Wikipedia Tells Scientology To GTFO
Wikipedia has shown Scientology the door. Buh-bye Scientology.
It seems that pseudo-science "religion" Scientology didn't play fair, (do they ever?) so it was time for Wikipedia to kick the bullies off the playground. Well, sort of.
Allow us to explain.
Of course you can still read about the cult on Wikipedia as their listing has NOT been banned from Wikipedia, but rather Scientology-based IP addresses.
Essentially, the Wikipedia arbitration committee voted unanimously to block IP addresses associated with the cult from editing their site, as they were doing it from multiple IP addresses called sockpuppet and meatpuppet accounts. But like all things on the internet, it's a little more complicated than that.
This ban got VERY confusing to me once I started reading into Wikipedia's full decision and all the mumbo jumbo, but we will do out best to explain.
The Huffington Post explains it a lot better that I can:
Wikipedia has banned the Church of Scientology and its members from editing its site after discovering that members of the church were editing articles in order to give the church favorable coverage.The move is being hailed as "an unprecedented effort to crack down on self-serving edits," and it is the first instance in which Wikipedia has banned a group as large as the Church of Scientology.
The Register reports:
According to evidence turned up by admins in this long-running Wikiland court case, multiple editors have been "openly editing [Scientology-related articles] from Church of Scientology equipment and apparently coordinating their activities." Leaning on the famed WikiScanner, countless news stories have discussed the editing of Scientology articles from Scientology IPs, and some site admins are concerned this is "damaging Wikipedia's reputation for neutrality."
One admin tells The Reg that policing edits from Scientology machines has been particularly difficult because myriad editors sit behind a small number of IPs and, for some reason, the address of each editor is constantly changing. This prevents admins from determining whether a single editor is using multiple Wikipedia accounts to game the system. In Wikiland, such sockpuppeting is not allowed.
The Wikicourt considered banning edits from Scientology IPs only on Scientology-related articles. But this would require admins to "checkuser" editors - i.e. determine their IP - every time an edit is made. And even then they may not know who's who.
The case— the fourth Scientology-related dispute on the site in four years — opened in December 2008 and closed Thursday with the Wikipedia arbitration committee voting unanimously to block IP addresses associated with the Church from editing the site.
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