News story here:
Wikipedia shuts down Scientology editors
Interesting. At the end of the article, it says:
Thoughts? Good? Bad? Fair?
The “critics are Fair Game (for harassment)” religion?
As an agnostic I say good god yes. How could they have neutral articles otherwise?
The mission of Wiki is neutral POV. If someone can’t play by the rules, wiki’s owners are free to throw them out of the pool. They have both the moral right and the practical right as outlined in their terms of use.
The fact that “someone” in this case is an organization, not an individual doesn’t change anything.
Good riddance to that. I’m all for banning the Scientologists, since they’re clearly breaching the rules of Wikipedia. Though the tagline says “The free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit”, you still agree (through editing) to follow NPOV, and this is fortunately a very clear cut case of rule breaking.
Now, certainly, criticism against Scientology shouldn’t be tolorated either, but we get a sliding scale of what constitutes “truth” when talking about a highly-charged topic such as this…
Some days I feel as though the scientology article should be forced into a stub and left locked forever.
Why shouldn’t it be tolerated? When you’re talking about an organisation where eleven senior members were found guilty of burglary of government offices and theft of documents and government property, for the specific benefit of that organisation, it should be pretty obvious where the truth lies. It’s only “highly-charged” because some people still defend the bastards.
I just want to point out that this won’t stop them. All they have to do is to register multiple individuals as contributors, have them lie low for a while, then have them start re=slanting the Scientology articles again. Scientologists have long shown themselves as capable of gaming the system and getting around the rules by doing things that people figure wouldn’t be done by straighforward individuals.
I’m of split mind about this. On one hand, the CoS is probably the best source of information about their, ahem, religion and its history. Wikipedia could use more expert information being contributed.
Of course, since the CoS are notoriously anti-biased and self-serving when it comes to its public image and sharing of information, they ruin the article’s objectivity.
He means within Wikipedia articles. Wiki articles should be entirely neutral and fact-based. You want to criticize them, start a blog.
I don’t think it’s possible to write a fact-based article about Scientology without criticising it. Dianetics has no scientific basis, and L. Ron Hubbard has been widely quoted as saying “The way to make a million dollars is to start a religion.”
This would be true for nearly any other organisation in the world, but this one defines the term ‘disingenuous’.
They still claim that their central beliefs have been made up by outsiders trying to make them look bad - the equivalent of the Pope claiming in public that Catholic teachings about Jesus coming back from the dead, and performing miracles, are only put about by atheists trying to discredit the church.
Thanks, Q. E. D., I did mean within Wikipedia articles. The entire Neutral Point-of-view rule is a great one to follow and invoke at times.
I have nothing wrong with portraying Scientology truthfully - “Scientology is a cult”. But, there may be problems with portraying Scientology negatively in Wikipedia - “Scientology is a scam”.
They need to do the LaRouchies next. Have you ever looked up the Lyndon LaRouche article and its various associated articles? They make it look like LaRouche is a major player in modern politics, economics, and philosophy, when he’s really just a crank. It’s might sound like a strange thing to say, but there’s far too much information about LaRouche in Wikipedia, way out of proportion to his importance.