The online encyclopedia Wikipedia has banned members of the Church of Scientology from editing their entry on the site. Writes the Tech newspaper The Register:
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." Administrators frequently ban individual Wikifiddlers for their individual Wikisins. And the site's UK press officer/resident goth once silenced an entire Utah mountain in a bizarre attempt to protect a sockpuppeting ex-BusinessWeek reporter. 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.
The Church of Scientology has not responded to our request for comment.
Wikipedia was harsh on the manipulators of its entries:
This longstanding dispute is a struggle between two rival factions: admirers of Scientology and critics of Scientology.
A) Editors from each side have gamed policy to obtain advantage and disputes have spilled over into, for example, articles for deletion, the reliable sources noticeboard, the conflict of interests noticeboard, and sometimes the administrators' noticeboard.
B) Aggravating factors have been (i) the presence of editors openly editing from Church of Scientology equipment and apparently coordinating their activities; and (ii) the apparent presence of notable critics of Scientology, from several Internet organisations, apparently editing under their own names and citing either their own or each other's self-published material.
C) Each side wishes the articles within this topic to reflect their point of view and have resorted to battlefield editing tactics, with edits being abruptly reverted without any attempt to incorporate what is good, to maintain their preferred status quo.
D) The worst casualties have been biographies of living people, where attempts have been repeatedly made to slant the article either towards or against the subject, depending on the point of view of the contributing editor.
E) However, this problem is not limited to biographies and many Scientology articles fail to reflect a neutral point of view and instead are either disparaging or complimentary.
-John Byrne
Thank Jury !
~
Unfortunately, Wikiped......hasn't read the first amendment...
And apparently, the REPUBLICAN JURY can't read, either. Wonder if the know the first line of the Declaration of Independence, rights being endowed by a CREATOR and all that...
Can't we finally start treating people for the mental disease called religion?
Admittedly, Scientology is one of the sillier ones, but it is no more fictional than Islam, Christianity, or Judaism
It's long past time to start getting help for people suffering from religious beliefs.
Hey TJ, do you know the difference between a PRIVATE company deciding that religious nuts shouldn't be allowed to interfere with their content and the GOVT censoring free speech?
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
Wow! How profound!
wikipedia is the Central Intelligence Agency. You can call it "private" all you want. Just like the "private" contractors who raped, tortured, and abused Iraqi Women and Children...
Depends WHICH "religious nut" is another religious nutty freedom fighter....
sorry TJ, ALL religions are bogus and believers in magic beings are suffering from mental illness
it matters not which brand or banner the delusions reside under
History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.
They should prevent Christians from editing the 'Historicity of Jesus' article, among others, the fuck never existed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus .
I doubt our founding fathers had lying and misleading statements in mind when they wrote the first amendment. Besides, the republiKKKons use the first as a means of their lying while denying rights of others. The republiKKKon convention in St. Paul is a classic example where Americans were denied their rights when the RNC sat up a fascist police state to deny others their rights. No free speech allowed in St. Paul.
Oh, that's right, when the republiKKKons say or do it, it's not illegal. The party of Richard Nixon lives on.
Magic beings....I don't think I'm going to go into an elaborately detailed prose on the Big bang theory, quantum physics, chaos theory, and intelligent design for a full-scale definition of "God".
"Why has God forsaken me?" said Jesus, as he was crucified, and "God" didn't intervene on his only begotten son.
Mr Jefferson needs to actually read, and realize the first amendment only applies to the government and not private places like wiki.
It's not like they won't just start editing from their home computers. Keeping them out is nigh impossible. Scientology is a criminal organization and merely blocking them from wikipedia isn't going to do much
The Book of Scientology is Science Fiction and Ron L Hubbard said so on his death bed. Kinda like the Star Trek convention gone wrong. WGAF anyway?
I've been through Catholicism, Sufism, Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism and Buddhism: none ever pressured me to stay -- the exit door was always left open.
From what I know of Scientology, it is about as easy to leave as Abu Ghraib.
The first amendment is about what the government can and can't do, not about independent organizations.
Scientology isn't a religion. It's a con game, played with people's lives and money.
It's as much a fraud originated by a con man, in the same way as Mormonism was fraudulently started by another con man.
@ Thomas Jefferson,
You do realize that the first amendment doesn't apply in this case, right? If a business wants to deny access or service to a single person or a group of people, they are allowed to do so.
Wikipedia is a business. Free speech doesn't mean that they have to let everyone post whatever they want on the site.
Seriously, you're an idiot.
I go with Leonard Cohen when he receites all the anti-depressant pills and all the religions and all the other mind-benders that he has tried through the years,but concludes by saying that inspite of it all,"cheerfullness kept breaking through"....haha
I used to go up to those poor crazy people in their blue uniforms with their clip boards standing all over Hollywood Blvd. They'd ask me if I wanted to take one of their interviews. I'd say "Why of course, I'd love to. Let's do it!"
