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Poll: Do you think HN should go dark in protest of SOPA?

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Re: Poll: Do you think HN should go dark in protest of SOPA?

#191

Post by ekianjo »

Going dark is only effective if: 1) the fact that you are going dark is going to make a difference to a great number of people and prompt enough of them to act on it 2) your audience is not aware on the issue and needs to be and you have not found a better way to do it.

For HN, I believe that it won't make a huge difference to anyone if HN shuts down for one day, and as many people pointed out before, many HNers are well aware of the SOPA and going dark will not bring much further awareness.

For Google or Facebook, both 1 and 2 would prove worth acting on it. Reddit, maybe since they have a huge following & traffic. HN, clearly no point.

Rather than going dark, HNers would/should participate to the reddit initiative by voting up more SOPA related posts on the day Reddit goes dark, since HN is a contents hub. That would be way more productive.

Re: Poll: Do you think HN should go dark in protest of SOPA?

#193

Post by hasenj »

VonLipwig wrote: post #185

The answer is no, people who say yes are wrong. You black out your website to raise awareness to the cause. I think it is a fair bet that an extremely high number of HN users know a lot about SOPA / PIPA. So there is no point doing this to educate regulars. Perhaps news will spread. Sure, it will spread in the tech community. In the tech community knowledge of SOPA / PIPA is well known. Shock waves from HN being blac…

I strongly disagree with this.

The point of the protest is not only to let your regulars know (as you pointed out, they already know) but to let the world knows.

How?

When all the tech sites go dark, one can say: look, the entire tech community is strongly opposed to this thing, just look at these sites .

Re: Poll: Do you think HN should go dark in protest of SOPA?

#194

Post by swombat »

hasenj wrote: post #193
VonLipwig wrote: post #185

The answer is no, people who say yes are wrong. You black out your website to raise awareness to the cause. I think it is a fair bet that an extremely high number of HN users know a lot about SOPA / PIPA. So there is no point doing this to educate regulars. Perhaps news will spread. Sure, it will spread in the tech community. In the tech community knowledge of SOPA / PIPA is well known. Shock waves from HN being blac…

I strongly disagree with this. The point of the protest is not only to let your regulars know (as you pointed out, they already know) but to let the world knows. How? When all the tech sites go dark, one can say: look, the entire tech community is strongly opposed to this thing, just look at these sites .

The world doesn't give a toss or have an iota of awareness about HN.

Blacking out HN would be like switching off your computer in the privacy of your own home. Nobody knows or cares. All that would achieve is to remove an important vector for communication and information spread in the tech community.

Re: Poll: Do you think HN should go dark in protest of SOPA?

#195

Post by quacker »

VonLipwig wrote: post #185

The answer is no, people who say yes are wrong. You black out your website to raise awareness to the cause. I think it is a fair bet that an extremely high number of HN users know a lot about SOPA / PIPA. So there is no point doing this to educate regulars. Perhaps news will spread. Sure, it will spread in the tech community. In the tech community knowledge of SOPA / PIPA is well known. Shock waves from HN being blac…

If there's a day chosen on which anti-SOPA sites are urged to black out (which there is), I feel like HN would be obligated to comply based on the sentiments of the community toward the bill.

And so what if HNers know about SOPA? It's the action that counts. A page with information on how to contact your representative would be more effective here than on most sites, given all the relatively active, well-spoken, and well-informed SOPA opponents on HN.

If you do say no to a blackout, please offer a better alternative. It'd be depressing if the bill passed and we didn't do our best to stop it.

Re: Poll: Do you think HN should go dark in protest of SOPA?

#196

Post by swombat »

startupfounder wrote: post #184
johnthedebs wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see your point, but disagree. I think it makes a lot more sense for HN to do whatever HN believes is the most effective thing, rather than do what reddit did. I see it as fake work. We would being doing something ineffective to prove a point and distracting from something potentially more useful (which may or may not also prove that point).

HN needs to be "follower #1". This is how a movement and momentum is built. ( http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movemen... )

There are many other sites that will black out, not just HN... Reddit itself is follower #50 or so.

Re: Poll: Do you think HN should go dark in protest of SOPA?

#198

Post by tintin »

Blacking out a relatively unknown website as HN is not going to work.

But what about not using the internet on SOPA day? That would make a statement. If all tech companies just stopped using the internet for one day, people might get a little idea of what the internet means to us and how our work with internet is related to our customers.

Re: Poll: Do you think HN should go dark in protest of SOPA?

#199

Post by gaius »

swombat wrote: post #194
hasenj wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree with this. The point of the protest is not only to let your regulars know (as you pointed out, they already know) but to let the world knows. How? When all the tech sites go dark, one can say: look, the entire tech community is strongly opposed to this thing, just look at these sites .

The world doesn't give a toss or have an iota of awareness about HN. Blacking out HN would be like switching off your computer in the privacy of your own home. Nobody knows or cares. All that would achieve is to remove an important vector for communication and information spread in the tech community.

I'm English and would be annoyed if a site I used vanished for a reason that is nothing to do with me. You don't like what your govt is doing, vote it out.
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