Wikipedia Bans Church of Scientology IPs

After six months arbitration on the issue, this week Wikipedia decided to ban Church of Scientology IPs from editing their site.

The move is not particularly radical. Wikipedia has a set of terms and conditions users must meet. Those who repeatedly disregard them are banned. When several accounts from the same IP are breaking the rules (either because of a team of miscreants or a single user employing "sockpuppets"), the entire IP can be banned out of necessity so that pages are not overwhelmed with nonsense.

In this case, the objection seems to be twofold. First, certain users on the CoS IPs have been repeatedly deleting well-sourced negative information. In perusing the arbitration records, it appears to me that this was the major issue. This is in line with CoS thinking, in that all negative representations of the Church, called enthata, should be eliminated.

The second concern is the posting of poorly-sourced information, and this one cuts both ways. You don't get to write whatever you want on Wikipedia. It needs to be backed up with credible sources, such as a news source or reputable publishing house. Certain anti-Scientologists have thus been censored in the past for this offense as well, publishing opinion rather than fact.

There are, of course, those who disagree with this decision, and not all of the objectors are Scientologists. One objector accuses Wikipedia of targeting a "social group" and presenting themselves as non-neutral. Fox News claims that Wikipedia banned an entire religion.

But the ban isn't targeting a social group or a religion. It's targeting the IP addresses owned by the Church of Scientology after repeated abuses were committed from these addresses, which is the standard reason for banning IPs. Scientologists can certainly still work on Wikipedia from home computers, public terminals, and so on. Most importantly, the documentation on Wikipedia about the arbitration makes it clear this is not about what Scientologists believe or practice. It's about Scientologists from certain locations repeatedly breaking the rules.