Comments on: Wikipedia Bans Qatar

By: Qatar - small country with a huge problem - Blog of Leonid Mamchenkov

Qatar - small country with a huge problem - Blog of Leonid Mamchenkov — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 12:03:04 +0000

[...] there. It appears, that I should have be more careful with my Internet criteria evaluation - via via TechCrunch: Qatar has a single ISP, Qtel, with a single IP address shared by the entire [...]

By: Wikipedia bloquea Qatar - FayerWayer

Wikipedia bloquea Qatar - FayerWayer — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 08:49:08 +0000

[...] Wikipedia Bans Qatar [...]

By: lowering cholesterol

lowering cholesterol — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 18:58:31 +0000

lowering cholesterol…

good luck…

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Monopolio Podcast .... el podcast más demandado — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:19:14 +0000

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By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 01:47:57 +0000

For quite a while, Westnet, one of the biggest ISPs in Western Australia with over 80,000 customers in that state alone, directed its WA customers through one IP address that was getting repeatedly blocked. Took quite some negotiation to get that fixed - some types of blocks were even affecting registered users. I for one support anonymous editing - on the articles I keep a watch on, in many cases they make spelling corrections, improve the language or revert vandalism by other (registered) users - you do get the odd vandal but not at a higher rate than with registered users. There’s a particular case of one in the 68 range who is probably Wikipedia’s most well known vandalism patroller with 15,000+ edits.

By: mind this - by Lars Plougmann

mind this - by Lars Plougmann — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 08:26:43 +0000

Access to online apps and storage from behind political firewalls…

Switching between different computers is easy when many of your applications and most of your data are accessible online. An obvious concern about this approach is availability of applications and data: How good are the providers at maintaining their i…

By: El Bata Blog » Blog Archive » Increible pero Cierto…

El Bata Blog » Blog Archive » Increible pero Cierto… — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 07:35:39 +0000

[...] Ahora nadie de ese pequeño e inhóspito país (está cerca de Arábia) podrá entrar a la Web de Wikipedia ni a ninguno de sus proyectos asociados. Es una vergüenza que exista gente que arruine la fama de su propio país por una tontería de este tipo. Además, por este pequeño atentado Wikipedia ya no permitirá la edición anónima de los artículos y forzará a cualquier persona que quiera editar o publicar un artículo ha crear una cuenta. Fuente: Techrunch [...]

By: tuexperto.com » Blog Archive » La Wikipedia bloqueó a Qatar

tuexperto.com » Blog Archive » La Wikipedia bloqueó a Qatar — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 12:43:16 +0000

[...] Vía - Techcrunch [...]

By: bazbsg

bazbsg — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 11:10:08 +0000

I live in Singapore which has the same single IP address arrangement that Qatar has. Singapore was blocked for 9 fortnights which I believe is 122 days or 4 months. I wanted to make a contribution (actually, deleting a bit of nonsense that I had discovered on the Kaleidoscope article) and had to waste a lot of time looking for a way to create an account or to inform Wikipedia that they were blocking an entire country and not just a single vandal. They suggested that I try to create an account from work, but I work in Singapore too. I had to ask a friend in England to create an account for me.

By: John

John — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 02:09:31 +0000

The Fundamental Problem with ‘Western’ Wikis, a blog post on the same topic . This was written in Feb 2006

By: John Ndege

John Ndege — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 00:13:52 +0000

I think the consequence of this is yet to be seen. Eventually anonymous anonymous global wide editing may be extinguished and this could be the route cause. Its a slipperly slope, either way, i feel the days of anonymity may be numbered. It is a real shame

By: Hobo

Hobo — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 22:43:29 +0000

Ummm… wikipedia says that Qatar is blocked for only 12 hours…

By: karl

karl — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 22:25:45 +0000

this is crazy. i actually grew up in qatar and know the telecom company (qtel) well. they are a complete monopoly. hopefully, this will urge the local government to create some competition (i highly doubt it but its a good headline).
i made a number of edits to the entry in wiki…but from the US. it seems people will now need to depend on “ex-qatar residents” to contribute.

By: John Ndege

John Ndege — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 22:14:02 +0000

Well, I can understand Wikipedia’s decision, vandalism is a serious threat, but this catch 22 situation, doesnt help the average Quatari who now cannot contribute to the community unless they can travel abroad and log in remotely! If you want to take a social justice perspective then the less economically advanteaged of the Quatari’s will be unable to contribuute on issues they are best qualified to post. Its a shame, but Wikipedia has to do what it has to do.

John

By: hyprtext » Blog Archive » Did Wikipedia Really Ban Quatar?

hyprtext » Blog Archive » Did Wikipedia Really Ban Quatar? — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 21:57:36 +0000

[...] Of course they didn’t. But for a little while, it looked like they might have done: Apparently Qatar has a single ISP, Qtel, with a single IP address shared by the entire country. Wikipedia has blocked that IP address for anonymous edits, but is allowing users of that IP address with actual Wikipedia accounts to continue to edit articles. There’s one problem, though. You can’t create an account if you enter Wikipedia from that IP address. [...]

By: Nicholas Moreau

Nicholas Moreau — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 20:29:35 +0000

“Blocking users, or requiring users to register to edit wikipedia is the wrong answer.”

In most cases, yes. But if someone makes hobby out of vandalising our site, we block them simply so we can focus on quality and depth. Would you rather a Wikipedia that’s useful and improving, or one that only grows at a slug’s pace, due to the vandalism?

By: I

Tue, 02 Jan 2007 19:30:14 +0000

According to a study by a tech consulting firm (i think it was IBM), vandalism on wikipedia is fixed within a few minutes by the user community. Blocking users, or requiring users to register to edit wikipedia is the wrong answer.

By: mathew

mathew — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 17:41:50 +0000

I’m disappointed that nobody seems to have published the IP address. I have zero friends in Qatar, and could happily block the entire country from my personal web site…

By: Otto

Otto — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 17:24:36 +0000

Muslims touch spam? Isn’t that made of pork *snicker*

By: andy carvin

andy carvin — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 16:01:55 +0000

This isn’t exactly a new problem. I’ve worked with a lot of school districts and some of them have found their entire district banned because of a small number of bad apples using their classroom PCs for vandalism. This has affected some very large districts in the US, as well as much of Ontario.

http://www.andycarvin.com/arch.....s_sch.html

By: David Gerard

David Gerard — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 14:00:14 +0000

Anonymous editors are still a net gain to the wiki. Importantly, it makes it very easy for people to get their first hit of wikicrack without creating yet another d*mn webpage login If it’s easy for people to start, it’ll be easy for people to continue.

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 13:21:50 +0000

It’s time for anonymous edits to go. If someone has something worth publishing they should register to do so.

By: Blaze

Blaze — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 11:12:17 +0000

Haha 1 IP for the whole country? That ISP needs to be slapped.

By: Vasikola

Vasikola — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 09:22:43 +0000

Vandalism!!!Quite bad

By: k

Tue, 02 Jan 2007 08:59:21 +0000

“due to the technical workings of an automated censor imposed by the sole national high speed ISP, this IP represents the entirety of the country of Qatar” - a Wikipedia contributor.

One wonders: what is the ratio of number of people blocked by this incident versus number of websites blocked by the Qatar government? Sounds like a story.