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Church of Scientology barred from editing on Wikipedia
The ban on editing is not the first levied by Wikipedia. A similar ban was levied against Overstock.com for bothersome edits Los Angeles, May 30: After four long months of intense discussions, the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee decided to bar several IP addresses linked to the Church of Scientology from changing, editing or altering any portion of the free online encyclopedia, reported The Register, a British tech blog.
Defending its decision on the ban, the arbitration committee said, “Many Scientology articles fail to reflect a neutral point of view and instead are either disparaging or complimentary."
Karin Puow, spokeswoman for the Church of Scientology, lamented that were “gross inaccuracies” on the Scientology article on Wikipedia and that her organization keeps an eye on the World Wide Web for incorrect information about its belief system and members.
The ban
On paper, Wikipedia permits all and sundry to write or edit articles on almost any topic under the sun. However, when administrators of the free, multilingual encyclopedia found that some of the Church users frequently violated the site’s “neutral point of view” principle, Wikipedia banned edits from the entire religion.
Scientology followers had been repetitively altering more than 400 pages pertaining to the Church, obliterating the negative references and toting up the positive ones. This meant that the content added, deleted or edited was in contravention to the rule: “as far as possible without bias”.
A statement on Wikipedia read as thus, “All IP addresses owned or operated by the Church of Scientology and its associates, broadly interpreted, are to be blocked."
This is not the first time that a ban on editing has been levied by Wikipedia. A similar ban was levied against Overstock.com for repetitive bothersome edits.
Recognizing the fact that there may be some genuine contributors, the site also carried another message, “Individual editors may request IP block exemption if they wish to contribute from the blocked IP addresses."
About Church of Scientology
The Church of Scientology is the biggest organization dedicated to putting into practice the Scientology belief system. The Church of Scientology International is responsible for the general church administration and the dissemination and spread of Scientology.
Although every Church of Scientology is controlled centrally by the parent Church of Scientology International, it has its own local board of directors. Each Church is responsible for its own activities and well-being; commercial as well as religious. The movement claims a worldwide membership of 12 million.
