Robert Scott Horning wrote:
With the control over information that the Chinese government has, it doesn't really surprise me or shock me in the least. The shocking thing was that they premitted as much as they did. In some ways, having the communist government ban Wikipedia may be the best thing that could have happened. It will get international attention to the project, particularly when the international press realizes that Wikipedia is even in Chinese and many other languages as well. It will also stop the cautious attitude that editors on the Chinese Wikipedia have had so far to try and avoid pissing off the Chinese government, strongly affecting POV issues. The only worry I would see now is that the zh.wikipedia doesn't go too far the other way in becoming a forum for Chinese dissidents.
In case you haven't noticed, Wikipedia has been blocked and unblocked in China several times already, and I'm sure will be several times in the future.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)