Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How does SOPA threaten Stack Overflow?

meta.stackoverflow.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 79 posts

Re: How does SOPA threaten Stack Overflow?

#41

Post by notatoad »

jamesmoss wrote: post #6

This is great but surely we need to be targeting a wider audience? SO is made up of tech enthusiasts, I imagine a large percentage of them have heard of SOPA and understand the issues. However they probably represent a tiny fraction of the population. Really we need the eBay's, AOL's and Craiglist's of this world to be running campaigns like this, getting the message out to the more casual internet user.

you're absolutely right, stackoverflow is preaching to the choir. but at least they're saying something, kudos to them. all opposition is good.

somebody else here had this idea, and i love it: facebook needs to shut down their site for an hour and replace it with the message "this is what happens if SOPA passes".

Re: How does SOPA threaten Stack Overflow?

#42

Post by BoppreH »

ghurlman wrote: post #4

Thanksgiving was the cutesy (but needed) Upgrade Your Parents' Browser Day. $winter_holiday_of_choice should include a Explain SOPA To Your Parents Lunch or something - we need to get as many level-headed against SOPA as possible.

Funny how people use "$winter_holiday_of_choice" to avoid religious bias, but end up ignoring the literal half of the planet where the holiday happens during summer. Not complaining, just pointing out the futility of the exercise.

It would have made sense if SOPA was an American problem, but as it stands it threatens the internet for the whole world because of hosting locations and origin of technology companies.

Re: How does SOPA threaten Stack Overflow?

#43

Post by digikata »

alttag wrote: post #11

I participated in the recent EFF push for contacting elected representatives regarding SOPA. I customized their pre-packaged letter greatly, adding both my experience and qualifications and expounding on the distrust from the tech industry to SOPA. The response from my (Republican) Congressman was a form letter telling me I was wrong, and regurgitating a the pro-SOPA talking points. I've been contemplating a rather s…

I was listening to an interview of Jack Abramoff plugging his new book. Don't know if the book is any good, but one comment that struck me was that, bluntly, campaign donations, all the various perks given to politicians and their staff were bribes. My opinion matches. They're indirect bribes, (mostly) following legal boundaries, but basically bribes for attention if not for outright votes.

What gets a politicians attention is money, and less directly votes - but money can move votes... and people have a poor long-term memory at the voting booth.

I wonder what a open "real-time democracy" Political Action Committee website might look like. Suppose there were tracked tallies of voting intentions, donations, donator "votes" to apply money to issues to be spent on specific campaigns at election time. I imagine you'd want to distribute election targeting data to the PAC voters so they can individually make their resource decisions, maybe to shift their donation to politicians who were most vulnerable in a given district. Sending a politician updates of that summarized data with time series growth might get their attention better than letters. It sucks that we need to bribe your own representatives though...

Re: How does SOPA threaten Stack Overflow?

#44

Post by libraryatnight »

bluekeybox wrote: post #22
maeon3 wrote: post #17

The global internet is quickly becoming a more powerful entity than all the rulers in Congress. Congress will not stop trying to put a leash on it. The more powerful the internet gets, the more you will see Congress trying anything to establish control. Child pornography, digital rights, copyright, Chinese hackers, national security, containing the terrorists, fud... Congress will use military force if necessary if t…

These kinds of comments may scare away large numbers of level-headed people from standing up against SOPA. Do you honestly think that the emergence of a global super-entity to serve as a niche to all kinds of low-lives is a good thing? Because if you are, then a lot of people who are aware of your position will be against whatever you stand, which of course means that you will lose potentially valuable allies against…

"No one will save us but ourselves." This seems more in support of maeon3's comment than a point against.

Re: How does SOPA threaten Stack Overflow?

