Wikipedia Blocks Qatar, "They vandalized us," say mean ol' admins Options

[Google News]

Wikipedia Blocks Qatar
Slashdot - 35 minutes ago
GrumpySimon writes "Wikipedia has blocked the entire country of Qatar from editing pages. Whilst the ban is due to spam-abuse coming ...

[Yahoo! News]

GrumpySimon writes "Wikipedia has blocked the entire country of Qatar from editing pages. Whilst the ban is due to spam-abuse coming from the IP address in question, the fact that this belongs to the country's sole high-speed internet provider has the unintended consequence of stopping Qatarese from editing the wiki. The ban has raised concerns about impartiality — the majority of Al Jazeera ...

Article: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/searc...0290/article.pl

[Google News]

Wikipedia Blocks Qatar
Slashdot - 8 minutes ago
GrumpySimon writes "Wikipedia has blocked the entire country of Qatar from editing pages. ... Says the guy who uses a Wikipedia link to back up his assertions... ...

[Google News]

Wikipedia Blocks Qatar
Slashdot - 4 hours ago
GrumpySimon writes "Wikipedia has blocked the entire country of Qatar from editing pages. Whilst the ban is due to spam-abuse coming from the IP address in ...

[Newsvine]

Qatar, home to nearly a million people, has been blocked from editing any entry on Wikipedia "due to a large volume of spam and vandalism."



http://larrykoz.newsvine.com/_news/2007/01...edia-bans-qatar

[Google News]

Wikipedia denies banning Qatar
Inquirer, UK - 51 minutes ago
Qatar, being a one ISP country, suffered when Wikipedia's bots decided that the ISP's IP address should not be allowed to post because it was used for vandalism ...

[Yahoo! News]

THE ONLINE encyclopaedia Wikipedia has denied censoring the entire nation of Qatar for vandalism.

Article: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/searc...x?article=36649

[Yahoo! News]

Web encyclopaedia Wikipedia bans anonymous posts from people in Qatar after repeated net vandalism.

Article: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/searc...ogy/6224677.stm

[Google News]

Wikipedia Bans Qatar Users Due To Net Vandalism
All Headline News - 40 minutes ago
West Palm Beach, FL (AHN) - Following repeated incidents of net vandalism, Web encyclopedia Wikipedia banned anonymous posts from users in Qatar. ...

[Yahoo! News]

Web encyclopaedia Wikipedia bans anonymous posts from people in Qatar after repeated net vandalism.

Article: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/searc...ogy/6224677.stm

[Google News]

Wikipedia edit blackout for Qatar
CNET News.com, CA - 21 minutes ago
In an effort to stop "chronic vandalism and spam," Wikipedia administrators issued the block to a specific IP address assigned to Qatari ISP Qtel. ...

[LamontStormstar]

They make it sound like Wikipedia blocked them from viewing it.

Wikipedia only blocked them from editing. Like you're going to die because you can't edit Wikipedia half a day.

Wikipedia has even gone down for hours on occassions (not that often, usually it's shorter)

[Yahoo! News]

Web encyclopaedia Wikipedia has banned anonymous posts to its site from people in Qatar after repeated net vandalism. The ban hits everyone in the country because all web traffic in Qatar is routed through a single net address.

Article: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/searc...e=news&ID=33130

[Yahoo! News]

Blog: For half a day, Wikipedia blocked the country of Qatar from making changes to the online encyclopedia.In an effort to stop "chronic...

Article: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/searc...-0-20&subj=news

[Yahoo! News]

GrumpySimon writes "Wikipedia has blocked the entire country of Qatar from editing pages. Whilst the ban is due to spam-abuse coming from the IP address in question, the fact that this belongs to the country's sole high-speed internet provider has the unintended consequence of stopping Qataris from editing the wiki. The ban has raised concerns about impartiality — the majority of Al Jazeera ...

Article: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/searc...1123/article.pl

[guy]

Wikipedia only blocked them from editing. Like you're going to die because you can't edit Wikipedia half a day.

