New Yorker Article Fabricator Retires From Wikipedia
By Seth Finkelstein | posted in wikipedia | on March 03, 2007 10:42 PM (Infothought permalink)R E T I R E D
This user is no longer active on Wikipedia.
My comments here will be short and to the point: I'm no longer taking part here. I have received an astounding amount of support, especially by email, but it's time to go. I tried to walk away in August, and managed to do so for quite a while, but I eventually came back, because of the many requests I received urging me to return. Many of you have written to ask me to not leave, to not give up what I have here, but I'm afraid it's time to make a clean break.
I ask that the first steward to see this message please remove my various flags from this wiki, as well as from Meta, Commons, and Wikiquote, and remove the bot flags from my bots, which of course will no longer be running. My tools will be taken down shortly. I had planned to delete my user-space myself, but I don't want anyone to think I was going on a rampage, so instead, I ask that one or more administrators who are friends please delete the 288 pages that form my userspace (leaving only my userpage and this talk page).
I've enjoyed my time here, and done much good work; my time, however, is over, and leaving is the best thing for me and for Wikipedia. I walk away happy to be free to go about other things. I hope others will refocus the energy they have spent the past few days in defending and denouncing me to make something here at Wikipedia better.
With love to all who have been my friends here, Essjay (Talk) 03:17, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
What is really sad are the gushing comments that are coming from all corners of wikipedia and the deletion of the critical comments on the fabricator's talk page.
Possible "suppressive persons"?
What would be really amusing is a word-by-word comparison of Scientology lingo and Wikipedia talk.
The lurkers support him in email!
My suggestion for Essjay is that he should go back to school, get a theology PhD, get a tenure-track job as a professor, get tenure, and *then* come back to Wikipedia. (Oh, yeah, and pick up a JD in his spare time.) That way he would make his fake identity real. It would be a fitting demonstration of contrition and would let him re-enter the community with his head held high.
He'll be back. New name, some of the same privileges. See User:Gaillimh for details.
I wonder whether the lurkers who are supporting him in email are any relation to teh thousands who sent him death threats.