User talk:Metamagician3000/phdverification

Please explain how getting an email from someone verifies their credentials. --JWSchmidt 16:42, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

If it's an email from xuniversity.edu and an address that can be traced to a faculty member there (or a lawyer or accountant at firm X or whatever), then it's as clear as you can make it without getting a credit card verification. A Musing (formerly Sam) 19:12, 16 March 2007 (UTC)


 * It sounds like you are verifying that someone works for a particular company/institution. How do we verify credentials like degrees? --JWSchmidt 21:06, 16 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I think we'd need a public biography from a trustworthy source to verify a degree; many people have them, though certainly many others do not. The other examples Jimbo gave of verification strike me as weaker (e.g, "I have known JWSchmidt for 10 years and can verify that he got an advanced degree in spells from Hogwarts"). I note that I would not choose to be verified under this approach myself, but then again, I rarely edit articles in the area where I got my own advanced degree. A Musing (formerly Sam) 21:16, 16 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Maybe the initial focus for verifying credentials such as degrees could be for just those people who have an official public "profile" page such as a faculty member description page at a university website. --JWSchmidt 22:10, 16 March 2007 (UTC)


 * "a web page at a reputable university that identified him" <-- Are we to assume that Metamagician3000 does not want to make public the URL of that webpage and his real name? "public email address" <-- was the university website's .edu domain the same as the domain for the email address used by Metamagician3000? --JWSchmidt 02:11, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
 * He gave me substantially more information, but I view my role here as verifying his PhD, not providing details beyond that. The university web site was the web site of a top 10 university in the country he is in; I accessed his page there through a google search as well as through the link he gave me.  It was a different domain than the email account attached to User:Metamagician3000. A Musing (formerly Sam) 03:07, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but how does any of this this tell us anything useful about User:Metamagician3000? What is the link between the website you looked at and User:Metamagician3000? --JWSchmidt 05:37, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
 * This was a trial run to see whather it was possible to verify a PhD satisfactorily while retaining anonymity. It was successful. (1) I was able to use public and reputable materials to demonstrate that the person I claimed to be had a PhD. (2) I was then able to demonstrate that I really am that person when A Musing (formerly Sam) wrote to the address provided by the university with which I am associated (a totally different address from the one I use for Wikipedia business). He then received an email from that address with the sender confirming that he edits Wikipedia as Metamagician3000.
 * Actually, A Musing (formerly Sam) says all this above, so I'm just repeating.
 * I must add that this is not the place for discussing the wisdom of this process, whether it would be better for me to give up whatever anonymity I've maintained here by providing a link, or whatever. It was good-faith test to see whether it was possible, fairly painlessly, to verify the academic credentials of someone who wanted to put up a PhD userbox and have the PhD verified, without compromising their anonymity (beyond giving some real-life details to one person). I believe that the exercise should reassure people who want to do that. If anyone wants to discuss issues about whether the ability to do this is a good thing, etc., there are other places for it. Metamagician3000 11:58, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry if you feel annoyed by my questions, but I am just trying to understand what was done. In my experience, university webpages about faculty members and employees usually provide the email address of each faculty member/employee or a "click here to leave a message" system. In either case, it should be possible to get an email from the .edu domain of the university saying, "I edit Wikipedia as Metamagician3000". This is why I asked above if A Musing had gotten an email from the .edu domain of the university. Was "the address provided by the university" an email address at the .edu domain of the university? --JWSchmidt 14:54, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The email address was not an .edu in this case, but one separately maintained from the university. However, that email address was published in a number of places beyond his university web page that are associated with either professional associations, the university, or publications (I assume, as a result, that he gets a not inconsiderable amount of spam!). So, the link is that I email MM3000, who provided me with information about his identity.  I verified that such a person exists, and is identified as having credentials in a number of places (University web page, trade association, journals), and emailed that person at the email address publicly associated with them, and from that separate email address got confirmation that they were MM3000.  A Musing (formerly Sam) 16:41, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

