[Foundation-l] Blackout at Italian Wikipedia

[Donaldo Papero]

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)


> Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 18:16:41 +0530
> From: Theo10011 <de10011 at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Foundation-l] Blackout at Italian Wikipedia
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
>        <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
>  Hi
>
> There seems to be a situation developing at Italian Wikipedia related to a
> local law that would infringe neutrality on Wikipedia. The discussions even
> mention a possible blackout/lockdown in reaction.
>
> Is anyone aware of this situation? Is it likely to have any effect on other
> projects and outside communities? Is WMF aware since it is mentioned in the
> discussion as well.
>
> The announcement that was linked to on IRC:
> https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utente:Vituzzu/comunicato/en
>
> A discussion which might be relevant:
> http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bar/Discussioni/Comma_29_e_Wikipedia
>
>
> Theo
>