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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 190.164.17.29 (talk) at 03:51, 20 January 2012 (→‎Interwikis). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Picture copyright?

I took a screenshot during the blackout and uploaded it. I am sure the copyright belongs to the wikimedia foundation, until someone has a better picture or is able to get approval from wikimedia; is it alright if I uploaded it? Pseudoanonymous (talk) 06:03, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

HA! funny...--Camilo Sanchez (talk) 06:15, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Technically the page contains a Wikimedia trademark (the stylized W and wordmark), but there are already uploads similar to what you're talking about in the category on Commons. Steven Walling • talk 06:28, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Potential DYK?

Once the formalities are out of the way, of course? —WFC— 07:32, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why not, but be prepared to be trumped by ITN! Mjroots (talk) 07:34, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Better to have it on DYK during the blackout ;-) It gets you a speedy-keep (if it's not, already). Alarbus (talk) 09:20, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In the 00:00 UTC queue: Did you know... that Wikipedia is about to be blacked out for 24 hours? —WFC— 09:24, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That's brilliant. Make is so. Alarbus (talk) 10:30, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Background

I'm a bit out of my depth here, US politics not being in my sphere of interest. I've started a background section, with a link to the SOPA article. This section needs to cover the proposed acts (SOPA, PIPA), the background to the protest, and how the decision was reached and implemented. Before anyone argues that Wikipedia is not a source, that applies to using other Wikipedia articles as a source. The debates etc are not articles, and thus are useable by applying WP:IAR (IMHO). Mjroots (talk) 08:16, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Interwikis

Are any other language Wikipedias covering this? Mjroots (talk) 09:32, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

spanish wikipedia did it too. As far as I saw, must of the wikipedias had a black banner talking about sopa and the blackout of the english one

Requested move

2012 Wikipedia blackout → 2012 SOPA and PIPA blackout – In line with what I put on my comment in this page's AfD page, I feel this page really should become a page about the 2012 website blackout in general, not just the Wikipedia blackout. I don't feel it's particularly notable if it just covers the Wikipedia blackout, after all, an article on every prominent website to blackout would be silly. I do, however, feel that an article on the blackouts in general would be notable (and more interesting to read). I don't necessarily feel my proposed title is the best one, it's a little clunky, so other suggestions would be good, but I do feel the page title does need to be changed to one covering the blackouts in general. Xmoogle (talk) 11:23, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

An alternative would be to create that article, covering the blackout worldwide and leaving this article to specifically cover the Wikipedia blackout. I'm not against a rename, but my gut feeling is that we will be able to sustain two articles. Mjroots (talk) 11:40, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm just not sure what the point of two articles would be, though. Wikipedia (as a topic) isn't more notable than a lot of the other sites participating, and it would seem to me to be a pointless division of information. Xmoogle (talk) 11:43, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, a move would be good - there is no reason that the Wikipedia-related content would be "too big" to cover in an umbrella article along with other stuff. --Errant (chat!) 11:48, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As another supporter of a rename, may I suggest moving to 2012 SOPA protest blackout?  BarkingFish  12:07, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If this blackout is protesting SOPA and PIPA, would 2012 SOPA, PIPA protest blackout be a more accurate title? Xmoogle (talk) 12:13, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think most recognize this was rallied around SOPA (prior to the House committee postponing any more discussion on it). as long as the lead's clear that PIPA's involved, I'd go with the SOPA only title. --MASEM (t) 14:02, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest 2012 US Anti-Piracy Law Protest. "Laws" plural could also be used, but I note that the House and Senate bills would eventually become one law if enacted. "Protest" is broader than "blackout"; - with only "blackout" in the title, banner-only actions are arguably off topic. I'm not sure if there is a titling style guide but I highly suspect that if there is, it would discourage the use of acronyms when a more straightforward title can be used. Also, not using an acronym avoids a SOPA vs PIPA vs both debate; the fact is that SOPA is basically dead right now, while PIPA is moving ahead on schedule, such that while SOPA is the instigator, PIPA is more prominent now.--Brian Dell (talk) 19:35, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Count me in the "rename/merge" camp. I think that title sounds fine, although I can't help wondering if there will be more protests this year regarding anti-piracy laws. Would there be a precedent for calling it "January 2012 US Anti-Piracy Law Protest"? Or would that be overkill? --Jay (Histrion) (talk • contribs) 17:23, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think that two articles are appropriate: the first being 2012 SOPA, PIPA protest blackouts, relating to the coordinate protest effort and being the main article, with a small section on Wikipedia participation; the second being 2012 Wikipedia blackout, relating to Wikipedia's specific role and the internal community process leading to participation as a more detailed article.  Jim Reed (Talk)  14:54, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The internal workings of how the blackout came to be hasn't been covered (as best I know), so a separate main space article to highlight that seems inappropriate. Certainly there's a meta-page regarding that for Wikipedia. But in the larger picture of things, it's all part of the same effort. Maybe that will change after the event has occurred and there's clearly "here's what WP did" and "here's what the rest of the Internet did" dichotomy to it, suggesting two articles. Right now, it's clearly one single topic headlined by WP's participation. --MASEM (t) 15:02, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Good point. I wasn't planning to act on this until after the blackout because of several reasons, this being one: any action at this time is premature.  Jim Reed (Talk)  20:04, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A merge into an article about the global blackout makes sense. If a separate Wikipedia-specific article remains, it should be clarified as 'English Wikipedia', to match the article on the Italian Wikipedia protest. 66.31.200.47 (talk) 17:14, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Google's just announced they'll be modifying their page tomorrow to coordinate with the other sites. I strongly suggest renaming this now since it's no longer just going to be WP in the spotlight. (we can still have a big WP section). --MASEM (t) 18:55, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agree, speed is good in this case. The faster we do the renaming, the quicker we will have a good article on the whole event when people go and look for it. Belorn (talk) 20:10, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, unless the pending AFD is speedily-closed, moving this page at this time probably won't happen. But I do think that as soon as possible after the blackout, that we can speedily close and enact on both the AFD and this move as to tie in with what is likely to be an WP:ITN blurb. --MASEM (t) 20:14, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

