Once exposed, Essjay simply piled lie on lie. He invented the PhD to big himself up, not because of stalkers. His claims to receive ten death threats a week just don't jibe with reality. There just aren't enough nutters to go round at Wikipedia and he isn't known to be a "rogue". I know admins who are, and they don't get this level of attention from nutters. So why would Essjay? Neither were there any stalkers when he started lying: Danny Brandt's crusade to de-anonymise admins came later.

The truth is, one can remain anonymous without lying. There's no requirement to put your credentials on your userpage, and many, probably most, editors are anonymous without feeling the need to invent shadow personalities. He didn't need to say who he was! That's the thing: it's not "create a persona because if you use your real ID you'll be traced". You can just not use your real ID. Many very unpopular editors simply do not say who they are, and stalkers cannot find them because they are not traceable from their IDs on WP. In any case, those who do try to find out who people are analyse edits, trace IPs and look for more subtle clues. None of these things is affected by faking an ID.

--
Posted by Dr Zen to XODP Blog at 2/28/2007 11:52:51 PM