Recently, a New Yorker article exposed the misadventures of Wikipedia contributor and arbitrator "Essjay," a 24-year-old college dropout purporting himself to have a doctorate-level credentials in theology and cannon law. His real name is Ryan Jordan, whose profile was officially retired from Wikipedia around the same time his employment was terminated at Wikia.

According to an Associated Press interview, Wales reiterated his "anti-credentialist" stance and his belief in anonymity. However, in light of recent events giving weight to a tabled two-year-old suggestion, Wales said anyone claiming specific expertise in a subject would have to back it up. Otherwise, they could remain anonymous and contribute to Wikipedia.

 "It’s always inappropriate to try to win an argument by flashing your credentials," Wales told the AP, "and even more so if those credentials are inaccurate."

Pressure to reform some of the rules at Wikipedia also comes from the other co-founder of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger, who left the online encyclopedia to create his own, more credentialed version, a project he calls "Citizendum." Citizendum requires all contributors to prove their qualifications. Sanger’s stated goal is "unseat Wikipedia" as the top information resource on the Web.

From a Wikipedia article about the Citizendum project:

The stated aim of the project is to create a "new compendium of knowledge" based on the contributions of "intellectuals", defined as "educated, thinking people who read about science or ideas regularly."[7] Citizendium hopes to foster an expert culture and a community that encourages subject specialists (presently named as "editors") to contribute, and "citizens" (to be called "authors") to "respect" the expert contributions (by a so-called "gentle process of guidance").

If Sanger is able to recreate Wikipedia with Citizendum, the days of entry vandalism and, perhaps, college professors not accepting a publicly edited encyclopedia as a source, may be numbered.

He’s also not a tenured professor of religion at a private university with a Ph.D. in theology and a degree in canon law, as Valleywag noted today. That’s not the Essjay the New Yorker came to know in a July 2006 article.

Radar Online gleefully poked the New Yorker for being fooled:

In a feature story about Wikipedia, it appears The New Yorker fell prey to just the sort of pseudo-truths for which the online encyclopedia is famous.

It only took the magazine’s vaunted fact-checking department seven months to discover that Essjay is actually a 24-year-old named Ryan Jordan who has never taught anything and holds no advanced degrees.

Jordan’s creative background-building doesn’t seem to have had an impact with Wikipedia or its founder, Jimmy Wales. The New Yorker said in its correction that Jordan has been hired by Wales’ Wikia business, as well as keeping his Wikipedia responsibilities.

The whole fake background thing wasn’t a big deal for Wales. “I regard it as a pseudonym and I don