re blackout, Seems like it'd be more appropriate for this article to be about the protest in general rather than Wikipedia's specific contribution to the protest. That way we could get a list of other major pages (Reddit, Google, Facebook) who will be participating in the blackout and include press responses to that. 173.166.109.49 (talk) 14:05, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll wait for now and after the blackout ends, I'll summarize the basic options and create a structure for building a Support/Oppose consensus. I don't expect this to be as controversial as the decision to blackout itself but I'm sure that we're not the only ones with constructive input.  Jim Reed (Talk)  20:06, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Automatic Translation: The English Wikipedia outage is significant enough to have its own article. strike since Wikipedia is more relevant to people than any other strike that can do other internet sites. Greetings. --186.63.10.223 (talk) 21:31, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's now speedy-kept. I support the move for better coverage of protests from other parties. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 01:27, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What time is the blackout meant to be? It is already 18th in Australia, and I can see all of wikipedia clear as day 140.168.79.1 (talk) 03:21, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

05:00 (UTC)  Jim Reed (Talk)  03:27, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And now that we're back...I think it's very clear this article needs to be moved off being Wikipedia specific and instead focus on the overall blackout, since it was the combined efforts of all sites involved that led to 6 Congresspersons flipping their stances, plus countless media coverage. We *still* need a Wikipedia-specific section, since there was definitely some commentary on WP's specific blackout, but it should be as part of the larger coverage. --MASEM (t) 05:04, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note from the article's creator: I would support a move to a title that expands this article's scope, such as the title proposed. I have no opinion on the precise name. —WFC— 05:10, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I still think that the event is big enough to justify two articles, one on the global protest, and this one covering Wikipedia's protest as part of the global protest. Let's give this at least a couple of days to pan out before we make any hasty moves. Mjroots (talk) 06:00, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, there's a lot of news -- but it's a lot of repetition in the news as well. I've been watching articles all day (yay for snowpocalyse in seattle) and I really can't see us justifying a second article on WP's response alone without COI/bias. An internal article (or one hosted by the Foundation) on the process, sure. But the WP part really can't be separated without neutring the other responses (none which easily fit in the SOPA article). --MASEM (t) 06:30, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it would be hasty to move this article. On the contrary: for as long as the article remains here, one of three things will happen. We will either not give due weight to protests by other sites compared to Wikipedia, the article's content will not match the title, or someone will go along and create a second article which will almost definitely need to merge with this one down the line. I stand by both my decision to create this article and the timing, but in hindsight I made a mistake on the title. The sooner we correct that mistake the better. —WFC— 07:12, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I see no harm in creating a second article and considering such a merger (for which there might or might not be consensus). It would be less disruptive than renaming this article before its scope is expanded. —David Levy 07:20, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
An inevitable AfD and the strong likelihood of having to merge two articles would be less disruptive than the title temporarily being a bit off? —WFC— 07:30, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Why is another AfD discussion inevitable? If there's consensus that this shouldn't exist as a standalone article, a simple merger (which needn't be disruptive in the slightest) is an obvious solution. The matter should be discussed here (or on the talk page of a hypothetical merger target). —David Levy 07:42, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If two articles exist for more than a few hours, there will be an AfD. I'd put a mortgage on it if I had one. But I think we're both using "disruptive" in the wrong context. More accurately, less energy would be wasted moving this article and adjusting its content to meet the new scope, than in creating a second article in the knowledge of the inevitable duplication and discussion that would ensue. —WFC— 07:51, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
1. Such an AfD listing would be inappropriate and should be speedily closed. "Merge" sometimes is an outcome of AfD discussions, but it isn't a valid rationale for initiating one.
2. As noted below, I don't oppose the idea of expanding this article. But that's something that should be discussed before deciding to change the title. If we're to take that course of action, we should at least have a rough outline prepared before the trigger is pulled. Renaming the the article and waiting for it to fill out accordingly would confuse readers. —David Levy 08:10, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support alternative name. News sites give Wikipedia prominent billing, but the title misleadingly suggests that only wikipedia was blacked out whereas it was in fact a multi-party coordinated affair. I would suggest simply renaming it the SOPA/PIPA blackout. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 06:55, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support this alternate name or some other similar name, and I'm semi-reversing the opinion I expressed at the related recent AFD. While the lion's share of coverage of the blackout led with and/or devoted outsized exposure to Wikipedia's participation -- which is natural, given that Wikipedia was by far the largest site to implement a blackout -- the truer topic of most of this coverage was the overall blackout, and not simply Wikipedia's role as the largest full participant.

