[Foundation-l] Blackout at Italian Wikipedia

[Ilario Valdelli]

On 08.10.2011 11:11, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
> I'm happy that the Italian language Wikipedia is back in business, and I
> hope that in the future projects will find better ways to protest than
> suicide strategies.  The key point is that Wikipedias are based on
> languages, not countries. For Italian there is a high correlation
> between language and country, but that does not mean that there are no
> readers in neighboring countries nor in the larger Italian diaspora.
> Other major languages are official in several important countries, and
> it would not do to shut one of them down in response to a bad proposed
> law in only one country.
>
> Protesting bad laws should be a responsibility that belongs at the
> chapter level, under the assumption that it is the chapter that is most
> familiar with the laws of its country, and what can be done with the
> least harm to those around them.
>
> Ray
Honestly I don't appreciate this kind of analysis.

It's like to say that the strikes are disruptive because the strikes are 
bad for business.

If the strikes would not be disruptive, probably no one will defend 
their rights with strikes.

In that way I would say that the strike of it.wikipedia has demonstrated 
that it.wikipedia needs to have some rights to be alive.

We have two ways: to be passive or to be active. If we choose the 
passivity, it means that we can only organize a system of proxies like 
done in China or to organize some workarounds to make Wikipedia 
available to the person living in totalitarism.

The Italian community has demonstrated that they would be active: I live 
in Switzerland, where Italian is a national language, and I can assure 
that the Swiss users have understood the problem and approved the strike.

I agree that Wikipedia must not close for any kind of problems, for 
example to solve economic problems or to solve the problem of 
desertification, but there were in discussion some principles that would 
have put Wikipedia to operate "without freedom" (I would underline this 
point "without freedom").

Here there were in discussions some principles that would have broken 
some pillars of Wikipedia: it means *a free and neutral information*.

Italian Wikipedia has defended these pillars and not a "general" problem.

I have not understood the points of some persons saying that Italian 
community has broken the settlement with the users.

There is no sense to food a body if this body is risking his health. I 
need to heal the body and after to food it. If I can heal and food it, 
it would be better.

In my opinion some persons here think that the pillars of Wikipedia are 
like the Tables of the Law of the Holy Bible, they EMANATE freedom and 
neutrality with their presence. Probably we need to be sure that we 
apply them in Wikipedia but also that the local government give us the 
ability to *apply* them.

Please be kind that the whole world is not like US or Canada.

Please don't "globalize" the world with the idea that the pillars of 
Wikipedia can be applied in any countries as you apply them in North 
America.

In some places the pillars of Wikipedia can generate conflicts.

Ilario