#45

Post by earl »

alttag wrote: post #11

I participated in the recent EFF push for contacting elected representatives regarding SOPA. I customized their pre-packaged letter greatly, adding both my experience and qualifications and expounding on the distrust from the tech industry to SOPA. The response from my (Republican) Congressman was a form letter telling me I was wrong, and regurgitating a the pro-SOPA talking points. I've been contemplating a rather s…

There is a useful response: give $50 to your congressman's opponent, attach a receipt, and vote democrat in the next election. Remember, the only people in the us who matter are voters (especially primary voters), donors, and campaign volunteers.

Re: How does SOPA threaten Stack Overflow?

#46

Post by phwd »

gergles wrote: post #39
kvermeer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The system messages don't have a close button, they're usually used for important site status updates such as "There will be a short network wide outage starting on date at time for system maintenance". The use of the tool for memorials to Steve Jobs or for political messages like this is extremely rare. It's a good thing that you read the status messages. Normally, they're important.

The problem is that if they keep using them for politics or for other things that aren't system messages, people will start ignoring them. "Ugh, that's that bar that just shows dumb political messages."

Yes, system messages shouldn't be abused like this. They are supposed to be the exception not norm. Even though the message gets to the front of your attention on every single page, it would have been better if this was to be placed as a community ad or a blog post.

Seeing that this is directed to the US users of Stack Overflow, I am not sure what the rest of the world should be doing other than spreading the message.

To play devil's advocate, since SO has dumps of their data under CC, anyone from another country can still get the content.

The community and the system of asking and answering questions are threatened, the previous data will still be around.

Re: How does SOPA threaten Stack Overflow?

#47

Post by abscondment »

earl wrote: post #45
alttag wrote: post #11

I participated in the recent EFF push for contacting elected representatives regarding SOPA. I customized their pre-packaged letter greatly, adding both my experience and qualifications and expounding on the distrust from the tech industry to SOPA. The response from my (Republican) Congressman was a form letter telling me I was wrong, and regurgitating a the pro-SOPA talking points. I've been contemplating a rather s…

There is a useful response: give $50 to your congressman's opponent, attach a receipt, and vote democrat in the next election. Remember, the only people in the us who matter are voters (especially primary voters), donors, and campaign volunteers.

Personally, I find myself disagreeing with both sides too much for this to be effective at all.

I'm not going to say one should or shouldn't vote Democrat. But, there are too many considerations on which I'm unwilling to compromise to just vote for the enemy of my enemy. Neither party is your friend.

Re: How does SOPA threaten Stack Overflow?

#48

Post by TruthElixirX »

danramteke wrote: post #30
maeon3 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom was not nor ever will be won with words. Freedom is won from the barrell of a gun. words only have power when they are from someone ready to use action if they have no effect.

And sometimes freedom is won by marching for salt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_March

No, not really. The establishment embraced Ghandi to take the wind out of the more radical violent movements.

The same way the NAACP was embraced over the Black Panther Party.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_movement_for_Ind...

Re: How does SOPA threaten Stack Overflow?

#49

Post by bad_user »

abscondment wrote: post #47
earl wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a useful response: give $50 to your congressman's opponent, attach a receipt, and vote democrat in the next election. Remember, the only people in the us who matter are voters (especially primary voters), donors, and campaign volunteers.

Personally, I find myself disagreeing with both sides too much for this to be effective at all. I'm not going to say one should or shouldn't vote Democrat. But, there are too many considerations on which I'm unwilling to compromise to just vote for the enemy of my enemy. Neither party is your friend.

Politicians will always do whatever is in the interests of the people or companies giving them votes or donations, so unfortunately without voting for the enemy of your enemy (and maybe convincing others to do so), you don't have any other tool to punish these politicians.

And they need to be punished, just like a good spanking at the right time does wonders for spoiled brats.

Re: How does SOPA threaten Stack Overflow?

#50

Post by [deleted] »

danramteke wrote: post #30
maeon3 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom was not nor ever will be won with words. Freedom is won from the barrell of a gun. words only have power when they are from someone ready to use action if they have no effect.

And sometimes freedom is won by marching for salt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_March

[deleted]
Post reply on HN