Wikipedia talk:SOPA initiative/Learn more

If you want to make comments about the Learn More page, or about the "Thank you" banner landing page text ("Thank you ... help us keep them shining brightly."), please do it here. Sue Gardner (talk) 05:10, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Responses

• Well, for I, the banner is reading "Thank you for protecting Wikipedia. (We're not done yet.)" So I wonder - are there two different banners, or is the wrong one up? Risker (talk) 05:12, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

• We might want to add something like "From all around the world your messages dominated social media and the news. (Your voice was loud and strong.)" to the thank you page. People who contributed in other ways than calling US congresspeople contributed massively to this effort — there is absolutely no doubt about that. The strength and coherence of the extended community who care about Internet freedom was essential, both for its own direct effects around the world (which we are just starting to see evidence of) as well as the initiative they inspired in people inside the US. I know everyone here appreciates these efforts greatly, and this is clear on the learn more page, but the lack of mention on the thank you might leave people feeling initially left out. --Gmaxwell (talk) 05:28, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Done! Thanks Greg Sue Gardner (talk) 05:56, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

• On Learn more, "We are protesting to protect your rights. We're on your side." We should reiterate that we're authors ourselves— that authors are very much included in the 'you'— here. We cover this point elsewhere but its far away. The construction as is, may inspire some righteous indignation "Not me you don't!" from people who are still working from the premise that we care about this because we want to infringe copyright, especially with how widely the mass media has promoted that position. --Gmaxwell (talk) 05:58, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

• Learn more should mention or link to a list of other sites that blacked out. Someone reading this page alone would have no idea that thousands of other sites blacked out too. Oops. --Gmaxwell (talk) 06:43, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

• There is something more you must consider. Add some common language in future to help thick-heads like me. I've read what SOPA really means and it amounts to one word: "link". The idea that under this Piracy Act a mere link would shoot down any website is chilling. Wikipedia needs to find a way to simplify this truth for everyone to reconsider their positions about protests- as I have reconsidered. I was angry, but no longer. I'm in favour of restrained, limited and clear protests by Wikipedia. You need to do better really explaining what this damnable SOPA bill is trying to do.--Djathinkimacowboy 06:17, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

• The Wikipedia blackout became the leading topic of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on January 18, bringing the issue to a group of viewers who might otherwise not watch the news and thus be aware of what is going on. CycloneGU (talk) 21:38, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Tear in an old timer's eye

I've been here for over ten years. I like to think I've contributed in my own small way to many aspects of Wikipedia. Even so I was skeptical about how successful this exercise would be.

I was hopelessly wrong - this has been an astounding success. My heartfelt congrats to Sue and the WMF, and to the entire Wikipedia community. Manning (talk) 05:14, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

As a contributor since 2004 this event was easily the most powerful single action I've seen from our community. I feared that English Wikipedia had become too big and set in its ways to Be Bold anymore. The event has exceeded my wildest expectations, smashed all reservations I had, and we've not yet seen all the results yet. When I loaded this page and saw Manning's comment I was left a bit speechless, because it hit so close to how I feel too. The English Wikipedia community, including everyone who has ever contributed to Wikipedia and the donors who keep the lights on (when threats to our mission aren't causing us to turn them off), deserve kudos for making this possible. Even those who opposed this action in the community played an essential role in the decision, shaping the dialog, and sanity checking every step and they deserve no less credit for the successes here. Sue and the rest of the WMF team deserve major kudos for converting that possibility into a reality. I, for one, am very excited about the future. --Gmaxwell (talk) 05:36, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Endorse and frame all of this. Thank you, to so many people it is just impossible to imagine. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 05:48, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I also feel that the blackout was successful. Although I did not partake in the initial discussions, I did tell people about the blackout; I even posted a sign about it on my college campus (I meant to post more signs, but I did not get around to that). I am going to do some more activities in order to help put down SOPA and PIPA. Going after copyright infringement is not bad per se, but these proposals contain overkill, and way too much overkill at that. If passed, these proposals would do too much harm and be way too exhaustive for something that can be done in a much simpler and less intrusive fashion. Backtable ^{Speak to me}_{concerning my deeds.} 09:15, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Hear, hear! The blackout was a collaboration of many groups that don't always take time to work together. The rapid move from a community discussion to a plan supported by admins, devs, and the Foundation was inspiring - something that should happen more, and that we should get good at. (Though not for another blackout, one hopes.) Many other language Wikipedias paid attention and lent their support. The outpouring of support from our regular readers, and from pundits who care about Wikipedia, has been amazing. Congrats to the community members who saw this through; it made me prouder than ever to be a Wikipedian. – SJ + 15:48, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

* Comment: Well, as long as you don't keep regurgitating that the blackout was some sort of unilateral consensus; it was more like a unilateral action by some manner of a majority. Not everyone liked the idea and I am still a bit annoyed by it.--Djathinkimacowboy 21:29, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

• Reconsidered comment: I rescind my annoyance. Now I truly understand what SOPA stands for and it angers me deeply. Let's protest the hell out of these bills and see that they're killed.--Djathinkimacowboy 06:19, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

  Attaboy. =) I'm actively following this myself. CycloneGU (talk) 15:19, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Flaw in the Blackout

It obviously had a great effect, but it could have been a better outcome due to some fundamental problems.

What I mean is methods still existed for any user to be able to at least read, but not edit, during the blackout. Myself, experimented with cancelling the page load and found that it stopped the blackout screen from coming up over top of the main page I was loading (using my talk page for this experiment). Others have reported turning off scripting in their browsers and browsing Wikipedia normally (sans editing).

If Wikipedia itself, was completely inaccessible during the blackout with all pages redirecting to the blackout page (or something like that, even though it's technically impossible to achieve perfectly), the impact could have been even greater. But nonetheless, for what has occurred from it, I congratulate Wikipedia for generating interest in the potential consequences in the bill. I certainly did not know about the bill and, while it does have its good things for copyright protection, it goes way too far. The fact that six key supporters of the bill have withdrawn their support, according to the National Post, is a grand achievement for opponents of the bill and not something to be taken lightly. CycloneGU (talk) 05:26, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes indeed, there were ways to script around the blackout too. (Or even just "View=>Page Style=>No Style" on Firefox based browsers.) But the point was made. Rich Farmbrough, 06:21, 19 January 2012 (UTC).

Although I have no reliable sources my POV is that Wikipedia has people with enough tech skills that the relatively easy workarounds were intentional. I that was the case I support it. The purpose of the blackout was not to prevent people from getting information, it was to get people to notice the issue which could prevent a lot of information from being disseminated. By definition if people are thinking about workarounds they know about the issue. Edkollin (talk) 16:14, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I use my phone to search Wikipedia with the Wikidroid app. The day of the blackout I was able to get on Wikipedia easily and did not even know there was a blackout until it was on the news. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.47.39.59 (talk) 23:09, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I got on without any work around at all. I was hoping minds were changed I guess it just was VERY FORTUNATELY poorly done. --67.40.121.83 (talk) 14:05, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

CTV News in Canada actually published instructions on their national website on how to circumvent the ban. It was actually quite delicious. I SUPPORT SOPA.68.144.172.8 (talk) 14:06, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

(The comment below was in response to the claim "...the 4/5th largest website in the world", which was moved lower to keep threading together. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:19, 23 January 2012 (UTC))

• Comment: Ahem. MSNBC clearly stated the day prior to the blackout that Wikipedia is 6th in the world. NOT 5th. NOT 4th. So the deeper cesspool of politprop begins to be filled!--Djathinkimacowboy 21:32, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Top 16 sites according to http://www.alexa.com/topsites

1. Google
2. Facebook
3. YouTube
4. Yahoo!
5. Baidu.com
6. Wikipedia
7. Windows Live
8. Blogspot.com
9. Twitter
10. Amazon.com
11. QQ.COM
12. Taobao.com
13. Google India
14. Yahoo! Japan
15. LinkedIn
16. MSN

We are number six. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:50, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Top 11 sites according to ComScore https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Stu/comScore_data_on_Wikimedia

1. Google Sites (includes YouTube)
2. Google / YouTube (counted twice to match above list)
3. Microsoft Sites
4. Yahoo! Sites
5. Facebook
6. Wikimedia Foundation Sites
7. AOL
8. eBay
9. Amazon
10. Ask Network
11. CBS Interactive (includes CNET)

We are number six. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:07, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Should I be embarrassed to say that I have absolutely no clue what Baidu.com is? CycloneGU (talk) 03:19, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

It depends. Didn't have a clue before reading that list? Normal unless you live in China. Still don't have a clue? Yes, you should be embarrassed if that is the case, because Wikipedia has a page on it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baidu (friendly smile) --Guy Macon (talk) 05:36, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Foundation has long and consistently used comScore, not Alexa, as its authority on its sites' worldwide rank. The reasons have to do with comScore taking a more scientific approach, and specifically one that more accurately takes into account usage in non-western countries. There is a little information about this on Trustee Stu West's page on Meta wiki, but to be honest, considering how often this comes up, I am increasingly astonished that WMF has chosen not to publish a more clear expression of the thinking that went into that decision. I only happen to know because I worked there for a while. -Pete (talk) 22:14, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Actually, making Wikipedia completely inaccessible during the blackout with all pages redirecting to the blackout page is trivially easy to achieve perfectly. Just write a new front page that doesn't link to anything else and redirect all page requests to that single page. Slightly more difficult (ten minutes effort instead of five) is allowing a handful of links (the SOPA and PIPA pages were not blocked and we had the contact your congress critter feature), but still bog-standard Apache server configuration work that anyone can do.