    I say "this alternate name or some other similar name" because I might change the name "blackout" to "online protest" or similar, given that there were a number of protest efforts -- Google's, most notably -- that weren't actually blackouts. But that's splitting hairs, and I suspect that the word "blackout" is going to be the most commonly-accepted name for the event. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 07:07, 19 January 2012 (UTC) [reply]

    If the article's scope is broadened, I would support a title along the lines of Protests against SOPA and PIPA. There have been some noteworthy non-online protests as well. —David Levy 07:20, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose as premature. The article currently focuses on the English Wikipedia's involvement. It should be renamed if and when it's expanded to include substantial coverage of other websites' participation (for which consensus might or might not exist). Let's not put the cart before the horse. —David Levy 07:20, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    It doesn't make sense to expand until the rename is affirmed, otherwise, we'd just have to take out all the broader stuff elsewhere. I purposely arranged some aspects of the article to make the expansion easy, but it just needs consensus check-off to start. --MASEM (t) 14:23, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    My point was that it doesn't make sense to rename until the expansion is affirmed. However, it now seems clear that it has been (despite that not being the exact question asked). —David Levy 22:25, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support a move to a more general, less-navel-gazing title. Having read many news articles myself, even those found with a google news search for "Wikipedia," I am convinced that the vast majority of the sources covered this as part of a larger blackout/protest. Savidan 07:22, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, reliable sources mention Reddit every time, and the others sporadically. Speciate (talk) 08:21, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support echoing the rationale of ohconfucius. Eusebeus (talk) 10:03, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support move to more general article. I think actually we should have two articles: one on the shutdown in general, and one that lists all notable sites that participated. Having an article only on Wikipedia's role seems a bit self-obsessed. (I was going to say navel gazing, but someone beat me to it.) We're the largest site to be sure, but we didn't start it, and I imagine the cumulative weight of other sites affected more people than did WP. (Personally, I think the shutdown of xkcd and SMBC affected me more than the Wikipedia blackout though to be fair, I planned on the WP shutdown.) --Quintucket (talk) 11:18, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • A separate article to list the supporting sites is likely going to be inundated with random drive-by additions ("I blacked out my personal blog, too!"). Blackouts noted by RSs but without a good deal of discussion (like Boing Boing, Wired, Flickr, etc.) can be identified in a sustinct manner within the larger relevant topic article easily. --MASEM (t) 13:45, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per ohconfucius, Quintucket and WP:SELF. Like many others, I'm pretty relaxed about what the name should be, but SOPA/PIPA blackout, 2012 or something similar seems like a reasonable suggestion to me. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 12:44, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support It wasn't just us. AIRcorn (talk) 13:44, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support for name move. Notable in global technology in the English language world. ApprenticeFan work 14:24, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support for name move. Even though reactions both favorable and critical are included, as long as it focuses on Wikipedia it just sounds more like a press release than an article. --Jay (Histrion) (talk • contribs) 17:35, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support The motivations and methods for the various sites' blackouts are largely similar, it is more descriptive of the event(s) to discuss them together rather than separately. LukeSurl t c 19:50, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse This is a wider issue than Wikipedia. SYSS Mouse (talk) 22:15, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you want an outsider's perspective, seeing "Wikipedia takes part in a 24 hour protest" as an article on the front page, really sounds like Wikipedia is tooting its own horn. I know that it's actually unbiased (seeing the huge media frenzy over Wikipedia specifically) but it comes across as being extremely biased.

As for the article itself, just because the media focused more on Wikipedia doesn't mean that Wikipedia's blackout was the SOPA protest. It wasn't. The event was the SOPA/PIPA blackout, and Wikipedia is just one of the many sites that took part in it. Whether Wikipedia's own blackout is notable enough to have its own article is up to debate, but imo this article definitely shouldn't exist if there isn't a larger article on the Jan. 18 SOPA blackout in general.

One last point: Wikipedia is probably getting substantially higher page views right now, partly due to the fact that lots of people desperately want to read their Wikipedia articles, and partly because of the publicity generated by the blackout. Seeing "The English Wikipedia, along with many other websites, takes part in a 24-hour shutdown in protest against SOPA and PIPA", as an article, spot centre on the front page, does not leave a good impression. It might sound fair and unbiased to Wikipedians, but I can guarantee you that there are a lot of people who will view that as extremely biased. It also doesn't help your case that you want to prevent the Wikipedia blackout from looking like a publicity stunt.

Anyways, my two cents. --99.236.18.156 (talk) 02:17, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Clarify blocking of sites like YouTube

This sentence does not source properly: "A common criticism of the bill addresses broad language like what entails "deliberate actions to avoid confirming a high probability" for a website; sites that support user-generated content, such as YouTube would likely have to be shuttered to comply with the law as written."

