Pledge support to Wikipedia if they do a SOPA blackout | Hacker News Reader

Pledge support to Wikipedia if they do a SOPA blackout

wikipediablackout.com

143 pointsyanowitz24 comments

I support an HN blackout, a Reddit blackout, and I would even be happy, if somewhat hesitant, about a Wikipedia blackout.

But I absolutely do not support the conditional donation (excuse me, payment) to Wikipedia to get it to take a particular political stance, even if that stance concerns its long term survival. This is worse than "donate to a politician, hope they vote your way" -- this is "pay Wikipedia money if and only if it performs a specific action on a specific date and time." That goes so far against why I love Wikipedia, and why it performs such a unique service. Small, tight teams, no strings attached donations, unfettered public input. Those are things worth preserving and fighting for, but not at the cost of those things themselves.

I would hope Wikipedia returns the money or donates it to some other worthy cause in the event of a blackout. Culture of an institution is a delicate thing, and where and, perhaps more importantly, why you get your money can dramatically shift that culture one way or another. Wikipedia has a great culture. Is that really worth risking?

I agree. Money should not be required for an org to do the right thing, esp when it costs $0 (this probably saves them money!)

I believe they have already allowed restricted donations for years, yet discourage it due to overhead. They can not retake restricted donations and give it to a worthy cause. They can only use it as specified or refund it.

Yea, this string of "give cash to Wikipedia to motivate them" is starting to leave a sour taste in my mouth. How long before they refuse to do things just to stimulate a new wave of cash?

Agreed. I made my donation to the WMF during their last fundraising round, and I'm participating in the discussions about a blackout. That's the extent of the influence I feel comfortable attempting to exert.

The proposal comes from the right place, but it goes against everything Wikipedia stands for.

I pledged. In fact I'll donate $100 if they blackout. Those who oppose blackouts claim that sites like wikipedia google might lose money, or that they are essential services like utilities. I'm not sure if the essential service analogy is valid, but it doesn't matter: correct me if I'm wrong but the letter of the law of SOPA says that wikipedia.org can be wiped off the internet as soon as it passes without ANY due process, just because some people have uploaded images they don't own copyright for. Of course, apologists will note that shutting wikipedia down won't happen, because the bill is aimed at stuff like counterfeiters and torrents. To this I can only say it won't be the first thing that happens. What it does is that it gives the US government a guillotine around wikipedia's neck that they could pull at any moment: the legal power and infrastructure for shutting it down. This is a total affront to the independence of wikipedia as a non-profit organisation (and to google & facebook as corporations).

By pledging we can reduce the cost of a blackout, make it more economically viable for them, so they do it and show the world that if wikipedia(google, facebook) really are essential, then their independence should be protected from the growing nationalistic forces of the US government.

This has probably been beaten to death but I wouldn't support a Google or Wikipedia blackout. What if someone were bitten by a snake, snapped a photo of the snake, and needed to look up the type of snake in order to administer the right anti-venom? I bet you anything doctors these days are using the web to do quick checks just as the rest of us do in our day jobs.

On the other hand, homepage placement for Google or something on every page of Wikipedia for a day would be nice.

FB is non-critical but I wouldn't expect them to go for it. They are off on their own island of hubris and not about to cooperate with any other organization, much less with Google who is encroaching on their social territory.

If twitter did it the entertainment industry + followers would be running around with their heads cut off

What will happen if these sites are taken down permanently and someone needs to look up the type of snake?

Then the perpetrator will be the evil one.

I understand your point that only the most extreme action will raise awareness. I don't think we're at that stage yet. Anyone know if there's a vote announced or when the vote would be expected?

There is a 0% chance SOPA will lead to Wikipedia or Google being taken down permanently.

No, but it may well lead to increased legal costs for Wikipedia, as well as forcing them to hire people to ensure no copyrighted material is posted (a daunting task on a site that size). Those increased costs could seriously affect their ability to continue to finance themselves through donations.

How do I know if I donate through this site that Wikipedia will actually get the money.

Also the domain registration is private and through GoDaddy too. (less credibility to me)

(I'd gladly donate to wikipedia, but not through this site)

EDIT: I thought they were taking the donations, my bad. It's a demand progress site. Odd that they'd still use GoDaddy (even if GoDaddy eventually denounced SOPA).

GoDaddy has not denounced PIPA, and at any rate the BSA is still on the ball as well. GoDaddy is playing both sides of the game.

If Wikipedia follows through, I definitely intend to donate more than one dollar. I hope this can get some traction, as it would really help the fight against SOPA if they participated.

I don't know if anyone cares, but Wikipedians have been discussing a SOPA action for some months now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative

The Wikimedia Foundation will support whatever the community decides. And the community is not waiting for a "money bomb" or whatever. So I don't think donations are going to matter in the slightest.

Activists' support for a boycott may influence it a little bit, but it's really going to be a matter of consensus, and then someone in the community stepping up to the plate to implement something.

The proposals have "triggers" attached, like, "if SOPA is going to a floor vote, trigger blackout 48 hours beforehand" (that's just an example). Nobody has yet talked about a trigger in sympathy with a site like Reddit.

In my opinion, while it might make sense for Reddit to go dark when kn0thing is testifying before a committee, I think there is some risk of weighing in too early. You can't do this sort of thing twice.

There is an error around "I'm not in the US". I had to manually run javascript:go_foreign().

I had this error too. To "manually run" the javascript, replace the URL in the URL bar by "javascript:go_foreign()" w/o the quotes and press enter.

This doesn't work for me, "Uncaught ReferenceError: go_foreign is not defined"

And there are no contact details, so we can't even tell them that their page is broken.

edit: Taking a gamble on emailing the registrant.

I support the blackout, and the company I work at is trying to figure out how to support it (we aren't consumer facing), but isn't influencing the site through money the kind of thing Wikipedia wanted to avoid by not allowing advertisements?

The "(I'm not in the US)" link is broken.

It's : "http://act.demandprogress.orgjavascript:go_foreign()

Should be : "javascript:go_foreign()"

How about we pledge $1 for every day, starting now, that they blackout until both PIPA and SOPA are killed unceremoniously? Why wait, just do it now.

As a frequent Wikipedia reader, I support the minimum blackout period necessary to generate mainstream media coverage and no more.

Don't worry, I'm sure there are enough people like you where it wouldn't take very long. Leahy's staffers, for instance.

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