Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales defends SOPA protest blackout

[engine]

---

System: The following message was cut out of thread at: http://www.webmasterworld.com/webmaster/4407384.htm [webmasterworld.com] by engine - 2:01 pm on Jan 17, 2012 (utc 0)

---

Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales defends SOPA protest blackout [telegraph.co.uk]

Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, has defended the decision to blackout the website around the world tomorrow, despite other American technology companies refusing to follow suit.

He said: “The general sentiment seemed to be that US law, as it impacts the internet, can affect everyone.

“As for me, what I am hoping is that people outside the US who have friends or family who are voters in the US, will ask them to make a call to their senator or representative, and I hope we send a broad global message that the internet as a whole will not tolerate censorship in response to mere allegations of copyright infringement.”

[travelin cat]

I think it's pretty easy for Wikipedia to do this as they are an informative site, rather than a commercial site. They do not have nearly as much to lose in a 24 hour period than say Amazon.

[Pfui]

We want the Internet to remain free and open, everywhere, for everyone. ... [wikimediafoundation.org...]
...Unless they decide to withhold their stuff (cribbed from our stuff), anywhere, from anyone.

blackout the [English] website around the world tomorrow

Given his recent spate of begging banner ads, this feels eerily more blackmail than blackout.

[ning]

Just put some discrete Adsense on Wikipedia, it should be a nice earner for them...

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Mr Wales has every right to make a statement in support of what he believes, I personally will not hold it against him. I do hope he has the common sense however not to leave "dead air" where Wikipedia pages exist, a message saying the service will return and an explanation why would be much wiser... especially if he wants to maintain search rankings.

Put adsense on it? God I hope not, a few affiliate links to literature based companies perhaps? A deal to promote an encyclopedia company perhaps... sponsored by encyclopedia britannica would be much more palatable than adsense.

[loner]

Wow, if he wrote the whole thing, maybe. I would have hated to had put in the time, effort and research for Jimmy to use it to make his own personal political statements, especially if I disagree.

He should probably just sell it to Goo.

[StoutFiles]

I wonder if Wikipedia will lose their 1-3 search result position for doing this? Haha, who am I kidding, of course not.

[pushpam]

Wikipedia is a great encyclopedia to all of us which is ads free as on date. We dont want readers to divert and we intend to provide high quality and honest contents over internet.

As said in this website Wikipedia will be blackout for 1 complete day ie 24 Hours.

[edited by: engine at 6:03 pm (utc) on Jan 17, 2012]

[freejung]

I would have hated to had put in the time, effort and research for Jimmy to use it to make his own personal political statements, especially if I disagree.

Did you read their statement? There was an extensive discussion among the Wiki community, and the majority opinion was to do the blackout.

[engine]

Google Confirms It Will Participate In SOPA Protest [news.cnet.com]

Google confirmed in a statement that it will join Wikipedia, Reddit and other influential tech firms in staging protests of varying kinds against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA), which are backed by big entertainment and media interests.

"Like many businesses, entrepreneurs and web users, we oppose these bills because there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue websites without asking American companies to censor the Internet," a Google spokeswoman said. "So tomorrow we will be joining many other tech companies to highlight this issue on our US home page."

[loner]

Did you read their statement? There was an extensive discussion among the Wiki community, and the majority opinion was to do the blackout.

That was my opinion, and I believe regardless of the majority, Jimmy's ego, bias, and personal beliefs, the site should be kept separate from his turmoil as a "reference" as he claims it is. If anything he could write a page called Jimmy's Manifesto and it could be voted on to shut that page down in protest of SOPA. I feel it's a meaningless gesture unless he's losing money on it. He's just causing trouble for people who have nothing to do with the "problem."

[jecasc]

Hey. That's not fair. How can they do this. After all I am paying good money for the use of Wikipedia - NOT.

[seoskunk]

I guess I'm f#*$!xx for tomorrow nights Pub Quiz then

[g1smd]

I see various notices warning kids to "get their homework done early this week". :)

[seoskunk]

LOL @ g1smd

Wasn't there a german company that printed off the whole of wikipedia and started selling a paperback version........ Some one some where is feeling all superior and saying " see I told you it was a wise investment"

[g1smd]

You can generate your own PDF files containing single pages, whole categories or customised collections of Wikipedia content.


Ooops. BBC Newsnight just said that "Wikileaks is going offline tomorrow and Jimmy Wales will be explaining why."

[freejung]

I have to say I'm disappointed that folks here aren't talking about this more. Less than a page of comments? Really? This law is against all of our interests as well as being completely wrong. I'm amazed this community isn't more fired up about it.

Incidentally, here's how you can participate with minimal SEO damage:

[plus.google.com...]

[celgins]

You have to wonder about the average, uninformed user who doesn't even know what SOPA is. When he/she navigates to Wikipedia on Wed, Jan 18, and reads the message (I'm assuming there will be a message) they may not understand (or care about) the political reasons why the site is briefly offline.

[lucy24]

here's how you can participate with minimal SEO damage

<fe>
What do you mean, exercising my right to free expression might have consequences? Nobody told me that part!
</fe>

[freejung]

I'm returning 503. I suggest others do the same.

[Donna]

Wiki has already its black page up as of now .

[Pfui]

It's a skin. The original content's in the source.

Wikipedia, Google... Major copyright infringers token-protesting attempts to curb copyright infringement. Oh, the irony.

[tangor]

Google did not immediately answer our follow-up question as to whether it plans to show its displeasure by displaying a Google Doodle logo targeting the anti�online piracy bills, but Cnet claims that no such logo rework is in the works.

[theregister.co.uk...]
More of same, but with a bit of chuckle included.

[RonPK]

There's a line now on google.com that reads "Tell Congress: Please don't censor the web!", linked to a take action page. Nicely done, big G.

[Tommybs]

You can easily get around this blackout as well. All you have to do is disable javascript and you can navigate around the site. I only stumbled across this by accident, but it makes me think they've hardly gone to any effort to achieve what they were preaching about

[topr8]

>>but it makes me think they've hardly gone to any effort to achieve what they were preaching about

i'd say they didn't want to lose any ranking by going off line for the day.

[hitchhiker]

Did any of you read the page it points to? It explains why it's Javascript only. A site that big might well have emergency situations to consider.

We blacked out our site too, and we're loosing 170,000 people as a result - we're not a big company, this will hurt us - it sucks but my heart/brain tells me it's the right thing to do.

[lucy24]

All you have to do is disable javascript and you can navigate around the site. I only stumbled across this by accident, but it makes me think they've hardly gone to any effort to achieve what they were preaching about.

For a given definition of "hardly any"? Setting up a slab of javascript takes a ### of a lot more effort than

RewriteRule .* /SOPA.html [L]

or flicking a switch on your server.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

OT I know, but if you really want to bypass this just flick your Esc key as the page is loading. ;o)

[piatkow]

this just flick your Esc key as the page is loading

You have to be really quick but it works.

I don't know any details of the act and am not directly affected being in Europe but as a photographer and magazine editor I have mixed feelings about this whole area. Part of me is deeply concerned about IP rights and part about restrictions on freedom. It s all a matter of balance avoiding both repression and anarchy - do our American cousins have the balance right?