I was surprised to see that I had to enable JavaScript in order to be blocked, but upon reflection, my assumptions were wrong. The purpose was not to block access. The purpose was to send a message to congress. An easily-circumvented "blackout" does that just as well as an actual block at the server does. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:55, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

"Bog-standard" Apache doesn't support the 4/5th largest website in the world. If Guy Macon's suggestion here had been taken the site would have been mixed-down for a week due to having to expire all the front-end caches. Wikimedia doesn't have the computing power to re-render the entire site instantly. There are things like that which could have been done, but they all have significant risk especially as the hard cut meant that there wasn't a good way to test under real load. In fact, even with the conservative deployment we're currently seeing a parse load spike and a minor outage which inhibited me from responding to you apparently because of the pages whos cache entries hit maxtime turning the outage all being refreshed 'at once' by the reintroduced load. --Gmaxwell (talk) 14:56, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Are you a Linux/Apache sysadmin, or just a regular "deal with user issues, not technical issues" admin? The reason I ask is because I have never heard of any system that has the scaling problem you described when implementing a .htaccess redirect. I especially have doubts that all the caches would expire. Why would they? .htaccess is parsed before page rendering, and serving up one page over and over instead of many pages seem like it would be very cache-friendly. If indeed the problem you describe exists, I would like to see it get documented and submitted to the Apache development team. .htaccess redirects are supposed to scale. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:43, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Are you a Linux/Apache sysadmin, and how much do you know about Wikimedia's infrastructure? I really don't see why you're refusing to assume good faith here. Gmaxwell is right as usual; what you're failing to consider is that the front-end caches are Squid servers which get hit before the back-end Apache servers get hit at all. So yes, all of them would have expired. — madman 17:22, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

I have a reasonable amount of experience with Linux, Apache and Squid, on much smaller systems -- enough to ask the right questions, but not enough to provide authoritative answers. My main area of expertise is hardware design and embedded system programming, but I do have some sysadmin experience. I have no inside knowledge of Wikipedia's infrastructure other than what is on Wikitech. It is not assuming bad faith to ask someone who makes what appear to be authoritative pronouncements about Apache/Squid performance issues what level of expertise they have. With all due respect, I now have two people who are claiming to have deep technical knowledge about what the Wikipedia servers would do in a situation that has never been tested. Which is odd, because server sysadmins tend to say things like "well we haven't tested that configuration, but we think this will happen" followed by a detailed discussion about exactly which loads will change and why.

Again, I am no expert on the details of Wikipedia's servers, but what you describe does not match my limited knowledge of squid caching. The squid servers are already serving up the main page again and again all day. How does serving the main page up even more often instead of going back to the Apache servers for individual pages hurt performance? --Guy Macon (talk) 19:07, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

I say you're assuming bad faith not because of what you've said here but what you've said elsewhere, describing these technical explanations as "bogus", apparently invented to serve some sort of political purpose. You also state now (with all due respect) that I've asserted "deep technical knowledge" about what the Wikipedia servers would do when I've done no such thing (though I can absolutely assure you that if anyone has said knowledge, it is Greg). Perhaps my understanding of either the hypothetical or the infrstructure is simplistic, but this seems obvious to me:

The Squid servers keep the rendered Web pages until they are told by the Apache servers to purge them. (That is how it works here; I don't know how it works elsewhere. It used to be via HTTP, then it was via HTCP, but I haven't checked recently to see how it's implemented.) If the Apache servers were all set up to return redirected content, all of those rendered Web pages would have to be purged; otherwise, they would be served by the Squid servers, and the Apache servers would not be involved. And once we had no more need for the redirect and content, all of the Web pages would have to be re-rendered by further requests.

Perhaps I'm not very good at explaining this; my pedagogical skills may be lacking today. If you still don't understand, I don't think it'd be helpful for me to continue this discussion. I just hope you'll assume good faith and accept the situation may not be as simple as it seems, and that there may be implications of your suggestion (which was considered) that you (hell, neither of us) may not understand. — madman 20:06, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

I understand perfectly. I just do not agree with your conclusions. Gmaxwell claims "Wikimedia doesn't have the computing power to re-render the entire site instantly." and predicts a week's disruption if we did it. You say "all of the Web pages would have to be re-rendered" (presumably Very Bad Thing). Leaving aside the technical details of how Squid servers serve up changes in the HTTP Status codes when the content has not changed, we already have a fine example of all the pages changing at once - it happens every time we put up a banner on every page. Again I ask, does anyone here who is telling me I am wrong have any experience with administering Wikipedia's servers? I just want to know whether all of this certainty about what would happen if we served up Http 503 (Service Unavailable) status codes for most pages is based upon actual experience or (as is true in my case) on educated guesses. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:20, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Gmaxwell does. In case it was unclear, my conclusions above are based on educated guesses and I see that we agree to disagree on them. — madman 02:39, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

No. I do not "agree to disagree" about facts. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but they are not entitled to their own facts. Squid servers either act the way you two claim they do or they don't.

Kaldari (who, unlike Gmaxwell and Madman, does appear to be speaking from actual experience instead of acting as if educated guesses are established facts) gives us a completely different reason for not using a 503 redirect - one that does not fly in the face of what I know about Apache and Squid. If anyone here wishes to assert that changing the HTTP response code from 200 to 503 without changing the page content or the Last-Modified header causes all pages to be reloaded from Apache to Squid, I am going to have to insist on some sort of evidence that this claim is true. And if it does turn out to be true, if anyone wishes to claim that changing every page on Wikipedia causes a week-long disruption, I am going to have to insist on some sort of explanation for the fact that we were able to put up pre-blackout and post-blackout SOPA banners on every page without this happening. Until I see evidence that convinces me otherwise, I find Kaldari's explanation[1] for the decision to not use 503 redirects to be credible and consistent with what I know about Apache, Squid, and Google's algorithms. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:14, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Contact Wikipedia "editors"?

You can reach Wikipedia editors at info-en(at)wikimedia(dot)org.

I feel this needs rephrasing. Rich Farmbrough, 06:21, 19 January 2012 (UTC).

I am an editor, and I agree, needs rephrasing because that email address does not forward to me. Where does that email really go? It should be corrected Lansey (talk) 17:49, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

What on Earth are you talking about? We got 1,039 messages today! =P CycloneGU (talk) 03:34, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

But where do editors go to see those messages? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.146.109.199 (talk) 04:18, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

That was a joke, Mr. IP. CycloneGU (talk) 12:25, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh. Not a terribly succesful one, in my estimation. 86.160.209.85 (talk) 22:03, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

It goes to WP:OTRS, the Wikipedia:Volunteer Response Team. See that page for more details. JesseW, the juggling janitor 06:29, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the phrasing should be changed. I'd rather use "contributors" or "volunteers." The word "editor" still implies top-down editorial decision-making to the 99% of the world that is not Wikipedia, and in this context, gives the false impression of reaching someone with special/elite decision-making authority. -Pete (talk) 19:01, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Agree w/ Pete. Change to "contributors" or "volunteers" to avoid confusion.--JayJasper (talk) 19:11, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

 Done -Pete (talk) 20:21, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks.--JayJasper (talk) 20:22, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

The other side of the story

The blackout reminded me how websites like Wikipedia, as well as Google and Facebook, have gotten too big to fail. It also brought me to the MPAA blog to get their side of the story. There's a lot of propaganda and slippery slope arguments on both sides. What's next, a Hollywood blackout in support of SOPA? IHTFP (talk) 06:26, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

• Support Hollywood blackout. 67.6.133.90 (talk) 06:35, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

What is the picture trying to say? That the TV is more important than Wikipedia? In that case I find the connection a bit far-fetched. —Kri (talk) 00:29, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

My interjection here is that yes, I believe television is by far more important than Wikipedia.--Djathinkimacowboy 22:20, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Unsourced?

Hi. Although I did not take part in the discussion that led to the blackout, and haven't been very involved recently, I feel proud today to be a Wikipedian. However, in reading this page, I was struck that it is mostly unsourced. I would think that if Wikipedia is going to stick its neck out like this to confront political issues, any claims made should have a link to a reliable source! -- ☑ SamuelWantman 06:57, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Actually, that's a great point, and I will second it. While there are no in-line citations per se, there are a lot of links at the bottom. But citations would still be great to put on here. Backtable ^{Speak to me}_{concerning my deeds.} 09:01, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree that a more standard, article-like format with inline citations would be an improvement. I'll start chipping away at that. -Pete (talk) 19:06, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Finally! Maybe that is the 1st step in taking the B.S. politprop out of Wikipedia's stance on the SOPA/PIPA pipe dream.--Djathinkimacowboy 21:34, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Suggested linked video

I think we ought to link Clay Shirky's TED talk from yesterday near the top of the learn-more page. It probably would have been more effective to link it during the blackout itself, but even now it could have an effect. I'm not totally clear on whether I should just be bold and add the link? Also, even though the CC license is NC, it's probably worth it to use a still from the video for the link. Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 07:21, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I just watched the Shirky video. Although the first half is factual, it was probably made before the DNS provisions were dropped from the bill. The "us vs. them" propaganda at the end of his video was over the top and a real stretch of the facts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.141.198.236 (talk) 06:19, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

"I don't live in the United States"

"Contact your local State Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or similar branch of government." - I'm not sure what "local State Department" means. Unique in the whole world, the US foreign ministry is called the State Department, but the "local State Department" outside the US (whatever it is) is not the foreign ministry. The local US embassy/consulate also receives mail - add that? A barrage of letters will result in a cable being sent to Washington, which will have a (minimal) effect on the executive branch. --Jiang (talk) 09:57, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Um, I'm Australian and had no trouble grasping this. The sentence implies that "State Department" and "Ministry of Foreign Affairs" are merely equivalent terms for the same concept (which they are). It's not saying that other countries have a State Department. Bear in mind that a lot of Americans would also be reading that paragraph, and being the clueless little bunnies that they are, a lot of them probably wouldn't realise that they are the only country in the world that called their Foreign Affairs "the State Department". So it avoided a bit of confusion. Manning (talk) 12:47, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

You know that Wikipedia was created by those "clueless little bunnies" right? STLocutus (talk) 16:28, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have said "overly sensitive, clueless little bunnies" :) And you might want to check your history, as Wikipedia was created by a group of Americans and non-Americans simultaneously. It was registered on a USA based server, but there were multiple nationalities from day one (they had previously assembled for the Nupedia project.) The software was developed by a German, Magnus Manske. Manning (talk) 08:30, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Well the particular question is of no concern to Americans, and there is no need to confuse non-Americans for the benefit of Americans. Americans living abroad should contact their congressional representatives in the district/state in which they are registered to vote, and not the U.S. State Department. No one should be contacting the State Department on this matter (unless foreigners would like to send a letter to their local US embassy, which will be read by the foreign service officers stationed there and not anyone in Washington).--Jiang (talk) 13:37, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Page suggestions from a non-administrator

I can't edit the page, but may I suggest:

• Add link to the cited tool page to "More than eight million looked up their elected representatives' contact information via the Wikipedia tool."
• Add link to the blackout page (presuming it's still available) to "More than 162 million saw the Wikipedia blackout page"
• Add further links as appropriate (it makes the page more Wikipedian)

Thanks. -- Dan Griscom (talk) 11:36, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Acrually, we have no idea how many people saw the blackout page because page views does not equal distinct people. It includes bots, and repeat visits by the same people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.141.198.236 (talk) 06:20, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

EDIT REQUEST: Google Search Parameters

Re: "A quick search of “SOPA blackout” on Google News produced more than 8,000 links as of this writing."