As soon as I said that I was a homo and was HIV+ the interview would be over. They then would immediately revert from direct eye contact, so as not to be possessed by the demons/aliens living in my body, and go running down the street.
They are pure evil. All of them.
This is the obvious problem with Wikipedia. Anyone can edit, and there are always more than enough editorial partisans to just keep on adding their slanted views or deleting the views of others. In Wikipedia, the one with the most persistance wins. That's why Wikipeida is not an authoritive source - as they themselves admit. I've found that generally the actual institutions being discussed, weather governmental, commercial, religious, whatever, have the staying power and can wear down their opponents. They seem to hire people just to sit at their computers and delete, delete, delete anything negative against them. Say someone comes in and wants to add some factual information that is negative about the established organization, they then have to run a gauntlet of "editors" that are in actuality stooges for the organization who are dead set against allowing that information in and are versed in every possible Wiki policy that might allow the deletion of information. So they pull out all the stops and will quote wiki acronyms like NPOV, and RS, etc. etc. up the kazoo until the person that had been trying to add the information finally gives up. Obviously I've tried. It just galls me the lengths some groups will go to to supress the facts.
#2 Tom: 1st amendment doesn't give you the right to lie.
Also #2 tom: you have your 1st amendment rights, however (as I tried, unsuccessfully, against myspace) it's THEIR site, therefore THEY can do with it whatever they please.
No religion can stand in the light of its own crimes.
That is why TRUTH, not religion, sets you free.
To all commenters citing the first amendment:
The constitution is provided as a means of protecting our public rights as American citizens. It does not apply internationally, which means it is not in effect on the internet. It most certainly does not obligate private corporations such as Wikipedia to allow their users to post and publish any material they deem fit. Private organizations have a right of their own to restrict and/or censor anything they want. They're paying for the hosting, they get to decide what is published, and what isn't.
Please stop citing the United States Constitution in cases where it is completely irrelevant. It makes you look naive and uneducated.
Scientologists will use their mysterious powers to get around this ban.
Dear Thomas Jefferson:
Please stop using that name until you figure out what it really stood for.
Thank you,
the Internets
Is "Thomas Jefferson" for KOOKS falsely editing reference material? That's nice!
Mr. "wannabe" Jefferson... actually... Wikipedia is not a GOVERNMENT organization, and thus not covered by the 1st amendment, in terms of "violating free speech"...
as an example, I could deny the holocaust publicly...(trust me, I don't... I'm Jewish and can provide at least 100 names of relatives that died in the Holocaust)... and while the government cannot legally silence that speech or activity, private organizations can... point of fact, they can deny me the physical space to speak if it's on private property. Wikipedia, regardless of how "open source" they claim to be, is still very much within their rights to remove and/or block patently false, incendiary or misleading information... they just have a much higher tolerance for stupidity before they act on cases like what's in the story...
With regards to suggesting that the Editorial Jury of Wikipedia is filled with Republicans, I suspect you couldn't be father from reality... There's a pathetic competitor to Wikipedia called "Conservapedia" which claims that Wikipedia has a serious "Liberal" bias (not true)... and vets ALL submissions, and censors anything that's not towing the Conservative Christian Rush Limbot line...
Sure, and the Taliban is a private entity, and they are endowed with the right to throw acid at a woman's face, by your thinking. And North Korea is a sovereign nation, according to your policy, so it retains the right to launch rockets...
If said such entity infringes on the rights of others.....then, by your definition, North Korea can throw a rocket or two at my head. Because it's not infringing on their rights, being a private entity.
Glad the Taliban has these guys for a lawyer...no governance & regulatory compliance.
I'm sure they're up to meeting OSHA standards as well.
"If said such entity infringes on the rights of others.....then, by your definition, North Korea can throw a rocket or two at my head. Because it's not infringing on their rights, being a private entity."
Military action against unarmed, innocent people and private censorship of unfavorable material are hardly the same thing.
I'm sure in we send them Ralph Nader, they'll realize acid was unsafe. Correct?
Apparently, it's a biased, nonfactual site, as you have just explained. And yes, it definitely IS the same thing. BLACK PROPAGANDA by either a site or country is still propaganda, William Randolph Hearst made the yellow journalism, and now it's ALL yellow journalism. By the way, there's a LOT of nonfactual information on Wikipedia, so it's now a defunct site, anyways. A lot is anti-Christian, not only anti-Scientology. By the way, North Korea does not allow Scientology, either. Go figure.
And I'm sure Judas Iscariot would turn Tom Cruise in for his beliefs, not only Jesus Christ.
