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作为一部免费的网上百科全书，维基百科（Wikipedia）（阅读版05年2月号“最新科技”栏目有详细介绍）自诞生以来就遭到不少质疑：任何人都可以参与编辑并随意改动的百科全书，它的权威性和可靠性从何而来？然而，几年来，维基却依靠“群众智慧”带来了无数让人吃惊的可靠内容，从而赢得了用户的支持和信赖。
诚然，维基百科的运作过程是透明的——在维基百科网站上，所有词条的编辑过程都会被记录并保存下来，以便为读者追究涉嫌欺骗的行为提供证据。然而，由于参与维基百科内容编辑的人员通常是匿名工作，编辑人员的个人诚信成为维基生存和发展的基石。下文提到的“Essjay风波”就凸现了以维基百科为代表的依靠“群众智慧”的那些网站的缺陷。在网络实名制和网民隐私权的争议仍然未有明确结果的情况下，我们惟有大力呼吁：虚拟网络世界的健康、有序运转同样需要诚信，需要你我的共同维护！
In a blink, the wisdom of the crowd became the fury of the crowd. In March, contributors to Wikipedia, the popular online 1)encyclopedia, turned against one of their own who was found to have created an elaborate false identity.
Under the name Essjay, the contributor edited thousands of Wikipedia 2)articles, and was once one of the few people with the authority to deal with 3)vandalism and to 4)arbitrate disputes between authors.
To the Wikipedia world, Essjay was a 5)tenured professor of religion at a private university with expertise in 6)canon law, according to his user profile. In fact, Essjay turned out to be a 24-year-old man named Ryan Jordan, who attended a number of colleges in 7)Kentucky and lives outside 8)Louisville.
Mr. Jordan contended that he resorted to a fictional 9)persona to protect himself from bad actors who might be angered by his administrative role at Wikipedia.
Mr. Jordan’s deception came to public attention after 10)The New Yorker published a rare editors’ note, saying that when it wrote about Essjay as part of a lengthy profile of Wikipedia, “neither we nor Wikipedia knew Essjay’s real name,” and that it took Essjay’s 11)credentials and life experience at 12)face value.
In addition to his professional credentials and work on articles concerning 13)Roman Catholicism, Essjay was described in the magazine’s article, perhaps oddly for a religious scholar, as twice removing a sentence from the 14)entry on the singer 15)Justin Timberlake, which “Essjay knew to be false.”
After the article appeared, a reader contacted The New Yorker about Essjay’s real identity, which Mr. Jordan had disclosed with little 16)fanfare when he recently accepted a job at 17)Wikia, a for-profit company.
The New Yorker editors’ note ended with a 18)defiant comment from 19)Jimmy Wales, a founder of Wikipedia and the dominant force behind the site’s growth. “I regard it as a 20)pseudonym and I don’t really have a problem with it,” he said of Mr. Jordan’s 21)alter ego.
Later, Mr. Wales, who was traveling in Asia with 22)intermittent Internet connections, stuck by that view. In a statement 23)relayed through Wikipedia’s public relations officer, he said that at that time, “Essjay apologized to me and to the community at large for any harm he may have caused, but he was acting in order to protect himself.”
But the broad group of Wikipedia users was not so supportive. 24)Mounting anger was expressed in public forums like the user pages of Mr. Wales and Essjay. Initially, a few people wrote to express support for Essjay, along the lines of WJBscribe, who left a message saying: “Just wanted to express my 100 percent support for everything you do around here. I think you were totally entitled to protect your identity. Don’t let all the 25)fuss 26)get you down!”
A few days later, the prevailing view was summarized in subject lines like Essjay Must Resign, and notes calling Mr. Jordan’s actions “plain and simple fraud.”
Some Wikipedia users argued that Essjay had compounded the deception by 27)flaunting a fictional Ph.D. and professorship to influence the editing on the site.