The URL used is: http://www.google.com/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=%22SOPA+blackout%22#pq=%22sopa+blackout%22&hl=en&sugexp=pfwl&qe=IlNPUEEgYmxhY2tvdXQ&qesig=L_nSmdzXbRPORAyzCqEuzw&pkc=AFgZ2tnAlHwT8eALmTb6RDwOwAKzVU6V1YfanOTg-45f3TSIVAt8WkflrPMxI9R6UDjptIwTYXzpAEjPD6iNRQoQuljE626BUw&ds=n&cp=14&gs_id=3&xhr=t&q=sopa+blackout&pf=p&sclient=psy-ab&tbm=nws&source=hp&pbx=1&oq=%22SOPA+blackout&aq=0z&aqi=g-z2&aql=&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&fp=c2f8f3b0be46c859&biw=1370&bih=896

Which searches Google, not Google News, and returns "About 741,000 results."

Based upon the URL, I cannot say with confidence that the "more than 8,000 links" claim is based upon a search of Google News.

So I tried a few variations:

GOOGLE:
http://www.google.com/search?q=SOPA-blackout = About 331,000,000 results
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22SOPA%20blackout%22 = About 740,000 results
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22SOPA+blackout%22 = About 740,000 results
http://www.google.com/search?q=SOPA+blackout = About 174,000,000 results
http://www.google.com/search?q=SOPA%20blackout = About 174,000,000 results
http://www.google.com/search?q="SOPA+blackout" = About 174,000,000 results
http://www.google.com/search?q=SOPA+blackout&tbo=1&tbs=li:1&sa=X = About 154,000,000 results

GOOGLE NEWS:
http://www.google.com/search?q=SOPA+blackout&tbm=nws = About 4,190 results
http://www.google.com/search?q=SOPA%20blackout&tbm=nws = About 4,190 results
http://www.google.com/search?q=%2B%22SOPA%22+%2B%22blackout%22&tbm=nws About 4,180 results
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22SOPA%22%2B%22blackout%22&tbm=nws = About 4,050 results
http://www.google.com/search?q="SOPA+blackout"&tbm=nws = About 258 results
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22SOPA%20blackout%22&tbm=nws = About 258 results
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22SOPA+blackout%22&tbm=nws = About 258 results

I would expect there to be more results on Google News a day later rather than fewer results. I don't know hat whoever made the search was actually searching for, but I know it wasn't the URL cited.

Based upon the above results, the following text:

• A quick search of “SOPA blackout” on Google News produced more than 8,000 links as of this writing.

Should be changed to

• A search for the words “SOPA and “Blackout” on Google News produced more than 4,000 links as of this writing.

And then later changed to

• A search for the words “SOPA and “Blackout” on Google News produced more than XXXX links as of 24 hours after the end of the blackout.

With, of course, a new total taken at that time. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:16, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

This is my fault, I was rushing a bit. Here's how I got the number (in consultation with others):

• Go to Google News search
• Type in "SOPA blackout" (with the quotes)
• Ignore the grey result at the top (currently "about 264 results (0.15 seconds)".
• Look below the first section of related articles for a green block of text.
• Currently says "all 9084 news articles"
• Here is the URL as I see it after doing all that: [2]

Suggestions now that I've clarified that? I'm not sure whether it's accurate to describe those all as unique articles, since often a wire story is picked up verbatim etc. That's why I used the word "links." -Pete (talk) 15:28, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

The "unique articles" issue is easy to address. Just call them "results" or "search results". This also addresses the known fact that the Google results numbers are estimates done by an algorithm that was optimized for speed and is often wildly inaccurate. The issue of the results changing over time is best addressed by taking one measurement at 24, 48, or 72 hours after the end of the blackout.

I advise not saying what the results mean. Simply say that when we entered URL X at time Y Google returned number Z. (I won't even get into the fact that you can query different Google datacenters and get different results...)

All that is pretty easy to address. Which URL to enter is a far more interesting question. I have put in a lot of study on what we think the Google algorithms are (besides "secret" and "constantly changing" <smile>)

There is a fine art to minimizing Google URLs. For example, you can always remove "hl=en" because the default language without an hl parameter is English. Likewise, aq tells me what item in the pulldown menu you clicked, aqi tells me the last letter you typed and how many letters you typed before that (blank means Google doiesn't know), biw tells me your screen is 1426 pixels wide, bih tells me that your browser window was 778 pixels wide, etc. None of this is useful in a URL posted to Wikipedia.

So the following two URLs give identical results:

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&biw=1426&bih=778&tbm=nws&q=SOPA+blackout&oq=SOPA+blackout&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=0l0l0l9528l0l0l0l0l0l0l0l0ll0l0 (your URL)

and

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=nws&q=SOPA+blackout

IMO, the latter is an acceptable choice for this purpose. It finds pages that have SOPA and Blackout (not necessarily next to each other, plus variations and misspellings sush as blak out, black-out, etc.) --Guy Macon (talk) 19:14, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

 Done I believe I've addressed the concerns raised above. Please let me know if there's something I missed. -Pete (talk) 21:37, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Much improved. I am still entertaining doubts about using the green text instead of the count at the top. Looking at it (it may change somewhat if you look a few minutes from now) I see "About 4,520 results" at the top, which is how many pages Wikipedia estimates are about "SOPA Blackout". The green text under the top result("all 9724 news articles") is how many pages Wikipedia estimates are about the same thing the article "Wikipedia traffic surged during SOPA blackout‎" (the top result) is about. When I click the green link I get some pages that don't even mention the blackout. I really think that Google is estimating 4,500 sites, not 9,500. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:03, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the further feedback, Guy. I respect that you may have greater insight into all this stuff than me. If you're not an admin, feel free to propose some specific text (complete with link) here on the talk page, and I'll gladly post it for you on the main page. Just because I have the admin button doesn't mean I know the right answer ;) -Pete (talk) 02:48, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

162 million people?

162 million people, or 162 million page impressions? Did we start tracking unique IP addresses all of a sudden? - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 13:25, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. It's also not a count of the number of supporters - I SUPPORT SOPA and yet I had the notice open on my computer about 20 times yesterday (three different computers, actually, at different locations and IPs), showing it to others, or wasn't fast enough to circumvent it by hitting ESC. There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.68.144.172.8 (talk) 14:02, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I believe it was page impressions. Great point. (See here.) -Pete (talk) 14:36, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

If it was intended to be impressions then it's almost certainly wildly off. The site was serving over 90k request/s much of the day. An impression count should be on the order of a billion (to a few, depending on the level of request amplification seen during the blackout). I'm not sure where the numbers came from in this case, but they don't sound unreasonable given past monthly unique figures and the extensive news coverage. (I assume that at the moment whomever produced the figure is soundly asleep. :) ) --Gmaxwell (talk) 15:35, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I saw that too, and it made me wonder. CA Jim (talk) 18:06, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I checked with the WMF communications team -- this is apparently data taken directly from the servers, and unless I'm misunderstanding, it's page impressions. I don't understand why this would be any different than what's reported at stats.grok.se -- which is a similar number (higher, but perhaps over a slightly different 24 hour range). Greg, where are you getting the 90k requests/second figure from?

These are the updated numbers I was told: 163,984,231 and 8,278,821. -Pete (talk) 22:04, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Either of the front end cache request stat pages. E.g. [3]. This include all HTTP requests (thought not the bits ones on this graph), so they get inflated by inlined content. --Gmaxwell (talk) 04:59, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I wonder if any single page loading would have led to an "impression" even if the pageload was canceled before it came up. CycloneGU (talk) 03:36, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

To the IP who keeps boldfacing "I support SOPA", do you specifically support the legislation as framed, or just the general notion of preventing the piracy of copyrighted works? Everyone supports the latter - no one is endorsing theft. If the latter is the case, can you stop writing "I support SOPA" everywhere? We get it. Manning (talk) 00:44, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, please stop posting that as your personal motto.--Djathinkimacowboy 04:44, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Publish where individual Senators / Congressmen stand?

I was wondering whether it would make sense to prominently publish the position of each Senator/Congressman regarding SOPA/PIPA. Or link to sites like http://www.opencongress.org? It may be good for the public to know this. Comments? --Nasenbaer11 (talk) 15:07, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

108.81.164.129 (talk) 21:34, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I am all for this!

See List of US Congresspersons who support or oppose SOPA/PIPA.--JayJasper (talk) 21:42, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I'd like it if Wikipedia was responsible about this, and published facts about the bills along with the Congress peoples' stances.--Djathinkimacowboy 21:43, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

The article says Wikipedia spends THOUSANDS of hours EVERY week "reviewing and removing infringing content as it is posted". How is that possible? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.203.228.122 (talk) 07:30, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

as in thousands of labour hours. For one person it would be impossible as there are 168 hours a week. But since there are more than one person doing the labour you some up all of their labour hours to reach how much work does the community spends on removing infringing content. 93.172.50.179 (talk) 14:29, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Best way for non-US residents to help

This e-petition is calling for the Foreign Office to condemn SOPA/PIPA. If it reaches 100,000 signatures it will be debated in the House of Commons. I feel this link should be posted under the heading "I don't live in the United States. What's the best way for me to help?". If this were to happen there is a very real possibility that the petition may gain 100,000 signatures. This is probably one of the best ways for UK residents to show their support.

Infringement need not even be proven

The section "How could SOPA and PIPA hurt Wikipedia?" says ...SOPA could require Wikipedia to actively monitor every site we link to, to ensure it doesn't host infringing content. Any link to an infringing site could put us in jeopardy of being forced offline...

If I'm not mistaken, one of the major flaws of the legislation is that infringement does not even have to be established via due process; mere accusation is sufficient for action to be taken under the proposed law.

Some sites claim non-infringement because they're not the people who are actually making and distributing copies, and case law has not yet established that merely "making available" through links or other manner of "offering" of copies is necessarily equivalent to distribution. But this legislation, if I understand correctly, makes it possible for copyright owners to declare that infringement is occurring in such situations, and that the middleman is liable. There's nothing the accused can do about it before action is taken against them, and very little they can do afterward.

So at the very least, I propose replacing infringing with potentially infringing in both sentences.

