Wiki Editors Reprimanded, Gundam Goes Begging

JAPAN'S agriculture ministry has reprimanded six bureaucrats for shirking their duties after an internal inquiry found that they had spent many work hours contributing to the Wiki-pedia [sic] website - including 260 entries about cartoon robots.

Using ministry computers, the civil servants together made 408 entries - on issues unrelated to farming matters - on the popular internet encyclopaedia since 2003, an official alleged yesterday.

One of the six is said to have focused solely on Gundam - a popular, long-running animated series about giant robots - to which he contributed 260 times. The series has spun off intricate toy robots popular among schoolchildren as well as adults known as "otaku" nerds.

"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam," said a ministry official, Tsutomu Shimomura.

The other five bureaucrats had mostly focused their Wikipedia contributions on movies, typographical mistakes on billboard signs and local politics, Mr Shimomura said.