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Wikipedia Bans Church of Scientology
El Reg writes "Showing a new-found resolve to crack down on self-serving edits, Wikipedia has banned contributions from all IP addresses owned or operated by the Church of Scientology. According to Wikipedia administrators, this marks the first time such a high-profile organization has been banished for allegedly pushing its own agenda on the 'free encyclopedia anyone can edit.'"
It still is the "free encyclopedia anyone can edit," nothing has changed. You miss the point of "free" and "open" it doesnt mean that everything one puts will stay there. People make mistakes, people distort the truth, and people Lie. Others, have to correct these errors. If one person "cries wolf" a lot, you're simply not going to listen to them. This is all that it is. If someone had a history of not telling the truth, why would you trust them?
I heard they are experts at getting members to let them use their home machines as proxies.
-Anonymous Coward
Jimbo just put himself on the top of the list for a good old fashioned dead agenting.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Now the Scientologists will just edit it from their homes.
"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for all people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." -- Noam Chomsky
I;m unaware of any mass Christian movement to edit Wikipedia. Heck Christians can't even agree within themselves, how will they push an agenda.
I predict a few outcomes:
*CO$ will find a way around it by rapidly changing their IP addresses
*If this gets to be a major headache, Wikipedia will either semi-protect all related articles, which they are generally loathe to do, and/or start treating entire ISPs as if they were open proxies
*Here's where it gets interesting: CO$ will discover they can manipulate Wikipedia into blocking entire ISPs, and will use that information to hurt ISPs they don't like. This will only work on relatively small ISPs that don't depend on location, e.g. non-major dialup ISPs.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
You know, it's all fine and nice to be anti-religion, but I am so sick of people involving Christianity whenever Scientology comes up. There is a difference between religion and cult, despite trying to lump them together for your own jollies, and this is coming from an atheist.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
Scientology is to science what Al Qaeda is to Islam, total fucktards having hijacked a noble precept.
I note your assumption that, in order to find that cover offensive, one must be Christian.
The part about how they treat the outside is definitely evil, although primarily evil insofar as they have a lot of money and intend on doing harm.
The rest doesn't seem at all like a double standard or inherently malevolent. We're all free to get along and settle our differences outside of court. The courts inherently exist only for the cases when no agreement can be reached, but action is required. Definitely it's a huge drain on society to have people dragging one another in there for every trivial piece of bullshit infighting that may occur. Get along, as much as possible.
I don't especially want to take my sister to court because she didn't pay me that $100 back that I loaned her in high school. Nor is there a double standard if I should take my phone company to court if they refuse to reimburse me for making a mistake on my bill. I might be able to agree with my sister, or decide that it's not worth the family hostility, but the phone company is (at best) nobody to me.
Ten things atheists and christians can agree on.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
No, it means they have to use other IP addresses. It's stupid of Wikipedia to think this stops anything.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I am so sick of people involving Christianity whenever Scientology comes up. There is a difference between religion and cult
Agreed. And since some people don't see it, modern religions don't try to turn their followers against non-followers. They don't try to seclude followers from their families, either. They don't try to kill people that leave the fold.
Note that some religious fanatics may have the above characteristics, but fanatics do not make up the majority of the people that consider themselves religious.
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
That's a popular view, but not a useful one.
I'd suggest that the difference is related to the direction of resources. If a significant portion of the group's resources are directed towards the wealth and well-being of its founders, as opposed to an external problem or cause, then you an unhealthy expression of religion, and quite possibly a cult.
i before e, except after c.
WTF are you talking about? There's nothing wrong on his post.
Well, when the conservatives felt that Wikipedia had too much of a liberal bias, they went and founded Conservapedia, so maybe COS could start scientolopedia.com or something?
Seems unlikely, given how secretive the COS is. The less information there is publicly, the better, seems to be the way they look at it.
:q!
I don't entirely buy that. Most mainstream religions don't require a person to see themselves as worthy ONLY through the religion and most DON'T require as much offerings or tithing they can pressure you out of. There is a huge difference between the corner Baptist church where they don't get bent out of shape if you go to church with your Methodist friend some Sunday and a group like the Moonies. That Baptist church most likely isn't after you to sign over all your money and capital then sell yourself into virtual slavery to cross the Bridge as Scientology will.
Religions differ in the demands they make on parishioners and in the control exerted on them. Religions that make inordinate demands on your social, psychological, time, credulity, and financial resources deserve a pejorative and "cult" is as good as any.
There is plenty not to like about more mainstream religions like the Baptists and Southern Baptists especially but being a cult isn't one of them.