I also propose adding a sentence to the effect of Wikipedia would be treated as an infringer, would have no option to challenge the accusation before actions are taken, and would have little recourse afterward. However, a citation may be needed for that one. —mjb (talk) 15:54, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Um, so Wikipedia will have to "actively monitor" any links that are posted or used? I don't see what the problem is... Couldn't you create another "queue" or what have you, and assign editors to review all new links added? You could at least show due dilligence if a lawsuit/legal situation ever came about. Similar to how new edits are reviewed now? Oaktree b (talk) 16:55, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

The way the law is written, it does not clearly differentiate between a site devoted to promoting copyright violating material and one that may have one or two examples of material that would fit the US definition of copyvio amongst thousands of pages, or material that is not copyvio in the host country but is considered to be so in the US. As an example, an article could include a link to a Kenyan newspaper article that itself contains a link to a site that the US considers a "pirate site". We would not only have to vet links to our own project, but the links within those links. And the content on other sites to which there is a link on Wikipedia could change without our knowledge. There simply is not the volunteer time or energy to maintain a constant vigil on the millions of external links from this project. Risker (talk) 18:10, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

It's beginning to sound like the whole of Wikipedia only opposes these bills because it means actual hard work! Why is everyone bothered by editors actually checking links and sites? Wikipedia should be doing that now!--Djathinkimacowboy 21:38, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, we do, when they're inserted. But what's okay today could be blacklisted tomorrow, or a linked-to website could change its contents to include what SOPA/PIPA considers infringing material. That means we'd have to constantly check and recheck these links. Are you volunteering? I'm sure I can find a volunteer to write a script that you could use to run each day's new links, although I'm not sure how long it would take to run a program for the existing ones. Risker (talk) 21:45, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

• Hey, bub, I'm not the one who should be volunteering. I do enough as it is.--Djathinkimacowboy 00:10, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Checking external links to IP addresses against a blacklist is certainly something that can be done by a bot. Wikipedia has very few external links to IP addresses. If you read the proposed bills, they use words like "technically feasible" to describe the limits of what is required. Writing a bot is technically feasible. Manually checking each link is not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.141.198.236 (talk) 06:27, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, IP, but I see how things shifted for me when SOPA's actual potential was shown to me. A lot of pro-SOPA editors (and I was once one of them) fail to grasp how a mere link to a site that might be deemed in violation could shut down the site linking innocently to it. That is what SOPA means. Tens of thousands of sites could go down as a result of such tyranny, and they'd never get back up again.--Djathinkimacowboy 18:11, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Eight million

One lasting benefit of the blackout was the fact that eight million of us used the congressperson contacting dohickey. I now have my senator's and representative's contact pages bookmarked, after having congratulated and thanked them both for opposing SOPA or PIPA. From now on, I'll be more likely to contact them about other issues.

How many other voices will now be heard that once were silent?

Good freakin' job, folks!

Lyle (talk) 16:08, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

If Wikipedia had a "Like" button, I'd be hitting it right about now. (PS - Thank God we don't). Manning (talk) 00:46, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Like 86.146.109.199 (talk) 00:51, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Ladies and gentlemen, assuming good faith, I believe I can say I've identified the smarta** among us. =) (FTR, I LOLed.) CycloneGU (talk) 19:52, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Improve the voting procedures for any major actions like this in future

First allow me to introduce myself, I am a small time editor and I mostly confine my activities to correcting spelling and reverting blatantly obvious cases of vandalism, tasks that do not require me to be logged in to perform and I operate from multiple computers at uni, at home and at internet cafes during my travels.

I have something I feel I need to say that I do not feel it is appropriate to do without a wiki account so I am not posting this as some random IP address that will be dismissed out of hand without being listened to.

Next time tell everyone there is a vote and more people will show up. I was quite upset I did not get the chance to vote. I saw no banners nothing appeared on my screen to give me any indication there was a vote underway for a blackout. Do not get me wrong I disagree with powers that SOPA would make available to corporations but not the underling idea of protecting authors rights. What I objected to was the fact that myself and others like me who work in the background to make Wikipedia better without logging in did not get a chance to put forward their opinion of the blackout while the decision was being made, I am sure that if more of the small people in Wikipedia knew there was a vote there would have been a far greater turnout and we could have had our say.

So in short what I am saying is that if Wikipedia plans another action of this magnitude please let the wider public know about it first. You can not claim to speak for all of us in this decision when most of us did not know about the vote or have a chance to participate in whatever debate there was about the protest and the form it would take.

Regards, Washuchan (talk) 16:27, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

For myself, I hope to vote on a formal policy that would prohibit anything like this from ever happening again in the future. Or rather I would not even want to hold that "vote". The whole idea was done heavy handed and not really managed to achieve community consensus or even consider that there were other points of view in terms of being against the blackout in the first place.

When I had to find out about the "vote" happening on Wikipedia through a reference on a 3rd party website (in my case on Slashdot) because the primary discussion took place on some obscure user's talk page (User talk:Jimbo Wales ... a page I explicitly do not monitor and especially don't think is relevant to setting policy on Wikipedia or any other Wikimedia website) where the "real decision making" actually happened. That people like Washuchan and others complained about the very short notice before action was to happen together with what seemed like a flash mob calling for action (in reality representing only a minority of actual Wikipedia users or even contributors) is something that needs to be fought against. --Robert Horning (talk) 19:25, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

That's typical Wikipedia for you, live with it if you want to edit here. As I say below: the 'lights' aren't all the bright now.--Djathinkimacowboy 22:25, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

It's a fair point. I have been a modest contributor here for years, so I feel as if I "own" a tiny bit of Wikipedia, but I had no idea of this action until the black banner appeared at T-24. Now, I personally have no clue about these bills. I have not the faintest idea if they are good or bad. And I don't violently object if a better-informed executive takes a stance on behalf of the project. But any claims that this was somehow a community-wide consensus seem bogus. How were ordinary contributors supposed to know about it in order to voice an opinion? 86.146.109.199 (talk) 00:32, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I totally agree. This was an ill-thought-out action and its "success" has nothing to do with what the majority of wikipedia users and contributors may have wanted, supported or preferred. It was a political move by a group of powerful people who decided to remove public access to the contributions made by people like us. It was a total contradiction of the project's basic principles. Deb (talk) 09:21, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

No, this is typical WMF politics creeping into the projects and raising its ugly head. Just about any time the WMF board of trustees shoves its head into internal project politics, the proverbial stuff hits the fan and people get disgusted and leave projects, usually with a massive culling of content along with it or at least significant projects that get thrown out or left dormant. More to the point, I don't have to "live with it" as I have been able to voice my concerns about stuff of this nature in the past and put in changes to project management. You don't have to simply "just live with it", and raising bona fide issues in the appropriate forums can make changes happen. This is a community run project and it depends upon the volunteers who make it work agreeing on the principles that run this site. This black-out really is a major policy change, even if some who pushed it through don't see it that way. --Robert Horning (talk) 16:17, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Robert, you say

I don't have to "live with it" as I have been able to voice my concerns about stuff of this nature in the past and put in changes to project management. You don't have to simply "just live with it", and raising bona fide issues in the appropriate forums can make changes happen. This is a community run project and it depends upon the volunteers who make it work agreeing on the principles that run this site.

yet I disagree that individual voices mean all that much. Or in other terms, some editors matter more than others. Hasn't all this taught you that fact yet? Community-run project my Aunt Fanny's pancakes! It's a hierarchy and it demands a hive-minded obedience. What you say is laudable...how I wish it were really true. Want a good spanking? Try, just try, to make a suggestion that 'rocks the boat' and you will not only get spanked, you'll be marked!--Djathinkimacowboy 21:07, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Individual voices don't matter now because people like Jimbo Wales and Sue Gardner are refusing to acknowledge the voices of individual people who are speaking out about this. They are pretending that their opinion on matters of this nature is supreme and are throwing dissenting opinions completely under the bus. Wikipedia has not always been this way. I know, because I've made some valuable contributions in the past when my voice was recognized, when I have accomplished some great things and made a real difference at this project and within Wikimedia projects in general. Values have been compromised here, and a mob has swept over Wikipedia that is doing some very real damage to this project. Those proclaiming a hierarchy here are mostly self-appointed (including Jimbo) and in a number of ways those positions aren't even earned.

I have made suggestions in the past that "rocked the boat", even to the point that "powers that be" have blinked. I've also done that in other arenas of human endeavor as well, where one voice speaking boldly and with conviction can often make enough people to stop and think where real change can happen. That is why I'm even bothering to speak up here. Something is very dearly wrong and there needs to be voices that speak out about this. I'm glad that some have stood up, and I am begging that others do so as well. This protest is a policy change, but it wasn't treated as such. It is that which I am complaining about, and hoping that whatever will happen in the future will at least acknowledge that Wikipedia has changed.... IMHO changed for the worse due to this action. I will not be silenced and it offends me that some here would try to. --Robert Horning (talk) 01:32, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Point well taken (regretfully you missed mine), and by the way, I would not have you or most editors silenced- but there are a few...--Djathinkimacowboy 04:47, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

"breathtaking"

Hi, is there any chance someone could remove/replace the offending word from "A breathtaking majority supported the blackout."?

While we are on subjects respiratory, the grandiose and breathless prose at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/SOPA/Blackoutpage is painful. While I am a huge fan of Wikipedia, and I do not wish to cause offence to anyone, this really is like some third-rate ad agency drivel. "We’re turning the lights back on. Help us keep them shining brightly" Give me a break. 86.146.109.199 (talk) 17:54, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Is it possible to insert a "cite source" notation for the claim that Congress' servers were actually melted? --147.9.68.178 (talk) 20:11, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

LOL! Both of you... Too funny. I support what you mean by the way lol Jersey John (talk) 21:20, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

• Concur with request to remove language. LOL or not, I support the removal of the description of the support as "a breathtaking majority". Wikipedia does not speak for me! Ever!--Djathinkimacowboy 21:09, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support Request - Wikipedia can only hope that everyone visiting agrees. Even if the majority do agree, Wikipedia can never be certain of just how many supported the blackout and how many did not. There is no way Wikipedia can ever determine that. Thus, the language must be revised. CycloneGU (talk) 19:54, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Questions order

It would be better to make the question "What are SOPA and PIPA?" first or second and "What happened?" could be placed second or third, the next being "How could SOPA and PIPA hurt Wikipedia?". Brandmeister t 21:35, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree this was a problem. I reorganized a bit, but in a slightly different way; I think it's important to have the wrapup information at the top, since it's the part that's unique to this page, and the background further down. Take a look and let me know what you think? -Pete (talk) 21:50, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Looks fine after some thinking. Brandmeister t 22:00, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

 Done Thanks for looking it over! -Pete (talk) 22:04, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Generic criticism

Perhaps due to exhaustion, I do not entirely trust Wikipedia's editors to consult the pages about SOPA or PIPA. As such, Wikipedia is well advised to at least outline as much as it can about these proposed bills instead of whinging about something that would never really be enforceable if it became law. In countless searches, I could only determine that the laws seek to protect copyright violations and piracy- both despicable acts of theft of intellectual property.

Wikipedia does sound like a lame-ass ad agency, talking about keeping the lights shining brightly. They're, erm, not all that bright right now folks....

As to the blackout, and the "votes" prior, I know many did something or other to their user pages in protest of that blackout. I protested mildly but officially. Wikipedia as a whole and its editors need to stay out of 'protests' of this nature. Someone said, today we protest SOPA/PIPA; what will we be protesting tomorrow, Save the Whales?

