14 DAY TRIAL // The Japanese Agriculture Ministry recently criticized six employees which were caught while editing several Wikipedia articles during work time. Reuters reported the bureaucrats have modified no less than 408 Wikipedia entries since 2003, many of the modifications being made while they were supposed to work for the ministry. What's more interesting is that many of the articles refer to cartoon robots, including Gundam, the popular animated series. "The Agriculture Ministry is not in charge of Gundam," said ministry official Tsutomu Shimomura according to Reuters.
As a consequence of this report, the country's authorities plan to restrict the access to Wikipedia at work in order to increase the productivity and avoid future problems with the employees. Until now, lots of web-based services have been banned at work due to this reason but this is the first time when Wikipedia is involved in the matter.
There are a lot of services which are supposed to be restricted inside the companies, such as YouTube and similar video sharing services or even social networking technologies which attract millions of users every day. In addition, some companies and organizations choose to block the instant messengers and the chatting utilities because the employees tend to spend a considerable amount of time communicating with friends and family on the web during their work time.
A survey conducted by security company Sophos revealed that no less than 50 percent of workers are banned from accessing Facebook at work. "Companies are split on the question of Facebook. Some believe it to be a procrastinator's paradise which can lead to identity theft if users are careless. Others either view it as a valuable networking tool for workers or are too nervous of employees backlash if the site is suddenly blocked," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.