[Wikimedia-l] TVTropes deletes all pages with "Rape" in title under advertising pressure.

[Andreas Kolbe]

On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 5:39 AM, Theo10011 <de10011 at gmail.com> wrote:

> So, a chain of events during a 4 month period can not be incidental. What
> you neglect to mention that there was an annual fundraiser during the end
> of the year, this was not the first grant Google made to Wikimedia, in
> fact, it might not even be the second, they donated in the past fundraisers
> as well, larger amounts I believe. I am thinking of the 2
> Million received from Google in 2010.
>


I know Google gave 2 million in 2010, though I am unsure whether that makes
Google influence less or more likely.

To recap, posters here said that what happened to TV Tropes – i.e. Google
influencing their content decisions – couldn't happen to Wikipedia. That
seems rather blue-eyed.



> Now, far be it for me to defend Jimmy, but the central assumption in your
> polemic is, that jimmy is devoid of caring about any social issues, issues
> that might even affect the identity he has created. He would have to be
> paid in order to care, if not Google than someone else paying him off to
> care, can't it just be that he believes in something? even if there is
> a perceived threat? I know it might be hard to believe, but people have
> been known to care about legislation and larger social issues from time to
> time, and use the platform they have.
>


I'm sure Jimmy would not have been a friend of SOPA, regardless of what
Google thought. But I was truly surprised to see Wikipedia jettison its
"holy of holies" – NPOV – in a poll inviting participation from IPs and
SPAs, and becoming a political actor. Whether the money greased the wheels
or not, it was the sell-out of a principle many had signed up for.

Scott put it rather well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Scott_MacDonald