In an unprecedented effort to crack down on self-serving edits, the Wikipedia supreme court has banned contributions from all IP addresses owned or operated by the Church of Scientology and its associates.
Closing out the longest-running court case in Wikiland history, the site’s Arbitration Committee voted 10 to 0 (with one abstention) in favor of the move, which takes effect immediately.
The eighth most popular site on the web, Wikipedia bills itself as “the free encyclopedia anyone can edit.” … But according to multiple administrators speaking with The Reg, the muzzling of Scientology IPs marks the first time Wikipedia has officially barred edits from such a high-profile organization for allegedly pushing its own agenda on the site.
Wikipedia is a place for facts and objective overviews of topics. Its not the place for propaganda or self-promotion. That’s what MySpace or your own website is for.
what happen? -they’re little pyramid scheme run out of money?
-s
I wonder if the best solution would have been to have three wiki pages.
The first page, where you first go, would have a simple introduction to Scientology (something so generic that all sides would agree), and then two links. One to the community wiki and the other to a site run by the Scientologist.
Then the Scientologist could be banned from altering the Wiki page, but who would care when a prominent link is displayed for the opposing view?
I don’t see where this would violate the spirit of wiki, and in fact may produce better, more well rounded information if expanded to other articles as well.
Change that, make the first page you go to the community wiki, but have a well worded link to the Scientology page prominently placed so you can see it and follow the link from the first screen without having to scroll down.
#27–Gig==does it say that on the wiki page for Tom Cruise????
“De-gay” – – certainly something every religion should be into. Hah, hah.
This raises an issue I’ve been wondering about for years. Can anyone answer it for me?
Am I allowed to ban specific people from my web site?
I know that people have been prosecuted for trespassing on computers.
As for myself, I’d like to explicitly ban all law enforcement, justice department and RIAA employees who don’t have a warrant.
I’m not doing anything illegal but I value my privacy and the constitution.
I mis-wrote:
“Can I ban categories of people from my web site?”
Basically, I want to ban anyone has prosecutorial powers. Benign members of the public are welcome.
#36–Greg==I don’t know, but interesting question. Legally, I don’t see why not, but its probably a tech or a licensing issue?
I’ll bet if we read the cases about people trying to ban their sites against Google accessing them would demonstrate most of the issues?
>> bobbo said,
>> “De-gay” – – certainly something every religion should be into. Hah, hah.
Not _every_ religion. I wish people would stop misrepresenting us on this issue.
CONSERVATIVES usually don’t like the gays – religious our not.
We liberals — religious or not — are usually fine with them.
Bobbo,
Thanks. I am totally NOT a lawyer-minded kind of guy or I would have written such a disclaimer myself.
It’s not just a personal issue — I hope to be running a school library web site soon.
I’d like to put TOS agreement on there that any law enforcement members must get permission to enter the site.
But it get’s complicated. I wouldn’t mind, for example, the police officer parent of a child looking at it, as long as s/he’s doing it as a parent.
When I’m bored I go on Wikipedia and make stuff
up. You wouldn’t believe what micro-chips are
now made of!
The RIAA is a pretty big issue — I don’t want RIAA employees snooping around on my site fishing for copyright violations.
If they have legitimate reason to think specific patrons are violating copyright, let ’em get a warrant.
But, until then, I do not want them on my site.
Now that I think of it, I don’t want Scientology employees scanning our student’s pages fishing for supposed libel.
>> NancyDisgrace said,
>> When I’m bored I go on Wikipedia and make stuff up.
Why would you do that? Serious question.
It would never occur to me to deface a public or volunteer project, of any kind.
Has this been a thing with you, in other areas of your life, or just on the internet?
# 38 bobbo said,”#36–Greg==I don’t know, but interesting question. Legally, I don’t see why not, but its probably a tech or a licensing issue?” Hey, Greg and Bobbo: remember when some web pages with “iffy” content would make you accept their terms of use that included things like -you are of legal age -material not illegal where you lived and (my favorite) -you are not law enforcement? Ahhh, those were the good old days…
De-Gay? I find most religions are pretty much a downer. What? Oh, THAT gay. Never mind.