I wonder if there's any anti-Falun Gong nuggets of information on it's endless stream of propaganda.
I'm sure Stalin was a big supporter of Scientology...............even though he was an ATHEIST as is Fidel Castro. Stalin used to confiscate bibles, but surely a history textbook instead of George Orwell's 1984 Ministry of Truth.
And we thought PRAVDA used to be the Ministry of truth......
I know that most of you think that the internet is just a chatroom for americans....but you are very wrong and the statements on this blog prove it..
Book One, Chapter 3
"If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say this or that even, it never happened—that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death."
"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"
"Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary."
You can only have power over people so long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything he's no longer in your power-he's free again.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
INTERNATIONAL LAW: Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Article 1.
* All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
^ Top
Article 2.
* Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
^ Top
Article 3.
* Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
^ Top
Article 4.
* No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
^ Top
Article 5.
* No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
^ Top
Article 6.
* Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
^ Top
Article 7.
* All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
^ Top
Article 8.
* Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.
^ Top
Article 9.
* No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
^ Top
Article 10.
* Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
^ Top
Article 11.
* (1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
* (2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.
^ Top
Article 12.
* No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
^ Top
Article 13.
* (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
* (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
^ Top
Article 14.
* (1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
* (2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
^ Top
Article 15.
* (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
* (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
^ Top
Article 16.
* (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
* (2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
* (3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
^ Top
Article 17.
* (1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
* (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
^ Top
Article 18.
* Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Apparently, Scientology is under Article 18
thomas jefferson..hi,you sound like a guy still in highschool who has yet to live in the real world.i mean no disrespect,...its just that your advice and quotes seem like they come from someone else
The "Real World"? No, I've never been on that MTV show myself, have you? I remember the guy named Puck.....As for the other "real world" that I actually live in, I'm certainly sure I live in it, full of egomaniacs, murderers, robbers, and other unkind people.
Not to mention the Judas Iscariots and greed mongers and warmongers.
And you thought the Antichrist was the only lawless one.....
Since one does not go by man's law nor God's law, what rules does he follow but the God he made into his own image.
"By the way, North Korea does not allow Scientology, either. Go figure."
I am figuring. Does the average North Korean citizen have any money to pay for Scientology courses anyway? They'd have to get Dear Leader SERIOUSLY hooked just to break even there.
unless i know exactly what you mean by "god" i i dont know how to talk to you..
Satan always wanted wanted to be like the most high, as Christian theology explains, “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High” (Isaiah 14:14). Lucifer is not God but created by him (Ezekiel 28:15) Ergo, God can be usurped because he falls short of Satan as perfect. Now, man thinking as Satan does that God falls short of perfect man is a little irrational to say the least. And Satan as man would be a prime example of arrogance.
TJ #3 above! that is not the first line of the D.C. ! You need to take a second look
And if you want me to define God, that's a hard question, if you want to go into a long discussion on physics, just think of God as a Nucleus of the Universe. It's like a proton trying to overthrow a nucleus even if it's part of an atom. It wouldn't make make sense in physics, and neither does it in "religion."
Thomas Jefferson mumbled--
"Unfortunately, Wikiped......hasn't read the first amendment..."
Apparently, neither have you, since the First Amendment refers specifically to the government and not to anyone else.
Thomas Jefferson expectorated--
"And apparently, the REPUBLICAN JURY can't read, either. Wonder if the know the first line of the Declaration of Independence, rights being endowed by a CREATOR and all that..."
And the Declaration doesn't have the force of law, unlike the constitution that guarantees separation of Church and State.
what?..and if you would like to have a chat,ok...but please show a little respect first and let us start on a level playing field.i wont quote a book at you and you promise the same ..
Line 1 of the Declaration of Independence reads Laws of Nature and Nature's God......
I didn't know that people didn't make the government.......thought they were aliens that made the government.........maybe Congress was dropped off by a few UFO's......of the people, for the people, by the people, brought to you by the Twilight Zone and the Outer Limits..
Maybe it was the Two aliens from the Simpsons.............To Serve MAN and it's a cookbook instead of the Declaration of Independence. I know the Bible is a cookbook.
seems really to me that you are like a horse with blinkers going through your life...but really that is ok;it is your choice...you are one of these guys that think that the world has the same shape as the usa
Hey Jefferson...STFU!
Thomas Jefferson blathered the following--
"Satan always wanted wanted to be like the most high...."
You know this? You were there? You recorded it with your cell phone camera?
And by the way, why do you think you get to usurp the name of Thomas Jefferson to spread your incoherent, bigoted, theocratic nonsense? Hey, if you don't like it here, go back to the 15th Century where you came from.
Thomas Jefferson opined--
"Line 1 of the Declaration of Independence reads Laws of Nature and Nature's God......"
