Wikipedia Blocks Disruptive Edits From US Congress

Wikipedia has blocked editing rights from some computers at the US House of Representatives in response to "disruptive" revisions of the online encyclopedia.

Wikipedia has blocked editing rights from some computers at the US House of Representatives in response to "disruptive" revisions of the online encyclopedia.

A 10-day ban imposed Thursday blocked any editing from an IP address at the US Capitol, which is shared among a number of computers.

"You have been blocked from editing for a period of 10 days for persistent disruptive editing," a Wikipedia posting said.

The move came after unusual revisions were pointed out by Twitter account @congressedits, which describes itself as "a bot that tweets anonymous Wikipedia edits that are made from IP addresses in the US Congress."

The account was created by a software developer named Ed Summers.

Some of the changes, which were later undone, said that John F. Kennedy's assassin Lee Harvey Oswald acted "on behalf of Fidel Castro" and that the news blog Mediaite was "sexist" and "transphobic."

While Wikipedia allows users to contribute and edit entries, it also monitors for unverified or unsubstantiated comments.

A notice posted on one of the anonymous entries from Congress said: "Please refrain from making unconstructive edits to Wikipedia... Your edits appear to constitute vandalism and have been reverted or removed.

"Administrators have the ability to block users from editing if they repeatedly engage in vandalism."

A spokeswoman at the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, pointed out that the block only applies to a single IP address, not all computers located in Congress.

"The Wikipedia community is the arbiter of administrative decisions related to community editorial policies," spokeswoman Katherin Maher said in an email.

"In this case, the decision was made by a member of the English Wikipedia community, based on their assessment that the IP address in question was being used for disruptive editing. Wikipedia English has a behavioral guideline against disruptive editing."

Source

I thought Wikipedia's main point was lazy college students that can't find legitimate citations. But you learn something new everyday.

Wow, do you spend your life shitting on everything cool? It's an inferiority thing isn't it?

I'm more surprised ANYONE takes fonewear's typical comments with any seriousness at all.

I thought Wikipedia's main point was lazy college students that can't find legitimate citations. But you learn something new everyday.

Anyone who said he never checked wikipedia at least once before doing school homework is lying.

Anyone who said he never checked wikipedia at least once before doing school homework is lying.

And its always funny students doing highschool final work and using wikipedia as reference.

Never used it in high school or college.. Back in my day after pushing the bus though 3feet of snow uphill both ways, just to get to school! We had to use these things called books located in a library.

I like wikipedia a lot but I just remember being told not to use it all the time in college.

I was serious once it was awful.

I remember that. I was shocked.

What the hell's a book?

For that matter, what's a library?