Reports The Register:

The muzzling of Scientology IPs marks the first time Wikipedia has officially barred edits from such a high-profile organization for allegedly pushing its own agenda on the site.

The Church of Scientology has not responded to our request for comment.

According to evidence turned up by admins in this long-running Wikiland court case, multiple editors have been "openly editing [Scientology-related articles] from Church of Scientology equipment and apparently coordinating their activities." Leaning on the famed WikiScanner, countless news stories have discussed the editing of Scientology articles from Scientology IPs, and some site admins are concerned this is "damaging Wikipedia's reputation for neutrality."

The article goes on to explain how the Church Of Scientology operates their little internet spin operation, thanks to testimony provided by a former insider turned informant.

A former member of Scientology's Office of Special Affairs - a department officially responsible "for directing and coordinating all legal matters affecting the Church" - says the Office has organized massive efforts to remove Scientology-related materials and criticism from the web.

"The guys I worked with posted every day all day," Tory Christman tells The Reg. "It was like a machine. I worked with someone who used five separate computers, five separate anonymous identities...to refute any facts from the internet about the Church of Scientology."

This is all fine and good but sooner or later the Scientologists will learn out that all they need to do is send over Leah Remini or Jenna Elfman to give Jimmy Wales a blowjob and all of this will go away. Surely they'd take one for the Xenu team.

Or they could just go to the Apple Store and use their computers. That's what we do whenever we've got shady shit to conduct on the internet anyway.

Wikipedia Bans Scientology [The Register]

File this under "Sprechen Sie Hearsay," but a web site prints what it claims is a 1996 letter from "friends of Scientology" defending the religion to the Chancellor of Germany. Guess which Internet CEO is in Column 3 of the signatures, below Mario Puzo and to the left of Gore Vidal.

But hey, it's not that sinister. Dustin Hoffman and Larry King allegedly signed the same document, and Terry could just be proving a corollary to the Broadway maxims "Keep it gay" and "You won't succeed on Broadway if you don't have any Jews": "You can't get far in Hollywood unless you're cool with Scientology."

An Open letter to HELMUT KOHL [German Way; photo by Maximum Mitch on Flickr]
Earlier:

This weekend, Beck played to developers at Yahoo Hack Day, in a fantastic little concert on the Sunnyvale campus, making him the second celebrity Scientologist known to visit the Yahoo campus, after Tom Cruise's visit earlier this year.

(Yeah, Beck is a Scientologist. Hate to break it to you.)

So who's next? Kirstie Alley? Jenna Elfman? Earthlink chief Sky Dayton? Here, browse the list of celebrity Scientologists and take a guess in the comments. Tip: Say more than a name. Be clever, readers!

Beck at Yahoo Hack Day [Laughing Squid]
List of Scientologists [Wikipedia]