Wikipedia Blocks Qatar [Updated] 204
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 journalists operate out of Qatar, for example. This raises a number of issues about internet connectivity in small countries — what other internet bottlenecks like this exist?" Update: 01/02 13:32 GMT by Z : Jim Wales wrote in the comments that the story is 'completely false'. Either way, the ban has been lifted and anonymous editing is once again possible from Qatar.
Only anon users (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a far lesser issue, it's more accountability than censorship.
It's actually a blow AGAINST censorship (Score:4, Insightful)
This is not a bad thing. While the side effect is temporarily drastic, if quatar had multiple ISPS we would not be discussing this at all.
I doubt it's a lack of external IPs (Score:3, Insightful)
Please loose the excuses (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't mask it with that or any other excuse. It's not Wikipedia's fault that they have only high speed provider who can't fix a simple problem.
ISP:
Problem: User X is abusing other networks.
Solution: Account is turned off.
Yes it's that easy if laziness weren't involved. This is exactly like those who whine when their network gets listed on an RBL. Where do those who are blocked go? They whine to the RBL or since they, the RBLs, aren't going to listen the world. They should complain to their network provider - it's where the problem is.
Re:OT: Qatar is not in the UAE (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally, I'd rather have accuracy.
Re:OT: Qatar is not in the UAE (Score:3, Insightful)
Yup; wikipedia is very much like a traditional dead-tree encyclopedia. Not surprising, since that was the basic model from the start. And the acknowledged limitation to "basic" information is why so many wikipedia pages have that list of references and links at the bottom.
rfc1918 (Score:2, Insightful)
Duping Wikipedia into censoring your citizens (Score:1, Insightful)
Wikipedia blocks that country's editors.
Editors cry "censorship."
Wikipedia blames ISP for allowing spam.
ISP says "they will look into it" but conveniently never fixes the problem.
On a side-note, Wikipedia should allow editors who are registered, provide a valid email-address, and can prove they are human to continue to edit from all blacklisted IP-blocks except perhaps those known to be used only by troublemakers.