Wikipedia and Essjay. But was he any good?
Posted by Kirk M on 10 Mar 2007 | Tagged as: The News
I found the hulabaloo about Ryan Jordan’s “Essjay” portraying himself as a “tenured professor of theology” funny as all get out. Amusing to say the least it was, especially when that unbelievable, so-called “right thinking” Conservapedia began continuously slamming Wikipedia as being anti-Christian and anti-American. Considering that Wikipedia is a global effort, I find Conservapedia’s claim as ridiculous as the site itself.
But back to the subject at hand here…
When Ryan Jordan was found out to be a 24 year old instead of who his “online personae” indicated he was I had to say; So what? What’s the big deal here anyway?
Give me a break.
One absolutely does not need 2 PhD’s or any PhD at all just to write up and/or edit a good reference article and siting your references thereof. I was researching and writing up the same type of encyclopedia type articles when I was a Sophomore in high school for heavens sake and that was twenty five years before there was anything like a PC with a word processor sitting on my desk. Any youngster above the age of say, 14 years with a natural knack for research and a bit of built in self discipline (like many of them have) is all that is needed to do up a good research subject and put it all into a word processor.
So my big question about all this hoot and hollering about this “wiki-media-mess” was—So was he any good? Was his research creditable? Did he write professionally and were his articles well researched and properly referenced? In short… Did he do a good job at it???
It turned out that he actually was good at what he did and more to boot as this quote from Jimmy Wales indicates:
Wales said, “The great irony is that he is a fabulous editor and did really an amazing amount of good work. He spent most of his time reverting vandalism, mediating disputes, and was always a very kind and loving and thoughtful person who, you know, anytime people were having a dispute, it was always good to see Essjay show up because he was quite good at getting all parties on the same track.”
Source: Wikipedia founder speaks out on the ‘Essjay’ brouhaha So what’s the problem here? That a 24 year old wanted to protect his identity? That he, albeit naively, thought his credentials were outrageous enough (and they were) that anyone would easily see through them and know that they had to be made up? Looks like everyone involved here kinda’ goofed on their assumptions wouldn’t you say? I say chalk the whole thing up to a lesson in objectivity and put Ryan back to what he does best at Wikipedia and consider the whole mess a lesson well learned.
Technorati tags: Wikipedia, Essjay, Ryan Jordan
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2 Comments »
on 11 Mar 2007 at 10:19 am 1.Elaine said …
I never even heard of conservapedia, went and took a look though. Not the sort of site I frequent, I tend to stay away from the far right or far left websites. Clint Eastwood said it best in my opinon:
“Extremism is so easy. You’ve got your position, and that’s it. It doesn’t take much thought. And when you go far enough to the right you meet the same idiots coming around from the left.”
on 11 Mar 2007 at 4:19 pm 2.Kirk M said …
I use Wikipedia whenever I need to look info on some research I’m doing, and many times to peruse their references to a specific article down at the bottom of said article. I find the site invaluable.
However, that Conservapedia site is a complete waste of time in my book and I like that Clint Eastwood saying.