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User:Jimbo Wales/Credential Verification: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 09:04, 15 March 2007 editRadiant! (talk | contribs)36,918 edits per many objections on talk page← Previous edit Revision as of 04:26, 16 March 2007 edit undoJimbo Wales (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, Founder14,539 edits this proposal has not been rejected! It is subject to modification, but it is going to happen unless someone can muster a policy proposal to block people for doing thisNext edit →
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:''This is an initial proposal for Credential Verification. Please feel free to edit and modify. Please discuss on the talk page.'' :''This is an initial proposal for Credential Verification. Please feel free to edit and modify. Please discuss on the talk page.''


Revision as of 04:26, 16 March 2007

This is an initial proposal for Credential Verification. Please feel free to edit and modify. Please discuss on the talk page.

This is a proposal to come from the community, and not be imposed by the WikiMedia Foundation. If it successfully achieves consensus, it will be adopted as all Misplaced Pages policies are, and enforced in the usual way.

Please assume in your edits that this is a proposal which should be designed to achieve broad community support. If you just hate the idea completely and totally, then please argue that on the talk page, but please do let people try to achieve something useful and balanced here in the meantime.

Basic conditions

Some basic principles, which I have selected in order to attempt to achieve balance between the many competing thoughtful concerns that have been raised on this topic.

  1. The process must be scalable, therefore it must be firmly in the hands of the community, not the Wikimedia Office. (There may be some small role for the office, but it should be kept to an absolute minimum.)
  2. The policy must emphasize that under longstanding Misplaced Pages traditions, the fallacy of appeal to credentials is firmly rejected. We edit together in a spirit of mutual respect and equality, and "I am a PhD so shut up" is never the right answer. Reasoned discourse and policies such as WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:ATT are the right answer.
  3. The process must be socially nondisruptive. There can be no sudden mass prohibition on claiming unverified or unverifiable credentials, but rather a gradual social process which rewards and encourages making claims of credentials verifiable, while discouraging the kind of behavior which has resulted in deception and a scandal about falsified credentials.

Use userboxes

I propose a set of userboxes for credentials (can someone make samples and put them here) which contain a link to a subpage of the user page. Misplaced Pages:Userboxes/Education may provide a good starting point for thinking about these.

As an example user, I choose randomly from the "what links here" for a claim to have a PhD. User:DrNixon has a PhD in Biology.

So I propose a subpage of his userpage, linked to from the PhD template, perhaps something like /PhD_verifications

On this page he or other users would list, and sign, the evidence examined.

A typical entry might look like this:

  • I have searched the web and found confirmation of this:
Michigan State University lists Joshua Nixon as a graduate in the fields this user has listed.
I have emailed his email address given on that page, to confirm that our DrNixon is that same Joshua Nixon. I have not yet gotten a response but will post here when I do.--Jimbo Wales 03:19, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I now have a response from Dr. Nixon, and by email he has verified that he is the same Joshua Nixon.

Multiple entries could be given, with different sorts of testimony depending on the context.

Initially we might restrict this sort of verification process to just PhDs, to make sure that it is functional, but later it could of course (and probably would naturally) be expanded to cover whatever sorts of claimed expertise could be somehow verifiable.

Some totally hypothetical entries might look like this:

  • I have known this user in real life for 10 years, and can certify that he was a professor at Las Vegas State University for 7 of those 10 years. As he is now no longer in academia, his status is not provable via the web. I give therefore my personal testimony.--Jimbo Wales 03:19, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I have confirmed the real life identity of this user by contacting that person (whom the user claimed to be in a private email to me). That person has written back from an official e-mail address, giving me confirmation that she is, in fact, this user. She has also established her credentials, including the LLB and PhD listed on her userpage, by referring me to the official web site of The University of Foo, where she currently works as a post-doctoral fellow.

I believe that a system like this would allow for the gentle introduction of a tradition of verifiable credentials. A quick glance through our PhD contributors suggests that many of them could be verified in this way quite quickly with a minimum of fuss.

The system is voluntary. A user who claims to have a Ph.D. or any other credential covered by this system may assert the claim in text or non-linkable userbox on his or her user page, without incorporating the userboxes that link to a verification subpage.

See also

Other related proposed changes to Misplaced Pages