“People have gone through his edits and found places where he was basically 28)cashing in on his fake credentials to 29)bolster his arguments,” said Michael Snow, a Wikipedia administrator, and founder of the community newspaper, 30)The Wikipedia Signpost. “Those will get looked at, again.” he added.
In a discussion over the editing of the article with regard to the term “31)imprimatur,” as used in Catholicism, Essjay defended his use of the book 32)Catholicism for Dummies, saying, “This is a text I often require for my students, and I would hang my own Ph.D. on it’s credibility.”
Over time, Mr. Wales changed his mind about the episode. He cleared off the “talk” section of his own Wikipedia user page—usually 33)cluttered with personal requests, policy debates and compliments—so that “this statement gets adequate attention” and announced that he had “asked Essjay to resign his positions of trust within the community.” He said “that my past support of Essjay in this matter was fully based on a lack of knowledge about what has been going on.”
Mr. Snow said, the Essjay case “is about the community, the trust the community depends on, in terms of being able to review the work we each do.”
“Even though you don’t necessarily know these people personally,” he added, “you see the work enough times and get to know that work.”
Mr. Jordan announced his resignation from Wikipedia on his Essjay user page, in the end. In a brief note below, he said simply, “It’s time to make a clean break.”
That page had been a model of industry, with 34)tallies of the more than 20,000 articles he edited, and statements of personal philosophy and Wikipedia policy. And there was a 35)stark, rectangular black box with the word “retired” written in white capital letters.
Furthermore, Mr. Jordan no longer worked for Wikia, the company said.
眨眼之间，“众智”变成了“众怒”。今年三月，热门在线百科全书——维基百科的词条贡献者们把矛头指向了自己人——这个人的公开身份被发现是一次精心的造假。
这位化名为“Essjay”的词条贡献者为维基百科编辑了数千个词条，他还曾经一度是少数几个有权处理各种恶意破坏行为，并调解词条贡献者们之间争议的人之一。
在维基社群里，Essjay的个人简介显示，他是一所私立大学的终身宗教学教授，通晓教会法规。而事实上，Essjay的真名叫瑞安·乔丹，是一位年仅24岁的男子，他曾在美国肯塔基州好几间大学念书，现在住在该州路易斯维尔市郊外。
乔丹先生声称，他采用一个虚假的身份是为了自我保护——在维基百科享有管理员地位的他，不愿招来一些别有用心的人的嫉恨。
乔丹先生的欺骗行径引起公众的广泛关注源于《纽约客》杂志的一则不寻常的编者声明，其中指出虽然他们在介绍维基百科的长文中写到Essjay，但“无论是维基百科，还是我们杂志，都不知道Essjay的真实姓名。”并说明文章中所提到的Essjay的资历和经历全部来自于他的自述。
除了介绍Essjay的专业资历以及他对天主教词条的贡献，《纽约客》杂志的长文还提到，作为一个宗教学者，Essjay曾两次删掉歌手贾斯汀·汀布莱克词条里的一个句子，因为“Essjay知道它写错了”，这也许太奇怪了。
该文章发表后，一位读者联系了《纽约客》杂志，告知Essjay的真实身份，那是不久前乔丹先生接受赢利性的Wikia公司的聘请时低调披露的。
《纽约客》杂志的这则编者声明以维基百科创始人、该网站发展的主要推动者吉米·威尔士一句大胆的评论结尾，他就乔丹先生的“另一个我”（即假身份）如是说：“我把它看作一个笔名，并不认为这有什么不妥。”