IP addresses don't identify people. They tell routers where to forward packets.
Can we please move beyond this 1980s idea that IP addresses identify people?
That definition still includes a good proportion of American Christians, since one of the larger (and certainly fastest-growing) sects of Christianity in the US is Pentecostalism, run by pop-star-like, very wealthy and often TV-show-having leaders of megachurches.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
'modern religions'?? So mormons and Jehova's witnesses (who do advocate segregation of life from non-believers) aren't modern?
-Michael
Have you asked him how he can believe in a religion that was so clearly made up by a man 50 years ago? I really want to know. It seems completely braindead to me.
Qxe4
I've tried them. Don't waste your money.
I'll stab.
Using HUMANS to filter rather than code.
Yeah, it stinks. The more the fundamentalists proclaim themselves "conservative", the more "conservatism" becomes synonymous with "plain wrong and stupid". Sucks for level-headed conservatives!
They're all made up.
And reading between the lines, I'd say the question has come up once or twice between dgcaste and his brother-in-law :)
you had me at #!
I NEARLY DIED!!!!!!!!!!
When I read the first two blurbs I came across on the front page of conservapedia.
Article of the Year: Evolution
In 2006, the prestigious science journal Science reported concerning the United States: "The percentage of people in the country who accept the idea of evolution has declined from 45 in 1985 to 40 in 2005. Meanwhile the fraction of Americans unsure about evolution has soared from 7 per cent in 1985 to 21 per cent last year."[10]
* "Gallup's analysis says religiosity outweighs educational level in shaping views on evolution." (USN)
Discover what Wikipedia, the public school systems, and the liberal media don't want you to know about the creation vs. evolution issue.
And better yet...
Conservapedia's Highlighted Article ...A study reported that the liberal media is biased towards pro-atheism coverage.[11] Do you want to know what the liberal media is not reporting about evolutionist and atheist Richard Dawkins? Please examine Conservapedia's Richard Dawkins article!
Watch this video of evolutionist Richard Dawkins being stumped by the question of a creationist!...
Makes me feel like the world is a battlefront.
On one side is the people with the mental capacity to alter their views and accept scientific progress.
Well... the other side is banished to manipulating statistics to their advantage. Statistics that they don't even fundamentally understand because that is way too "sciencey" for them. Seems like a horrible fate.
A cult is a small, unpopular religion.
A religion is a large, popular cult.
I'm not super-religious; nevertheless I have to take exception to this. There is a world of difference between a legitimate religion and a cult. Legitimate religions don't abuse or exploit their members, and let members leave the religion if they choose to do so. They don't have a small group of messianic leaders who lead lavish lifestyles, stockpile weapons or engage in practices that are contrary to what they teach their followers. They don't use the courts to attack critics. There are other differences, but perhaps the most important of all is that when you join a legitimate religion, you know what you are joining. Nothing is hidden from you until after you're psychologically raped into joining the group and it's too late to back out.
Yes, I'm sure you can look at the above paragraph and force-match some of these characteristics to certain popular religious groups. You may even think that some cults offer certain benefits to their members. All of this misses the point. There is good and bad in all things that humanity constructs. The point is that in cults, the bad far outweighs the good, and in legitimate religions, the opposite is true.
Personally, I'm getting tired of these fucking "whoosh" comments. News flash: you are not as funny as you thing you are, and if you think making a stupid reference to some hackneyed geek cliche gives your otherwise nonsensical comment credibility, you're wrong.
Oh, and those "fixed that for you" comments are getting pretty fucking boring, too.
[...] such a high-profile organization [...]
Anyone else see something wrong with that statement? I mean, c'mon, "High profile"... What the fuck guys? This is a fucking cult here.
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
Scientology does not want information to be free though. They want it shrink-wrapped with large price tags to access that information.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Yes, because there's never been anyone like Martin Luther or anything like the Great Schisms that could have negatively affected PR for Christianity. Nope, they've been completely and totally uniform in only letting good things come into public view.
No, it means they have to use other IP addresses. It's stupid of Wikipedia to think this stops anything.
Real-world interaction systems don't need to be perfect, they just need to discourage or encourage certain behaviors.
This makes for one more step that members of the Church of Scientology have to make before they can edit. I'd guess that would cut down the edits that would need to be rolled back by half, which would be a sizeable improvement for any organization.
Further, this sends the clear and documented message that any editor which finds CoS propaganda should just go ahead and revert the change. And it is arguable, but if Scientology is banned from editing Wikipedia, Wikimedia might have a stronger court case that Scientology is tresspassing on their servers. This could be important if Wikimedia is ever sued by Scientologists.
