Why Wikipedia was wrong to ban Scientology

While I am a big opponent of censorship, I think the author of this article has misinterpreted or simplified the facts of this case in order to support a point. The crux of the issue is in this sentence:

"In an ideal world, I don't think that the Wikipedia editors should be making any value judgements on whether a particular idea is good or bad."

The value judgement issued by the arbitrators did not concern *what* the Scientologists were saying, it concerned *how* they were saying it. Namely, they were orchestrating changes to the pages to support their point of view without going through the proper channels of community-based editing. The distinction is critical to understanding the ruling, and the author blurs it without consideration.

The subsequent slippery slope argument is thus completely irrelevant. If you want to discuss the slippery slope inherent in banning groups that cooperate to subvert Wikipedia's editing guidelines, that is fine. But to bring up groups that could be considered "fringe" or "cults" is a further conflation. Are these groups engaged in the same tactics as the Scientologists? If not, forget it.

Sure, this may generate some negative PR amongst bloggers and netizens who have an idealized vision of participation culture. But they will have no choices but to begrudgingly submit to the realities of the world or to cease using Wikipedia entirely. For anyone else who actually wants a reputable, reliable encyclopedia online, this action represents progress. Whether it will be effective is not certain, as the author notes, but removing the convenience of being able to coordinate multiple users to make edits in a centralized location may have a positive effect. The author ignores this point as well.

Did the author read the actual ruling? His assumptions, assertions and simplifications of the issue make it sound as if he not only has little understanding of how Wikipedia works, but that he only overheard someone at lunch say, "Hey, did you hear Wikipedia banned Scientology?!" While this may be how many Americans learn of it - if they learn of it at all - this is not responsible journalism. If you are going to write a piece on the action of the Arbitration Committee, you should at least have some inkling as to what that action was, and what it really means.

This simply comes off as lazy, knee-jerk opining in an effort to get a column off quickly in reaction, without truly understanding the situation at all.

This line summarizes both why the author is wrong and why his pique should be directed at the Corporation of Scientology.

"In an ideal world, I don't think that the Wikipedia editors should be making any value judgements on whether a particular idea is good or bad."

The Scientology editors themselves are making value judgements for Wikipedia users by determining what ideas are good or bad. Wikipedia is preserving the open, democratic nature of of the wiki. What's the old Cold War adage? The World must be made safe for democracy. Well the same applies to an organization whose speech is intended to drown out other individuals' speech.

Evgeny, congratulations on the Slate repost! Maybe with your newfound popularity, you'll afford time to read and research your topic. Until then, I'll be on the lookout for positive press for Scientology--never seen it, never will.

Wikipedia did the right thing, it has nothing to do with the subject matter or actually anything about Scientology. There was a history of abuse, vandalism, and inaccurate edits coming from those IPs. They were warned repeatedly, and did not comply with Wiki's terms of service, so now they're banned. Wikipedia is not banning a social group from editing its site, Scientologists and everyone else are all still allowed to edit. What isn't allowed are these troublesome IP addresses from Church of Scientology corporate properties that have been previously warned to abide by the ToS.

I'm not understanding what kind of solution you're proposing. A site with a terms of service agreement needs someone to moderate and enforce that agreement. When it's broken repeatedly and warnings are ignored, users and IPs are blocked. How is this different from abuse and ToS violation enforcement on any other site?

great article, but the plural of pokemon is pokemon.

The author got the censorship issue wrong: Wikipedia does not censor scientological views, scientologists try to censor the articles in order to suppress information which shows scientology in a bad light or to infringe on the right of other editors to disclose facts which scientology wants to keep secret. The author should have read the Wikipedia article on "Scientology and the Internet" before writing about this problem.
To be tolerant to the intolerant is allways difficult but an encyclopedia which anyone can edit can not be an encyclopedia anyone can censor. Scientologically minded editors have the same rights in Wikipedia as other editors; if they did not want to have more rights than others, there would be no problem.

Very interesting. I do internet marketing for a living and have been involved in Wikipedia Wars and have completely given up on the site. If you try to correct something in a controversial article, somebody comes back and deletes your comment and puts a lie right back up. Even with scientific references proving a statement fact, you can still have your contributions taken down by somebody who disagrees. Just not worth it. Also hard to trust a site like this.

I don't know what the answer is, but you really can't rely on Wikipedia being much more than a gossip site on many controversial topics.