随后，当威尔士先生在亚洲旅行而不能随时上网时，他依然坚持这一观点。在一份声明中，他通过维基百科的公关发言人表示，当时“Essjay向我道了歉，也对他给整个维基社区带来的伤害深表歉意。但他那样做是为了保护自己。”
但维基百科的广大用户并没有这么支持Essjay。日益高涨的愤怒涌向了各公共论坛，包括威尔士先生以及Essjay的用户主页。一开始，少数人表达了对Essjay的支持，其中包括一位用户名为WJBscribe的人，他留言说：“我只想对你在这里所做的一切表示我百分之百的支持。我认为你完全有权利对自己的身份保密。别让那些反对声击倒你！”
几天过后，“Essjay必须辞职”之类的留言标题成了主流民意，还有留言称乔丹先生的行为是“纯粹的欺骗行为”。
有的维基百科用户认为，Essjay通过捏造博士和教授身份来进行欺骗，目的在于影响该网站的编辑。
“大家已经把他编辑的词条浏览了一遍，发现有好些地方他完全是利用自己的虚假资历来支撑自己的论点，”迈克尔·斯诺说，“那些词条将会被重新审阅。”迈克尔·斯诺是维基百科的管理员之一，也是维基社区报纸——《维基百科导报》的创办人。
在“出版许可”这个词条的编辑讨论中——这个词一般运用在天主教教义中，Essjay为自己使用《傻瓜天主教义》一书辩解说：“这是我经常要求我学生阅读的一本书，我以我的博士学历确保它的可信度。”
随着时间的推移，威尔士先生改变了他对该事件的立场。他清除自己维基百科用户页面里的“谈论”内容——通常这一部分堆积着用户的个人要求、政策讨论以及赞美之辞——以便“本声明得到足够的关注”。他宣布，他已经“要求Essjay卸下他在维基社区里肩负的职责。” 他表示，“过去我在此事上对Essjay表示支持，完全是基于我不了解情况。”
斯诺先生说，Essjay风波“关系到整个维基社区，关系到维基在‘可审订彼此的工作’方面的信任基础。”
“就个人而言，即使你不一定认识这些人，”他补充道，“你看过他们编辑的词条很多次以后，也熟悉了他们的工作。”
最终，乔丹先生在其Essjay用户页面上宣布，自己从维基百科辞职。在其页面底部的简短声明中，他简单地说：“是时候干脆地结束了。”
Essjay的主页曾经是勤恳的楷模——上面载有他编辑过的两万多个词条、个人哲学观点以及维基政策的声明。现在取而代之的是一个引人注目的黑色长方框，里面是用白色大写字母写成的字——“退休”。
此外，Wikia 公司也宣布，乔丹先生已经不再任职于该公司了。
诚然，维基百科的运作过程是透明的——在维基百科网站上，所有词条的编辑过程都会被记录并保存下来，以便为读者追究涉嫌欺骗的行为提供证据。然而，由于参与维基百科内容编辑的人员通常是匿名工作，编辑人员的个人诚信成为维基生存和发展的基石。下文提到的“Essjay风波”就凸现了以维基百科为代表的依靠“群众智慧”的那些网站的缺陷。在网络实名制和网民隐私权的争议仍然未有明确结果的情况下，我们惟有大力呼吁：虚拟网络世界的健康、有序运转同样需要诚信，需要你我的共同维护！
In a blink, the wisdom of the crowd became the fury of the crowd. In March, contributors to Wikipedia, the popular online 1)encyclopedia, turned against one of their own who was found to have created an elaborate false identity.
Under the name Essjay, the contributor edited thousands of Wikipedia 2)articles, and was once one of the few people with the authority to deal with 3)vandalism and to 4)arbitrate disputes between authors.
To the Wikipedia world, Essjay was a 5)tenured professor of religion at a private university with expertise in 6)canon law, according to his user profile. In fact, Essjay turned out to be a 24-year-old man named Ryan Jordan, who attended a number of colleges in 7)Kentucky and lives outside 8)Louisville.
Mr. Jordan contended that he resorted to a fictional 9)persona to protect himself from bad actors who might be angered by his administrative role at Wikipedia.
Mr. Jordan’s deception came to public attention after 10)The New Yorker published a rare editors’ note, saying that when it wrote about Essjay as part of a lengthy profile of Wikipedia, “neither we nor Wikipedia knew Essjay’s real name,” and that it took Essjay’s 11)credentials and life experience at 12)face value.
