[Foundation-l] WP edit/access blocking in the UK - statement from the WMF

[Michael Bimmler]

On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 12:41 PM, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> geni wrote:
>> 2008/12/8 Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com>:
>>> A link
>>>
>>> http://stats.grok.se/en/200812/Virgin_Killer
>>>
>>> Ant
>>>
>>
>> More up to date:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Popular_articles
>>
>> If the current rate continued we would be looking at close on half a
>> million views of that article today.
>
> A sudden thought... and what if the whole story had been entirely made
> up ? As in "Amazon staff member made the complain to the UK foundation
> in hope it would give a kick to the album sale ?"
>
> Right, I am dreaming, but I like the "what ifs" :-)
>

Mhm....that would be a risky move for whomever profits from increased
sales of the album...although coverage is surprisingly pro-Wikipedia
at the moment, (allegations of) child pornography do not make for very
good PR in general.

I think the consensus on this list (or wikimediauk-l?) was that the
album cover is rather tasteless and objectionable, albeit not illegal.
I would guess that the public does not view the image much more
favorably than the participants of this list, so the band will now
forever have this "nude child on cover"-story attached to it. As said,
not really good PR in the long term although surely profits might go
up at the moment. Though, incidentally, is it not more likely that
people would only go to the shops (physical or virtual ones) to see
the cover without actually buying the album itself? I'm not sure
whether many people think that just because the album has a
controversial cover, they should buy it (as opposed to "having a look
at it in-store")

Michael




-- 
Michael Bimmler
mbimmler at gmail.com