Wikipedia to stage blackout in protest at SOPA

[Pappa]

If anyone really needs to access a page on Wikipedia today, search for the URL on google and access google's cached version of the page.

[leo-rcc]

http://www.atheistforums.org has joined as well (and we're not even US based).

[amused]

craigslist is black too

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Pirated shamelessly!

[Ronja]

XC that is priceless!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

SOPA Opera: White House Shuts Down Online Anti-Piracy Bill

[amused]

I contacted my representative and both senators through their online contact form, asking them to vote against SOPA/PIPA. I got three responses that were at least on topic, but were obviously canned. They are all Republicans and all three went on about the importance of fighting piracy, without really saying anything.

However, Cornyn dropped support for PIPA within hours after I sent my message, so I'll take that as a win.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I contacted my representative and both senators through their online contact form, asking them to vote against SOPA/PIPA. I got three responses that were at least on topic, but were obviously canned. They are all Republicans and all three went on about the importance of fighting piracy, without really saying anything.

However, Cornyn dropped support for PIPA within hours after I sent my message, so I'll take that as a win.

Might I venture a small woot?

[Robert_S]

Representative Tim Johnson knows I'll do a silent but deadly as I walk past his table at Taffie's Resturaunt.

[Warren Dew]

However, Cornyn dropped support for PIPA within hours after I sent my message, so I'll take that as a win.

That's the nice thing about Republicans: they can understand rational arguments.

My Republican senator, Scott Brown, was already against PIPA, but my Democrat senator John Kerry still seems to be up for the highest bidder.

[Warren Dew]

If anyone really needs to access a page on Wikipedia today, search for the URL on google and access google's cached version of the page.

Or just hit the "stop load" button before the javascript finishes executing.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Or disable javascript...

They really didn't make it that hard - but, then again, that wasn't really the point, was it?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

But I can't go a whole day with Wikipedia!

So, when does this start again?

[Warren Dew]

They really didn't make it that hard - but, then again, that wasn't really the point, was it?

Actually, there was an internal wikipedia debate on that subject. The option I preferred and voted for - and incidentally the option Jimmy Wales, the wikipedia founder, preferred - allowed the user to click through the blackout page and get to the article. However, I only found out about the vote by chance - evidently the big Wikimedia administrators wanted the hard blackout and only told people that would agree with them about the vote. That's the way wikipedia politics typically works.

Apparently the reason they were pushing the hard blackout was because of a large (half million) Google donation; Google stands to lose much more from SOPA than does wikipedia, and a hard wikipedia blackout does more to draw attention to the issue in the press while avoiding offending Google users.

The reason the implementation was leaky was likely not due to any policy decision, but rather because that javascript solution involved the least technical effort.

Anyway, the negative effect on SOPA was good, but the negative effect on wikipedia, which will now be seen as even more unreliable, was an unfortunate way to do things.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Interesting, Warren. I can see how all of that would work.

My point was that the main intention was to draw attention to the issue - making wiki inaccessible, or making it difficult to access, would both achieve that effect. I can't see this having much impact on its perceived reliability though - with its perceived neutrality however...