Let Wikipedia be an encyclopedia or let it be gone.--Djathinkimacowboy 22:22, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

If you are exhausted, it would probably be wise to take rest and drink fluids.

Meanwhile, you seem to acknowledge that the the lights are "not all that bright righ now folks...." and, also, that you feel that SOPA and PIPA "would never really be enforceable if it became law". So, it is not entirely clear which side of this debate you are siding with.

Wikipedia is an open and public resource that serves the greater good of humanity. SOPA and PIPA are intended to support special interests, specifically the film industry ... without being focused specifically on the abuse and piracy issues that the film industry complains about. SOPA and PIPA both manifest broad and poorly defined powers that would enable future administrations to wield control over future Internet properties, potentially in violation of freedom of speech.

While SOPA and PIPA are in response to lobbying from the film and related media industries, the unintended (or, perhaps, intended) consequence is that these acts would create an enormous threat to future innovation from the technology industry ... the very industry that brought us the Internet in the first place. If we are to maintain a leadership position in the technology and information industries we need to nurture them, not stifle them. If we stifle them, they will simply move to other jurisdictions where is there are no such restrictions. Remember, it only takes a click to move a technology, whereas bricks, mines and other rust-belt industries are pretty much anchored to the ground where they are.

On the other hand, SOPA/PIPA would move the US closer to the Internet model adopted in regimes where the Internet is highly controlled and where freedom is speech is not tolerated. The US government is on record as criticizing various countries that restrict freedom of expression on the Internet. It is therefore hypocritical for the US to introduce powers that are somewhat similar to powers exercised in countries that curtail, limit or entirely ban freedom of speech/expression.

It is also unnecessary; as proven by the fact that the US government just successfully shut-down Megaupload (in Hong Kong, I may add) ... probably one of the most prolific redistribution hubs for pirated media ... all using existing laws, without having to resort to any SOPA or PIPA like laws. The US already has most of the legal structures necessary to control and block piracy, all that is required is a more effective enforcement of the laws we already have ... not a shot-gun universal law that is open to political and abuse by special interest groups.

This is nothing to do with saving the whales (Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd et al. have already assumed this cause). That is nothing to do with Wikipedia. Your mention of whales is a red-herring and utterly irrelevant to a discussion on this topic.

Enquire (talk) 23:49, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I completely agree with Djathinkimacowboy. Wikipedia is irreparably tarnished and can no longer be trusted as a neutral source. There's nothing more to say. Talmage (talk) 01:18, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

The metaphorical genie is out of the bottle now. Now that Wikipedia has conducted a protest like this will they be protesting other government bills they disapprove of? Washuchan (talk) 18:03, 19 January 2012

Will there be a blackout in protest over troops in Afghanistan or the next "hot topic" bill a government proposes? Washuchan (talk) 02:03, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is the "cathedral" as opposed to the "market" that they keep talking about. Wales gets an idea, and it's holy law. All must follow or be damned. 55% isn't that big of a majority to vote to take the site down for a day, but the damage has been done. Unfortunately the WMF can no longer claim to be neutral. Oaktree b (talk) 04:26, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

The number of people who supported the 'do nothing' option on the recent discussion was something like 76[4] out of over 1800 people who edited the page (and about 10% of the people who supported global blackout). The 55% number was the US-only vs Global blackout figure, not support overall. The overall support for action was basically overwhelming in every discussion we've had on it. As many people have pointed out, this has nothing to do with article neutrality: The content of the articles is still required to be as neutral as we can make it, but the process itself is not neutral and never was. The very idea that neutrality is something to uphold is very controversial in much of the world. Free content licensing is controversial. Free access to knowledge is controversial. The fact that Wikipedia is not censored is very controversial. ... and to whatever extent this does show some kind of non-neutrality, it's not like we didn't hold the same views before. If you somehow missed that fact that we support openness and free access to knowledge and think this demonstrates non-neutrality shouldn't you be applauding Wikipedia for being more upfront about its core beliefs? --Gmaxwell (talk) 05:18, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

From The Times, January 18:

"Wikipedia's community of 1,800 online editors and volunteers have been debating the move for the past three days."

86.160.209.85 (talk) 21:10, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

They really think Wikipedia is made up of no more than 1,800 people? They clearly got the "community" statistic confused with the number of people participating in the blackout discussion. Huge variance there. CycloneGU (talk) 19:57, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Don't give me that long-winded nonsense, Enquire. Your reply is a good illustration of what's typical about Wikipedia's B.S., steamin' hot off the Texas plains....--Djathinkimacowboy 21:13, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia has considerably more than 1,800 editors. My issue is that more should of be done in future is to include the fullest amount of the editors as is possible in future decisions like this. What's done is done, but don't do it again.Washuchan (talk) 11:11, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Right, I posted the Times quote thinking it was so obviously wrong that it needed no comment, but looking again, I see it may seem as if I was thinking it was evidence of a community-wide consensus. 86.146.104.200 (talk) 13:47, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Update the list of articles?

So, the list of news articles at the bottom of the page is a little stale. Any suggestions about the best articles to include there? Any we can remove from early on that have been surpassed by more informative ones? -Pete (talk) 22:46, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Usual Google hit count random number nonsense

Awareness that Google's hit counts are usually random numbers with a few noughts added still seems surprisingly low. In this case:

"A quick search of "SOPA blackout" on Google News yielded 9,500 links as of 13:30 Pacific time, January 19."

OK, when I follow the link I now see "About 4,360 results" reported, which is fair enough, but when you actually page through to the end there are really only 540. This "out by about a factor of ten" is fairly typical. Sometimes it is a factor of 50 or more. 86.146.109.199 (talk) 00:40, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

This is already being discussed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more#EDIT_REQUEST:_Google_Search_Parameters

While it is true that Google's estimates are notoriously unreliable, your alternative is even more unreliable. The pages that Google displays are a subset of the pages it finds. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:02, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, I didn't notice the earlier thread. But, I'm curious why you think my method is unreliable. Surely the only "knowable" correct answer is the number of hits you can actually view and navigate to, isn't it? Any other potential "internal" hits (except beyond the display limit, which I think may be 1000?) must presumably be dismissed by Google as not relevant enough to display, mustn't they? Why should they be counted in any putative total? 86.146.109.199 (talk) 03:18, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

The count of what Google displays is not a reliable measure of how many pages with those words exist, because it measures the wrong thing. It does not matter how many Google displays - we know for a fact that they stop displaying pages long before the number of pages the crawler found - but rather how many there actually are. The count is unreliable, but at least it counts what we want counted. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:57, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion, the number of Google hits is by definition the number of links that it actually lists (except in the case where this exceeds the preset display limit of c. 1000). If Google thought that there were more relevant hits (up to the display limit) then it would display them. You may well be correct that this number is "not a reliable measure of how many pages with those words exist", and you may disagree with the criteria that Google uses to decide which links to present. However, your improved measure would not be "Google hits" but hits according to some other algorithm of your own devising. 86.146.104.200 (talk) 13:34, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

I am curious; why do you exclude the case of exceeding the preset display limit of 1000 but not the case of exceeding the variable "interest limit"? Both are arbitrary limits. In case you are not familiar with the interest limit, Google has an algorithm that differentiates between search terms that result in most users looking at many pages of results and search terms that result in most users stopping after seeing the first one or two pages of results. In the latter case, Google arbitrarily reduces the number of links it displays. (It turns out that there are a huge number of people who access Reddit, eBay, YouTube, etc, by typing those words into the Google search box and clicking on the top link.) So the idea that "If Google thought that there were more relevant hits (up to the display limit) then it would display them" is not only unproven, but among those who study Google's algorithms it is generally considered to be false. Of course nobody knows for sure because the algorithms are secret, but there are a lot of people running experiments on Google and an extensive literature containing their conclusions. The number of links that Google actually displays is not what we care about in this context. We would care if this was a page about Google, but the number we are displaying should be the number that Google found, not the arbitrarily reduced number Google displays. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:39, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Does anyone care about the actual text of the bills?

It took me quite a while, but I finally was able to navigate to something that would give me the actual text of these bills. Given the importance you attach to this issue and the kinds of commitments you are asking of us Wikipedia users, don't you think there should be big, prominent links to the text of these bills right at the top of these Wikipedia pages? Personally, I find it very frustrating in general when I see a lot of debate about some pending legislative action, with many arguments to and fro about the pros and cons of such action, and nobody bothers showing us the actual text of the bill. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.4.10.122 (talk) 02:53, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

OK: Starting stopwatch....done! one minute and twelve seconds to get the text of both bills on my screen (mostly waiting for PDF load. All I did was put SOPA and PIPA in the Wikipedia search box, then looked at the external links. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:08, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I'd sent complaints to a number of the anti-SOPA advocacy sites for not linking to the bills. Wikipedia was the easiest to find it from by far— I did what you did, and I don't even think it took me anywhere near that long. --Gmaxwell (talk) 05:13, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, yeah this is about money

Look, anyone who has actually read into the bill knows that this is all a slippery slope argument and that the information the public has been getting comes from the Opponents of the Bill (actually, a very pretty picture showing the end of the world). People are being riled up because certain webpages present this pure speculation off as fact (and disclaimers are meaningless).

Yet again, this blackout rather forces people to play your shenanigans... it impresses upon them that the bills are something they are not, strikes fear into them to take action against it. But why are you so invested in it?

Well, DMCA has a little umbrella that people use to absolve themselves of any infringements. SOPA basically takes that away. You can still have occasional infringments, but if you aren't proactive in preventing infringements you can be targeted under SOPA. Now that means that you'd have to leave the safe harbour of the DMCA to prevent violation under SOPA, but you may be found guilty over other violations that the safe harbour granted immunity from (in particular, libel).

But honestly now, you turn off your webpage, say that the government is conspiring to shut you down... and say "It's not about money, but we're fighting the good fight". If donations to wikipedia didn't skyrocket then I must really be out of touch with the times... and if the real fear isn't "the government is gonna shut us down" but "We might actually have to monitor our content" or other lawsuits that the safe harbour protected against... well, then I feel sorry for you. 173.171.224.117 (talk) 03:11, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your heroic, though anonymous, contribution. It seems that everything in life is about the money for you isn't it?

Jcwf (talk) 05:04, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

WMF doesn't get _that_ much in donations outside of the annual fundraisers, I expect it would take an astronomical increase in donations to even pay for the staff time required to execute this. The SOPA protest was cost justified only because fighting it now is still cheaper than fighting it in court after we were forced to remove important citations when SOPA is invoked to take a non-infringing politically disfavored site offline.

