Wikipedia bans Scientology Church

[Squirt]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/2 ... 08967.html

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.

[SidiousX]

Owned.

This also shows wiki is a trustable site and that i can use it properly for school:D

[chesticles]

thank you jesus (no pun intended) xD

[*BlackFox]

What Is Scientology?
I've never heard of it before.

[BlackFox898]

What Is Scientology?
I've never heard of it before.

a guy wrote a book about his beliefs and people followed it for whatever stupid reason.

[chesticles]

I would say its kinda like every other generic religion except for the aliens and that fact that he was supposedly immortal but he died xD

[kreisimees]

It's like any other fanatical religious group where you lose all your earthly possession and get fcked up.

[*BlackFox]

a guy wrote a book about his beliefs and people followed it for whatever stupid reason.

Okay, that's a bad thing

[Jstar1]

wikipedia is a piece of shit, ask any professor or high school teacher

[Disconn3cted]

wikipedia is a piece of shit, ask any professor or high school teacher

Wikipedia is good to get a general idea of a subject but you can't write a report with it because you don't know you edited that stuff.

[satman83]

wikipedia is a piece of shit, ask any professor or high school teacher

Wikipedia is good to get a general idea of a subject but you can't write a report with it because you don't know you edited that stuff.

Its not because you dont know who edited it, its because you dont know who wrote it.
Only pieces of work, either book or online source arnt worth shit unless written
by a repeatable author. As such any monkey can write on wiki..so it counts for
crap.

[XemnasXD]

wikipedia is a piece of shit, ask any professor or high school teacher

wikipedia is a fantastic resource and one of the best places on the internet. I don't think there is any other site that compiles so much information in such an accessible format. All you have to do really is type what you want and hit search and you can find out just about anything you need to know. Is it credible, depends on the citations but they make a constant effort to enforce their citation policy and if you're going to quote them without looking at citations then you're a fool anyway.

Teacher and professors don't like it used as a source because it can be edited and it does your work for you but if you were smart you'd use the source it list as your sources instead...

[Launger]

Project Chanology 2 - 0 Scientology

[AutumnLeaves]

My English AP teacher doesn't mind if we use Wikipedia as a source, as long as its not the only source you use, she knows its not always wrong.

[TOloseGT]

wikipedia's good if you want to get a gist of something. often times than not however, u'll know more than you need to know about any one subject. it's always good to find other scholarly and peer-reviewed sources as they are always very well done.

[Reise]

Project Chanology 2 - 0 Scientology

[DumboDii]

What Is Scientology?
I've never heard of it before.

a guy wrote a book about his beliefs and people followed it for whatever stupid reason.

So in theory that's completely same thing as every other religion.

BTW wikipedia can be very useful and accurate. I myself haven't found any information that is in contradiction with information taken from somewhere else.

[Kirkaldi]

Yeh, I agree, Wikipedia is really accurate. My teachers tell me not to use it because anyone can edit it. But, I don't see anyone editing it and making it wrong.

[Doppleganger]

a guy wrote a book about his beliefs and people followed it for whatever stupid reason.

As is every lol

[EvGa]

Its great for getting a quick overview of a topic and then the sources listed for said topic are what you use for your research.

I think that was BlackFoxes intention.

[.curve]

wikipedia is a piece of shit, ask any professor or high school teacher

wikipedia is a fantastic resource and one of the best places on the internet. I don't think there is any other site that compiles so much information in such an accessible format. All you have to do really is type what you want and hit search and you can find out just about anything you need to know. Is it credible, depends on the citations but they make a constant effort to enforce their citation policy and if you're going to quote them without looking at citations then you're a fool anyway.

Teacher and professors don't like it used as a source because it can be edited and it does your work for you but if you were smart you'd use the source it list as your sources instead...

This. Like many others have said, it's good for brushing up on a topic and even getting a few useful links to help in the research. I use it for most non-education assignment related things.

[JoyFax]

wikipedia is a piece of shit, ask any professor or high school teacher

Wikipedia isn't 100% correct, but unlike how it was in the beggining when it was full of fake information, now most of the info is correct...

Teachers don't like it because students are getting lazy and get most of the work from wikipedia.

[Sacchin]

Tom Cruise is outraged.

[Jstar1]

wikipedia is a piece of shit, ask any professor or high school teacher

Wikipedia isn't 100% correct, but unlike how it was in the beggining when it was full of fake information, now most of the info is correct...

ok maybe. I once tried to join the community but its full of arrogant elitist people who think they are the only ones capable of writing something.

it sounds ironic but when a new guy tries to improve an article, everything, everything he writes gets undone by some administrator asshole.

[Grimjaw]

Tom Cruise is outraged.

That episode with Oprah was kick ass.

[dom]

Wikipedia is correct when you're writing papers for high school. The information on World War 2 isn't wrong, and with as many people frequenting that page, it would be edited properly.

Try writing a paper on the environmental impacts caused by sugar cane slash distillation using only wikipedia.

All universities have a online database you can access from any computer. It's like wikipedia, but the results are a collection of scientific journal articles, thesis papers, and more things like that.

You use wikipedia as reference material. Writing a paper for your anthropology class and don't know what "etic" and "emic" mean? You wikipedia it and if needed, use wikipedia's sources in your paper.