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Wikipedia Debates Strike Over SOPA
An anonymous reader writes "Jimbo Wales has suggested that English Wikipedia restrict its services for a period to protest against the anti-piracy SOPA bill in the United States. This follows a similar action by the Italian Wikipedia last month."
Reader fiannaFailMan points out another bit of Wikipedia news: they've taken the wraps off a prototype for a new visual editor. A sandbox is available to try out. The Wikimedia Foundation hopes easier, more intuitive editing will shore up waning contributor numbers.
Actually, I'd rather see more full page (?) treatments of obscure pop culture artifacts than have that content deported by the franchise to bloated, ad-infested Wikia sites. The gall on Mr. Wales to annoy us with "a personal messages" at the end of the year while he's getting stinkin' rich from that Wikia ad money his influence on Wikipedia's policies helps generate.
Every December, Jimbo goes on the scrounge; sticks his hand out for money. And every single December there's some controversial headline about Wikipedia -- this is not a coincidence.
Honest-Jimbo isn't going to be restricting, nor shutting down, the site this side of Hell freezing over. He's making far, far too much money from it. This is just a stunt, like so many before it -- designed to make sure his source of free money keeps rolling in.
And while there's a great deal wrong with copyright laws, and it is good that it is highlighted, I dare say the main reason for Wikipedia being interested in that, is that there's huge tracts of stolen, and plagiarized, text all over that site.