Wiki Bans Scientology

[jonks]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...ientolog_n_208967.html

"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."


I'm not a fan of organized religion anyway, but the Xenufreaks are a cult. The forced alienation of "suppressive" family members, the brain washing, the pay as you go structure, the sanctioned methodology of litigation as harassment...it's not even legitimate enough to qualify as a crooked religion.

 

[MovingTarget]

Cue the religion-haters below, but I think that this is just as prudent as banning any other group known for self-serving edits.

 

[MotF Bane]

lol scientology.

 

[Barfo]

We should do like France and ban the "religion" altogether.

 

[irishScott]

Banning a group this large is more symbolic than effective. All they can really do is ban IPs. If the scientologists really care it's not that hard to open up a proxy connection, or just use a home computer.

In any case, I agree with the principle. They ban individual accounts for pulling bullshit like this. This is just that on a larger scale.

 

[torpid]

No big surprise. Large companies and organizations can afford to pay people to spread mis-information on wikipedia.

 

[lupi]

So, why not ban those ips instead of looking stupid for banning a religious group.



And it's good to see you're visiting HP for your news info.

 

[frostedflakes]

Originally posted by: irishScott
Banning a group this large is more symbolic than effective. All they can really do is ban IPs. If the scientologists really care it's not that hard to open up a proxy connection, or just use a home computer.

In any case, I agree with the principle. They ban individual accounts for pulling bullshit like this. This is just that on a larger scale.

Yup, nothing wrong with banning people who abuse Wikipedia to promote an agenda. But as you mentioned this really doesn't do much, it's easy enough to circumvent IP bans.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Originally posted by: Barfo
We should do like France and ban the "religion" altogether.

We should ban all religions altogether. What Scientology does is no worse than what the others do.

 

[torpid]

Originally posted by: frostedflakes

Originally posted by: irishScott
Banning a group this large is more symbolic than effective. All they can really do is ban IPs. If the scientologists really care it's not that hard to open up a proxy connection, or just use a home computer.

In any case, I agree with the principle. They ban individual accounts for pulling bullshit like this. This is just that on a larger scale.

Yup, nothing wrong with banning people who abuse Wikipedia to promote an agenda. But as you mentioned this really doesn't do much, it's easy enough to circumvent IP bans.

Yeah but how many scientologists are going to have the intelligence and skill to do that?

 

[Barfo]

Originally posted by: lupi
So, why not ban those ips instead of looking stupid for banning a religious group.



And it's good to see you're visiting HP for your news info.

Why not read the article instead of looking stupid for posting comments like these?

 

[foghorn67]

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt

Originally posted by: Barfo
We should do like France and ban the "religion" altogether.

We should ban all religions altogether. What Scientology does is no worse than what the others do.

Why can't we ban ignorant people like you instead?

 

[miketheidiot]

i think to edit on wikipedia you should have to formally identify yourself and be registered under an account. It doesn't have to be public information, but their needs to be more accountability for editors.

 

[RapidSnail]

Originally posted by: foghorn67

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt

Originally posted by: Barfo
We should do like France and ban the "religion" altogether.

We should ban all religions altogether. What Scientology does is no worse than what the others do.

Why can't we ban ignorant people like you instead?

Because we can't ban him for being extreme, ignorant, or intolerant......like the religions he hates.

 

[magomago]

I'm torn on this. If Wiki is meat to be able to be edited by anyone, we can't just change it. If there is something wrong on another religion, people will go in and fix it. If there is a dispute, then it should go to the talk: page until a consensus can be reach or the mis understanding is explained for what it is. I don't see Scientology as a religion, but if on the Islam page it said, "and Muslims must kill non Muslims" I'm most definitively going to delete that. If it comes back, I'll take it to the talk page and argue it out. There are already many who are involved in generating and editing these articles.

the only way I could have an issue with scientology folks is if they are just repeatedly deleting everything without it entering the talk forum to discuss. Wiki doesn't force people to enter discussions, but its the only real way to ATTEMPT to get as unbiased of a method as possible (which is still probably biased lol).

