Ilario writes:
We have two ways: to be passive or to be active. If we choose the passivity, it means that we can only organize a system of proxies like done in China or to organize some workarounds to make Wikipedia available to the person living in totalitarism.
The Italian community has demonstrated that they would be active: I live in Switzerland, where Italian is a national language, and I can assure that the Swiss users have understood the problem and approved the strike.
I have great respect for Ray and others who worry that a strike somehow undercuts the mission of the Wikimedia movement. But (and I'm speaking only for myself here) I think Ilario's point here is valid -- sometimes the movement has to take active steps to draw attention to the consequences of bad laws and bad government action. And a strike is sometimes the best, most effective way to do that.
Ray's point about language groups not being limited to particular countries (e.g., the Swiss who speak Italian, and the many nations that speak English or Spanish) is an important one, but there is more than one way to implement a strike. Properly implemented (by IP ranges, for example) a strike could be limited, more or less, to a single country.
One of the things I did some preliminary investigation about when I was a staff member for Wikimedia Foundation was whether a strike of the sort we've just seen would be workable. I came to the conclusion that it would be, provided it was done with approval of the Wikimedians in the nation or geographical territory where the bad law or bad government action was taking place.
Again, speaking only for myself, I believe the Italian Wikimedians made the right choice, and I believe that, so long as this tactic is not overused, a strike may be the best and most effective response to other anti-free-speech events in the future.
--Mike
On Sun, Oct 9, 2011 at 4:03 AM, Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com wrote:
Again, speaking only for myself, I believe the Italian Wikimedians made the right choice, and I believe that, so long as this tactic is not overused, a strike may be the best and most effective response to other anti-free-speech events in the future.
I agree.
Ilario writes:
We have two ways: to be passive or to be active. If we choose the passivity, it means that we can only organize a system of proxies like done in China or to organize some workarounds to make Wikipedia available to the person living in totalitarism.
The Italian community has demonstrated that they would be active: I live in Switzerland, where Italian is a national language, and I can assure that the Swiss users have understood the problem and approved the strike.
I live in Italy and I was among those one who worked on http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Comunicato_4_ottobre_2011/en . I think it was the right choice because it was the most effective action realistically able to save both Wikipedia integrity and Wikipedia accessibility from Italy (in case law gets approved, if wikipedia denies to amend the article in the requested way, police may obscure it). Now, after this experience, I think that, to avoid these strikes to happen, we, WMF and language wikipedias shall provide more informations about IP privacy policy and about proxies. For example, why dont translate http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tor and/or http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:No_open_proxies in more and more languages to make people aware on how to edit freely wikipedia when it isnt allowed by laws? Why dont allow Ip block exemptions for TOR when wikipedians are strongly biased by local laws? Nickanc
Nickanc Wikipedia, 10/10/2011 22:59:
Why dont allow Ip block exemptions for TOR when wikipedians are strongly biased by local laws?
This is already possible on all wikis with ipblock-exempt group and is/was used mainly for Chinese wikipedians AFAIK. Everybody happily editing on clandestinity is not really a solution.
Nemo
Yes, there are these groups, but in most wikipedias they have few persons inside it and they have almost no policy; moreover if you look for global ipblock exempt you may found that they are still vulnerable to IP and IP range blocks made locally on individual wikis (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_blocks_and_bans#Global_IP_block_exempt... ). so, for example, how could a chinese write on it.wiki? or, if Berlusconi's law will get approved, how could italians write freely on all wikis, if in fact there is no global ipblock exempt?
2011/10/11 Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com:
Nickanc Wikipedia, 10/10/2011 22:59:
Why dont allow Ip block exemptions for TOR when wikipedians are strongly biased by local laws?
This is already possible on all wikis with ipblock-exempt group and is/was used mainly for Chinese wikipedians AFAIK. Everybody happily editing on clandestinity is not really a solution.
Nemo
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Nickanc Wikipedia, 12/10/2011 14:21:
Yes, there are these groups, but in most wikipedias they have few persons inside it and they have almost no policy;
That's because few people need it. In it wiki basta una riga in [[WP:RA]], secondo me.
moreover if you look for global ipblock exempt you may found that they are still vulnerable to IP and IP range blocks made locally on individual wikis (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_blocks_and_bans#Global_IP_block_exempt... ). so, for example, how could a chinese write on it.wiki? or, if Berlusconi's law will get approved, how could italians write freely on all wikis, if in fact there is no global ipblock exempt?
Only very few users seriously edit on multiple wikis and for interwikis or such very minor edits they could use a sockpuppet, in your hypothetical example. The global-ipblock-exempt includes global torunblocked permission, anyway.
Nemo
Grazie! :)
2011/10/13 Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com:
Nickanc Wikipedia, 12/10/2011 14:21:
Yes, there are these groups, but in most wikipedias they have few persons inside it and they have almost no policy;
That's because few people need it. In it wiki basta una riga in [[WP:RA]], secondo me.
moreover if you look for global ipblock exempt you may found that they are still vulnerable to IP and IP range blocks made locally on individual wikis (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_blocks_and_bans#Global_IP_block_exempt... ). so, for example, how could a chinese write on it.wiki? or, if Berlusconi's law will get approved, how could italians write freely on all wikis, if in fact there is no global ipblock exempt?
Only very few users seriously edit on multiple wikis and for interwikis or such very minor edits they could use a sockpuppet, in your hypothetical example. The global-ipblock-exempt includes global torunblocked permission, anyway.
Nemo
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