To the real Wikijunkies, it's a hardship, especially since every time they try, they will get a message accusing them of being a vandal - how awful.

[LamontStormstar]

I knew a website where the site owner waas kinda a nazi. He blocked all of France from viewing the site for years and years. He also moderated a gaming company's forum and if you expressed a viewpoint of a Democrat, he'd see your IP and ban it from viewing his website. People generally had to use proxies to view it.

Then on IRC before 2000 they always loved to ban all of AOL from their rooms.

[Somey]

Interesting... I've heard stories like that too, though they were mostly about my Aunt Betty's Coffee Klatsch.

Maybe this is of less relevance to this news story than I think it is, but I've always been struck by the eagerness of WP'ers to cry "censorship" when someone wants an article or category deleted, and yet that word is rarely used in conjunction with banning people. And they've been slow to enable more sophisticated controls WRT blocking of users and IP's... I should think that blocks 'n' bans are a far more serious act of censorship than simply deleting an article or two. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/huh.gif)

[Yahoo! News]

After a spate of article vandalism, the Wikipedia online encyclopedia effectively blocked anonymous posts from all Qatar just by banning a single IP address.

Article: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/searc...ticle12009.html

[Google News]

Wikipedia denies Qatar users subject to ban
CBC Nova Scotia, Canada - 21 minutes ago
The founder of Wikipedia denied reports the online encyclopedia had banned users in Qatar from editing entries, saying users there were temporarily blocked ...

[Google News]

Wikipedia Did Not Ban Qatar (Not Exactly)
WebProNews, KY - 12 minutes ago
Wikipedia founder Jim Wales wants everybody to know that he or his editing team did not ban the entire country of Qatar. While he shouts that correction to ...

[Yahoo! News]

Wikipedia founder Jim Wales wants everybody to know that he or his editing team did not ban the entire country of Qatar. While he shouts that correction to the zealous blogosphere, we are suddenly chilled at David Utter's proclamation that the Scoop is dead. So how many times can you cry wolf in the blogosphere before the wolf comes back and bites you when nobody's looking anymore? So far, it ...

Article: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/searc...NotExactly.html

[Google News]

Wikipedia rushes to clarify reports of Qatar ban
iTWire, Australia - 2 hours ago
By Angus Kidman. Wikipedia has rushed to dispute reports that it inadvertently blocked the entire country of Qatar from making any changes to the popular ...

[Yahoo! News]

Officials say the IP address of Qatar was briefly blocked from editing, not from viewing, the site because of a burst of spam or vandalism.

Article: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/searc...RSSfeed_IWK_All

[Google News]

Wikipedia Temporarily Bans Qatar
Digitaltrends.com, OR - 4 hours ago
By Geoff Duncan. On its surface, Wikipedia seems like a tremendous thing: create a globally accessible online encyclopedia, constantly expanded, updated, ...

[Yahoo! News]

Web encyclopaedia Wikipedia temporarily banned anonymous posts to its site from people in Qatar after repeated reports of net vandalism. The 12-hour ban hit large numbers of people in the country because all web traffic in Qatar is routed through a single net address.

Article: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/searc...posts-from.html

[Somey]

Now, to me, this sort of thing, where Jimbo tries to tell the press that "nothing really happened" and "the real story is that we actually don't keep IP addresses blocked for very long" is just plain sad. He should own up to the system's flaws and do something about them, not try to spin them out of existence in the media... And they accuse their detractors and critics of being "whiners"? Ask not for whom the bell tolls, O Faithful Ones!

Also, this reporter also seems to be coming around to a state of "cluefulness" towards the end:

...Anonymous editing, especially on sensitive topics (the BBC reports the vandals in this case targeted entries on the US, sex, and Muhammad's birthday), should be revisited to decide if that's really the way to go.

The wikiality of it is, though Wales believes "anonymous editing rocks," that while anonymity removes the fear of speaking, it also removes accountability.

But hey, he forgot all about fear of reprisal!

