The Dutch Justice Department has banned all its 30,000 employees from using Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, according to a spokesperson from the department.

The move follows after the Dutch magazine Intermediair reported that some 800 entries had been edited from the department’s computers.

According to Wikinews, “the magazine exposed the vandalism through Wikiscanner.nl, a website which combines a database of Wikipedia alterations with a server database from large institutions. The site can be used to reveal which organizations are behind anonymous Wikipedia editors.”

Department spokesman Ivo Hommes disclosed that the banned would be a temporary measure while the department conducts assessments on how much use and misuse its staff members make of Wikipedia and on what things need to be done.

Hommes added that “You’d think it should be OK for someone to update an entry on their favorite football star during lunch, but obviously we don’t want people doing things that are tasteless or worse during working hours,” The Canadian Press writes.

Though most of the changes found by the magazine were not critical, some involved political issues or figures in criminal cases. Likewise, most changes were reverted quickly by other editors.

While Wikipedia records the exact time and IP address when a user alters a page, the length of time which these information can be store is subject to legal limitation. Thus, makes it hard to trace who exactly committed vandalism.

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Entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 4:44 am under Uncategorized.

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