I think the great thing about an organisation as large and as important as Wikipedia taking a stance on this is that it makes for great copy. Journalists will love it. I hope this GoDaddy story takes on a new life and makes the transition from the blogosphere to the newspapers and therefore the general public's consciousness. Keep on fighting my US friends. Keep on fighting.
This is probably the most important point. Boycotts of SOPA-supporting companies, as many have pointed out, do very little to stop the bill from passing. What they do succeed in doing is making sure opposition to the bill stays high in the news cycle and enters public consciousness.
I donated to Wikipedia as a direct result of their decision to dump GoDaddy. I spent a good chunk of my day lobbying those I know with tons of domanis at GoDaddy to dump them immediately.
It's interesting that they're being criticized. One of the three responses on the page (the other two being positive) is: "This is an overtly political decision. Poor form."
Personally I think one should be deeply ashamed of backing away from an issue because it may be seen as "political".
Fact is that I doubt Wikipedia would have been possible in an environment where censorship and action without due process is seen as acceptable. Actually, access to wikipedia has been limited in the past by regimes that we consider totalitarian, or near-totalitarian, and the very action of censoring the web has been pointed out as a concrete manifestation of lack of democracy.
Democracy in the west has been weakened gradually over the past years. To a large degree because the population is helpless when it comes to influencing policy; we don't know how to act.
So when a clear opportunity to be heard presents itself I find it disgraceful that thoughtless and unprincipled people promote apathy and inaction. They should be deeply ashamed of themselves.
I think they are looking at this from the wrong perspective (although it's easy to do). An overly political stance from GoDaddy has forced Wikipedia to make a decision.
It's the same reason why I think Google and other big tech platforms shouldn't use their service to promote anti-SOPA initiatives... once you go down that track, your service is seen as divisive and political.
There is a significant section of the wikipedia community that thrives on inertia (just try contributing to an article there and see for yourself) for these people even a modicum of change is completely unacceptable. Heck if tomorrow wikipedia discovered a way to feed all the hungry children in the world by adding one article to the site you'd have people voting to delete that article for some reason.
It is a political decision, but it is directly related to an issue that could spell doom for wikipedia. Non-profits still get to have a say in issues that relate to their own survival.
Exactly. Certain "wikipedians" seem to hold neutrality with high regard while ignoring the fact that Switzerland has the luxury of neutrality because they are willing to act in their own defense. These wikipedians confuse pacifism with neutrality.
Do not confuse stupidity with neutrality. An organism which makes no effort to avoid its extinction, especially when it can do so in a peaceful manner, has forfeit its evolutionary right to exist.
I hope the wikipedians in question will take some time to think about how their passive stance actually ends up jeopardizing their neutrality, and that once they have gotten their shit together, feel enough shame to apologize for being part of the problem.
Political indeed! SOPA isn't just a practical issue (although, it is this too), it's an ethical issue. It's important for organizations like Wikipedia (and universities! ) to take a stand.
Neutrality is important to their culture, and it could be difficult for some to separate "we don't want to support harmful practices and products" from the politics of those practices and products.
Neither the Wikimedia Foundation nor the Wikipedia editors participating in the linked discussion seem to think that domain name supplier is a community matter.
As far as I can tell, this was a decision of the Wikimedia Foundation, and the resulting action will be taken by the Wikimedia Foundation.
OMG, Wikipedia talk pages are freaking impossible to read!
Surely there are some serious Wikipedians floating around here. Hasn't anyone thought about adding a little bit of threaded conversation support to mediawiki so these back and forth discussions aren't such a mess?
I think this is a very powerful move by Wikipedia against SOPA.
I hope they do something creative - such as take the entire site down for a few days in protest with a message that says something like "this is what your favorite websites could look like post-SOPA. Call your congressman now and tell him / her that SOPA should not be passed."
That would be great. Maybe there should be a new open source software license featuring total denial of rights to use to the MPAA/RIAA member companies too.
Although I agree with these goals of such a move (fighting SOPA) such a licence would not be considered an open source or free software licence by the OSI or FSF. A licence must not discriminate based on endeavour.
such a licence would not be considered an open source or free software licence by the OSI or FSF.
So what? What's the downside of using a variation of a common license that is not approved of by the OSI or FSF?
Someone other than the target excluded group might not use the software you're offering for free?
Who would get mad if I released code under the MIT license (or some variant) with an additional requirement that it cannot be used to build Web sites the advocate killing abortion doctors?
If it's my code can't I just set whatever conditions I want (modulo the requirements of any prior licenses my code may be bound by)?
Oh yes, you can release your code under whatever licence you like. The problem with not using an Open Source Licence or Free Software Licence is that it's harder for other people to build on your work, and your work might not be included in distributions of free software (e.g. Debian).
There is a difference between registering your domain with GoDaddy, and using GoDaddy's DNS servers. The wikipedia.org domain is (currently) registered with GoDaddy. Wikipedia run their own DNS servers.
In a longer run this may not look as good for Wikipedia as it does now. It shows that they are willing to sacrifice their cultural values, particularly neutrality, for other impromptu values that Jimmy sees fit to promote. It also shows that they are willing to turn on their business partners and screw them.
This is the logical next step part of a much longer trend on Wikipedia, that of the solidification of power in the hands of a few, which has been happening with the editing for some time.
Neutrality does not require passivity and inaction. In fact, it requires that you actively distance yourself from politicized parties so that your neutrality is not called into question. GoDaddy has, of their own accord, become a politicized party in the SOPA debate. It is altogether reasonable for Wikipedia to choose not to be involved with them.
So has Wikipedia: they could have just dropped GoDaddy without saying a word, that would have been neutral. Publicly proclaiming you severing business ties for a politically-charged reason is just bad business.
"publicly proclaiming" is 'as discussed in our own online spaces where we came up with the decision'? Do you have evidence of wikipedia seeking out other media to promote their decision?
I don't see that as bad business. Wikipedia requires neutrality. SOPA is anti-neutrality. Can you really imagine sites like Wikipedia existing in a post-SOPA universe?
It shows that they do care about their users, and they are willing to do whatever it takes to make them comfortable. A few Redditors started a cause to donate money to Wikimedia in return to ask them if they would acknowledge the fact that GoDaddy is/was Pro-SOPA and they should plan on switching their domain over somewhere else.
Jim is also a Anti-SOPA guy, he had the idea to move the domain once the news was out about GoDaddy supporting SOPA. Wikipedia saw an opportunity from their users that were encouraging them to switch.
Along with many others, I also agree with the choice WikiMedia recently made.
>> It shows that they are willing to sacrifice their cultural values, particularly neutrality, for other impromptu values that Jimmy sees fit to promote
Opposing SOPA is a must for wikipedia to maintain neutrality. Else, soon you will see that most of the so called controversial articles on wikipedia are no longer available because it will make it mandatory on the part of wikipedia to remove them.
And moving their domain from Godaddy is the right thing to do.