Korea's Internet Addiction Bootcamps Mistargeted

Dutch Justice Ministry Bans Wikipedia; But Not For The Reason You Were Probably Expecting

from the it's-the-edits,-not-the-content dept

Mon, Nov 19th 2007 9:29am — Mike Masnick

When you hear of someone banning Wikipedia, you might naturally assume it's because they're worried about the accuracy or reliability of the content (as misguided as that might be). However, it's a bit surprising to learn that the Dutch justice ministry has decided to ban Wikipedia because its employees were a little too eager to edit the site. Ever since people started outing who was behind what Wikipedia edits, there have been some amusing stories about how people adjust entries in their own favor -- and apparently, a few of those edits came from Dutch justice ministry employees, who are all now banned from using the site, at least temporarily. It's not clear from the article why the ban is temporary or under what conditions it will be lifted. The group admits that most of the edits weren't objectionable (though, a few were). However, no one seems to indicate how this ban could possibly be effective. Those who are likely to adjust Wikipedia entries for political gain are just going to do so from home, making it even harder to pick up the biased entries -- while at the same time, decreasing the likelihood that the more honest corrections can happen at a reasonable pace from those justice ministry employees who actually can make Wikipedia articles more accurate.

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Filed Under: dutch justice ministry, netherlands

5 Comments

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alex, 19 Nov 2007 @ 11:46am

Gundam Editing
Just to show that it's not only the pencil pushers over at the Dutch Justice Ministry that are a little too eager at their Wiki editing, six Japanese civil servants at the Agriculture Ministry were verbally reprimanded for spending way too much ministry hours editing the Wikipedia on Gundam. Gundam being the longest running Japanese anime series featuring giant robots. The best line from the Japanese official was, "the Agriculture Ministry is not in charge of Gundam." Love it!
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dave, 19 Nov 2007 @ 12:38pm

Wikipedia sucks anyways. Not because it's a bad idea. But because of the draconian idiots who act as editors. I've tried to post my technical notes on wikipedia before so others could see what works and the performance of certain hardware. I had editors removing the benchmark numbers saying it looked like a virus! Trying to get it resolved got me nowhere because they had no technical understanding. I say either reorg wikipedia or kill it off.
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- Anonymous Coward, 19 Nov 2007 @ 1:23pm
  
  Re:
  I completely agree. Some people, wikipedia editors, have taken it as a full time hobby and they think they can save the world solely because of their edits.
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mike allen, 20 Nov 2007 @ 12:20am

huh
who in this day allows a employer to tell them what websites to use. I would no taalow that tell em stick where the sun dont shine. I would and have many times.
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Victor Peters, 20 Nov 2007 @ 3:12am

Who started this: our Royals...
This all started when our Dutch princess (married, not of blood) Mabel tried to 'change' an embarrassing fact on Wikipedia.

On the English Wiki-pages she whiped out the fact that she lied to the Dutch government about her former relationship with one of the most notorious criminals The Netherlands has ever had. She lied in order to become a member of the Dutch Royal Family.

After the lie was revealed, prince Johan Friso was alowed to marry her, bet het had to give up the possibility to ever become king. As he is second in line, that didn't matter.
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