This is cited with the CNN/Money article (http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/17/technology/sopa_explained/) where Google public policy director Bob Boorstin is quoted as saying "YouTube would just go dark immediately. It couldn't function." But this quote is taken out of context. The CNN/Money article sources this quote to this article (http://sociable.co/web/youtube-would-just-go-dark-immediately-if-sopa-passed/) where the context shows that he wasn't actually talking about SOPA.

The article says:

Bob Boorstin warned of dire consequences if sites were required to monitor content users upload prior to publishing. Boorstin painted a dramatic picture of the web in the event that such a law were to be passed, “YouTube would just go dark immediately. It couldn’t function,” he said.

Also, the text should clarify that the sponsors of the legislation have stated that they are dropping the DNS blocking provisions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.150.188.2 (talk) 03:45, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed both; the CNNMoney sorta grouped the two thoughts together, I resplit them. --MASEM (t) 04:00, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

DYK hook?

Statistics on this are phenomenal and it's current. Can we prioritize a DYK on it while people will have exceptional interest? FT2 (Talk | email) 05:19, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I believe we're getting a ITN for this. --MASEM (t) 05:20, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
We did, and ITNs are worth more than DYKs if you ask me. Getting a DYK is easy; Getting an ITN means having/creating the right article at the right time. Mjroots (talk) 05:58, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unblock

It was so easy to unblock Wikipedia. I only needed a script for adblock and the message was gone. you could just have disabled the javascript. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.174.61.242 (talk) 16:41, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Guys, it was temporary frustrating, but the block was so easy to undone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Erik1100 (talk • contribs) 06:35, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]


I think the primary purpose was to raise awareness, with people clicking the link provided on the blackout page. It wasn't supposed to be a complete block.

Shīrudou ōru (talk) 06:43, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • In one way or another, the methods used to counteract the blackout should be acknowledged in the article. Although, as others noted the main reason for the blackout was to raise awareness, there seemed to be a few developers who created add-ons for browsers to bypass the blackout.

Also I think the method to blackout the site was altered midway through the blackout. I would imagine a few of you with slower internet connections decided to hit the stop button to prevent the blackout page from loading up, that did not work during the latter part of the blackout as the message appeared before the page started loading. It wasn't my cache as my browser doesn't save webpage elements. YuMaNuMa Contrib 07:09, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, unblocking was trivial. In Opera I simply disabled javascript in my site preferences. I was a bit puzzled that editing was disabled as well, so literally nothing happened here during the day. But it did get the message across in the media, even though they didn't seem to really understand what the issue was, at least here in the UK. '

Yeah, the purpose was to raise awareness, not to 100% block access. Also, the mobile site operated normally the whole day. –Jopo (talk) 08:53, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]


You could get around the block by simply hitting the stop button while the page was loading. talk:ksekuterski|talk]]) 13:22, 19 January 2012 (EST) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ksekuterski (talk • contribs)

The block/shutdown was on all aspects of Wikipedia with the exception of articles still being viewable. Editing for example was down with or without JS. Belorn (talk) 13:40, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You could also avoid the block by using the http://simple.wikipedia.org URL to access the site without any special browser changes. 74.103.134.50 (talk) 15:17, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

While it's true that removing the block was trivial, following the #Wikipedia hash tag yesterday in Twitter made it abundantly obvious that thousands of users didn't have a clue how to access any of the articles. Rklawton (talk) 16:48, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Reaction > Pre-blackout :An other newspaper reporting blackout

Reaction > Pre-blackout sub-section : French newspaper Le Figaro (one of the most read in France) reported the story here : (retrieved 01/18) http://www.lefigaro.fr/hightech/2012/01/17/01007-20120117ARTFIG00609-la-version-anglaise-de-wikipedia-fermee-mercredi.php 81.80.104.101 (talk) 08:03, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You are free to edit the article and improve it yourself. Don't be afraid of making a mistake. Good faith attempts to improve any article are welcome. Mjroots (talk) 08:22, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've now added Le Figaro to the list. Mjroots (talk) 08:26, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed split

It has been proposed by CMBJ (talk · contribs) that this article is split.

Originally proposed article title: United States Internet blackout Added by WFC at 09:26, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
As the BBC puts it' "Wikipedia was far from the only website taking action, but without its involvement the whole protest would have had a much lower profile in Washington and around the world." This is why I believe two articles are justifiable and sustainable. Mjroots (talk) 12:04, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. I believe consensus is emerging in the discussion above that this article should be moved to a more all-encompassing title (either now, or after work to expand the article's scope has taken place). —WFC— 08:34, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support move, split or anything else that quickly allows drive-by editors to incorporate information about the other protests while this is still in the news. We'll have plenty of people paying attention to the minutiae of Wikipedia's blackout over the long-term, but that won't be the case with the others.   — C M B J   13:39, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose We need to consider the broader profile of the article, not individual sites unless coverage warrants them. (Hence the broader section on WP's action). Just because some random blog went dark is not mean we need to mention it. --MASEM (t) 13:53, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
See Mjroots' quote from the BBC above. We're not talking about some random person's blog; we're talking about a phenomenon of protests including (if I'm not mistaken) full blackouts at Boing Boing, Firefox, Greenpeace, Minecraft, MoveOn.org, Reddit, Wired and WordPress that I see right away, as well as confrontational activism of other kinds on a large number of major sites (i.e., those we have articles on) across a wide spectrum. Obviously, we don't need a series of articles on the individual incidences, but we do need at least one on the general subject. Ideally, this needs also needs to be worked into the ITN blurb while it's still relevant enough to solicit contributions.   — C M B J   14:11, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My point is that we need to rename this to cover the broader actions rather than split off the broader section and leave WP's response as it is. The probably is that while WP's response can be discussed on its own, the broader actions can't be (since WP represented a middle-step in the process). We'd also be heavily duplicating the background and response sections. Covering the broader actions in one article with a WP-heavy subsection is the right way to treat this topic than to have separate articles. --MASEM (t) 14:21, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A collection of notable quotes regarding the blackout