After reading the article is seems that it comes down to a 'network' of people who are carefully crafting positive images of themselves. Uhhh newsflash --> quite a bit of wiki is self serving! Go look up the school where I graudated from: UCI

This is the type of stuff that is written in it:
"UC Irvine itself has grown with its surroundings, with the university earning national acclaim in academia that reflects its status as a nationally-ranked public research university. This fast-paced growth has made UC Irvine the educational and cultural center of Orange County, as well as making a popular translation of the abbreviation "UCI" as "Under Construction Indefinitely".[11] As the second-largest employer in Orange County (the largest employer being The Walt Disney Company), UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $3.7 billion. Its extramural funding, which has shown exponential annual growth, was a record $263 million in 2005.[12]"

Tell me that someone connected to the school administration didn't write this. I think Scientologists are being picked at because they are the most high profile...but this is not the only instance of the many self serving edits that go on as we speak

 

[magomago]

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
i think to edit on wikipedia you should have to formally identify yourself and be registered under an account. It doesn't have to be public information, but their needs to be more accountability for editors.

Nope, anyone can go in and edit it. SOME pages do require you to make an accoutn and identify yourself (atleast through a username), but those are for the most controversial sites, or for pages that just seem to be repeatedly deleted over and over. You'd probably have to check wiki policy

 

[AreaCode707]

Originally posted by: magomago
I'm torn on this. If Wiki is meat to be able to be edited by anyone, we can't just change it. If there is something wrong on another religion, people will go in and fix it. If there is a dispute, then it should go to the talk: page until a consensus can be reach or the mis understanding is explained for what it is. I don't see Scientology as a religion, but if on the Islam page it said, "and Muslims must kill non Muslims" I'm most definitively going to delete that. If it comes back, I'll take it to the talk page and argue it out. There are already many who are involved in generating and editing these articles.

the only way I could have an issue with scientology folks is if they are just repeatedly deleting everything without it entering the talk forum to discuss. Wiki doesn't force people to enter discussions, but its the only real way to ATTEMPT to get as unbiased of a method as possible (which is still probably biased lol).

After reading the article is seems that it comes down to a 'network' of people who are carefully crafting positive images of themselves. Uhhh newsflash --> quite a bit of wiki is self serving! Go look up the school where I graudated from: UCI

This is the type of stuff that is written in it:
"UC Irvine itself has grown with its surroundings, with the university earning national acclaim in academia that reflects its status as a nationally-ranked public research university. This fast-paced growth has made UC Irvine the educational and cultural center of Orange County, as well as making a popular translation of the abbreviation "UCI" as "Under Construction Indefinitely".[11] As the second-largest employer in Orange County (the largest employer being The Walt Disney Company), UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $3.7 billion. Its extramural funding, which has shown exponential annual growth, was a record $263 million in 2005.[12]"

Tell me that someone connected to the school administration didn't write this. I think Scientologists are being picked at because they are the most high profile...but this is not the only instance of the many self serving edits that go on as we speak

RE the bolded sentence... the problem is that Scientology, unlike most other religions, really doesn't want outsiders to understand it. Other religions want to share their "truth" with you; Scientology wants to hide their truth. Therefore they aren't going to enter a talk forum, aren't going to be ok with accurate fact being printed about them, etc.

Self-serving is one thing; deliberately putting on a largescale campaign to mislead is another.

 

[techs]

Originally posted by: jonks
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...ientolog_n_208967.html

"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."


I'm not a fan of organized religion anyway, but the Xenufreaks are a cult. The forced alienation of "suppressive" family members, the brain washing, the pay as you go structure, the sanctioned methodology of litigation as harassment...it's not even legitimate enough to qualify as a crooked religion.

Xenu from Wiki:

Hubbard wrote that seventy-five million years ago, Xenu was the ruler of a Galactic Confederacy which consisted of 26 stars and 76 planets including Earth, which was then known as "Teegeeack". The planets were overpopulated, with an average population of 178 billion. The Galactic Confederacy's civilization was comparable to our own, with aliens "walking around in clothes which looked very remarkably like the clothes they wear this very minute" and using cars, trains and boats looking exactly the same as those "circa 1950, 1960" on Earth.

Xenu was about to be deposed from power, so he devised a plot to eliminate the excess population from his dominions. With the assistance of psychiatrists, he summoned billions of his citizens together under the pretense of income tax inspections, then paralyzed them and froze them in a mixture of alcohol and glycol to capture their souls. The kidnapped populace was loaded into spacecraft for transport to the site of extermination, the planet of Teegeeack (Earth).