[Google News]

Wikipedia temporary Qatar ban
AME Info, United Arab Emirates - 25 minutes ago
Web encyclopaedia Wikipedia banned for 12 hours anonymous posts to its site from Qatar after reports of net vandalism, the BBC reported. ...

[Yahoo! News]

Web encyclopaedia Wikipedia banned for 12 hours anonymous posts to its site from Qatar after reports of net vandalism, the BBC reported. Wikipedia says pages about the US, sex and the birthday of the prophet Muhammad were vandalised.

Article: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/searc...com/106833.html

[LamontStormstar]

That's because Mediawiki software can only CheckUser for IPs and doesn't track other headers. It doesn't try to read a MAC address (anyone know how a site can do that? I've heard it needs Java or Shockwave).

Finally, they started doing some better CheckUser improvements....

http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8290


Generally people can evade bans. Even without proxies, they can just use a different ISP.


This post has been edited by LamontStormstar:

[Google News]

Wikipedia 'Qatar ban temporary'
Trade Arabia, Bahrain - 10 minutes ago
Web encyclopaedia Wikipedia temporarily banned anonymous posts to its site from people in Qatar after repeated reports of net vandalism. ...

[Yahoo! News]

Officials say the IP address of Qatar was briefly blocked from editing, not from viewing, the site because of a burst of spam or vandalism.

Article: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/searc...c_cmp/196800476

[Google News]

Wikipedia Denies Blocking Qatar
Tech2, India - 13 minutes ago
Web encyclopedia, Wikipedia was recently reported to have banned Qatar from posting entries on the open source website, but it turns out that the reports ...

[Yahoo! News]

WIKIPEDIA, the online encyclopedia written by the public, has banned users based in Qatar from posting anonymously after repeated incidents of ``vandalism,’’ the BBC reported, citing residents of the Gulf state.

Article: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/searc...36&parent_id=16

[Yahoo! News]

GrumpySimon writes "Wikipedia has blocked the entire country of Qatar from editing pages. Whilst the ban is due to spam-abuse coming from the IP address in question, the fact that this belongs to the country's sole high-speed internet provider has the unintended consequence of stopping Qataris from editing the wiki. The ban has raised concerns about impartiality — the majority of Al Jazeera ...

Article: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/searc...1123/article.pl

[guy]

it also removes accountability.

But hey, he forgot all about fear of reprisal!

That's a subtle distinction. There's not much point in accountability if it doesn't come with teeth.

[guy]

Generally people can evade bans. Even without proxies, they can just use a different ISP.

Or they get an ISP that keeps changing your IP.

[Google News]

Wikipedia blocks Qatar uses 4 times since November
Jerusalem Post, Israel - 22 minutes ago
By AP. Web encyclopedia Wikipedia has inadvertently blocked people in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar from posting on its Web at least four times since November ...

[Yahoo! News]

Web encyclopaedia Wikipedia, which blocked anonymous Qatari editors from posting on its site for 12 hours yesterday, has confirmed that this policy was only temporary and not an intentional country-wide ban.

Article: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/searc...23306&category=

[Google News]

Wikipedia shuts out Qatar
PC Pro, UK - 49 minutes ago
Wikipedia's administrators took the unprecedented step of blocking an entire country's access to the collaborative encyclopaedia after a spate of acts of cyber ...

[LamontStormstar]

ISPs that change IPs only change the last bit of numbers or so.

[Google News]

Wikipedia shuts out Qatar
PC Pro, UK - 1 hour ago
Wikipedia's administrators took the unprecedented step of blocking an entire country's access to the collaborative encyclopaedia after a spate of acts of ...

[Google News]

Wikipedia denies they have blocked Qatar from editing the site
TechWhack, India - 18 minutes ago
The founder of Wikipedia has denied the reports in the media that the online encyclopedia has denied editing rights to the visitors from Qatar. ...

[guy]

ISPs that change IPs only change the last bit of numbers or so.

An IP address consists of four numbers, e.g. 102.35.245.85; none can exceed 255. If you get a new address from the same ISP, the fourth number will often be completely different and the third may change appreciably. It is possible for an admin to block a range of IP addresses; for example, blocking 102.35.0.0/16 will block all IPs with the first two numbers. This is unlikely to add to the gaiety of nations, as no doubt several innocent users will get blocked too.