In addition to his professional credentials and work on articles concerning 13)Roman Catholicism, Essjay was described in the magazine’s article, perhaps oddly for a religious scholar, as twice removing a sentence from the 14)entry on the singer 15)Justin Timberlake, which “Essjay knew to be false.”
After the article appeared, a reader contacted The New Yorker about Essjay’s real identity, which Mr. Jordan had disclosed with little 16)fanfare when he recently accepted a job at 17)Wikia, a for-profit company.
The New Yorker editors’ note ended with a 18)defiant comment from 19)Jimmy Wales, a founder of Wikipedia and the dominant force behind the site’s growth. “I regard it as a 20)pseudonym and I don’t really have a problem with it,” he said of Mr. Jordan’s 21)alter ego.
Later, Mr. Wales, who was traveling in Asia with 22)intermittent Internet connections, stuck by that view. In a statement 23)relayed through Wikipedia’s public relations officer, he said that at that time, “Essjay apologized to me and to the community at large for any harm he may have caused, but he was acting in order to protect himself.”
But the broad group of Wikipedia users was not so supportive. 24)Mounting anger was expressed in public forums like the user pages of Mr. Wales and Essjay. Initially, a few people wrote to express support for Essjay, along the lines of WJBscribe, who left a message saying: “Just wanted to express my 100 percent support for everything you do around here. I think you were totally entitled to protect your identity. Don’t let all the 25)fuss 26)get you down!”
A few days later, the prevailing view was summarized in subject lines like Essjay Must Resign, and notes calling Mr. Jordan’s actions “plain and simple fraud.”
Some Wikipedia users argued that Essjay had compounded the deception by 27)flaunting a fictional Ph.D. and professorship to influence the editing on the site.
“People have gone through his edits and found places where he was basically 28)cashing in on his fake credentials to 29)bolster his arguments,” said Michael Snow, a Wikipedia administrator, and founder of the community newspaper, 30)The Wikipedia Signpost. “Those will get looked at, again.” he added.
In a discussion over the editing of the article with regard to the term “31)imprimatur,” as used in Catholicism, Essjay defended his use of the book 32)Catholicism for Dummies, saying, “This is a text I often require for my students, and I would hang my own Ph.D. on it’s credibility.”
Over time, Mr. Wales changed his mind about the episode. He cleared off the “talk” section of his own Wikipedia user page—usually 33)cluttered with personal requests, policy debates and compliments—so that “this statement gets adequate attention” and announced that he had “asked Essjay to resign his positions of trust within the community.” He said “that my past support of Essjay in this matter was fully based on a lack of knowledge about what has been going on.”
Mr. Snow said, the Essjay case “is about the community, the trust the community depends on, in terms of being able to review the work we each do.”
“Even though you don’t necessarily know these people personally,” he added, “you see the work enough times and get to know that work.”
Mr. Jordan announced his resignation from Wikipedia on his Essjay user page, in the end. In a brief note below, he said simply, “It’s time to make a clean break.”
That page had been a model of industry, with 34)tallies of the more than 20,000 articles he edited, and statements of personal philosophy and Wikipedia policy. And there was a 35)stark, rectangular black box with the word “retired” written in white capital letters.
Furthermore, Mr. Jordan no longer worked for Wikia, the company said.
