Wikipedia rushes to clarify reports of Qatar ban

Angus Kidman
Wednesday, 03 January 2007 00:42

Your IT - Home IT

Wikipedia has rushed to dispute reports that it inadvertently blocked the entire country of Qatar from making any changes to the popular community-edited encyclopedia.

"If you came here from a news headline saying that Wikipedia has banned all of Qatar, please pop right back over there and post in the comments that the story is not true," Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales wrote in a posting on the site.

The problem apparently arose because there is only one high-speed Internet provider in Qatar, and it utilises a single IP address (82.148.97.69) which is effectively shared by all users. Wikipedia banned that IP address for a 12 hour period after a series of entries were vandalised, the term used by Wikipedia to describe malicious editing of an article.

Reports of the supposed ban caused an outcry on major technology news discussion sites, leading Wales to invite reporters from any of those sites to contact him on his personal mobile phone number to clarify any misunderstandings.

"A block of an entire nation would go absolutely against Wikipedia policy," he wrote.

Wikipedia has often been criticised for its "anyone can edit" approach. However, as this incident demonstrates, the additional policies which it has in place to make that approach workable -- including the ability to ban persistently disruptive users -- are not always so well understood.