User:R. fiend/The Essjay controversy

It's been an interesting few days for Wikipedia. As I seem to have retreated more and more into my little shell here, interacting with other users less and staying away from most forums of discussion, I generally find out about these incidents after everyone else. This is no real exception, except that I did stumble upon it accidentally only about a day or so later this time. As usual, I have my opinions on the subject.

Like most users, it would seem, I am quite disappointed with Essjay. I admit I never knew him, and I don't doubt most of his contributions to the project were positive, but there is a level of dishonesty here that goes beyond some faked credentials, as if that weren't enough. Essjay's efforts to explain away the controversy appear to be riddled with fabrications, and do more to indict than acquit him.

His unapologetic excuse for his actions strikes me as incredibly insincere. Yes, many of us respect our privacy online, and do much to protect it, but the assertion that making up a handful of degrees was necessary, or for that matter even useful, in such an endeavor is basically ridiculous. His 4th edit was a statement on a talk page that he had a PhD. Does he expect us to believe that after 3 edits the trolls and stalkers were zeroing in on him, and he had to make up a fanciful lie to throw them off the scent? If he didn't want people to know who he was, it would have been quite easy to do without elevating himself to this degree. Hell, I've done it, simply by refusing to say much of anything about myself. And it works pretty well. That he then used these "credentials" to score points in arguments on talk pages and at AfD is further evidence that this was not simply a way to preserve anonymity.

It gets worse with the New Yorker story. Essjay says in his "apology":


 * "I spoke with Stacy Shiff for over eight hours...That she chose to focus on ... what my userpage said came as a complete surprise to me; it was, quite honestly, my impression that it was well known that I was not who I claimed to be, and that in the absence of any confirmation, no respectible publication would print it."

I find much of this difficult to believe. He spoke to her for eight hours and not only did she not ask him once about himself or his occupation, but didn't even make a passing reference to it (which he would have then been under an obligation to deny)? He goes on to say that he thought everyone knew he wasn't a professor? Really? What is he basing that on? The fact that he made reference to it regularly without anyone ever questioning it? Is there any example of anyone every expressing doubt? If he had said something such as "I would have figured that everyone would be skeptical of credentials offered by an anonymous person" he might have a case, but that is not nearly the same thing. Furthermore, his denial that he intentionally misled Shiff is refuted by his own words on his talk page: "I was really surprised that they were willing to do an interview with someone who they couldn’t confirm; I can only assume that it is proof I was doing a good job playing the part." He didn't say "I can only assume they took what my user page said too seriously", he admitted to "playing [a] part" which is basically an admission that he was being deceptive.

He then goes on to try to shift the blame to the New Yorker for not fact-checking. Well, since he refused to give his name, how much fact-checking could they really do? And how much fact-checking does any publication do on the most basic personal information on their interviewees? If they interview Willy Splizzzmann for a piece, and he states that he from Boise, do they send fact-checkers to Boise to try to track down his birth records, or do they take his word for it? Perhaps they should have been more hesitant to interview a source who would not identify himself, but bear in mind Essjay was recommended to Shiff by someone in the upper eschelons of Wikipedia; given that she probably had little reason to doubt him. Furthermore, did he honestly expect them to interview him for over 6 hours and they say "well, since you won't identify yourself, we can't really use you as a source, so this will all be tossed in the trash. Thanks for your time"? Perhaps Shiff should have replaced "claims to be" with "is" when describing Essjay, but it would have made little difference. Essjay, as far as I can tell, was still intentionally deceptive in the interview.

Perhaps the most serious lie, in some respects, was reported by Andrew Lih on wikipedia weekly. Essjay had claimed that "[Shiff] made several offers to compensate me for my time, and my response was that if she truly felt the need to do so, she should donate to the Foundation instead." Now this is a pretty serious breach of journalistic ethics, or would be, if it were true. But it is not. Lih asked Shiff about it, and she categorically denied it. I realize this is Shiff's word against Essjay's, but I think it's pretty clear who has more integrity at this stage. His statement is potentially libel (though I seriously doubt anything can or will come of it, Shiff would find it impssible to prove damages), although I seriously doubt Essjay realized it.

I've heard various defenses of Essjay: he didn't use these phony credentials to gain anything, he's young ("what 24 year old wouldn't, given the chance, create some fanciful persona?" Other than the vast majority of other 20-something editors here?), etc. while Essjay's "degrees" may not have played a role in his elevation to various positions (admin, Bureaucrat, oversight, checkuser, arbcom), it very well might have, in the eyes of some users. Could it not have been a factor in his name (well, username) being given to the New Yorker for the article? Sure, he was a well-repsected user in a position of authority, but so were many others. At a time when wiipedia is criticized for being written largely by teenage videogame fans, might the powers that be have thought it wise to send the New Yorker (quite the ivory-tower publication) to a PhD? If so, that sure backfired quickly. And I don't buy the age excuse as a mitigating factor. He's 24, not 14. He's an adult in every sense of the word. The only things he can't legally do are run for Congress or join AARP.

Perhaps Essjay's best excuse can be found in that 4th edit of his, years ago. At that stage, he could not have forseen his future involvement in Wikipedia, and pretending to have a PhD in a single remark on a talk page was not the scandal it would later become. I can see how, as time went on and he saw what his involvement in the project was becoming, he might have found it difficult to admit the truth, and take back that initial indescretion ("Oh what a tangled web we weave..."), but eventually it should have become clear that he would have to. He could have done it piecemeal, removing the claims from his userpage for a start. It certainly should have become clear when the New Yorker contacted him. Instead of his long non-apology he wrote a few days ago, perhaps he should have said: "I made up these credentials a long time ago, before I knew how involved I would be in wikipedia. Before I knew it I hd established myself as a well-known and respected editor here, and by the stage it was very hard to come clean, and admit to everyne I wasn't who I had rpetended to be. But I should have done so sooner, and I should not have misrepresented myself to the press. I'm sorry." In such a case, I would be more inclined to forgive him. Instead he dismissed his lies as no big deal, tried to rationalize his deception as necessary, lied further, and shifted blame to those he wronged. I'm not terribly sympathetic.