眨眼之间，“众智”变成了“众怒”。今年三月，热门在线百科全书——维基百科的词条贡献者们把矛头指向了自己人——这个人的公开身份被发现是一次精心的造假。
这位化名为“Essjay”的词条贡献者为维基百科编辑了数千个词条，他还曾经一度是少数几个有权处理各种恶意破坏行为，并调解词条贡献者们之间争议的人之一。
在维基社群里，Essjay的个人简介显示，他是一所私立大学的终身宗教学教授，通晓教会法规。而事实上，Essjay的真名叫瑞安·乔丹，是一位年仅24岁的男子，他曾在美国肯塔基州好几间大学念书，现在住在该州路易斯维尔市郊外。
乔丹先生声称，他采用一个虚假的身份是为了自我保护——在维基百科享有管理员地位的他，不愿招来一些别有用心的人的嫉恨。
乔丹先生的欺骗行径引起公众的广泛关注源于《纽约客》杂志的一则不寻常的编者声明，其中指出虽然他们在介绍维基百科的长文中写到Essjay，但“无论是维基百科，还是我们杂志，都不知道Essjay的真实姓名。”并说明文章中所提到的Essjay的资历和经历全部来自于他的自述。
除了介绍Essjay的专业资历以及他对天主教词条的贡献，《纽约客》杂志的长文还提到，作为一个宗教学者，Essjay曾两次删掉歌手贾斯汀·汀布莱克词条里的一个句子，因为“Essjay知道它写错了”，这也许太奇怪了。
该文章发表后，一位读者联系了《纽约客》杂志，告知Essjay的真实身份，那是不久前乔丹先生接受赢利性的Wikia公司的聘请时低调披露的。
《纽约客》杂志的这则编者声明以维基百科创始人、该网站发展的主要推动者吉米·威尔士一句大胆的评论结尾，他就乔丹先生的“另一个我”（即假身份）如是说：“我把它看作一个笔名，并不认为这有什么不妥。”
随后，当威尔士先生在亚洲旅行而不能随时上网时，他依然坚持这一观点。在一份声明中，他通过维基百科的公关发言人表示，当时“Essjay向我道了歉，也对他给整个维基社区带来的伤害深表歉意。但他那样做是为了保护自己。”
但维基百科的广大用户并没有这么支持Essjay。日益高涨的愤怒涌向了各公共论坛，包括威尔士先生以及Essjay的用户主页。一开始，少数人表达了对Essjay的支持，其中包括一位用户名为WJBscribe的人，他留言说：“我只想对你在这里所做的一切表示我百分之百的支持。我认为你完全有权利对自己的身份保密。别让那些反对声击倒你！”
几天过后，“Essjay必须辞职”之类的留言标题成了主流民意，还有留言称乔丹先生的行为是“纯粹的欺骗行为”。
有的维基百科用户认为，Essjay通过捏造博士和教授身份来进行欺骗，目的在于影响该网站的编辑。
“大家已经把他编辑的词条浏览了一遍，发现有好些地方他完全是利用自己的虚假资历来支撑自己的论点，”迈克尔·斯诺说，“那些词条将会被重新审阅。”迈克尔·斯诺是维基百科的管理员之一，也是维基社区报纸——《维基百科导报》的创办人。
在“出版许可”这个词条的编辑讨论中——这个词一般运用在天主教教义中，Essjay为自己使用《傻瓜天主教义》一书辩解说：“这是我经常要求我学生阅读的一本书，我以我的博士学历确保它的可信度。”
随着时间的推移，威尔士先生改变了他对该事件的立场。他清除自己维基百科用户页面里的“谈论”内容——通常这一部分堆积着用户的个人要求、政策讨论以及赞美之辞——以便“本声明得到足够的关注”。他宣布，他已经“要求Essjay卸下他在维基社区里肩负的职责。” 他表示，“过去我在此事上对Essjay表示支持，完全是基于我不了解情况。”
斯诺先生说，Essjay风波“关系到整个维基社区，关系到维基在‘可审订彼此的工作’方面的信任基础。”
“就个人而言，即使你不一定认识这些人，”他补充道，“你看过他们编辑的词条很多次以后，也熟悉了他们的工作。”
最终，乔丹先生在其Essjay用户页面上宣布，自己从维基百科辞职。在其页面底部的简短声明中，他简单地说：“是时候干脆地结束了。”
Essjay的主页曾经是勤恳的楷模——上面载有他编辑过的两万多个词条、个人哲学观点以及维基政策的声明。现在取而代之的是一个引人注目的黑色长方框，里面是用白色大写字母写成的字——“退休”。
此外，Wikia 公司也宣布，乔丹先生已经不再任职于该公司了。