meta:English Wikipedia anti-SOPA blackout/Quotes might be useful for citations. Kaldari (talk) 10:44, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Shutdown

The word shutdown should not be used when, at no point, was wikipedia shutdown. All articles could still be accessed very easily.--ZincBelief (talk) 11:55, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Propose Adding Section on Wikipedia Risking their 501(c)3 Tax-Exempt Status

Because Wikipedia has now crossed the IRS's line by engaging in direct and grassroots lobbying outside the organization, their 501(c)3 tax-exempt status is now in jeopardy. It specifically crossed those lines by attempting to sway public opinion and directing people to contact their legislators on behalf of one side of a proposed bill. The rules regarding this are defined at the following links: http://www.irs.gov/charities/foundations/index.html | http://www.irs.gov/charities/charitable/article/0,,id=96099,00.html Whether or not the SOPA protest was right or wrong is not the issue to be discussed, but rather an objectionable look at whether the activities of January 18th will result in loss of tax-exempt status. 192.91.173.42 (talk) 13:32, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a source for this? Specifically that the IRS (or some other reliable source) thinks that Wikipedia is in jeopardy of losing the tax exemption? Achowat (talk) 13:39, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe it's an opinion-based issue (a reliable source thinking they are), but rather a fact-based issue given that the IRS is very clear: "An organization will be regarded as attempting to influence legislation if it contacts, or urges the public to contact, members or employees of a legislative body for the purpose of proposing, supporting, or opposing legislation, or if the organization advocates the adoption or rejection of legislation." From: http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=163392,00.html 192.91.173.42 (talk) 13:54, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This, obviously, is a WP:SYNTH argument unless you can find reliable sources that state that Wikipedia is in danger of losing its status. Additionally, you are unlikely to get such a reliable source because 501(c)3's can only lose their status if they use a certain portion of their tax-exempt revenue to lobby, see here. Because the blackout took a negligible amount of revenue to enact, I doubt the IRS is even going to look into this issue in any way. Chillllls (talk) 21:41, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's WP:OR when we look at a law and say "oh, it's been broken!" Even if "we" are expert tax lawyers. By our own rules, we must have a reliable source. Rklawton (talk) 22:05, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

12 a.m. (sic) used to represent — midnight apparently

In contrast to MOS:TIME the lead of this article mentions "(12 a.m. Eastern Standard Time) on January 18.". Unfortunately time specifications like "12 a.m." and "12 p.m." are ambiguous and should not be used because of their ambiguity. "midnight" and "noon" are not ambiguous and may specify a time of day more accurately. 69.115.42.244 (talk) 12:28, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's not ambiguous, 12 a.m. = midnight, 12 p.m. = midday. Because some people get confused, I wikilinked the time to the relevant article. Of course, we could use the 24-hour clock, but people get confused over that too. Mjroots (talk) 12:30, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Which is exactly why we should follow the MOS and say 'Midnight' instead of 12 anything. Achowat (talk) 13:06, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Undue weight to opposition