BTW – Don’t you think AlfalfaOne would make a good Scientologist? Just imagine all the thetans in that empty head…
why is everybody picking on scientology? i heard this one religion believes their leader was murdered, three days later he came back to life then teleported all over the place.
NO COMMENT!
Gregg Allen.
I’ve run a little web site of my own and I’m very sure you can block whatever ISP address you want.
It’s done every day. If there is a “black site” which spews spam or malware, or anything else you don’t like, you can block it. You can even have a “white list” of sites which you can allow to see your site, etc.
It’s not a legal issue. Most website builders have this capability built in.
The real trick is finding which ISP addresses those no gooders are using. That might be outside of your, or mine, or even The Pirate Bay’s ability to discover and block.
I imagine that this probably has to do with a certain level of turnover in content on the page. I would imagine that most wiki pages that COULD have drastically opposing views represented either find a way to voice both on the same page (such as putting headings and subheadings on the order of “proponents/detractors” or something similar), but I would not imagine this to be true of the scientologists. Just from a quick glance earlier today, I can tell you that the ENTIRE discussion about Thetans and the “origins” of scientology has been drastically rewritten and reduced since the last time I read (and got quite a few rolling laughs out of) it just two months ago. I specifically remember it had a reference to a South Park episode that made me go track down that episode to watch it. now, that reference is nowhere to be found in the wiki page. In fact, the entire page looks to be vastly rewritten from the one that existed then, as well, and with a decidedly “scientology is a benevolent entity” slant. I seriously doubt that regular wiki editors desire to leave it that way, so I imagine it has one of the highest content turnovers on the site.
Incidentally, I seriously doubt that banning IP addresses includes the home addresses of church members, so this ban is symbolic at best. But what a symbol…
I think you guys underestimate this ‘whacko’ religion. I think it’s more like a mafia. I remember a small software developer here in Bilbao trying to sell their antivirus and having some success. At one point the boss went to the US (COMDEX i think) and came back ‘converted’ to scientology. In less than 1 year they’d become one of the most successful AV programs in the industry – PANDA. A coincidence? I think not!
Organized Religion = Organized Crime.
BTW It’s not a true religion until they start killing others in its name.
>> Ah_Yea said, on May 29th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
>> I’ve run a little web site of my own and I’m very sure you can block whatever ISP address you want.
I could block every *.gov site but I assume that the FBI could get-around that!
My main thing is I want the legal ability to sue law enforcement agents for warrantless spying, most likely using the precedent set by anti-hacker laws.
#53 – Angel H. Wong – BTW It’s not a true religion until they start killing others in its name.
Oh, they are…
The Scientologists’ biggest error was showing how easily Wikipedia can be gamed. Can’t have that, of course…
Is that an alien guarding and protecting Tom Cruise? By golly it is! It is all true! I saw it on pic on the internetwebitubes so Tom was right!!
Scientology is run by a bunch of low self esteem runts. I already know Tom C. was short. He probably never would have survived his “Risky Business” days, for too long, if he hadn’t had the backing of the cult. But now, seeing the cult’s top exec standing next to Tom, and several inches shorter, that cinches it. They’ve got a Napoleonic complex. A bunch of runts who need this trumped up organization to pump up their egos.
As for the ban. Nice try, but it will probably only serve to give the public a false sense of security (as many solutions do) that the cult’s interference has been stopped. They’ll just allow a couple dozen of their dupes to actually have their own internet accounts (usually they’re not allowed to spend the money). And provide them with scripts to follow to edit Wiki from unblocked IPs.
I wished the solution did work. But I doubt it. And I wish a few other factions could be blocked too. Like Aryan Nation skinheads, various hate groups, extreme Fundamentalist religious groups, the GOP, the FBI and CIA, homegrown Militia groups, and even the Pentagon. But you know that’s never gonna happen. Wikipedia will never be made the pure tool of the people, who aren’t part of some sinister organization, who’s up to spread its propaganda online. Just so long as the lone voices of free thinking and sanity aren’t cut off, as in this blog and others.