it, and come out of your closet!" Whatever that may be. The people you work with might indeed find out that you're secretly a Republican, or a flaming Liberal, or gay, or a scientologist, or have had breast cancer. Maybe you're a Freemason in (what?) a Mormon-controlled office, or whoever it is that persecutes Freemasons these days (I didn't know there was anybody left-- it's not 1840 anymore). So what? You might find yourself enlarged in your sense of control over your life by telling them. Most of them won't hate you for your personal beliefs as much as you think they will. Terrorism doesn't work unless you let yourself be terrorized. That's one of the things wrong with the U.S. today. Perhaps it would be a better world, if more of us stood up under our own names, reputations, and credentials, and said quietly what we thought. What do you think? In a place like this, a supposedly neutral encyclopedia which is actually written by a bunch of normal biased human beings, it's a good way to get these biases out into the open so we can have a look at them. No purpose is served by putting them in the dark and pretending they don't exist. For example, our esteemed U.S. Vice President does not support our esteemed President on some of his policies about gays. If the V.P. were a nameless, faceless Wikipedian with no personal history known to me, I wouldn't have a clue as to why that might be. But since he's not, I have a much better idea about where his opinions originate. That's helpful. So stick your backgrounds out there as editors, and then see if you can rise above them. Or not. You'll be better for it. I promise. SBHarris 02:00, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

) Can we let this gentleman have the last word and get back to the subject of this page?--agr 04:17, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Second that and a clarification: Dr. Harris' statements are well considered and I agree with several of them, (I will not name them for the sake of brevity). As far as the balls controversy, my first reaction was to test the limits of the logic of the argument. The momentum of the debate carried me in places I did not want to be. Having said that, the debate about testing the limits of anonymity bears the hallmarks of a good academic exchange. Dr. Harris contributed to that and we should consider carefully many of his arguments. Dr.K. 11:38, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I posted to Usenet for quite a number of years myself and I disagree with your assessment and I'll tell you exactly why. In human interaction we all make mistakes, yes, and those mistakes can even be forgiven and forgotten. Generally even our worst enemies can't use our ill-advised comments against us because we don't usually have someone there recording our words or thoughts. Usenet, and Wikipedia, share one very important thing in common--neither ever forgets. In the case of Usenet it is Google that forever keeps your posts trapped in amber (despite x:no-archive) and on Wikipedia there are always the diffs that never expire. If you post long enough to either of these forums you WILL say something very stupid. If you start at a young age you may even accumulate quite a large number of stupid statements. The problem with this is that they never go away. In most cases people are willing to forgive and forget but can that really work when someone can point to a Usenet post or Wiki diff 10 years later and say "look at that awful thing"? And to really add fuel to a flame all you have to do is throw in a Usenet or Wiki-stalker. If you've been around online forums for 15 years you know how truly persistent these people can be and how they will use the slightest provocation to conduct a campaign against you. Not surprisingly these stalkers tend to be REALLY good at searching every post you ever made. If they can just track your real name then you really made the job easy for them. They can pull out every stupid post you ever made and put it into a nice little webpage and forward that on to your friends, family and employers. It is for this reason that I maintain at least "plausible deniability" of my real identity in any forum that has a process or policy wherein my comments are retained in perpetuity. The only way I'd ever go "real" on Wikipedia is if talk pages had some provision to expunge history every couple of years.MikeURL 16:14, 26 March 2007 (UTC

Support for verifiable user info

I'd like to see how many here would be interested in me drafting up a potential policy on claims on a user's talk page being verifiable or deleted. I'd like to see claims/e-stats of 8 octave singing ranges and bench presses of almost twice one's weight be deleted from here.--I'll bring the food (Talk - Contribs - My Watchlist) 20:34, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

This I am afraid, though probably well-motivated, may fall in the category of attempts at "thought control" that some users try to practise in Wikipidia. As I said earlier, if a user wants to say he is a MD on frogs with a degree from Timbucktoo, he should be allowed to do it as it may be funny and is not a "lie for gain".Ivygohnair 08:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Just so we all are aware

The policy proposal Wikipedia:Ignore all credentials is intended to defeat credential verification, not to serve as an adjunct to it. The theory is that verification will be irrelevant and useless if nobody honors credentials, whether they are verified or not. It is not an analogue to WP:IAR; the latter is conditional, but this proposal isn't. Mangoe 22:03, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Is it safe to say...

....that this has now died a death?

