[Foundation-l] Blackout at Italian Wikipedia

[Nathan]

On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 9:12 AM, Donaldo Papero <pap3rinik at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Here are the facts: the Italian parliament will discuss within few days –
> and most likely approve – a law which, among the other things, will
> introduce the duty, for every web site (included, and not limited to,
> Wikipedia) to publish amendments to previously published information.
>
> According to the proposal (
> http://www.senato.it/service/PDF/PDFServer/BGT/00484629.pdf), the required
> amendment cannot be modified, nor commented, and must be placed in article’s
> body, in the same format and with the same visibility of the allegedly
> defaming text.
> Moreover: the amendment must be published upon every request, without taking
> into account whether the information is true or not and whether references
> are available for it or not.
>
> Also, please, be aware of the fact that (as for the recent Google and
> Microsoft cases) the principle that the proposed law is going to introduce
> will be applicable to “all” sites, not only Italian’s: if somebody from
> Italy will post any information on, say, en.wikip, the rule will make it
> mandatory for en.wikip to post an amendment, if required. Which, at least,
> will mean incoming legal issues or inquiries to be managed by WMF, with
> related expenses. In short words: this rule, if approved, will be a complete
> mess for Wikipedia.
>
> Because of such a risk (it’s easily understandable that this rule will make
> encyclopedia articles as pure “frames” for unchangeable text imposed by
> others), the Italian community has decided, by a vast majority (see
> http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bar/Discussioni/Comma_29_e_Wikipedia)
>  to lock both read and write access to encyclopedia articles and to publish
> the following text as full screen sitenotice:
> http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utente:Vituzzu/comunicato (an English
> translation is available here:
> http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utente:Vituzzu/comunicato/en). This decision
> will be implemented as soon as possible, during the next 12 hours.
>
> Giovanni AKA Pap3rinik (sysop at it.wikip)
>
>


Hi Giovanni (or Donaldo?),

Has anyone at it.wp been in touch with Foundation staff? Locking a
major wiki seems like a pretty big step, perhaps they could provide
some advice or resources? Am I correct in understanding this lock as a
protest of the proposed law, since it hasn't been discussed or voted
upon in parliament yet? Such a political protest seems like an
unprecedented step for a Wikimedia project.

Nathan