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.
#15 said, “go find a real religion.”
There isn’t one.
#20 – You have them out of order!
As I understand Scientology:
1. They have an outreach program where they give a “talking therapy” to people to help them with personal issues. “Someone to talk to” is a powerful draw of all religions, therapies, healthy enviornoment.
2. I think a lot of people can hold in abeyance the BS about thetans and all that for the benefit of the therapy and the benefits they see in their own life. I think Tom Cruise and all the other Hollywood stars are in this category.
3. Then there is a group within Scientology who do scam the public for the money.
4. Then assuming this group is hierarchical as most groups are, there is some group getting that money and keeping all the parts operting as they do for the organization to succeed. Tom Cruise gets help in return for good press and maybe his money down the road, the average person gets taken advantage for their tithing just like all sheep do, and someone is living in great wealth and not getting much attention.
I so wonder what exactly the famous/known people in Scientology actually get out of it. Cruise has no need for money. Kinda Interesting. We all fall for something, and if not fall, we make choices about where/how we find meaning and accept the tradeoff’s made to achieve/work towards those goals.
“The principles of the wiki concept do not allow for a group to dominate and push its agenda via a wiki topic.”
This would be nice in theory, but since everyone is biased, the dominant perspective will win out, regardless of truth. Just like Digg.com has been taken over by Huffington Post drones, any user edited content is only as good as the users. If you let someone pick and choose who the users are, there is a chance that it might make the content more balanced, but I would say you have a much greater risk of censoring unpopular viewpoints or beliefs. I understand why Wikipedia did this, but in general this being a “good thing” would imply that the moderators are all-knowing.
#24–cranky==too wishy-washy. Should wiki allow its website to be corrupted by a known biased group or not?
Deal with issues as the rise and don’t think slippery slope analysis provides any insight at all.
Question!
Why don’t they just restrict editing to moderators and regular posters (there’s a better phrase for these people)? I seem to remember them doing this for other pages…..
#23, Bobbo,
Cruise is there because of CoS say they can de-gay people. That and he is an idiot.
Since Wikipedia is generally a volunteer organization, they are faced with trying to do a professional job on no budget. Their solution is not perfect. Freezing the pages might end up being the answer if the contributors can’t stop slanting the results.
…now if only somebody would muzzle all the evangelists, and baptists, and all the other wacko “do gooders”. Include politicians in this muzzling.
Any time you get two or more people together, moderation of some kind begins. Some individuals have to moderate themselves when alone. LOL
I loved when they froze Obama’s page and removed references to the bomber guy, the Reverends racist comments and Obama stating that it was his spiritual mentor.
Wiki has bigger internal problems than any external threat.
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.