English Wikipedia will close down on January 18

[Humes fork]

It will be down for 24 hours, to protest against SOPA. Read their statement.

 

[Darat]

Pathetic.

 

[Spindrift]

Pathetic.

What's pathetic? Wikipedia or SOPA?

 

[Bikewer]

Other sites, like Reddit, were planning the same thing. Possibly moot, since the bill has at least been tabled, last I heatd.

 

[Oliver]

Uh, did it pass or is the fuss about "lets do something before it passes"...?

 

[Almo]

Good for them.

 

[Travis]

Part of their statement:

The reality is that we don’t think SOPA is going away, and PIPA is still quite active. Moreover, SOPA and PIPA are just indicators of a much broader problem. All around the world, we're seeing the development of legislation intended to fight online piracy, and regulate the Internet in other ways, that hurt online freedoms. Our concern extends beyond SOPA and PIPA: they are just part of the problem.

 

[leftysergeant]

i hopr they go ahead with the blackout just to send the message that the corporations are sticking their noses too deeply into what goes on on the web.

 

[rjh01]

Another forum (http://www.freeratio.org/index.php) is threatening to close down, due to this issue. The thing I am worried about is what impact will this legislation have on this forum?

 

[Rat]

If anyone actually needs Wikipedia today, I've found it works perfectly well if you just don't allow scripts to run on the site.

 

[Babbylonian]

If anyone actually needs Wikipedia today, I've found it works perfectly well if you just don't allow scripts to run on the site.

Thank you very much. Not having access to Wikipedia is a bit painful.

 

[Donn]

Thank you very much. Not having access to Wikipedia is a bit painful.

Therewith the entire point

(And you can just view the page without styles.)

 

[jj]

i hopr they go ahead with the blackout just to send the message that the corporations are sticking their noses too deeply into what goes on on the web.

Corporations like Wiki, among others.

Putting up a bannor or a front page, sure, but destroying function? Cutting off nose to spite face.

 

[TK0001]

Corporations like Wiki, among others.

Putting up a bannor or a front page, sure, but destroying function? Cutting off nose to spite face.

We're trained to ignore banners. But it's tough to ignore a blacked out "essential" website.

 

[tuoni]

If anyone actually needs Wikipedia today, I've found it works perfectly well if you just don't allow scripts to run on the site.

Ah, but if you're in America you may want to be careful you don't violate the DMCA in doing so as it "criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself"

 

[Babbylonian]

Therewith the entire point

Actually, I've decided that the real point is to make people aware of how to turn off scripting, which will lead to more secure browsing. Good show, Wikipeople!

 

[Tricky]

If anyone actually needs Wikipedia today, I've found it works perfectly well if you just don't allow scripts to run on the site.

How do you set that?

 

[Professor Yaffle]

The mobile site still works.

 

[mortimer]

How do you set that?

It differs depending on browser. In Chrome, you can set it so javascript is blocked on a site by site basis.

 

[Babbylonian]

In Firefox, I have Noscript installed which requires specific permission site by site. So, for Firefox users installing that add-on would automatically bypass Wikipedia's SOPA screen.