...but apparently they're taking a beating from third-party sites over this one...
Here's a box that Jimbo removed....what a fuck up....
Slashdot picked it up....
And so did Digg....
Hmm....sounds like "damage control" to me....
Full Version: Wikipedia blocks an entire country for a month!
QUOTE(the fieryangel @ Tue 2nd January 2007, 9:32am) 
Heh; best snarky reply so far on /.: "Fortunately, I'm not from Qatar, so I CAN edit wikipedia. Give me a few minutes and Qatar WILL be part of the UAE."
Thats a classic. Jimbo's having a go at the media on that talk page too.
Censorship? Yay Admins!
On Slashdot Jimbo wrote: "Wikipedia is not blocking Qatar. An IP number was blocked for about 12 hours. There was an admin discussion about the issue. The IP number was unblocked." I believe what happened is that by blocking one IP they inadventently blocked the whole country, so I guess Jimbo denying that Qatar was blocked formally, ignoring the fact that it was blocked technically. Assuming I've got this right, I think that kind of omission is misleading enough to qualify as deceit.
QUOTE(everyking @ Wed 3rd January 2007, 11:00pm)
On Slashdot Jimbo wrote: "Wikipedia is not blocking Qatar. An IP number was blocked for about 12 hours. There was an admin discussion about the issue. The IP number was unblocked." I believe what happened is that by blocking one IP they inadventently blocked the whole country, so I guess Jimbo denying that Qatar was blocked formally, ignoring the fact that it was blocked technically. Assuming I've got this right, I think that kind of omission is misleading enough to qualify as deceit.
Well, if you can get ahold of Jimbo's cell phone number, he sez here that you can call him ANYTIME to discuss this with him....
I think that this was a major FUCKUP and what slashdot said happened, essentially did happen...
Since Qatar is one of those places for which Wikipedia is supposedly doing all of this work, it's kind egg on Jimbo's face there....
hmm....apparently it wasn't the first time..., but only the negative publicity from slashdot brought the problem
to the fore...
Not to mention the BBC dragging Anthare into this...poor woman!
Oh, and how about this for laugh???
QUOTE
:::The IP would never have been blocked if it were not a continuing source of vandalism. —[[User:Centrx|Centrx]]→[[User talk:Centrx|''talk'']] • 09:47, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
+
+ :::::if your country had a single ip address, I think it would probably be a source of vandalism, but it wouldn't be blocked [[User:82.148.97.69|82.148.97.69]] 10:16, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
+
+ :::::if your country had a single ip address, I think it would probably be a source of vandalism, but it wouldn't be blocked [[User:82.148.97.69|82.148.97.69]] 10:16, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
MAJOR MAJOR fuckup....
Well... Jimbo's no fool. He knows that if it becomes widely known that Wikipedia has, on occasion, blocked entire universities, entire ISP's, and entire cities, that's really just an invitation to more vandalism - as in, "Hey, it really works, and it's tremendous fun! Let's see if we can get our entire state blocked this time!" And so on.
Stuff like this will almost certainly lead to pre-approval of edits, I should think, probably within the next 3-4 months. I'm surprised they haven't done it already...
Stuff like this will almost certainly lead to pre-approval of edits, I should think, probably within the next 3-4 months. I'm surprised they haven't done it already...
I want some of the Kool-Aid
If I were Jimbo I would keep Qatar blocked. Grouping an entire country under one IP address is ridiculous, and it undoubtedly causes problems on dozens of other websites as well. We'll have to start blocking by MAC address.
QUOTE(Ashibaka @ Thu 4th January 2007, 11:33am)
If I were Jimbo I would keep Qatar blocked. Grouping an entire country under one IP address is ridiculous, and it undoubtedly causes problems on dozens of other websites as well. We'll have to start blocking by MAC address.
Make them have to confirm an email address perhaps?
QUOTE(the fieryangel @ Fri 19th January 2007, 3:37am)
...So, it never happened, right? RIGHT????
What never happened?
The blocking of Qatar. Mr Wales' edit comment is "Vandalism controversy - - minor incident not worthy of discussion". So he's not saying that it didn't happen, merely that such trivia are not worth putting in Wikipedia.
QUOTE(guy @ Fri 19th January 2007, 10:16am)
The blocking of Qatar. Mr Wales' edit comment is "Vandalism controversy - - minor incident not worthy of discussion". So he's not saying that it didn't happen, merely that such trivia are not worth putting in Wikipedia.
Yah, that was like how I called him right after Hurricane Katrina, and he said that the federal government should allocate no funding for victims of the hurricane; so I added that to the article about him, but he said it was uninteresting trivia and removed it. Basically, if its something that makes Jimbo look bad, whether he commited fraud during his time as a stock broker, or whether he ran a pornography website -- its uninteresting trivia. That allows him to remove the material, without anyone being able to prove that he lied.
QUOTE(Lir @ Fri 19th January 2007, 11:17pm)
Yah, that was like how I called him right after Hurricane Katrina, and he said that the federal government should allocate no funding for victims of the hurricane; so I added that to the article about him, but he said it was uninteresting trivia and removed it.
You called Jimbo Wales about Hurrican Katrina? Does did it go over? Do you talk with him regularly on the phone?
QUOTE(the fieryangel @ Fri 19th January 2007, 9:37am)
... and yet, look here. It's baaaaack (and this appears to be the current state of the article).
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