The ______ Agenda
Really? First of all, no one asked you. Second, you should limit idiocy to a maximum two of the following in any post if you want to be considered a quality troll:
1. Broad generalizations
2. Incoherent statements
3. Mind-bogglingly awful abuse of the English language
Congratulations, you have all three in spades. (How did you manage to get almost every word wrong?)
Now kindly piss off.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
That was partly intentional.
Religious leaders shouldn't be highly paid. Christianity even has an (early) history of leadership that wasn't paid at all. The leadership would be expected to work full time and do religion/communism in their spare time.
I do not claim to fully understand the phenomenon, but whether they're ultimately helpful or harmful, megachurches are scary.
While I realise you probably live in the USA, where everything can be defended as "free speech", in the "real world" of forum and wiki administration there are some behaviors that need to be banned for, such as repeated trolling, spamming porn links, etc, that otherwise can make a forum/open community unbearable to work in.
If you show repeatedly (for years now, I imagine) that you have no interest whatever in making positive contributions, but you still keep coming back to troll or vandalize other people's work, banning seems like a very good punishment. Let the childish fucks that are apparently unable to discourse civilly because of their religion stew in their own little world.
Having to time and time again revert edits tires out even the biggest community (especially considering the amount of people who are watching articles like that are probably not all that common), as it is no more than a waste of time. Also, given the Hive mentality of Co$, I doubt if it matters much if you screen out the dumb fucks who are kept in compouds; the ones that are allowed to roam free (Tom cruise) are the dangerous ones.
Not defending Scientology, but does Wikipedia not champion free speech?
Exactly - so why should they allow an orchestrated attack on free speech by COS? Free speech isn't about who yells the loudest.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
And what about "Church"?
I avoid involving the word Church when referring to Scientology since that will defame other churches unrelated to Scientology.
Don't bother, other churches can use more defamation.
Never go to sea with two chronometers; take one or three.
When I ask him, "how can you trust an institution that is so legally violent? if it wanted to be judged by its merits, it shouldn't be litigating the hell out of everyone that stands in its way!", he responds "our opponents deserve litigation because they intend to suppress us". It is quite frustrating to have these conversations with him.
I have a personal rule where I end conversations with anyone who talks about any undefined capitalized "They" or "The Man". It has never failed me so far and saved me countless hours in wasted breath.
But I still think either anyone must have the right to edit, or that whole Wikipedia experiment has failed.
First we got site lockdowns for non-logged-ins. Then for logged ins. Then blocking of IPs. Then admins enforcing their agenda. Then they planning their agenda together on a mailing list.
That's just wrong on so many levels.
I've thought a bit, about how you can merge the freedom to edit with the ability to filter out nutjobs. And in the process, I found that view are just relative. You can usually not prove that someone is 100% right or wrong, because 1. no single person can track the reasoning down to quantum physics, and 2. there still is the missing base of the world formula. So we pretty much always rely on some sensible paradigms and long chains of reasoning. The nutjobs usually are those, that either A) fail in their logic, or B) do not follow the groupthink of what everyone assumes to be correct, but never gets tested.
Now the problem is, that on Wikipedia, not only (A) gets blocked (which nobody can or wants to check down to the physical base anyway), but (B) too (aka "spin"/"agenda").
Don't think that an "agenda" or "spin" is entirely bad. Because unfortunately, pure objectivity is a physically impossible fantasy. People just have to make their logic work for them, with the input they got. And some just got some really weird or different combinations of input.
So there would be two ways to solve this:
1. Rigorously enforce logic reasoning, most likely with a special language, with defined semantics. You would then find the reasoning behind everything, down to the most basic paradigms. This would be very great... if it were realistic. ^^
Because unfortunately, you would notice, that for some things, you would still, even with rigorous logic, end up with more than one basic paradigm. Because we simply don't know this yet.
2. Because of the problems with (1), we have to make it possible to create more than one view of a subject. I know this sounds like the argument for creationism (which I strongly oppose). That's why there has to be a second element. Maybe you know how cascading stylesheets (CSS) work. For every element, the interpreter goes trough all the rules, and applies them, by overlaying each rule with the next one, so that it changes in the points of the second rule.
Imagine this, but with the rules being people, and the interpreter being you (with software assistance), and the element being the article.
So people could put together a "view" on Wikipedia. From collecting specific versions of the articles into a group, and giving it a name. Then others can define their view from using the first view as a basis, and adding some modifications. And so on.
