Re:This story is completely false. In resply to ja (Score 2, Interesting)

You can view the block log (though the block log descritpison do not always accurately describe the type of block. You can see the contribution history for these anonymous editors. From a cursory glance at this information, it's hard to imagine an admin would find a one month block justifiable (even if the admin did not know it was an entire country). One month definitely looks like an over-reaction.

However, we've seen more and more problems with admins lately on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is no longer relying on volunteers, but more and more relying on paid staff, working in shifts aroudn the clock. Often times these admins show no interest in building an encyclopedia, but do want to excercise their uninformed editorial slant whenever possible. Consequently, we have admins blocking valuable editors because they hold the wrong point-of-view (i.e., not the point-of -view of the admin).. There are still many volunteers working on Wikipedia, but things don't work as smoothly as they used to.

The issue of proxy servers is also just per speculation. The term open proxy is bandied about among Wikipedia admins as if it's some sort of evil. I'm not saying there aren't problems with proxy servers, but whenever there's a problem they cry "open proxy server", whether they have any evidence of that or not. Clearly, there's no information that anyone has presented that shows us that Qatar has an open proxy server. We don't even know if they use a proxy server at all. However, from what we're hearing it looks like Qtel uses an RFC 1918 private network to conserve IP addresses. This is a very common internet standard. It's something admins on any wiki should be aware of (they're not on wikipedia). And it's something to be careful about when encountering very large private networks (like the nation of Qatar).. Wikipedia administrators seem very resistant to learning about internet technology. They just react in knee-jerk fashion to any threat (no matter how small). I think the wiki software and the wiki concept are both good ideas. Unfortunately Wikimedia and it's related projects have lost sight of that project.