I disagree. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edits, he has almost 19,000 edits. Sure, someone who’d debated with him before might be able to refind evidence quickly, but that’s a big haystack. And it really is the “hitting other people’s heads over with your (false) expert status” that is the true crime here.

Should Jimbo have come out more strongly after the initial revelations? Absolutely, because faking stuff on the user page, even if never used in debates, isn’t a good sign. And was Jimbo in a position to know more earlier? Quite possibly, but how many Wikipedians are there? Just because he’s Grand Poobah doesn’t mean he has everyone’s user pages memorized; this Mr. Jordan seems a consummate liar, and by simply “acting casual” he may well have skated past the fact he told the New Yorker something else and there must have been some misunderstanding. Hindsight is 20/20; while Jimbo definitely loses points on his competence meter for not picking up on this earlier, it’s not necessarily him knowing and not caring. (If it really was, then yes, he’s not fit to run Wikipedia, but that’s not clear.)

But Jimbo’s recent response seems proportionate. And frankly, even if Essjay never gave a personal and heartfelt apology, this is where it’s reasonable to smile, pretend he apologized, then perma-fire him. It’s done by businesses all the time to try and smooth over fraud. Jimbo was late, but I don’t see much to disagree with from his last missive.

-Not normally a fan of Jimbo Wales

Also, can someone who can read Dutch* or whatever language that is tell me out of whose arse the sun shines? Because I’m kind of curious now.

Two statements stand out:
1. He was “several days in a remote part of India with little or no Internet access”

2. He says he couldn’t appraise the situation because he “was on a journey to India, visiting slum schools to learn how our work might or might not be helpful to people strugging to get an education in adversue conditions”

These statement contradict each other. Where exactly was he in India? Even Wikipedia’s article on Slums says that slums are in cities and towns. Usually large ones. There is internet access in cities and large towns in India. He seems to be using an outdated preconception of India in order to excuse his behavior. I think he’s telling tales.

Where exactly was he?

I’m back to CZ work now–where you’re going to see some solid progress in the next few weeks, including a launch (right, Jason? ha ha).

Another problem, which still remains, is that Jimbo was the only person with the authority to directly and promptly address the issue, so even temporary absence was a problem.

“Giving yourself a different identity on-line is one thing. Passing yourself off as a professor, with degrees and experience up the wazoo, is quite another thing. And throwing those degrees and that experience around in discussions to prop up all sorts of arguments from authority (”I can’t tell you how often I’ve had to explain this to my students”, “surely *I* should know”, that kind of stuff), is a whole different kettle of fish altogether.

And in the end it’s the same old story–the happy few at the top that consider Jimbo Wales to be the centre of the universe circle the wagons, and they must think the sun shines out of his arse, et cetera, et ceteree.

And, of course, The Usual Suspects commment with more than the usual schadenfreude: this is just the kind of thing that Sanger cum suis have been warning about for a long time.

Nah, Wikipedia gets ickier and ickier. On the surface it’s not that bad, but dig a little deeper and you get exactly the same shenanigans, both the good and the bad, as in any similar volunteer-based initiative.”

Something along those lines.

And as to your last point - that’s going to be true anywhere. Even here, if there was an issue with a member of the Exec Board, it’d be Dr. Sanger’s call.

Oh, and a quick retraction - apparently he was ex-Mediation Chair and on the ArbCom, not ex-ArbCom Chair. My apologies. Point remains, he was a bureaucrat, a checkuser, and had oversight. That’s the 3 big guns of Mediawiki privilege levels*, and he had them all. I don’t doubt that in a year’s time, had this not been discovered, he could have made Board of Trustees or something.

* = (Steward is not an official MediaWiki privilege level, it’s a hacked-on thing that Wikimedia does)

Some corrections: there is no Exec. Board, there is an Executive Committee. What you say may be true now, Zach, but it won’t be for long. We aim to adopt a Citizendium Charter, I hope by this fall, which will specify nothing like a sovereign monarch as Wikipedia has (in effect), but at least two, or three, persons and/or bodies that are distinct, nonoverlapping, independent in their areas of authority, and which act as checks on each others’ authority. Furthermore, I am committed to stepping down, as I have said, in 2 or 3 years (at most) in order to set a good precedent. And when I step down, I really will step down, I won’t continue to make appointments and pretend to speak on behalf of the whole project to the media.

If you were to say I seem to have a certain model in mind, you’d be right.

* Essjay so-called “apology” is insulting. I’ve never understood why it’s so hard for people to admit their wrongdoings.
* Jimbo knowingly appointing Essjay despite his fraudulent claims is the worst part of this whole situation, in my opinion.

On the flip side:

* It does not appear like Essjay used his false status to further some agenda. On the contrary, he has made thousands of worthy edits. I think he’ll go down in history as the Pete Rose of Wikipedia. Both great, but with tarnished legacies.
* Essjay has resigned.

Oh, and thanks Michel Vuijlsteke for the translation.

Then, the NY Times wants an interview. Well, either you destroy your reputation and tell them the truth, or you continue the lie that is commonly accepted as truth. The lie doesn’t hurt anyone, while the truth would hurt you along with anyone who trusted you. So you lie, even though it’s snowballing into something you don’t want. But what choice do you have? So you lie to the NYT.

Bam, you’re caught, and in big trouble because you didn’t come out yourself, someone else forced you out. You resign from the ‘pedia and ‘a, etc.

That’s basically what happens. While it might not have been the best course of action, it is an UNDERSTANDABLE course of action. I think, anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GofG

Whether it works or not doesn’t matter. It’s wrong to even _try_ to pull this. Wrong, period.

And um, Wikipedia “runs on truth”? When people go to great lengths to distort the “truth” about themselves, and use their new-found “truth” in content disputes, can there be any meaning left to the claim that Wikipedia “runs on truth”?

Lies, excuses, and more lies. We don’t need Stephen Colbert to crash Wikipedia, because Wikipedia’s own defenders can easily do it themselves.