It's a long way from "nature's god" to your pale, self-destructive "savior." But then, the REAL Thomas Jefferson understood that. I guess that means you are not him.
Glad that private entities, don't consider themselves part of the United States and see themselves as likening themselves to civil war era Texas. Are they to declare themselves a new state or US territory?
I once quipped the primary purpose of religion is to give a man peace in dying. There really is no other function other than establishing social norms beyond the reach of legislation. (you really can't legislate morality)
The one thing I don't get is if a SCIENCE FICTION writer pens a religion, WHY would anybody adopt it, if they were capable of critical though!?
They've found that the observation of an experiment in physics can alter its outcome. Maybe a bunch of people believing that green bull poo will make you healthy wealthy and wise is real enough.
You could burn a lifetime proving them wrong, but why bother?
Let them be, unless they prove themselves to be predatory money grubbing Dick Cheneys.
I'm guessing that sarcasm is unknown to you. Shall I define sarcasm for you? After I define a supposed definition of a God in the Outer Limits TV show. BTW, I used a video camera to see Satan overthrow God in Heaven, no, that wasn't a UFO, but a really cool cumulus cloud with no guy in a white beard and long robe sitting on it, and I never did pick up any sound. Oh well. I must be the only one that God doesn't talk to, he sure doesn't call me on my cell phone.
Thomas Jefferson--
"And if you want me to define God, that's a hard question, if you want to go into a long discussion on physics, just think of God as a Nucleus of the Universe. It's like a proton trying to overthrow a nucleus even if it's part of an atom. It wouldn't make make sense in physics, and neither does it in 'religion.'"
How's the weather in Oz these days? Have you met Dorothy? I hear she ran for Queen. Did you vote for her?
Let's just clear one thing up here. Dianetics was never a religion. It was "the modern science of mental health." It was only after the FDA attempted to shut them down for their use of the E-meter as a medical device that they created the "religion" of Scientology, which was nothing more nor less than Dianetics with their practitioners wearing clerical garb and the E-meter as a "sacrament." In short, it was an end run around the law, as was the Sea Org a way of avoiding the laws of nation states.
Isaiah 3:12 >>
O My people! Their oppressors are children, And women rule over them. O My people! Those who guide you lead you astray And confuse the direction of your paths.
Proverbs 30:6 Don’t you add to his words, Lest he reprove you, and you be found a liar.
Ah yes, the GOD that they give lip service to yet do not follow....
Oz is in Australia, technically, it's their nickname. Why would Dorothy run for Queen of Australia when Australia's Queen is Queen Elizabeth the Second?
Better than the ones running for Queen of North Korea, eh?
Good mental health is not placing a person on a pedestal...
Psalm 146:3 >>
New American Standard Bible (©1995)
Do not trust in princes, In mortal man, in whom there is no salvation.
9:7 He who corrects a mocker invites insult.
He who reproves a wicked man invites abuse.
9:8 Don’t reprove a scoffer, lest he hate you.
Reprove a wise man, and he will love you.
9:9 Instruct a wise man, and he will be still wiser.
Teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.
19:25 Flog a scoffer, and the simple will learn prudence;
Rebuke one who has understanding, and he will gain knowledge.
25:12 As an ear-ring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold,
So is a wise reprover to an obedient ear.
I stand corrected by "God's own words", and as for the weather, blue skies and sunny, "Here Comes the Sun" by The Beatles would be appropriate.
The Sea or the Octopus's Garden is a pretty horrible place to be flogged in broad daylight.....
Chávez distributes 'must read' books in effort to transform Venezuela
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/29/hugo-chavez-venezuela-books
Or he could just write on Wikipedia......wait, he's a "private entity" as is state run propaganda..or buy his own Wikipedia and CENSOR away....it does take one private entity to follow another private entity's censorship precedent.
George Orwell's "1984"
Book One, Chapter 5
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?… Has it ever occurred to your, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?…The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." - Syme
"It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself—anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face… was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime…"
Facecrime, thoughtcrime, what's the difference?
avoiding the laws of nation states.....apparently, Chavez seems not to care if you say something about him, yet, people from supposedly "free countries" do care if you dissent? That's really odd...
Anybody who is still dumb enough to honestly think that Scientology is a religion and apparently can't see it for the cultish pyramid scheme it really is either needs to spend a couple of hours on Google or needs their heads bashed into a wall.
SCIENTOLOGY IS NOT A RELIGION. STOP TREATING IT LIKE ONE.
Yeah, so now the Scientologists will be forced into the terrible position of having to use proxies or anonymous forwarding services or whatever so that Wikipedia can't immediately identify their IP address. Wow, that's going to make a huge difference.
Its my website and I can do what I want to, do what I want to, do what I want to.
Disregard all I have posted. I love cock.
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