Stan Shebs wrote:
I find myself looking on it as
"foolish" rather than "unacceptable".
There *are* stalkers and freaks who go after WP editors, and our
attitude has generally been that if it's not happening on WP itself,
it's not our problem.
No, it's unacceptable. Essjay didn't merely misrepresent himself on
his user page (behavior that in and of itself might not be so bad).
He made the situation much, much worse by LYING TO A REPORTER while
acting as a spokesperson for Wikipedia. Moreover, he did this to a
reporter at The New Yorker, which is a famous stickler for factual
accuracy. No serious journalist will trust him ever again. I'm
frankly amazed that Jimbo would say he doesn't have a problem with this.
That's a good point - I've only been paying attention to the on-WP
aspect. While we can't regulate all editors' user pages, we can
certainly set a higher standard for people who are given out as
"spokespersons".
I can see more than a little embarassment for the New Yorker here too.
Retired professors tend to have left a long trail behind them - I talked
casually with one the other day, took just ten minutes with Google to
reconstruct his professional career given only last name and a mention
of a couple of his research interests. I wonder how NYer managed not to
take any interest in independently looking up any of Essjay's background.
Stan