The suggestion that Wikipedia doesn't monitor its content is pretty ridiculous, can you suggest anyone who does a more comprehensive job of it? Many of the mass media supporters of SOPA are guilty of infringing the copyrights of our contributors, in fact. --Gmaxwell (talk) 05:11, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

• Comment: If your post is true, Gmaxwell, why does Wikipedia even bother to raise such a fuss about SOPA/PIPA? It seems if they passed, Wikipedia would change not one bit. The editor is right about people conflating these bills into something they really aren't.--Djathinkimacowboy 21:16, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Please see Wikimedia's blog post on how SOPA will hurt the free web and Wikipedia [5]. --Gmaxwell (talk) 02:58, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

• Comment - This is about money. EVERYTHING in government nowadays is about money. An Idaho (or somewhere close) rep. put a clause prohibiting online gambling in a port security bill, a must-pass bill, and it passed without that part being debated, thus making it illegal to turn on a computer anywhere in the United States and put money into a game of Poker (or virtual slot machines, etc.). Forget that Poker has more to do with skill than luck, and should have been exempt. It never got discussed or debated. And one of Americans' civil liberties is violated, but nothing ever came of it. Meanwhile, the rep. most likely received a $15,000,000 check from Nevada and didn't bother too much trying to keep his seat; indeed, he was voted out at the next vote. He doesn't care; he likely bought a mansion somewhere. Things like this make me sick. CycloneGU (talk) 20:01, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

• Comment No. 2 after seeing SOPA's proposals: * Here are salient quotes from Wikipedia's SOPA statement:

  ...SOPA creates a regime where the first step is federal litigation to block an entire site wholesale: it is a far cry from a less costly legal notice under the DMCA protocol to selectively take down specified infringing material. The crime is the link, not the copyright violation. The cost is litigation, not a simple notice....

  and my reply to this, which immediately caught my eye, is HELL NO. No one would want that situation, which as I simplify it in my mind criminalises a mere link! Then there's this:

  ...(S)ites under attack may not have the resources to challenge extra-territorial judicial proceedings in the United States, even if the charges are false....The new version of SOPA reflects a regime where rights owners may seek to terminate advertising and payment services, such as PayPal, for an alleged “Internet site dedicated to theft of U.S. property.”....

  and finally there is the assertion that SOPA would directly impact Wikipedia for having allegedly infringing (under SOPA) "foreign" links. All of this specific information disgusts me, but still I think much of it is so un-Constitutional that it will never pass. However, everyone should study the Wiki page you linked for us.--Djathinkimacowboy 05:26, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

By the way, I do not approve of the statement that SOPA would "create a regime". It is bad law and un-Constitutional, but it is not a "regime". Perhaps it should say "regiment".--Djathinkimacowboy 22:26, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Doing this kind of action again

It could easily be a slippery slope if this kind of action was taken on all kinds of issues, but seeing the effect that this had, it would be foolish not to consider doing similar actions in the future if one is a fan of democracy.

The logical stance is to limit action only to issues of censorship/internet centralization. This requires vigilance though, as many bills that are proposed and passed these days contain trojan horse elements - any bill could potentially contain legislation similar to SOPA buried deep within it. The forces who we are fighting are more than likely going to be even more subtle next time.

-Pete — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.76.228.103 (talk) 05:07, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Note Since I've been active on this page, I want to point out that the above comment is not by me, it's a different Pete. -Pete (talk) 17:27, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

The logical stance is to limit action only to issues that directly threaten Wikipedia. Any attempt to get involved in any other issues will almost certainly get shot down by consensus. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:01, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

English Wikipedia?

I hope by this you refer to English language? If not, please do a search for 'Great Britain', 'The United Kingdom', 'Wales', 'Scotland', 'Northern Ireland' etc

Psquires (talk) 09:39, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the term "English Wikipedia" always refers to the Wikipedia in English (founded and hosted in the USA), the term "French Wikipedia" to the Wikipedia in French, etc. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 10:11, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Apology?

Do you not think it would be the honorable thing to apologise for making life difficult for people during the blackout? In your "thank you" page you stated: "For us, this is not about money. It’s about knowledge." and yet what you did during the blackout was essentially deny knowledge to the world. Many, many people see Wikipedia as the repository of human knowledge; by cutting off peoples' access to it - even for an hour let alone a day - inconveniences millions of people; 162 million by your own count. I think an apology for this is due. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.93.98 (talk) 12:28, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

This is what is commonly known as a demonstration: to voluntarily "go dark" leaving the ability to get to the content a few extra clicks buried is, in my opinion, far preferable to having the entire resource removed by a third party with no notice or recourse. To those in support of SOPA, I would urge you to read the actual bill. To support the bill because of the underlying ideas despite the implementation is an emotional decision. Politics uses emotion as a tool against the common people to protect itself from the far more useful tool of logic. Deducing that a bill is "unenforceable" and supporting it in spite because of the underlying ideas is foolhardy. Wikipedia is a tool for the conveyance of knowledge. I do not believe any apology is in order. 67.137.121.106 (talk) 15:49, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion no site providing a free service should have to apologize for going dark for a 24-hour period no matter what the reason, and a large majority of people who have given their opinion on this issue agree with the reasons that Wikipedia did so. The entire point of the exercise was to give people a small sample of what life might be like if these bills pass. STLocutus (talk) 17:00, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Right... just stop your payment to Wikipedia for the 24h period of the blackout - and for another 24h period as a penalty. That'll teach 'em! 79.234.84.28 (talk) 19:58, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I fear you miss the point. People have come to rely upon WP. For political reasons, and what would appear to many as a threat, WP took its ball and went home by pulling the plug on information that people needed. The fact that it is a free resource does not make this any more excusable.Objective3000 (talk) 20:11, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Objective, I tend to agree with you, but only to the extent that there wasn't a clear path for non-techies to the javascript workarounds that made it possible to view the site's content. I fear that the decisions around that reflect a kind of ingrained arrogance that is a danger to our project. -Pete (talk) 20:43, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Except for the fact that Wikipedia is not - and likely never will be - one of the targets of these bills. I'm not a supporter of SOPA/PIPA, nor am I against it; quite frankly, I don't care about it. I live in the UK, where the introduction of aformentioned bills wouldn't actually affect me in the slightest. Also, considering how Wikipedia doesn't provide illegal or infringing content, what exactly does any of this have to do with Wikipedia? I understand that the administrators may have a personal dislike for SOPA/PIPA, but the fact is that the majority of the users would be unaffected by it, and the majority of those wouldn't even care about it. The choice to "raise awareness" amongst those people by denying access to the Wikipedia content is like showing someone that punching someone in the face is a bad thing by giving them a right hook; it's unnecessary, and just makes you no better than the supporters of the bill. In fact, it makes you worse because you're denying access to LEGAL content, rather than illegal stuff. Aside from the motivation behind the blackout - which I've already explained the questionable nature of - the implmentation of said blackout was far more disruptive than educational. A simple landing page, displayed once per session to end-users, and a button at the bottom saying "thanks for the info" to take them to the content they were trying to access would've been far more appropriate, and far less disruptive. 87.194.93.98 (talk) 21:29, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

I am Canadian and I, in terms of principle, support the idea of a blackout. We knew in advance that it was coming; a banner at the top of the page told us at least two days before it occurred, after the decision was finalized by a closing administrator (or two). Thus, the earlier claim that it was "without notice" is nothing but a "no fair" complaint. Additionally, this specific bill won't affect me; however, future bills could develop in Canada, the U.K., and elsewhere that WILL affect us individually, and this was an effort at a joint worldwide statement indicating we disagree with such government sponsorship by certain parties (the RIAA for example).

Here is an article about the bills. I herein highlight one clause that concerns me.

As we noted months ago, this provision would allow the MPAA and RIAA to create literal blacklists of sites they want censored. Intermediaries will find themselves under pressure to act to avoid court orders, creating a vehicle for corporations to censor sites—even those in the U.S.—without any legal oversight. Not only can this provision be used for bogus copyright claims that are protected by fair use, but large corporations can take advantage of it to stamp out emerging competitors and skirt anti-trust laws.

So if a similar bill comes about in Canada or the U.K., corporations will be right on board with it. Let's say you own the largest communications company in the U.K. (we're talking about T.V., Internet, phone, the whole gammit). The provisions of this bill, if similar legislation passed there, would allow you to go out and blacklist ANY site by ANY competitor under a bogus claim of copyright - and the onus would be put on the accused to demonstrate their innocence and that they are not violating any of your copyrights (because, in effect, they are not). Such tactics would require your users to only use services that you offer; by blocking everything else, you are guaranteeing they either use your services or nothing. Now let's assume I owned this company. How would you feel as a customer if I took the "Big Brother" approach to tell you what to do online? Especially if you found this out two months into a three year contract under penalty of a termination fee if you back out?

So once again, while both you in the U.K. and I in Canada are not affected by these bills, similar legislation could be drafted that has the same effect. I am not liking this idea and support Wikipedia's efforts to spread the word about it. CycloneGU (talk) 00:31, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

They could also, in the future, draft legislation which states that every single person must be fitted with a tracking device, or everyone caught speeding be subject to electro-shock therapy, or everyone over the age of 40 must donate one major "unnecessary" organ (kidney, section of liver, lung, eyeball, testicle, etc) to a fleshbank. The fact is, these are pure speculation, and wild speculation at that. Also, there is absolutely no link between those situations and Wikipedia; the same way there's absolutely no link between SOPA/PIPA and Wikipedia. As previously stated, the bills were proposed to combat "piracy" and copyright infringement, neither of which Wikipedia is involved in. 87.194.93.98 (talk) 18:41, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

* Comment: The fact that Wikipedia blacked out at all is, as stated elsewhere, a dangerous thing. I agree it owes the public at least a little apology for doing that. Wikipedia will never be trusted as an encyclopedia if it takes to silly protests like this. I honour the message in blacking out the general access to Wikipedia to demonstrate the loss of content...but was it necessary, was it prudent, to demonstrate in the first place? NO. Wikipedia will never be the same. It has committed a graceless act for which so many editors like to chastise so many other editors.--Djathinkimacowboy 21:21, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

• Reconsidered comment: Wikipedia and all its editors should protest bills of this type. I've learned a great deal from one word: link. When I learned SOPA would essentially criminalise any site that so much as linked to a site-in-violation, I realised how websites would be forced to shut down, perhaps permanently. That one word, "link", is all it took for me to do a 180-degree turn in my thinking.--Djathinkimacowboy 18:50, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Can we have a change on the banner message?