I'm concerned that the article is giving undue weight to the opposition of the blackout. The undue-inline was previously removed by WFCforLife[1] arguing, "I think it is important to make clear that support for the blackout was widespread but far from universal" which sounds reasonable enough to me, but simultaneously there were thousands of Wikipedia users who commented on the subject through the course of the discussion and the only one we're quoting in the article is from the small minority of that position. The result is that we're just repeating the bias of a biased source, which isn't good. In particular, I'm concerned that the isolated quote makes it sound like the quoted position was considered true but the Wikipedians decided to go ahead in spite of it, when in reality that argument was significantly refuted (including by many long time contributors) and the effort probably wouldn't have gone ahead if the Wikipedia users believed it to be true. Is there a way this could be better contextualized? --Gmaxwell (talk) 13:34, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, there were thousands of members in favour of the action. Giving a tiny fraction of members a paragraph would be undeserving. Besides, is the argument of any importance or weight? He says that it "...puts the organization in the role of advocacy...". I don't see why Wikipedia as a democratic organization shouldn't be able to advocate free speech. It is my opinion that: To do otherwise would be to give in to laziness and let politicians/corporations corrupt the system. As an organization built upon our fundamental freedoms, it should be free to defend itself against any attacks. It isn't always due to use the slippery-slope argument, we all know that if the corporations could have their way they would censor the internet to hell. It is the duty of the people, and of the organizations that rely on the same freedoms, to oppose any infringements. DukeTwicep (talk) 14:28, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
While I personally agree with you— and the arguments you just presented were among the ones used to refute this position where it was advanced— I was more hoping to figure out how best to cover this neutrally, without getting into a big discussion of the subject itself. It is important that the article should say there was some opposition but how best can it say this without painting a lopsided picture? Perhaps it would be helpful to hear some thoughts on this from Wikipedians who were opposed. --Gmaxwell (talk) 15:49, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I do not agree. More than just a couple dissented. See here for an explanation for why of those who dissented, they were disproportionately veteran editors relatively familiar with the WMF's recent history. We are talking one or two lines here. As it is, there is no mention of the fact the vote for global blackout was only 55% (relative to only for US users).--Brian Dell (talk) 18:35, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I counted the votes and yes, more than a couple "dissented", that is, more than just a couple was opposed. On the first series of questions (blackout no banner, blackout banner, etc.) those for any blackout at all were 1093, and those opposed were 116 (many of these wanted a banner). It is a blatant lie what you say about the 55% (unless you are saying that the majority of those in favour were non-US-users, it still doesn't matter as Wikipedia isn't US-user-only, and the bills - were they to go through - would have repercussions far beyond the borders of US). Percentage of the votes in first series: 90,5% for, 9,5% against. Percentage of the votes in the "Full blackout": 88% for, 12% against.
Reading your posts I see that your arguments often consists of the notion that Wikipedia wouldn't be affected. Even If that were true, what does it matter? Did you know that Wikipedia is only a tiny fraction of the Internet? And, lastly, referring us to a blog post that is as long as a university essay seems... rather unfriendly (although realizing I'm a hypocrite for calling you a liar). DukeTwicep (talk) 20:36, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This is veering off the topic of the content of this article such that I've responded on your Talk page.--Brian Dell (talk) 03:45, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree we need to be wary of undo weight. However, without the paragraph in question, readers would have no clue that the decision wasn't unanimous, nor would they get a feeling for the sorts of internal arguments (regardless of merit) put forward against the blackout. Perhaps as compromise, we could move this paragraph down to the pre-blackout response section? Here's why: the AP was quoting me from an interview and not from my "Oppose" vote, and the interview and its publication pre-dated the blackout and was obviously conducted in anticipation of the blackout. Thus I think it would be fair to classify the article/quote as a pre-blackout response. But back to the "undo" argument - I also told the reporter that I didn't think going forward with the blackout was a big deal, in spite of my opinion, and that the blackout wouldn't affect my participation one way or the other. By leaving this view out of the article, the reporter made the quote appear more weighty. So yes, we don't want to give undo weight to a quote that was given undo weight. Rklawton (talk) 16:25, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Alternatively we could have a section or sub-section dedicated to the arguments for and against the blackout. We wouldn't give the oppositional side undue attention by putting it in contrast with the, in my opinion, stronger arguments for it. DukeTwicep (talk) 17:32, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I absolutely do think we need something there with respect to it being non-unanimous, my concern was mostly the presentation of an isolated argument against without contextualization. I also expected Rklawton's comments with respect to the quote. I think treating it as pre-blackout response is reasonable.
I'm not keen on the idea of having a "sub-section dedicated to the arguments for and against the blackout": Writing fair coverage of that would be very difficult (since our decision process is nearly inexplicable to outsiders), doubly so because we're all involved parties to some extent, and at least today we could only do it through extensive original research. Not a good mixture. If people think there is need for better summary of the arguments than the text of the closure then I think it would be best to create it as a community work in project space (and thus without the same standards of verifiability) and then simply cite it from the article for readers who are interested in knowing more.
For the purpose of the article I think we should just stick to WP:NPOV and state the simple facts: Discussion started informally in December (this part is covered), in the final discussion several options were considered. I'd avoid giving percentages— but instead it should speak generally e.g. "many people supported this and that, a few supported this and that"— because percentages may mislead the reader into thinking we were limited to those options and/or conducting a vote... and then it should link to the closure message as (a primary source) for the fact the the ultimate decision. Basically just stick to the simple, completely uncontroversial facts of the matter. Primary sources aren't ideal, but NPOV/NOR would prefer we quote language from a primary source, with attribution, rather than draw our own conclusions here. --Gmaxwell (talk) 19:28, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds reasonable. Rklawton (talk) 19:58, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Date format

I note that normally MOS says to follow first-author choice which appears to be the European approach (Day Month). However, given this is about US laws, even though the response was worldwide, I really believe this gives the topic a strong national tie and that we should be using US date (Month Day) format for this article. Is there consensus to make this change? --MASEM (t) 13:58, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I totally agree. This article is about primarily a US event. I realize the internet is worldwide, but the blackout was precipitated by US legislation, primarily covered by the US media, and is centered on a US political event involving a US based website. Per the MoS, American English should be used in the article. I have gone ahead and made the change. Rreagan007 (talk) 18:56, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Special case

