Live data from Hacker News

Wikipedia to Shut Down on Wednesday to Protest SOPA

thenextweb.com

171–180 of 202 posts

Re: Wikipedia to Shut Down on Wednesday to Protest SOPA

#171

I'm against SOPA as much as the next person here on HN but I disagree with shutting down Wikipedia. Paul Carr wrote a piece today that argues this case well -> see http://pandodaily.com/2012/01/16/dick-costolo-is-right-wikip... Basically, a) Wikipedia's core principle is neutrality. When they strive for neutrality and balance on much more sensitive issues, taking a stance on one particular issue affecting one particu…

Wikipedia addresses this in their official announcement

>But although Wikipedia’s articles are neutral, its existence is not...We depend on a legal infrastructure that makes it possible for us to operate. And we depend on a legal infrastructure that also allows other sites to host user-contributed material, both information and expression.

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/English_Wikipedia_anti-S...

Re: Wikipedia to Shut Down on Wednesday to Protest SOPA

#172
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't be neutral on a moving train - Howard Zinn

If you're implying that some issues encompass everyone and everything and suck people in, it is going to be hard to justify that SOPA meets that bar but something like, say, nuclear disarmament doesn't.

If war was imminent, and forcing nuclear disarmament by a simple protest was possible, then we could have such protest on Wikipedia.

Re: Wikipedia to Shut Down on Wednesday to Protest SOPA

#173

I'm against SOPA as much as the next person here on HN but I disagree with shutting down Wikipedia. Paul Carr wrote a piece today that argues this case well -> see http://pandodaily.com/2012/01/16/dick-costolo-is-right-wikip... Basically, a) Wikipedia's core principle is neutrality. When they strive for neutrality and balance on much more sensitive issues, taking a stance on one particular issue affecting one particu…

To begin, donations are not in exchange for a particular service or benefit. That is why these are donations and not membership fees. When you donate money to the Red Cross, you are not mandating that they provide fresh water to somebody in Thailand. Instead you are donating the money with the expectation that it is used in a way consistent with mission. So, Carr's claim that they are somehow "making a mockery" of those who donated money "to keep wikipedia live" fails to hold water. This argument is a strawman. They are upholding their mission to provide a knowledge repository by protecting their ability to do that. Again, donations are not membership fees and they are being used at the discretion of the organization.

Second, the neutrality argument is equally weak. This is even addressed in the official Wikipedia release. Providing an objective and balanced knowledge repository does not require that they as an organizations behave in a neutral manner. The Wikimedia Foundation clearly feels the passage of this bill into law would negatively affect their ability to serve the community. Thus, they are expressing their position against the bill. Is that not proper? How personal must the attack be before it is okay for Wikimedia to take a stand and "lose their objectiveness".

His final argument is extremely naive and simply not true. By his account, if you have a stance on a public topic and publicly declare it, you are now and forever inherently stating your approval of any subject you fail to discuss. If you think this is an exaggeration, here is his statement, "The trouble with taking a political stance on one issue is that your silence on every issue becomes a stance...Everything else that’s happened in the world until now, and everything that will ever happen from this day forward..."

By this logic, a group like the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation must be in support of the Rape of Nanjing. PETA must be completely okay with the fraud committed by Enron. I could certainly create an unending list but the point is clear. It is impossible and unnecessary to publicly (or privately for that matter) hold informed positions about every topic.

On a final note, I think it is actually very logical that different services should show support in different manners. Twitter, Facebook, G+, etc. are social networks and as such, can make the most impact by members creating an echo chamber of dissent. Wikipedia on the other hand is a resource. And, just like the physical world, we feel the greatest impact of a resource when it is no longer available.

Re: Wikipedia to Shut Down on Wednesday to Protest SOPA

#174

Wikipedia's sysadmins should make sure their blackout pages return an HTTP 503 (Service Unavailable) response so that they don't accidentally poison the search engine indexes, which risks causing SERP problems well beyond the protest period.

We're aware of that, thanks! I explained that to one of our sysadmins and I think we came up with a solution, although I think it will be more like blocking the blackout JS for search engines. I'll double check this is in place tomorrow.

Re: Wikipedia to Shut Down on Wednesday to Protest SOPA

#175
post #144

So, what happens when I call my Congressman after learning about this on wikipedia and his office says "oh SOPA, that bill has been put on hold already since last week"? Won't many people get pissed at wikipedia? Edit: I actually think they should call it off at the last moment . Save the nuclear option for another time.

Former WMF counsel Mike Godwin (and former DC lawyer) just commented on the Foundation mailing list: Dan, you're misreading the implications of what the story you link to says. What's actually happening is that the House sponsors hope to defuse opposition by delaying and slightly modifying SOPA. My experience as a DC lawyer for much of my career strongly suggests that there's no reason to suspend expressions of oppos…

Link to Mike Godwin's post:

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2012-Janua...

Re: Wikipedia to Shut Down on Wednesday to Protest SOPA

#176

Can't they just do a "fake" blackout -- every user's first visit of the day gets blacked out, but with a link to re-enable Wikipedia? I mean, get awareness out, but then still let us read the articles (even with white-on-black text, maybe?)

In the process, for a long while, "softer" proposals were leading, like what you propose. But in the past few days support seems to have shifted towards much more disruptive protests. Maybe the fact of having a date on the calendar suddenly has galvanized people.

Re: Wikipedia to Shut Down on Wednesday to Protest SOPA

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What blhack said. Instead, get the torrent: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6430796/English_Wikipedia_(A...

This perfectly legal torrent link blocked in Ireland, btw.

It is? I'm guessing Eircom blocks thepiratebay.org? I'm on UPC and its not blocked for me.

Re: Wikipedia to Shut Down on Wednesday to Protest SOPA

#178
post #29
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@jimmy_wales : English only, but protest action is global for English.

Thanks, so en.wiki will be gone for the whole world. Not sure how I feel about that as there is nothing non-US citizens can do.

But SOPA would affect us english speaking non-US people too, so raising awareness in the rest of the world is a good idea. We should be putting pressure on our own governments to a) not pass a SOPA-like law themselves and b) to not support the US in this, for example, Spain shouldn't cave into US pressure to pass a similar law.

Re: Wikipedia to Shut Down on Wednesday to Protest SOPA

#179

I know there's a lot of cynicism about whether SOPA law is really being abandoned, or whether it's just being temporarily shelved, but I'm really excited about how opponents have banded together, and how organizations like Reddit and Wikipedia have been willing to sacrifice page views and revenue to show their support and to increase public awareness. In the future, when someone advocates opposing an unjust law and s…

It's not being abandoned. They are just using the same tactics as always.

* Push a dodgy law to the brink of a vote

* Get the opposers to bluster into obscurity

* Sneak the same legislation in under other laws/names later in the year.

(* Profit????)

They do this all the time.

Re: Wikipedia to Shut Down on Wednesday to Protest SOPA

#180

I hate that I feel this is an 11th hour response. I guess I just don't understand how a 99% community sponsored website with little direct advertising income or large sponsors would drag their feet on the issue. I do understand the 'late to the party, hard to miss' factor, but the opposite could have spurred more action from other sites. Hoping for a quicker response 'next time', but still damn good on you!

Wikipedia is not designed around quick action, but eventual consensus. There's even a short name for this idea: NODEADLINE.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:There_is_no_deadline

It's somewhat impressive that they did manage to respond in an agile way, especially over the last week.

Post reply on HN