Japanese Bureaucrats Reprimanded for Wikipedia Editing

sufijazz writes "Six bureaucrats in the Japanese agricultural ministry have been reprimanded for working on the job ... for Wikipedia. The six officials were publicly chastised for editing hundreds of Wikipedia entries during work hours. These included over 250 entries about robots in anime. '"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam," said a ministry official, Tsutomu Shimomura ... The ministry's internal inquiry followed recent media allegations that a growing number of Japanese public servants were contributing to the internet encyclopaedia, which anyone can edit, often to reflect their personal views. The ministry verbally reprimanded each of the six officials, and slapped a ministry-wide order to prohibit access to Wikipedia at work, while disabling access to the site from the ministry, Mr Shimomura said. '"

Re:Why is this on the frontpage of slashdot?

[kthejoker]

"News for nerds." Not "technology-only news."

Yeah, I know: it really is that simple.

Tsutomu Shimomura?

[Siriaan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Shimomura [wikipedia.org]

Not the famous hacker I take it?

Different Tsutomu Shimomura

[tamnir]

Just in case anyone else wondered that too: this Tsutomu Shimomura has nothing to do with Kevin Mitnick (http://www.takedown.com/bio/tsutomu.html).

They Omitted the Most Interesting One

[Bueller_007]

The supplied article only discusses edits by the Agriculture Ministry. Japanese reports, of course have more details [itmedia.co.jp].

Someone at the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare was busted for editing the Japanese Wiki entry for Nanatsuiro Drops [wikipedia.org], a pornographic video game.

I will also note that the Japanese media reported this over a month ago.