--- Jiong Sheng sheng.jiong@gmail.com wrote on Wikipedia-l:
Now I think if the ban is still not lifted for another week, we shall have a press release about this. I agree with mav that if the whole world knows about it Chinese government will lift the ban, just like what it did to Google in 2002.
I know at least Slashdot will cover the story. But whether or not the story goes beyond that is up to the news cycle at the time.
We do need to confirm that this is 1) real 2) not a mistake Otherwise we could be creating a lot of bad press for ourselves (I don't believe in the adage that there is no such thing as bad press). If we do this right, then we could at the very least garner a great deal of public support and increased awareness of the project. Hopefully that will be enough to shame the PRC into lifting the block. It is sad to think that the recent good press about the Chinese Wikipedia may have been what brought the PRC's attention to us.
Another possible choice is to consult a lawyer in PRC. There was a case last December, when a Hong Kong reporter brought a political magazine into mainland and was confiscated by the Custom. He sued the local government and won the case. I believe that we have to fight for this freedom. If we keep quiet then they will never lift the ban.
Lawyers are expensive (even pro-bono ones). So I hope this does not come to that. We could set up a Wikimedia legal defense fund to help pay the expenses of pro-bono lawyers if the need arises though.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Friends. Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger. http://messenger.yahoo.com/