[WikiEN-l] helping access Wikipedia from censored connections

[Anthony]

It's kind of unclear what you're doing.  What kind of censorship are
you fighting against, the Chinese kind, or the Wikipedia Administrator
kind?  If the former, I'm not sure wikien-l has a lot of people who
need that kind of thing.  If the latter, well, talking on wikien-l
about how to circumvent wikien policies is probably not going to get a
lot of response.

On 7/2/07, Bennett Haselton <bennett at peacefire.org> wrote:
> I was a bit surprised not to see any replies to this.  Is this topic better
> suited to a different list?
>
> At 03:07 PM 6/30/2007 -0700, Bennett Haselton wrote:
> >Re-greetings,
> >
> >A few months ago I was here for a very interesting discussion about
> >Wikipedia vs. Citizendium and in particular about the idea of having teams
> >
> >of identity-verified "experts" who could take custody of articles to help
> >prevent errors and vandalism.  This time I'm asking about something less
> >controversial.  Well, maybe :)
> >
> >Peacefire runs a network of proxy sites like
> >https://www.StupidCensorship.com/ for getting around Internet filtering;
> >unlike most proxy sites which are widely known and get blocked quickly, we
> >
> >encourage people to sign up to receive e-mail updates whenever we create
> >new sites, and since it usually takes a few days for newly mailed sites to
> >
> >get blocked, most of our users are usually able to use the latest one
> >we've
> >mailed out.  One of the most frequent comments from our users is that
> >they're glad that they can get on Wikipedia through the proxies.  So how
> >can we help get the word out to more Wikipedians -- many of whom are
> >undoubtedly not aware of the easy methods for accessing Wikipedia from
> >censored networks?  (That is, they probably know about proxies, but may
> >not
> >know how to get an unlimited supply of proxies so the latest one is always
> >
> >unblocked.)  Our organization's whole purpose is to help people get around
> >
> >Internet blocking, so every time we help someone gain access to Wikipedia,
> >
> >we're achieving our mission and, presumably, helping Wikipedia achieve
> >theirs as well.
> >
> >We're willing to spend the money on the hardware and the bandwidth for the
> >
> >proxies to help people get access, so how can we do it in a way that
> >benefits Wikipedia users the most?  (Disclaimer: we do get some money back
> >
> >from the ads that runs on our site, but not at a profit; we just barely
> >break even on the ads right now.  So there may not be quite the same
> >"halo"
> >around these services as there is around the bandwidth and hardware that's
> >
> >donated outright to Wikipedia for free :)  However, to be constantly
> >setting up new dedicated sites to help people get around Internet
> >blocking,
> >requires creating new accounts with different hosting companies all the
> >time, and it would be impractical to try and get each of them to agree to
> >provide pro bono services each time we set up a new site, which is why we
> >have to spend money for that and why the ads help to pay for it.)
> >
> >Since Wikipedia does have articles about subjects such as sexuality that
> >are often blocked in schools, I recognize there might be a minority of
> >Wikipedia supporters who nonetheless feel that the site *should* be
> >blocked
> >from students, but I'm hoping that the vast majority of Wikipedians would
> >not feel that way.  First of all, most blocking programs claim not to
> >block
> >sites that deal with those subjects in an "educational" context, which
> >means the vast majority of articles on Wikipedia, even those about topics
> >like sex, should not be blocked, by the companies' own stated
> >criteria.  Second, I think most reasonable people would agree that
> >virtually every teenager could read almost everything on Wikipedia without
> >
> >"harm", and that the educational benefits are enormous.  (Well, they would
> >
> >be if you had experts sign off on the articles.  *ducks*)
> >
> >So, what can we do to help?  If we had an unlimited budget for
> >circumvention services, how could we best use it to help
> >Wikipedia?  (Whatever the answer to that would be, there's probably a way
> >we can achieve some part of it, even on a limited budget.)  In addition to
> >
> >just providing the sites, there might be times when if a new Wikipedia
> >feature is being released, for example, we could do cross-platform testing
> >
> >to see if it's compatible with our proxies so we can alert users to any
> >issues.  What do you all think?
> >
> >         -Bennett
> >
> >bennett at peacefire.org     http://www.peacefire.org
> >(425) 497 9002
> >
> >
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