This story has been blown out of proportion over and over again, so the first thing to get straight is that this is not a move directed to derail Scientology in any way, and Wikipedia will not be deleting any articles on Scientology. But IP addresses known to be owned by those who work in the offices of the group will no longer be allowed to edit Wikipedia. The impetus for the banning was that time and again, those who were part of the “Church” were editing the article in self-serving ways. Wikipedia, however, has a policy of not letting entities edit their own articles.

The precedent set here is that Wikipedia can and will go beyond banning individuals who violate the site’s policies. It’s not uncommon in the least for individual users to be banned after, for example, deleting the article on America and replacing it with a graphic of George W. Bush streaking. But never has an entire group with a very real presence offline been prohibited from editing articles.

In some ways, Wikipedia’s prohibiting of edits on one’s own material makes for errors in articles, but in most cases, …

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