The current message ends with "We're not done yet", which implies that the Wikipedia community itself is planning further direct action. This is not really the case, and the landing page it links to is pretty clear that it is seeking further action by readers. I suggest that the wording of that section be changed to "There's more to do." Risker (talk) 14:23, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

* Proposal: I'd like to see the whole darned thing gone. Wikipedia has annoyed enough of us as it is already.--Djathinkimacowboy 21:23, 20 January 2012 (UTC)---I strike my own proposal.--Djathinkimacowboy 18:54, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree "We're not done yet." implies that there will be further protest actions of equal or greater magnitude. Washuchan (talk) 00:17, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

• Commentary: Since learning exactly what SOPA would mean to all internet sites, I have reconsidered. Better a blackout protest for 24 hours than to see Wikipedia and many others sites have to go down, all because of some stupid, horribly draconian piracy law. Did you know SOPA would initiate the loss of sites just for linking to other sites that SOPA would deem in violation? Every damned site on the web would go down like a fleeing animal.--Djathinkimacowboy 18:54, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia may be sliding down a slippery slope

As a long-term supporter of Wikipedia, I am disappointed that WP has decided to become political. By taking a position in a political debate, and a one-sided position at that, WP has lost its objectivity as an encyclopedia. I believe no one can ever again trust Wikipedia articles with any political content. IMHO, WP should halt this campaign and ALL political activity immediately, take a look at why it has violated its charter, and find ways to avoid making such a mistake again. Respectfully, Objective3000 (talk) 18:48, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

• Seems to me that you want Wikipedia to be shut down and for SOPA and PIPA to pass. Taking a stand to save their own website is not a violation of anything.--Kygora 19:37, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

And so it starts. My position is that WP should be objective and not take political positions. I gave no opinion or position on SOPA and certainly did not say that I want WP to shut down. But, Kygora responds with a personal attack in violation of WP:CIV and his claim that the passing of SOPA will shut down WP is a violation of WP:POV. Hardly surprising. If an organization cannot follow its own rules, how can they expect its members to follow its rules. This way lies anarchy.Objective3000 (talk) 19:45, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia has always had held positions on certain topics, some of which are political. The texts in articles should have a neutral point of view, that's not the same as Wikipedia having no position on any issues. You have a misapprehension about WP:POV — it only applies to articles, not talk pages and not the stance of WMF as a whole. To cite the WMF from [6]:

Although Wikipedia's articles are neutral, its existence is not . . . Wikimedia projects are organizing and summarizing and collecting the world's knowledge . . . But that knowledge has to be published somewhere for anyone to find and use it. Where it can be censored without due process, it hurts the speaker, the public, and Wikimedia . . . We believe in a free and open Internet where information can be shared without impediment. We believe that new proposed laws like SOPA -- and PIPA, and other similar laws under discussion inside and outside the United States -- don't advance the interests of the general public.

(btw. how about adding this quote to the project page?) 79.234.84.28 (talk) 20:11, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

If Hitler came back to life, started WWIII and stated he would abolish all encyclopedias, then Wikipedia should write on article on the facts. It should NOT take a position in its own publications. If it wishes to take a position OUTSIDE of its publications, it has that right. WP has failed a major test. When it came to a political issue about which management and a large number of its editors agreed, it abandoned its principles, abandoned its mission as an objective supplier of objective facts, and became a political lobbyist. Read the article to which this Talk page talks. It violates major principles of WP and should be marked for quick deletion. And frankly, I'm tired of hearing the absurd nonsense that Congress will shut down WP. Everyone should know this would never happen. This is a sad day. The day that WP lost its way.Objective3000 (talk) 20:16, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I congratulate you for reaching the Godwin-end of this discussion so quickly an will leave you to it to ramble on on your own. Project pages are also not subject to WP:NPOV. They mostly outline policy and that is per se not done from a "neutral" POV. 79.234.84.28 (talk) 20:24, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

You clearly do not understand Godwin's Law. In no manner did I compare ANYONE or ANY THING to Hitler. You choose to label my argument instead of dealing with it, which is also a violation of WP:CIV. You must debate ideas, not editors. It is clear that anyone that disagrees with WP's change into a lobbyist organization is subject to repeated attacks. I am finished here, and with WP. You may continue your attacks.Objective3000 (talk) 20:30, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure about that Godwin-end either: your rambling is so bad that it loses itself in a logical self-contradiction. If someone would abolish all encyclopedias, wiki would no longer exist to report on anything... No Adolf needed for the contradiction either. Jcwf (talk) 20:32, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

* Commentary: Where exactly are you people getting the idea that Wikipedia would be magically "shut down" if SOPA/PIPA passed? Hmm? I'm sick of all this politprop without substantiation. Wikipedia has already crapped out on its own policy of verification of sources. No one has ever connected the dots to show the public how all this would shut down Wikipedia and I resent this being repeated. It's like 1968 all over again....--Djathinkimacowboy 21:26, 20 January 2012 (UTC)---I strike my own erroneous comment; please see below, this sec., for my present position.--Djathinkimacowboy 05:41, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

I have to agree with Objective's original statement here; there's a very good reason that Encyclopedia Britannica and other such resources do not take public stances on matters which are a matter of opinion rather than ones of fact, and would CERTAINLY never do anything to sabotage their own content or peoples' access to it. Perhaps it's time the Wikimedia Foundation let Wikipedia go. 87.194.93.98 (talk) 21:38, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

That will never happen. CycloneGU (talk) 02:49, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

• COMMENT: Plain language that needs consideration. It is necessary for me to swallow my own words after seeing Wikipedia's "SOPA damages" page. If you'll read my "Comment No. 2" here and allow me to say.... What I saw and visualised has disgusted me into a slight change of heart. I stand as always against the notion that Wikipedia ought to suddenly compromise its virtue by politicking. However, SOPA's draconian threats- which as I see them will force sites to essentially terminate themselves- must also be answered. I am not so opposed to future actions of some kind on the part of Wikipedia. Not after the specifics I read in the bill's language, such as a website being basically charged just for linking to a foreign site that SOPA would deem "infringing" (or in copyright violation, in other words). In fact this made me realise: Wikipedia might just be forced to commit suicide if SOPA passed! How could I have been so stupid?--Djathinkimacowboy 05:38, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately what seems to have been missed by the WMF is the fact that any legislation - in any area of law - is merely a framework for the pursuit of justice and maintainance of order in society. Laws state that "if X, then Y may apply to Z"; the usage of the term "may" allows for interpretation and the application of common sense and judgement during the legal process. In fact, in the UK, for every law there are court guidelines on sentencing and the application of said laws in differing circumstances. Such a process is provided to allow for "shades of grey" to be recognized when applying any such law. The same would undoubtedly apply to SOPA/PIPA or any such legislation. The chances of Wikipedia being challenged and found liable for providing a link to or referencing a site which has mostly non-infringing content would be counter-productive to the bill's purpose, and as such would likely not be pursued. 87.194.93.98 (talk) 18:53, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

True, but that's not what matters, is it? What matters is we can get an understanding of the spirit of these bills. We MUST protest them. It makes no difference if they are unenforceable laws, or can be attuned to the times after they've been passed. We must shout out right now, that we won't have it in the first place. As I said elsewhere, I'd rather participate in Wikipedia blackouts in protest, than to see Wikipedia go down permanently after SOPA is passed. The bills are idealistic crusades now; we have to match their crusades, NOW.--Djathinkimacowboy 18:58, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Edit request 20Jan12

Please add the sidebar to this project pg (already on this tlk pg). {{Wikipedia:SOPA initiative/Nav}} Thanks, --Funandtrvl (talk) 20:41, 20 January 2012 (UTC)  Done -Pete (talk) 20:45, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Edit request 21 Jan

Please also link to Protests against SOPA and PIPA, which is mostly about the English Wikipedia blackout. -- ke4roh (talk) 04:02, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

edit request :About including ACTA

ACTA is a trading agreement that has the same direction of narrowing internet freedoms (alongside other bad concepts) as SOPA and PIPA . I think that it would be a step in the right direction to mention this trading agreement in the page of the initiative in order to spread awareness for it . I hope to see ideas on incorporating ACTA in the protest . My own is that it should be mentioned AT LEAST in the section for non-US citizens . Here's a video summary of the effects of ACTA : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=citzRjwk-sQ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Petko10 (talk • contribs) 14:31, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

What's the best way for me to help? (for non-U.S. citizens)

Bad anti-internet legislation is a little ambiguous, bad anti-internet legislation could be taken to mean ineffective anti-internet legislation. I propose the bad be dropped as it could confuse people for whom English is a second or third language. Washuchan (talk) 18:10, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 21 January 2012

Please reconsider sentence in section "Are SOPA and PIPA dead?": "...and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has postponed planned January 24 vote on PIPA has been postponed,..." perhaps should be: "...and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has postponed planned January 24 vote on PIPA,..." 85.65.78.146 (talk) 18:24, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Improving Effectiveness for Next Time

How we got around the blackout: We needed to access Wikipedia during the blackout. We had done a Google search on "semantics". The first hit was the Wikipedia article. All we had to do was use the Google cached version. On the multipage printout there is now a 1" header saying that it is the Google cached version. Note that our access is from one or another library and it is too much bother to wait until a later date. Even though everyone seems to support your current cause we went ahead with this dead-simple workaround. Other workarounds: Even if you get Google to blackout their cached versions, there is also The Wayback Machine. There might be other cached sources. Next time: If you really want to be effective then next time you should arrange cooperation with Google, The Wayback Machine, and any other prominent cached sources. signature: We do not have internet and have found from experience that it is too difficult to be registered. We sign all edits "agb" (without the quotation marks). agb — Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.43.206.242 (talk) 18:47, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

• The Entire point of Wikipedia's Blackout was not to prevent people from using wikipedia, but to spread a message. Your way of Circumventing the JAVASCRIPT used to redirect you to the blackout page was just another way people did it, wikipedia even stated that if you turn off your JAVASCRIPT in your web browsers options, you would no longer get redirected. i don't understand these people who keep saying:"Oh yeah, we totally got around wikipedia's blackout so it was fail fail fail!" those people just sound like morons.--Kygora 20:22, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

  The fact of the matter is that it was a huge success. There was a slight risk of the news organizations deciding that a JavaScript blackout wasn't a "real" blackout, but only a slight risk - it is the nature of news organizations to emphasize the dramatic. If anyone doubts that it was a huge success, just look at this graphic That says it all. Yes, it is worthwhile discussing things we could have done better, but what happened was a huge win. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:04, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

  That graphic needs no further explanation. The fact that, in one day, so many people in the House changed sides on the bill effectively kills it. Perhaps for good. Pirates will be happy, but that's not the point; the very Internet itself has been protected, as least for a little while. CycloneGU (talk) 01:07, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

  That graphic is also becoming increasingly outdated. As of now, the numbers stand at 61 in support, 189 opposed or leaning "no". [7] -Pete (talk) 01:32, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