The enduser can then choose from the views. He could for example, choose the view of some association of scientists or university, add some "Jon Steward" on top of it for the political things, and season it with some changes that a trusted friend or editor chose. He could also publish that as another "view".
This would make it possible, to create a completely "clean" (in your eyes) Wikipedia (trough choosing the right "view"), and still allow everything and anything to be said. Even some weirdo's 4chan Wiki view. ^^
Of course it would be nicer to be able to enforce logic. But until we found a realistic way, and have a world formula, I think this is our best shot.
I rather sacrifice that, than to sacrifice freedom.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
No ban need mention a party by name, rather simply enumerate policy violations that merit said ban. Done.
I abhor the "church" of Scientology, but gladly attend my local congregation. We actually help people. We feed the poor, cloth the homeless, and support humanitarian aid all over the world. Yes, we have an agenda behind it, to tell others of our beliefs, but one is not required to join our faith in order to receive the benefits of our generosity and our desire to help those in need. Our beliefs are out in the open, for all to peruse and attempt to debunk. Our book (the Bible) is able to be purchased at B&N or Borders for less than $10 in translations ranging from strictly accurate (and confusing to some) to paraphrased to make it easier to understand, if you really want to see what we believe.
Please do not insult the believers, those in this world who believe it is right to help and provide hope to our fellow human beings who suffer around us and those who wish to better the world in which we all live, by comparing us to the greedy, abusive, and controlling pseudo-religion that calls itself the "church" of Scientology.
A church is a group of people who welcome you in, and welcome the world to inspect their beliefs, and in fact encourages them to do so. A cult is a group of people with something to hide who refuse to allow just anyone in, and try to keep their power to themselves.
Your comment betrays a bigotry towards all organized religion, and I cannot see what benefit it added to this conversation.
Before commenting on the Bible, please read it first
I abhor the "church" of Scientology, but gladly attend my local congregation. We actually help people. I abhor the "church" of Scientology, but gladly attend my local congregation. We actually help people.
Attending church is not required to help people. You are making a false distinction by bringing in irrelevant facts. Scientologists probably contribute to charitable works as well but it still is irrelevant.
Yes, we have an agenda behind it, to tell others of our beliefs, but one is not required to join our faith in order to receive the benefits of our generosity and our desire to help those in need.
So basically your price to receive aid is to harangue some poor fellow who is down on his luck that he should believe in your mythology. Nice.
Our beliefs are out in the open, for all to peruse and attempt to debunk.
I don't believe for a moment that you are the slightest bit interested in a skeptical analysis of your religion or that you or your congregation would react with anything except hostility to such an analysis.
Please do not insult the believers, those in this world who believe it is right to help and provide hope to our fellow human beings who suffer around us and those who wish to better the world in which we all live, by comparing us to the greedy, abusive, and controlling pseudo-religion that calls itself the "church" of Scientology.
There's two problems there. The first is that you are trying to make your beliefs credible by confusing them with charitable works that have nothing to do with your religion. You don't need a church to do charity and frankly I have little respect for anyone who does charity under false pretenses or with ulterior motives. You are trying to recruit people who are down on their luck to your church. I find that distasteful if not outright despicable.
The other problem is that you presume that I as an outsider think your christian/muslim/jewish/whatever beliefs are any less bizzare than those of scientologists. Nor do I think the behavior of your church is necessarily any more honorable. Your religious beliefs are, and should be, just as susceptible to criticism as any others even if you don't like what is said. It is fair to point out that there are more similarities than differences between scientology and christianity. It is fair to point out that neither scientologists nor christians welcome actual logical analysis of their beliefs, texts or doctrines. The stories are different but they both are made up mythologies based not in fact but in irrational belief.
A church is a group of people who welcome you in, and welcome the world to inspect their beliefs, and in fact encourages them to do so.
I have NEVER seen a church that welcomed people to skeptically "inspect inspect their beliefs". Interesting choice of words you used. Frankly if I were to "inspect" your beliefs I suspect you and your congregation would react with hostility when I point out the logical inconsistencies, fallacies, and self-contradictions. Some even react with violence when you point out that their emperor has no clothes. No, I don't accept your premise that churches welcome people in or welcome people to critically inspect their beliefs.
A cult is a group of people with something to hide who refuse to allow just anyone in, and try to keep their power to themselves.
Are you seriously arguing that religions do not constantly war with each other like tribes precisely for power? That the church does not recruit members precisely to grow its power and influence? A cult is nothing more than a religion that hasn't become "successful" yet. A cult is a threat to a religion because it might just take followers away from the religion. All religions were once cults and to my mind they still are cults. It is a distinction without a difference.