[Foundation-l] Anti-ACTA protest tomorrow in Belgrade and blackout of Serbian Wikipedia

[Yaroslav M. Blanter]

On Fri, 24 Feb 2012 12:51:13 -0500, Marc Riddell
<michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>> It's really unfortunate that blacking out Wikimedia projects is
becoming
>> an
>> accepted method of protest. Maybe we should start keeping track of how
>> often different projects are blacked out, and for what purpose. When it
>> happened to the Italian Wikipedia, it was a first-ever event that no
one
>> thought would happen again. When it happened to the English Wikipedia,
it
>> was a uniquely forceful global statement that many argued might never
>> happen again for many reasons. Now Serbia, next who knows?
> 
> Nathan, what problems do you see with this method of protest?
> 
> Marc Riddell
> 

I am not Nathan, but the obvious argument is that a strong medicine only
remains strong if used rarely. If one starts using it on a regular basis
one gets adapted and the medicine does not have the required action
anymore. The same thing is here: one can blank out a Wikipedia main page
for a day and to exercise protest, but the protest is only visible if the
blanking is exceptional. If it starts to happen on a monthly basis, the
only reaction would be that people get upset because Wikipedia is not
available.

Cheers
Yaroslav

PS I have no idea about the Serbian situation, and I am glad they do not
need to discuss it anymore.