Oh the material..... It's Wikilicious.

How do you recover from a PR disaster which results from publishing questionable information? Position yourself to provide more questionable information, in a new format, and now make money doing it!

Because I can't avoid the opportunity to feel better about myself by kicking Wikipedia when they're down, I will now address the irony of a Wikia Search Engine .

We've skimmed over the earlier Wiki-Scandal in a previous entry. Theres quite a bit of bloggismosism about it. You can find a fairly reasonable and believable discourse from Andrew Lih at his blog. But since you're already here, I'll give you my unreasonable and questionable view.

Ryan Jordan, if that's his real name, has now provided an endless, renewable, source of fuel to the Wikihater's fire. Mr. Jordan was a prolific member and Evangelist of Wikiaism. He eventually was hired by Wikia in January of 2007. On his user page "Essjay", as he was known in the Wikipedia community, provided a rather substantial Curriculum Vitae to lend veracity to his work.

I am also a tenured professor of theology; feel free to have a look at my Wikipedia userpage to gain an idea of my background and credentials.

I'd cite the reference but sadly:

This user subpage belonged to User:Essjay, who has left Wikipedia. It has been deleted from Wikipedia per Essjay's request, as part of his right to vanish.

He had a Ph.D which he referenced to support his conclusions.

He offered his credentials in reply to those who question the validity of Wikipedia:

I've contacted a few professors after other Wikipedians have pointed out that the instructor made the "Wikipedia is not a reliable source" argument to students who were, in fact, Wikipeidans. I have a copy of my form response at [wiki citation - removed by blogger]. When I was head of my department, I certainly would have taken knowledge of such conduct into consideration, and I think similarly minded department heads/deans would as well. .... 04:41, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

In the summer of 2006, The New Yorker Magazine published an article about Wikipedia which included a profile of Essjay. The article was written by Pulitzer Prize Winner Stacy Schiff.

...a regular user known as Essjay, who serves as an administrator to check against site abuses.

It's a good thing. We wouldn't want any false information. Mr.... excuse me Dr. Jordan will keep everything on the up and up.

Ultimately, Mr. Jordan was qualified to be the Trade Minister of the DRCongo. His credentials were as real as Ilunga was a real person.

Truth of the matter is that Essjay didn't have the qualifications he said he did. He is a 24 year old male from the United States and (there is much confusion about this) possibly works as a paralegal after dropping from community college.

In a questionable attempt to defend himself, Dr. J... oops Mr. Jordan points to others to move scorn away from himself. He accuses Stacy Schiff of having offered to pay him for his interview - the journalistic equivalent of "coming-out of the closet" at a "Hate Convention." I'm thinking it wouldn't happen.

Mr. Jordan continues by alleging to take the high road and decline any such improper offer. Instead he purports to direct Schiff to give the money to the Wiki Foundations.

Wow.

We now know Mr. Jordan is full of crap. Good for him though. He refused to take money for information. The implied ideal is the free exchange of information is a noble and greater cause. By suggesting he refused the enumeration and conducted the interview without regard for himself, he was grasping at martyrdom and subsequently provides that payment for information is a flawed and corrupt practice contrary to the ethos of Wiki.

Payment for information is a flawed and corrupt practice contrary to the ethos of Wiki.

That'd make Wiki-founder Jimbo Wales quite proud. Wales is a great proponent of the free sharing of information. (I'm not being cynical or sarcastic.) (Yet.) I applaud that idea. The free sharing and availability of information is paramount to human rights causes.

From the Wikipedia article on Wales:

Wales has explained his motivations about Wikipedia. In an interview with Slashdot, he said, "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."

The Wikipedia article on Wales reports he is a fan of Ayn Rand. In my opinion, Anthem by Ayn Rand is a beautiful work which keenly addresses the inhibition of informational freedom by an oppressive regime.

Let us contrast this with practice as found on the discussion page for the article:

[Name removed] has pledged a bounty of $15 in donation to the Wikimedia Foundation contingent on Jimmy Wales's improvement to featured status.

Wait... Doesn't this mean "If you change the information, I'll give you money."?

And doesn't a Wikia Search Engine for profit also question the purity of the information provided? Regardless of the pure motives of people paying for the service and even the validity of the information provided, there is a dilemma created which seems to position itself contrary to what Wikipedia would like to be.

Is Wikipedia bad? No! Certainly not. If you use Wikipedia as your single source for reference, your research is likely to be flawed. If you use ANY source exclusively without fact checking and validating references you will have the same problem.

By the way, please visit the blog of Andrew Lih which unknowingly (and likely involuntarily) helped with this post.