The appearance of these spacecraft would later be subconsciously expressed in the design of the Douglas DC-8, the only difference being: "the DC8 had fans, propellers on it and the space plane didn't." When they had reached Teegeeack/Earth, the paralyzed citizens were unloaded around the bases of volcanoes across the planet. Hydrogen bombs were then lowered into the volcanoes and detonated simultaneously. Only a few aliens' physical bodies survived. Hubbard described the scene in his film script, Revolt in the Stars:


Simultaneously, the planted charges erupted. Atomic blasts ballooned from the craters of Loa, Vesuvius, Shasta, Washington, Fujiyama, Etna, and many, many others. Arching higher and higher, up and outwards, towering clouds mushroomed, shot through with flashes of flame, waste and fission. Great winds raced tumultuously across the face of Earth, spreading tales of destruction...

The now-disembodied victims' souls, which Hubbard called thetans, were blown into the air by the blast. They were captured by Xenu's forces using an "electronic ribbon" ("which also was a type of standing wave") and sucked into "vacuum zones" around the world. The hundreds of billions of captured thetans were taken to a type of cinema, where they were forced to watch a "three-D, super colossal motion picture" for thirty-six days. This implanted what Hubbard termed "various misleading data"' (collectively termed the R6 implant) into the memories of the hapless thetans, "which has to do with God, the Devil, space opera, et cetera". This included all world religions, with Hubbard specifically attributing Roman Catholicism and the image of the Crucifixion to the influence of Xenu. The two "implant stations" cited by Hubbard were said to have been located on Hawaii and Las Palmas in the Canary Islands

Sounds perfectly plausible to me....
:shocked:

 

[foghorn67]

Originally posted by: RapidSnail

Originally posted by: foghorn67

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt

Originally posted by: Barfo
We should do like France and ban the "religion" altogether.

We should ban all religions altogether. What Scientology does is no worse than what the others do.

Why can't we ban ignorant people like you instead?

Because we can't ban him for being extreme, ignorant, or intolerant......like the religions he hates.

But he hates all religions. Not select ones. At least you can tell the difference.

 

[Sureshot324]

The article should be locked for editing, like the wiki article for George Bush. Any changes should have to be approved on the talk page.

 

[magomago]

Originally posted by: Sureshot324
The article should be locked for editing, like the wiki article for George Bush. Any changes should have to be approved on the talk page.

LOLOLOLOL sorry I snickered

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Originally posted by: RapidSnail

Originally posted by: foghorn67

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt

Originally posted by: Barfo
We should do like France and ban the "religion" altogether.

We should ban all religions altogether. What Scientology does is no worse than what the others do.

Why can't we ban ignorant people like you instead?

Because we can't ban him for being extreme, ignorant, or intolerant......like the religions he hates.

It's not the religions I hate, it's the people who believe in the fairy tales. If you believe that the invisible man in the sky gave you a brain USE IT!

You can start with using it to explain why your collection of violent criminals committing atrocities in gods name is better than Scientology. Go.

 

[foghorn67]

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt

Originally posted by: RapidSnail

Originally posted by: foghorn67

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt

Originally posted by: Barfo
We should do like France and ban the "religion" altogether.

We should ban all religions altogether. What Scientology does is no worse than what the others do.

Why can't we ban ignorant people like you instead?

Because we can't ban him for being extreme, ignorant, or intolerant......like the religions he hates.

It's not the religions I hate, it's the people who believe in the fairy tales. If you believe that the invisible man in the sky gave you a brain USE IT!

You can start with using it to explain why your collection of violent criminals committing atrocities in gods name is better than Scientology. Go.

The religion I believe isn't really into voilent crimes. Not everyone falls within your narrow minded views.

 

[videogames101]

Don't worry guys, /b/ will protect the internet from $cientology.

 

[videogames101]

Originally posted by: foghorn67

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt

Originally posted by: RapidSnail

Originally posted by: foghorn67

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt

Originally posted by: Barfo
We should do like France and ban the "religion" altogether.

We should ban all religions altogether. What Scientology does is no worse than what the others do.

Why can't we ban ignorant people like you instead?

Because we can't ban him for being extreme, ignorant, or intolerant......like the religions he hates.

It's not the religions I hate, it's the people who believe in the fairy tales. If you believe that the invisible man in the sky gave you a brain USE IT!

You can start with using it to explain why your collection of violent criminals committing atrocities in gods name is better than Scientology. Go.

The religion I believe isn't really into voilent crimes. Not everyone falls within your narrow minded views.

So because you go against the majority of people on this earth, he should base his arguments on your religion because it's a minority? All we can do is argue against who is most prominent, until you ask us to argue against your religion, which you've yet to mention.