Wikipedia bans Scientology edits

Wikipedia has announced that it is banning known scientologists from editing the site’s scientology pages.

The site, which usually lets anyone submit and edit articles, passed the decision after a long-running debate by its arbitration committee.

After ongoing complaints of bias and "point-of-view pushing" by the editors of some articles, the committee announced that: "All IP addresses owned or operated by the Church of Scientology and its associates, broadly interpreted, are to be blocked as if they were open proxies."

Wikipedia’s arbitration committee stated: "Wikipedia adopts a neutral point of view, and advocacy for any particular view is prohibited" and went on to say that "many Scientology articles fail to reflect a neutral point of view and instead are either disparaging or complimentary".

This has been the longest running dispute handled by Wikipedia, and is the fourth Scientology-related arbitration case in as many years.

The subject of Scientology has been in 'article probation' on the site since September 2007, in order to monitor edits to the 430 related articles.

The Church of Scientology has been known to make concerted attempts to discredit its critics in the past.

The Wikipedia ban is another blow to Scientologists in a week where the entire religion is at risk of being banned in France.

A trial began this week which accuses heads of the religion with organised fraud, which, if they are found guilty, could lead to the Church of Scientology being designated a criminal organisation.