On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 8:07 AM, Pradeep Mohandas <pradeep.mohandas@gmail.com> wrote:

hi,

Commons was blocked in my college too. All it took for me to get it
unblocked was a 25 min conversation with Head of IT dept. She did the
needful to unblock Commons. Suggest talking to the college's/cyber
cafe's network administrator first to unblocking websites.

This is the best way forward, the IT admin of colleges, cafes always have the option of overriding default filter lists. Students/colleges should be encouraged to get contact the admins and get commons/wikipedia unblocked and have free unrestricted access just like the local intranet. it will encourage using wikipedia as a reference and more students to contribute.

I remember i needed to pay to browse the web at my engg college. i had made a request to make wikipedia free for access, but back at the time in 2005, the admins did not take it seriously, times might have changed now.