The Essjay Hoax was exposed in February 2007 after The New Yorker magazine reported that a subject of one of its articles, English Wikipedia administrator and Wikia employee Ryan Jordan, “Essjay”, had lied to it, offering false information about his age, background, and academic credentials on behalf of Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Donal Wales. Although “Essjay” had claimed to hold doctoral degrees in theology and canon law as a tenured professor at a private university,[1] he was in fact a community college dropout from the U.S. state of Kentucky and had relied on sources such as Catholicism for Dummies when editing articles.[2] Jordan's fraud and Wales' prior knowledge of it was brought to wide public attention when the archivist and researcher Daniel Brandt notified The New Yorker, which then appended an editorial note to a July 2006 article about Wikipedia. [3] Reaction to the discovery that Jordan had lied was a torrent of public scorn and mockery heaped on the anti-credentialist Wikipedia. Wikipedia co-founder and president of Wikia Jimmy Wales initially backed his employee's (Ryan Jordan) sanctioned lies to the press on behalf of Wikipedia by misstating the issue of academic fraud as that of internet anonymity: "I regard it as a pseudonym and I don’t really have a problem with it."[3] However, overwhelmed by the tidal wave of criticism threatening Wikipedia, Wales threw his agent Essjay to the wolves. With the excuse that Jordan used phony credentials in appeals to authority over Wikipedians, Wales compelled Essjay's dismissal from both Wikipedia and Wikia.[4] In March 2007, The 24 year old "Essjay" announced his "retirement" from Wikipedia.[2]


Quoting Wales: “... Please feel free to delete random trolling comments (personal attacks) that do not contribute to a positive discussion of how we might grow....” All right, Jimmy Donal Wales. NNPOV? Delete away if you will, but the issue won't disappear. Say why the above is not true. Never mind the “we”. Take care of you. You be positive. You repair the damage you did to your reputation by answering questions fully and frankly.

Did you and/or your counsel-at-law know Ryan Jordan was not a Ph.D. theologian when you appointed him to ArbCom?

Did you and/or your Wikia senior management know Ryan Jordan was not a Ph.D. theologian when you hired him as Wikia community manager? You do employee screening, right?

Did you and/or your counsel-at-law know Ryan Jordan was not a Ph.D. theologian when you authorized him to speak on behalf of Wikipedia?

Did you know Ryan Jordan, the man you chose to be a respectable proud public face of Wikipedia, was going to pose as an academic to Stacy Schiff?

You are an anti-credentialist. Why was it important to you that some faux-credentialed man be your mouthpiece in that article? You have no academic contacts sympathetic to Wikipedia?

In response to public outrage, you told Jordan get out of Wikipedia and to quit Wikia or be fired. Why was that not expediently throwing an obedient minion to the wolves? How, when and on what basis did you decide Jordan was a hoaxer? Or did you decide?

As you picked Jordan, a former daily basis low level liar to Wikipedians, to lie grand scale on your behalf with your approval to the world, you, Jimmy Wales, boring though it may be, are the real problem, aren't you?

You have offered Wikipedians bureaucratic patches to the "Essjay" scandal. How do those patches fix your character flaws? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.147.190.3 (talk) 15:27, 13 March 2007 (UTC).

Comment was reverted at 18.14 13 Mar. 07 by WJBscribe as a "personal attack." What a shock.

Uh-oh. A jihad on Jimbo?

We've veered completely off whatever topic this was, haven't we?

==Ahem==
Pardon me, but did anyone happen to notice THE TOTALLY FREAKIN’ HUGE ELEPHANT STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM?? HELLO?? The greater part of the whole Essjay scandal is not about Essjay and what he did (although that was certainly bad enough). The really scandalous part is how Essjay was dealt with, and not dealt with, at the highest levels of Wikipedia. I shall explain, since it would appear (*sigh*) that explanation is actually required.

It is simply not credible that an elaborate false CV would be created for any legitimate purpose. The only possible exception that I could see would be for matters involving national security (Will this be the next Essjay whopper? Tune in tomorrow!). You do not fabricate a false CV to protect your anonymity. You fabricate a false CV to perpetrate a fraud–to gain material advantages you otherwise could not obtain, or would not obtain until significantly later. This is exactly, and unsurprisingly, what happened.

The truly scandalous thing here is that not only was Essjay given a paid position at Wikia after self-exposing his fraud (while incidently creating a few new misrepresentations along the way), but that he was also rewarded several weeks later with a promotion to ArbCom here at Wikipedia! It was not until it was obvious to even the most obtuse that this whole thing was going to blow up into a huge shitstorm in the mainstream media that “God-King” Jimbo finally gave Essjay/Ryan Jordan/Whatever-His-Name-Really-Is the ol’ heave ho. It would appear, accordingly, that either Jimmy Wales is one of the biggest pollyannas that ever lived, or he is just as morally oblivious as Essjay himself, if not more so.

If after reading this you cannot understand why I am so throughly disgusted, then I pity you. I truly do. Edeans 23:31, 11 March 2007 (UTC)