[Wikimedia-l] Russian Wikipedia goes on strike

[Yaroslav M. Blanter]

On Wed, 11 Jul 2012 10:14:48 -0400, Anthony wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 11, 2012 at 10:02 AM, Yaroslav M. Blanter
> <putevod at mccme.ru> wrote:
>> The law just passed the third reading without any changes. It has to 
>> be now
>> signed by the president and will be enforced in the present form on 
>> November
>> 1, 2012.
>
> So is this going to shut down Russian Wikipedia?  I still don't see
> what the language has to do with anything.  The Russians don't have a
> monopoly over the use of the Russian language (especially given that
> there are countries other than Russia where Russian is widely 
> spoken).
>

No, it does not, at least immediately. There is nothing in the law 
which is directly dangerous for Wikipedia. The fear is that due to the 
absence of intependent courts, some official may want to shut down the 
whole Wikipedia because they do not like an article about them or 
because they consider it a "conductor of American style of life" or 
whatever, it becomes indeed easy, and it would be very difficult if not 
impossible to reverse the decision. Btw the law does not specify the 
language, so that Russian Wikipedia is certainly not the only WMF 
project affected (though the most obvious one).

Cheers
Yaroslav