[Google News]

<img src=http://news.google.com/news?imgefp=y4ERGFAMaxMJ&imgurl=www.bit-tech.net/news_images/Wikipedia_bans_all_of_Qatar_after_encyclovandalism/article_img.jpg width=79 height=66 alt="" border=1>Wikipedia bans all of Qatar after encyclovandalism
bit-tech.net, UK - 3 hours ago
The BBC reported yesterday that Wikipedia, the online fountain of knowledge, temporarily banned the entire nation of Qatar from accessing its articles after ...

[Newsvine]

Web encyclopedia Wikipedia has inadvertently blocked people in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar from editing and contributing entries at least four times since November, computer logs from the site show.



http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2007/01/03/5...osts-from-qatar

[Yahoo! News]

Web encyclopedia Wikipedia has inadvertently blocked people in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar from editing and contributing entries at least four times since November, computer logs from the site show. Visitors still could read articles but they...

Article: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/searc...728/article.cgi

[Google News]

Ooops: Wikipedia Blocks Posts From Qatar
Bismarck Tribune, USA - 48 minutes ago
AP Writer. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Web encyclopedia Wikipedia has inadvertently blocked people in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar from editing and ...

[Yahoo! News]

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Web encyclopedia Wikipedia has inadvertently blocked people in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar from editing and contributing entries at least four times since November, computer logs from the site show.

Article: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/searc...ias/money/cm/nw

[Google News]

Oops: Wikipedia blocks posts from Qatar
MSNBC - 1 hour ago
By Jim Krane. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Web encyclopedia Wikipedia has inadvertently blocked people in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar from editing and ...

[Yahoo! News]

Web encyclopedia Wikipedia has inadvertently blocked people in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar from editing and contributing entries at least four times since November, computer logs from the site show.

Article: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/searc...kipedia_block_2

[Google News]

Wikipedia: Qatar Ban "Temporary"
BizReport - 40 minutes ago
Following repeated incidents of net vandalism, Web encyclopedia Wikipedia temporarily banned anonymous posts from users in Qatar. by Jacob Cherian ...

[Google News]

Ooops: Wikipedia blocks posts from Qatar
FOX11AZ.com (subscription), AZ - 33 minutes ago
By Jim Krane, AP Writer. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Web encyclopedia Wikipedia has inadvertently blocked people in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar ...

[Google News]

Wikipedia bans posts from Qatar
The Age, Australia - 33 minutes ago
Web encyclopedia Wikipedia has inadvertently blocked people in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar from editing and contributing entries at least four times ...

[Yahoo! News]

Web encyclopedia Wikipedia has inadvertently blocked people in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar from editing and contributing entries at least four times since November, computer logs from the site show.

Article: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/searc...ar_x.htm?csp=34

[Google News]

Wikipedia blocks posts from Qatar
Norman Transcript, OK - 1 hour ago
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Web encyclopedia Wikipedia has inadvertently blocked people in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar from editing and contributing ...

[Google News]

Wikipedia founder denies banning Qatar
Gulf Times, Qatar - 20 hours ago
By Arvind Nair. WIKIPEDIA founder Jimmy Wales has refuted reports that the public edited online encyclopaedia has banned Qatar from posting and editing ...

[Yahoo! News]

WIKIPEDIA founder Jimmy Wales has refuted reports that the public edited online encyclopaedia has banned Qatar from posting and editing messages anonymously.

Article: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/searc...36&parent_id=16

[Google News]

Ooops: Wikipedia blocks posts from Qatar
Brandon Sun, Canada - 27 minutes ago
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - Web encyclopedia Wikipedia has inadvertently blocked people in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar from editing and ...

[Google News]

Ooops: Wikipedia blocks posts from Qatar
Brandon Sun, Canada - 1 hour ago
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - Web encyclopedia Wikipedia has inadvertently blocked people in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar from editing and ...