  Actually, Pete, that's inaccurate. Based on Yes/No/Leaning No, right now, it's 26/157/43 for SOPA (250 undecided, and listed as indefinitely postponed) and 35/32/10 for PIPA (also indefinitely postponed). CycloneGU (talk) 02:43, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

  Cyclone, your link is specifically about SOPA. The link I included is from the same page used to generate the graphic cited above, and concerns both SOPA and PIPA (and therefore both the Senate and the House). I'm not sure, between your links and my links to ProPublica, which is more up-to-date. But the numbers in the support column add up the same, at least. -Pete (talk) 03:04, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

  I see you struck the link comment, but I'll clarify for others. Change "sopa" to "pipa" and you'll get the PIPA stats. I'm not sure which is more accurate either, but I prefer to believe in the lower support. CycloneGU (talk) 03:57, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

• Update: For whatever it's worth, the ProPublica page now shows 55 supporters, 205 opponents. I'm still dismayed to see my two senators (Boxer and Feinstein) listed in the "support" column, and will continue to work on them. I only managed one call to each this week, but will step it up next week if they don't take some kind of action. -Pete (talk) 13:01, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Redundant statement

In the first section (the "Are they dead?"-part, it says "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has postponed planned January 24 vote on PIPA has been postponed", which I'm sure isn't what it should say. This is probably something that should be fixed. 109.78.211.130 (talk) 21:42, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

• This post itself is redundant, look up 2 posts hmm..--Kygora 22:54, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

"About the Action" section

Sorry, it's my first time on a 'talk' page, don't know the protocol. Just wanted to ask why that intro section on the original "read more" page (early a.m. on Jan 18) got edited out later? It was headed "About the Action" had a brief succinct overview and was very readable and clear. Then came all the Q and A's which are fine, but not everyone might want to read through them all. I know a lot of people who are pretty hazy on PIPA and SOPA and even think the bills must be ok if they protect writers. That "about the action" intro was great for sending to them/ referring them to. I quoted part of it on my blog and linked to the read more page, now this page is missing that whole section which I thought was the best short overview of why we are against the bills.

I found the missing "About the Action" section in this previous version of the page (after emailing for help): http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more&direction=prev&oldid=471995906

Maybe it was judged to be too simplistic??? I just wanted to put in my 2 cents for having a short succinct intro like that one (i like the cure being worse than the disease analogy, think people can relate to that who might not want to delve a lot deeper...) Ingridcc (talk) 23:07, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

As to the question, "Are SOPA and PIPA dead?"...

...here is a quote:

In the U.S. and abroad, legislators and big media are embracing censorship and sacrificing civil liberties in their attacks on free knowledge and an open Internet.

"Attacks on free knowledge" doesn't sound right to me. Whilst true, it is part of the problem I stated from the beginning: Wikipedia must be accurate and not just knee-jerking with its facts. This should describe exactly how free knowledge is being attacked. Like I say, I agree it's a true statement, but it needs more information and mature wording than it now has.--Djathinkimacowboy 22:37, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

I support the call for "mature wording." The goal is to educate the public rather than to try to inflame the mob with overstated claims. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.141.198.236 (talk) 06:29, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

With respect: I don't know that the claims about SOPA are "overstated", and neither does anyone else. As I say, they seem immaturely stated, and no clarification is given for such statements. In fact I agree with the statement, and SOPA's ultimate goal as Wikipedia expresses it. I am arguing for a more professional- perhaps even legal- clarification of what these bills really say. Clarification makes it easier for Wikipedia to connect the dots for the average reader who cannot understand the dangerous severity of SOPA.--Djathinkimacowboy 18:07, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

CopyRight Infringment?

Is wikipedia allowed to use the "Blackout" Intellectual Property of blackout.AaronBale.com without a CopyRight symbol? --Brite22 21:31, 23 January 2012 (UTC) http://pastebin.com/nU1RBy5H Brite22Brite22 21:33, 23 January 2012 (UTC) 21:12, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

On what basis do you think that this is occurring? Risker (talk) 21:38, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

that guy owns the copyright, dont they have to give credit? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brite22 (talk • contribs) 22:04, 23 January 2012 (UTC) Some rights reserved. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brite22 (talk • contribs) 22:06, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I think I have not made myself clear. I don't see anywhere that the content of blackout.AaronBale.com appears on Wikipedia, could you point me to where you think it is? Risker (talk) 22:09, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

"He owns the entire "Idea" of the Blackout Concept" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brite22 (talk • contribs) 22:13, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Why would you think that? Blackouts are a common phenomenon on the internet. Risker (talk) 22:19, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

What happened on Janurary 18th is not a "power outage" or anthing anyone has every experienced before. its a new Concept, that happens to also be CopyRightedBrite22 22:23, 23 January 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brite22 (talk • contribs)

Well then, he'll have to claim it himself. All I'm seeing is a list, which may well be copyrighted, but is not reproduced on this site. Risker (talk) 22:30, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

he cant. you guys banned him for trying to save the internet. check arkbg1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Arkbg Brite22 22:34, 23 January 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brite22 (talk • contribs)

I think it's safe to say that copyright does not apply in this case. "Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation" seems to apply here, from http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 22:36, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I am AaronBale, sole intellectual property owner and identifiable representative and legal owner of the idea, concept, work, group art, inspiration, etc etc. I am honored to have been a member of this operation aka movement aka intiative etc. I will protect the integrity and freedom and sovereignty of "blackout" with my life, until death. I will tolerate zero infringement upon the work of my fellow brothers and sisters on this operation Dont even get me started on the massive about of 'bullshit' these heroes have survived while protecting us. We literally owe Anonymous our lives. I am humbled to serve Blackout — Preceding unsigned comment added by AaronBale (talk • contribs) 02:00, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

"Blackout" idea is protected under Creative Commons http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Brite22 22:40, 23 January 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brite22 (talk • contribs)

Simply asserting that it is true does not make it legally so. As explained above, ideas are not eligible for copyright. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 03:52, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Jimbo and many wikipedians have all of my contact info, why has wikipedia still not respected my blackout brothers brites Creative Common intellectual property right ? AaronBale (talk) 02:10, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

• WTF?!--Djathinkimacowboy 02:19, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

  I will second Djathinkimacowboy's sentiment and square it. My only understanding of the statement in question is that the idea of a blackout belongs to AaronBale and Wikipedia has broken the copyright by using it. On second thought, I will cube Djathinkimacowboy's sentiment. CycloneGU (talk) 02:33, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Einstein said genious is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. I have "failed" in almost every way since I was born. Im not even a "good" artist. Except for this 1 act in time where I revived the American dream helped save the world and I peirce the evil damn of beauracratic corruption phase3 with a small team of anonymous heros, — Preceding unsigned comment added by AaronBale (talk • contribs) 03:11, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

• You don't own anything AaronBale, Specially not Blackout which is a WORD, just because you sit in a basement all day, and saw the blackout happening and was like "Oh Hey, lets got get some fake-ass copyright on the word "Blackout" doesn't mean you own anything that any website did that was termed blackout, you aren't going to get Credit or any kind of compensation for something you didn't come up with, if you had any kind of significant importance in this Blackout, your name would come up in a Google search of "Aaron Bale Blackout" and guess what? IT DOESN'T, get off your High-Horse and stop claiming this shit.(P.S. if i get a ban for this, I will enjoy it, for it was worth it.)--Kygora 03:48, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I hate to be the big spoilsport, but Einstein never said any such thing about inspiration: that was Edison, and even then it is uncertain whether he made it up or stole it! What are you, Bale, the Clown of SOPA here? Kygora, I normally do not encourage that behaviour, but in this case I'm with you. Still, we should have seen the likes of Bale coming sooner or later. At least I'm not the worst-looking contributor here anymore.--Djathinkimacowboy 18:08, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh! Look at his user page, K. Bale was a sockpuppet of Arkbg.--Djathinkimacowboy 18:12, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

This surprises you? After I saw both users posting in alternation, I knew it without a sock check. Both views were phrased in similar ways, and one seemed to go missing while the other posted. I'm not an admin. however and was not saying anything. CycloneGU (talk) 02:08, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Go SOPA

Go SOPA! It doesn't do half the things you think it does! It protects owners of intellectual property, and you can stop being spoiled brats and realize that you should pay for use and/or enjoyment of someone else's property! — Preceding unsigned comment added by PassSopa (talk • contribs) 03:06, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi PassSopa, you appear to be confused about where you are. Perhaps you were looking for megaupload.com? -Pete (talk) 17:19, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Anything that criminalises one of the vital, normal working parts of the internet is evil. SOPA criminalises normal copyright usage. And PassSopa, even though your input might have been better phrased, I personally suspect you are only here to stir it up... just what we don't need. State your argument, don't just yell like a schoolyard bully.--Djathinkimacowboy 18:25, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

The motive behind SOPA was sound, to protect the rights of artists from having their work stolen, but the method used in SOPA are flawed, There is a pressing need for an anti-piracy solution. Washuchan (talk) 01:10, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

TED

Please have a look at this TED video. Selery (talk) 10:13, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Really liked the message and lecture... but it is a 14 minute lecture. Very long. He is very clear, and the whole thing is scary. Please, people, watch this video! Then keep protesting til these damned bills are dead! (By the way, lecturer does not really look like Tom Hanks. He sounds a bit like him.)--Djathinkimacowboy 18:21, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

This video is actually linked in the sidebar of one of these pages. I watched it from there. He has a nice manner of speaking, I rather enjoyed this particlar talk. CycloneGU (talk) 02:10, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Intellectual Property Attribution Rights Infringment

Greetings Wikipedians,

Anonymous Joint-Operation Blackout brings news update to those that have expressed interest. Our legal advisors and PR team has good news and bad news. The good news is that direct litigation against Wikipedia will be bad NonProfit PR. Bad news is that Jimbos infringement is still actionable and the wikipedian credibility will be irreprably harmed. Stay tuned for Anon v. Wales updates. (feel free to fabricate one of your rules to censor this message.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Legion032312 (talk • contribs) 15:29, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

• • Care to translate that into English? — Preceding unsigned comment added by SumYunGuyabcdefg (talk) 19:49, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Are SOPA and PIPA dead?

Should we change the answer to this question to "yes"? Sources cited in the article say that those two bills have "died" [8][9]. Vanjagenije (talk) 00:45, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I've changed this myself. Vanjagenije (talk) 11:11, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

No they are likely to be resurrected in TPP/TISA/TTIP. Furthermore even today Ligen is named in a lawsuit in New York District Court. (see torrent freak) Libgen the worlds largest free Library rivalling the BU and Widener Library is now under attack. If we want the privileged access to information we all have we must fight for it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Michael.a.cohen (talk • contribs) 02:11, 28 June 2015 (UTC)