Dear friends,
This email is very Wikimedia specific. I come to you with a request that I think many of you will have an interest in.
My colleague at WMF, Chuck Roslof, is leading an initiative to review policies and practices related to when project banners are run or temporary logo changes are made...particularly when these actions touch on public policy issues.
Since this group encompasses some of the most politically active Wikimedians, I know many of you have firsthand experience running campaigns where you either considered, or decided, to run banners on projects. Examples that come to mind are the 2017 Italian Wikipedia sitenotice for Response [1] to the 2017 ban in Turkey [2], as well as the European Parliament vote in 2018 that triggered shutdowns of Wikipedias and some sister projects in multiple languages [3]. In 2019 a series of banners and shutdowns took place for the same reasons [4]. You can read more about this effort on Meta-Wiki [5].
Do you have campaign examples to share where you ran a banner or changed a logo? On the Meta-Wiki you can see the examples we have already collected. Help us fill the gaps, either by adding examples directly or email it to croslof@wikimedia.org.
Thanks, Ziski __ [1] https://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Sitenotice&oldid=87... [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Response_to_2017_ban_in_Turkey [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_vote_in_2018 [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Copyright_2019 [5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Legal/Update_to_banner_...
On Thu, 23 Jan 2025, fputz@wikimedia.org wrote:
Dear friends,
This email is very Wikimedia specific. I come to you with a request that I think many of you will have an interest in.
Sometimes a decision not to take part in a political action helps the cause anyway:
Days after the English Wikipedia blackout related to SOPA (already on your list) we've had a very heated dicussion in Poland about Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), leading to a blackout of many websites - including some huge ones, like Polish counterparts of eBay (Allegro) and reddit/digg (wykop.pl).
After 19 January 2012, when Polish government announced the decision to sign the treaty, that thing went mainstream and has been in the media everywhere across the country for weeks. In the end, we have managed to regain the ground and turn the tide against the treaty, leading to the reversal of the government position re ACTA, which in turn prompted other European countries to follow the suit.
The blackout of the English Wikipedia become news in Poland (Jimmy Wales quoted as the "chief" of Wikipedia [1]), but Polish community couldn't gather consensus to pursue the blackout on pl.wiki.
Nevertheless, even the decision not to shut down the site has been reported[2]. Paweł Zienowicz, the spokesman of the Polish Wikimedia chapter at the time, issued a nuanced statement [3] that, despite the lack of agreement among the community, pointed out the dangers of SOPA/PIPA and the upcoming ACTA to the way Wikipedia works. The statement has been widely quoted in the media.
A brief summary of the zeitgeist back then can be found in the article deletion discussions [4]. The main question seems to be: to what extent a political event can be considered a threat to Wikipedia itself and its community, and whether protest action should be launched in the name of volunteer editors despite neutral point of view and other pillars.
On a personal note, as I was one of the public faces of the Internet community at the time, a withdrawn draft of community statement on ACTA[4] has been moved to my user space[5], although I wasn't even the author of the text.
With the blackout or not, we've had a great time - as can be seen on our "situation room" photo [6]. One of us - Adam Bodnar (sitting at the book shelf, wearing green) is the current minister of justice of Poland... and so it goes.
Marcin User:Saper
[1] https://interaktywnie.com/biznes/artykuly/wywiady/co-dalej-z-wikipedia-jej-s... [2] https://polskieradio24.pl/artykul/522796,Polska-Wikipedia-nie-bedzie-strajko... (Polish public radio) [3] https://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/O%C5%9Bwiadczenie_w_sprawie_protestu_przeciw_S... [4] https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Poczekalnia/artyku%C5%82y/2012:01:25... [5] https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedysta:Saper/ACTA [6] https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plik:Spotkanie_przed_Improwizowanym_Kongresem_...
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