And I did actually give Sam my edu address at the university as well, for what that's worth. Since I am not a member of the university's full-time faculty, I've had it put my "normal" email address on its page for me. I gave Sam the option of either writing to me at the address on the page or to my edu address (which actually includes my name as well the name of the university). If it really matters to you, I'll send him an email from Foo.Bloggs@Faculty.SnarkUni.edu.country. [Edit: I have now done this.] But anyway, this isn't about me; it's about giving a good-faith test to Jimbo's proposal And frankly, yes I do find this annoying by now. Sam had information that established my identity beyond any reasonable doubt. He also had copious, reliable publicly-available information to establish the qualifications of the person concerned. Of course, if everyone who does this is going to be interrogated by people about every little detail of what was done, it will in fact become unworkable. Even this exchange has narrowed down that I am not a full-time faculty member at the university, which is contrary to the idea of the exercise: we are not supposed to be revealing facts about ourselves beyond providing evidence to convince one person who is trusted that we do have (in my case) a PhD. Incidentally, all this belongs on the talk page. Metamagician3000 22:55, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for taking the time to explain things. I have the feeling that .edu domains are particularly well controlled and hard to fake, so my bias would be to have more trust in an email that I got from a .edu email account and credentials information I found on a .edu webpage. --JWSchmidt 00:35, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * JW, FYI, I might agree in principal on the .edu domain names, but in this case the address I used was easily verifiable from multiple sources, including being published on the .edu site -- googling MM3000 and looking him up on Google Scholar gave me an enormous amount of information. I can also verify from the .edu address, but I didn't view it as preferable in the first run on this case, and used my best judgment.
 * MM3000, thanks for doing this - I think being first does mean you were put under a microscope. A Musing (formerly Sam) 02:01, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * How is this any sort of verification? Who are who Mr. "A Musing (formerly Sam)" to verify anything? Who verifies you as someone I should believe? WAS 4.250 06:36, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * WAS, in theory he could be my sockpuppet, I suppose. As it happens, I don't think I'd ever come across him before at all, but I can't prove that to you. All the same it would actually be pretty elaborate plot if we were the same person. Could we be colluding? I suppose so, but what motive would we have? Just trying to make Jimbo look good? Conducting an elaborate charade so we could later make him look bad by fessing up? All unlikely. We haven't, of course, demonstrated that collusion is impossible - it isn't - or even that elaborate frauds are impossible (e.g I could, theoretically, be colluding, not with Sam, but with the real "Foo Bloggs", though it is not clear why he would want to play along with such a charade). There will have to be some trust somewhere for this process to work, as Jimbo has said all along. But the experience we can report is simply that we were able to conduct this exercise quite quickly and painlessly. That may give confidence to others to try it. Metamagician3000 07:01, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * You are using this as a demonstration. So demonstate how this actually verifies anything other than some anon backs some anon which is pointless and useless and actually dangerous if people start plastering their userpages with these nonverifiable verifications. WAS 4.250 07:23, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

We said we'd give Jimbo's proposal a try, see if it could work painlessly with someone who does not want to lose his or her anonymity, and report back on our experience with it. We have done so what we said we'd do. Furthermore, if you want to debate the philosophy of it take it back to the talk page for Jimbo's proposal. Also, while you are of course entitled to debate the philosophy of an anonymous person verifying the identity and credentials of another anonymous person, you should remember to assume good faith when dealing with particular individuals who are well-established users in good standing here. Metamagician3000 08:49, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Are you saying it violates AGF for someone to disbelieve your claims? WAS 4.250 12:15, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I think User:WAS 4.250 does indeed note the biggest flaw I see in going through this system: it's not whether MM3000's identify is properly verified; having been through it, I have a very high confidence in that. It is me, the verifier, who is the weak link. You have to look me up and trust me somehow, and I have not revealed in any way (except to MM3000) who I am.  So, what you have is the level of trust I've built on wikipedia, nothing more or less. I have run across a couple of users who delight in regular use of sock puppets,  I wouldn't trust a verification from them for beans, and I would likely be highly skeptical of a verification of them unless from someone I have reason to trust.  But, User:WAS 4.250, I'd suggest if you have doubts about whether you can verify someone in this way to your confidence level, that you give it a go.  A Musing (formerly Sam) 12:18, 18 March 2007 (UTC)


 * You don't add stability to a house of cards by adding additional floors (stories, layers). There is no foundation to a credibility scheme that rests on anonymous people making claims. It is in fact a confidence scheme designed to create confidence without any actual real verify-ability. What do they call (con)fidence men again? My objection is to the scheme and not to any of you fine people providing an example. WAS 4.250 22:35, 18 March 2007 (UTC)


 * My view: each protection against misleading, fraudulent or even just juvenile activity cuts back on some of that activity, and no system is altogether safe. Wikipedia today is highly vulnerable to such behavior, and it shows. This is a low-impact way of increasing confidence.  But, yes, someone with bad intent will find a work-around, with this as with any other system.  A Musing (formerly Sam) 00:32, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

(<---)This scheme increases confidence by increasing misleading, fraudulent and even just juvenile activity because it pretends to address verifyability and yet does not. WAS 4.250 04:56, 19 March 2007 (UTC)