On Thu, 23 Jan 2025, [email protected] wrote:
Dear friends,
This email is very Wikimedia specific. I come to you with a request that I
think many of you will have an interest in.
Sometimes a decision not to take part in a political action helps the cause
anyway:
Days after the English Wikipedia blackout related to SOPA (already on your list)
we've had a very heated dicussion in Poland about
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), leading to a blackout of many
websites
- including some huge ones, like Polish counterparts of eBay (Allegro)
and reddit/digg (wykop.pl).
After 19 January 2012, when Polish government announced the decision to sign
the treaty, that thing went mainstream and has been in the media
everywhere across the country for weeks. In the end, we have managed
to regain the ground and turn the tide against the treaty, leading
to the reversal of the government position re ACTA, which in turn
prompted other European countries to follow the suit.
The blackout of the English Wikipedia become news in Poland (Jimmy Wales
quoted as the "chief" of Wikipedia [1]), but Polish community couldn't gather
consensus to pursue the blackout on pl.wiki.
Nevertheless, even the decision not to shut down the site has been reported[2].
Paweł Zienowicz, the spokesman of the Polish Wikimedia chapter at the time,
issued a nuanced statement [3] that, despite the lack of agreement among
the community, pointed out the dangers of SOPA/PIPA and the upcoming ACTA to
the way Wikipedia works. The statement has been widely quoted in the media.
A brief summary of the zeitgeist back then can be found in the article
deletion discussions [4]. The main question seems to be: to what extent
a political event can be considered a threat to Wikipedia itself and its
community,
and whether protest action should be launched in the name of volunteer editors
despite neutral point of view and other pillars.
On a personal note, as I was one of the public faces of the Internet community
at the time, a withdrawn draft of community statement on ACTA[4] has been moved
to my user space[5], although I wasn't even the author of the text.
With the blackout or not, we've had a great time - as can be seen on our
"situation
room" photo [6]. One of us - Adam Bodnar (sitting at the book shelf, wearing
green)
is the current minister of justice of Poland... and so it goes.
Marcin
User:Saper
[1]
https://interaktywnie.com/biznes/artykuly/wywiady/co-dalej-z-wikipedia-jej-szef-ujawnia-interaktywnie-com-ze-22631
[2]
https://polskieradio24.pl/artykul/522796,Polska-Wikipedia-nie-bedzie-strajkowac-przeciw-ACTA
(Polish public radio)
[3]
https://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/O%C5%9Bwiadczenie_w_sprawie_protestu_przeciw_SOPA
[4]
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Poczekalnia/artyku%C5%82y/2012:01:25:Wikipedia:ACTA
[5] https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedysta:Saper/ACTA
[6]
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plik:Spotkanie_przed_Improwizowanym_Kongresem_Wolnego_Internetu_w_zwi%C4%85zku_z_protestami_przeciwko_ACTA.jpg
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