ALR 12:45, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I think so, but I thought it died quite a while ago. Mak (talk) 14:10, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

This whole process was like a 1000 lb Yak having a seizure in a China shop. Few people who are familar with the situation could have missed the subtext of what was really going on here. I guess the question is whether we'll be rebooted again or not.MikeURL 00:56, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Different people read the lack of edits differently. As I see it, this essay has reached the stability one expects from consensus and is ready to be upgraded from an essay to a guideline. SteveMcCluskey 01:49, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

The straw poll in the archive makes it clear that no credential verification proposal has a chance in hell of achieving consensus. Jimbo's response was to state that this was specifically not to be a guideline or policy, but just something people could do voluntarily under existing policies. So, no, this is not intended to be a guideline and will not be a guideline. WAS 4.250 09:37, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

"Kids will be kids"

Someday there will be a reliable source of information that cannot be changed by "just anyone" that feels like changing it. Wisdom is a wonderful thing. It is not available to the youth of this world and it is often times not achieved by even the brightest scholars. This excercise and experiment is faltering and failing because there are too many egos and no leader. Any corporation would fail and fall of it's own weight using this wiki model; if the funding for Wikipedia/Wikimedia ever fades, the administrators and editors that form most of the consensus decisions here, will not be able to pick up the pieces. "All the kings horses and all the kings men" will move on to the next big game. Step 3 04:33, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

There are many sources of information that are only changed after peer review, extensive research, and by people who are accredited experts in their field. Wikipedia references them all the time. However, there is only one resource that is edited by volunteers whose only qualification is an internet link and the desire to do so. This encyclopedia not only spans the breadth of human knowledge, but incorporates that breadth in its creation. Is perfection more desirable than participation, 'cos even the most august of references can and do make mistakes? As for a failing experiment, well, it is a glorious ongoing failure which looks like it will be a growing imperfection for some time to come. Welcome to a microcosm of the real world, where perfection is an ideal only. LessHeard vanU 12:08, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Don't you dare knock kids! The latest Time Magazine has coincidentally come to their defence with an article saying that ados are so smart and better behaved today that they should be treated like adults and given the same rights! What a boost for the child abusers, commanders of murderous child armies in Africa and pimps of underaged prostitutes!Ivygohnair 09:03, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Disagree, that's what wikipedia is GFDL for. It is already being mirrored and forked in several different places. Finding bandwidth to completely replace the current wikipedia would be the trickiest part, though there's a lab in Amsterdam working on even solving that problem. --Kim Bruning 10:57, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

(to original comment) That is not what Wikipedia intends to be, so why does it matter? This is like saying "Science journals are bad because laymen can't understand them"; it's true, but that's the point. -Amarkov moo! 01:59, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

People vouching for professionals

I am utterly against the idea of a person testifying on one's behalf to be sufficient for being able to say "X really has a degree in ___". A few months ago, if Essjay were to do something like that, we'd say "Ah well Essjay is trusted and so X must really be a theology professor." Then it turned out Essjay cannot be trusted. Proof for something like this should be absolutely firm and not based on "he said this she said that". If we don't trust that for articles, we shouldn't trust it for this. —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 02:05, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

We finally have a conclusion to the Essjay situation

The Essjay situation resulted in Jimbo calling for a credential policy which resulted in this straw poll which resulted in the community rejecting every policy proposal except "This is a proposal to ask the Foundation to make it a formal policy that checkusers' identities are known to the OFFICE. It is said that they are but it is not formal policy." titled "meta:Talk:CheckUser policy#Real name policy". Which up to now has only resulted in the change of Jimbo's proposal into an essay. We now we have an actual policy change in that its contents match the policy approved by the community. Kat Walsh announced May 1 that the board approved a Resolution:Access to nonpublic data on April 11 that requires "all users with access to non-public data covered by the site's Privacy Policy to provide identification to the Foundation. This includes checkusers, oversights, stewards, and volunteers on OTRS. In addition, all users holding these positions must be 18 or older, and also of the age of majority in whichever jurisdiction they live in." People with existing access have 60 days to get their ID data to the foundation. WAS 4.250 01:45, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

A kudos to Metamagician3000 who actually did the scientific thing and did the experiment, to show the naysayers who claim it could never work, that it could potentially work fine. Sometimes, somebody has to be first to try a new thing. Behold the turtle, who makes no progress except by sticking his neck out. So now, one small step in the right direction.

And for those who have predicted a mass exodus of high Wikipedia functionaries, making a political point of leaving, rather than give up complete anonymity, we just have to try the experiment. I predict that for every person who quits over the issue, there will be three happily waiting to take up the burden. SBHarris 02:41, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

In other words, everyone but admins, registered users, and anonymous contributors must now provide identification to the Wikimedia Foundation to obtain or keep their special privileges. This remedy still provides opportunities for fraud by determined individuals, but it eliminates the attractive nuisance that converts such frauds into high-profile media scandals. Kudos to the Foundation. // Internet Esquire 04:13, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

"All's well that ends well?"Ivygohnair 09:52, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

A sensible outcome. Well done all. ... dave souza, talk 10:54, 1 May 2007 (UTC)