[Foundation-l] Blackout at Italian Wikipedia

[Nathan]

On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 9:54 AM, Donaldo Papero <pap3rinik at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Nathan,
>
> my name is Giovanni (Donaldo stands for Donald [Duck], and is related to my
> nickname ;))
>
> You are right in understanding that this lock is a way to raise a discussion
> about a proposed law, which has been developed without any consideration
> about the consequences on Wikipedia (or disregarding it: we already tryed,
> in the past, to stess such consequences). In no way our reaction wants to be
> "political" nor "lobbying" as our only concern is about encyclopedia
> content: there is no way to make it compliant an unchangeable text (the
> required amendment) and a wiki, an amendment that can be required also if a
> statement is true and referenced, with Wikipedia citations policies.
>
> Regards
> Giovanni AKA Pap3rinik

Thanks Giovanni.

Reading the discussion (with Google-glasses), it looks like there are
about 40 people in favor of the lock (with only several opposed), and
the lock is planned for "sine die" or until a decision to unlock it is
taken by the community. It's not clear that the discussion has reached
an endpoint. It does seem like the protest statement could be
improved, perhaps with relevant links to contact politicians etc.

I wonder, would this work almost as well as a rather large sitenotice?
Or perhaps an intermediate page before you reach your intended
article? By that I mean - you click on the link you want, you get
taken to a landing page with a notice first, and then you have to
click a "Continue" button to get to your article. That way people can
still access the encyclopedia, but they also get the message.

Nathan