This article is one of those special cases in which the sourcing of the situation requires for us to go beyond the traditional media. Although there was some coverage in my opinion the black out was portrayed as second nature. One good example is Anderson Cooper 360, if you analyze his record of coverage of news, Cooper has been extremely keen to cover any kind of abuse or attack against freedom of speech or the internet in countries like Egypt, Libya or Syria, this kind of topics are paramount in his nightly show. Cooper is known to go to great lengths to cover such issues in foreign lands by interviewing your average protester in many cases protesters that put their lives on the line just to talk to him, interestingly, there was little to no coverage of the Wikipedia blackout in his show. I mention this because I want to bring attention to the rest of editors how in this particular case major media outlets downplayed the blackout making it a background news story basically making us relying in foreign media and non traditional media sources to source the importance and impact of the situation. In addition to "not much of our problem" kind of attitude is the fact that CNN (not sure other channels) have been playing a pro-SOPA commercial, without doubt a serious conflict of interest that I ask editors to pay attention in order to improve this article. --Camilo Sanchez (talk) 14:22, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We can easily turn to tech-heavy RS sites that likely noted the lack of mass media coverage prior to this. We have to be careful as to why that's the case (in general, we know traditional news media is pro-SOPA/PIPA) but we can't say that's the reason for the lack of media coverage until know; that's OR without sourcing. --MASEM (t) 14:42, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, but I definitely think we need to pay attention to sources that see this blatant lack of objectivity from news sources that most Americans and people "trust". To live in a world where corporations can so easily dictate what should be covered or not is as much as living under the rule of a dictator. It is important for Wikipedia users to be able to reach to the depths of this double standard in which is ok to cover attacks against freedom of speech in other countries but not in the US when it goes against the interest of corporations. --Camilo Sanchez (talk) 14:54, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The corporations in favour of the bills obviously pay a Lot of money to get the news agencies to run news and commercials in favour and to prevent any oppositional messages to get through. The media is far from objective or unbiased, especially when there are droves of money involved. DukeTwicep (talk) 15:02, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Precisely, so this obviously leaves us in the dilemma of neutrality in the articles that the community thrives for. We see ourselves in the position of sourcing biased sources when we had the belief (I did at least) that there was some level of impartiality in their coverage. --Camilo Sanchez (talk) 15:08, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oh come on. Is it just possibly conceivable that major news outlets did not report this because they did not consider it as newsworthy as, say, the local economy or the Costa Concordia to the majority of readers? If we can write notable content that comes from reliable secondary sources then it's fair game. Ritchie333 (talk) 15:22, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You are entitled to your opinion, I am just saying that if this protest had taken place in Egypt or Syria CNN probably would have covered it much more. --Camilo Sanchez (talk) 15:27, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
And this is why we need RS's to express their opinions as to why it wasn't covered before. There's endless speculation that without sources directly stating that, puts us as push original research. --MASEM (t) 15:56, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See Also

Should the see also section have links to SOPA/PIPA and other significant websites that blacked out? I say yes. 74.33.74.96 (talk) 15:32, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Error in Date?

It says the blackout occurred January 18-19, but that's an error considering it started at 12:00:00.00 AM January 18th, and ended at 11:59:59.99 on January 18th, meaning as soon as it became January 19th, at 12:00:00.00, Wikipedia was not blacked out....so just take out the January 19th part. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Macintoshkid (talk • contribs) 16:09, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It likely depended on your location of when it happened; eg, those in the UK would have seen the blackout for some time on the 19th. (Technically, this extends to the 17th, for those on the west coast of the US for example). --MASEM (t) 16:18, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Also I like to mention Wikipedia's defualt clock setting is UTC which means that according to wikipedias clock, the blockout happend at January 18th 5am to January 19th 5am. Pro66 (talk) 16:33, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Policy

This article should also link to the Foundation's policy on Blackouts as it's highly relevant to the subject of this article and will better help readers understand how this all came about. Does anyone know the link? Rklawton (talk) 17:13, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The German Wikipedia could well be shut down. I would greet it. It has partially become a political instrument.--88.70.26.64 (talk) 17:49, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't the German government directly pay editors to create articles? Rklawton (talk) 17:51, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Responses

Do we have any evidence that other websites and physical protests were in response to Wikipedia's blackouts? If not, then these subsections do not belong under the "Responses" section. Rklawton (talk) 17:54, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Given that this article is likely going to expand to be about the overall Internet blackout (see the above move discussion), then they will be there. If its decided not to move this and keep it strictly on the WP part, then we can move those sections. --MASEM (t) 18:20, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Projects that chose to run a banner included the..

The Greek Wikipedia is missing.. Βικιπαίδεια:Διαμαρτυρία κατά της SOPA και PIPA — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.87.76.60 (talk) 19:00, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is it still missing? Pseudoanonymous (talk) 19:29, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I visited every Wikipedia listed on Meta Wiki, both the main page and the language page where applicable, and took screenshots of every one that ran a banner except the English WP, for obvious reasons. (It's a good thing I went through twice, as I missed the Tamil Main Page and the Sakha-Sakha page.) I uploaded all those screenshots except the Malayalam WP ones here; unfortunately, computer doesn't have proper Malayalam rendering, and it's just a black banner with a bunch of squares. But I saved the webpage source in both cases, so if someone who has Malayalam rendering wants to, it's reconstructable.
I'm not sure if this counts as WP:OR, but it is verifiable (even if you think I have the language skills and patience to doctor these, it should be easy for anyone who speaks the language to find the relevant discussion on that particular wiki); These are the Wikipedias that ran banners (The Polish, Indonesian, and Chinese banners are small, but there.)
During the English SOPA protest, the Navajo Wikipedia ran a floating image that blocked some of the text
  • Albanian
  • Arabic
  • Aragonese
  • Bengali
  • Bosnian
  • Bulgarian
  • Catalan
  • Chinese
  • Croatian
  • Danish
  • Dutch
  • Estonian
  • Georgian
  • German
  • Greek
  • Indonesian
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Malay
  • Malayalam
  • Navajo
  • Norwegian
  • Polish
  • Portuguese
  • Russian
  • Sakha
  • Serbian
  • Serbo-Croatian
  • Slovak
  • Spanish
  • Swedish
  • Tamil
  • Turkish
  • Ukrainian
  • Vietnamese
Regards, --Quintucket (talk) 00:47, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is no way to know whether the community supported the blackout

