Wikipedia:There is no credential policy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an essay; it contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. It is not a policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it.

Wikipedia currently has no policy on the validity or proper verification of credentials. Proposals either to verify editor credentials or to reject their validity altogether have both been rejected. In the absence of an official policy, editors are free to accept, reject, invoke, or verify any credentials as they see fit, but there is no official requirement for any other editors to treat credentials in the same manner.

Any information about credentials displayed on user pages is by its author only, as Wikipedia does not have procedures for verifying them. Editors may interpret existing Wikipedia policy as supporting a certain credential policy, but such interpretations may not necessarily be shared by the community and do not necessarily reflect official policy.

1 Rejected proposals
2 Other related proposals
3 Essays
4 See also

[edit] Rejected proposals

The following proposals to verify credentials were rejected:

The following proposals to disallow credentials were rejected:

[edit] Other related proposals

User:Avraham/Wiki of Trust - an essay that contains a proposal for a trust/verification system
meta:Talk:CheckUser policy#Real name policy - A proposal to require checkusers to associate real names with their accounts (currently required only for stewards)
Wikipedia:Administrators accountability - rejected proposal for two levels of editors and two levels of administrators, with the higher level of admins required to disclose their real name