2008/5/19 Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org:
In China, members of the local Wikipedia community wrote letters to the people in power there, encouraging them to unblock Wikipedia. They talked to the press and put their case forward. This was briefly successful, Wikipedia was unblocked for a few months, until orders came through from a higher authority for it to be reblocked. As a result, Wikipedia is not popular in China. It won't become popular unless it is unblocked, or unless the block ceases to be enforced.
Note, by the way, that Wikimedia still (as far as I know) has had no official contacts or requests on the topic of making Wikipedia more suitable for the PRC government.
- d.