Because the blackout was only announced to the community (via prominent banners) once a decision was ALREADY MADE. This article makes it seem like this was the decision of the community instead of a few administrators. --35.16.55.80 (talk) 19:34, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The statement is that of the 1200-some editors that responded a majority supported the blackout, leading to its implementation. It clearly can't be that be taken as a sign of the full community supporting it, only those that responded. --MASEM (t) 19:36, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It should be noted in the article that the community was not property consulted. --35.16.55.80 (talk) 19:39, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
We can't make that statement without a secondary source that calls out this situation. ("Proper consultation" in a community that uses consensus is vague anyway. How many editors need to participate to be proper? There's no framework or practical measure for that. We can note the opposition to this and if editors felt there was a problem, we can certainly call out to that, but again, sourcing needed.) --MASEM (t) 19:42, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
From my point of view, I did not have enough time to make up my mind whether to support or object to the blackout proposal, before the decision was taken to implement it. --Ritchie333 (talk) 19:48, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This is irrelevant to the article; your opinions constitute original research, it must be discussed in reliable independent sources to give due weight. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:57, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I concur. I mean, in you sentence you expressly say, from YOUR POINT OF VIEW. POV is exactly what we try to avoid. This is not a forum for us to discuss our opinions on the blackout. It's for us to discuss changes to the articles based on reliable sources.204.65.34.175 (talk) 19:59, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's an interesting point. As far as I know, there's no framework (e.i. policy) at all for how to go about recommending, discussing, approving, and implementing a blackout. If there was one, then we should link to it to help our readers understand when and how Wikipedia will and or will not implement a blackout. Rklawton (talk) 20:35, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Depends on who's "the community". Usually when a discussion leads to a poll it is announced in the talk pages of related articles and Projects, which are watched by hundreds or sometimes thousands of editors, of whom tens or rarely hundreds respond over the course of a few days or a week or two, and the result is taken as being from "the community" of editors concerned with that particular class of question. That's what happened this time, and it was perhaps the biggest "community" poll ever, but is it equally correct in this case to accept as "the community" the few thousand who were informed that a poll was in progress? I feel it isn't, but absent a definition in precendent, my feeling no more applies to what we say in article space than contrary ones do.
The vote was announced for some days prior in a big black banner talking about a proposed blackout. It was short notice given that the idea was raised last-minute, but if you logged on in the three days or so prior to the blackout, it would have been hard to miss that banner. --Quintucket (talk) 00:58, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Accessing Wikipedia during the blackout

I want to put ways people accessed Wikipedia during the blackout, in the Response; During the blackout section. Since it is a response of what people did in reaction to the blackout. Though it is not a political response; it is what happened. I know it wasn't meant to be a complete blackout; and by telling people the methods they could have accessed Wikipedia, and by stating it wasn't meant to be a complete blackout we can inform them. Here is the part I want to put in :

During the blackout

The Wikimedia Foundation reported that...

During the day of January 18...

Many people who needed access to Wikipedia, was able to access its contents by disabling Javascript on their brower, trying to hit the Escape key before Javascript loads. There were other methods such as accessing a moblie version Wikipedia, using Google cache, or going to a mirror such as The Free Dictionary Encyclopedia.

I have source from extremetech. Pseudoanonymous (talk) 21:56, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We've already mentioned that the site was accessible by other means. The "how" no longer really matters, nor appropriate (per WP:NOT#HOWTO among a hint of POVness.) The ability to access was intentional by the Foundation so it wasn't "omg, we found a loophole!" --MASEM (t) 21:59, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
CTV News in Canada reported on all those methods as a national news story, during the blackout. They also seemed to take a tongue-in-cheek tone towards the protest and WP itself. I agree the exact methods fail the WP:NOT#HOWTO test but CTV's response - a national news site basically saying "if you really need to know whether or not a chinchilla is a rodent, just do this" - was significant, if only as an example of a major media organization not taking it all so deadly serious.139.48.25.60 (talk) 22:31, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There is probably a section worthy for the discussing some of the tongue-in-cheek "wikipedia's down , what do we dooooo?" responses that came out, this would be part of it. --MASEM (t) 22:33, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality, and the appropriateness of an encyclopedia boycott

There should be a section about how many people question the appropriateness of a purportedly "neutral" encyclopedia participating in a protest - a decidedly non-neutral (and downright hostile, in my opinion, to those users outside the USA) act. SOPA supporter (talk) 03:43, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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