Wikipedia Hasn't Forgiven GoDaddy

netbuzz writes "The fact that a month and a half has gone by and Wikipedia still hasn't followed through on Jimmy Wales public threat to remove its domain name registrations from GoDaddy over the latter's early support of SOPA has some concerned that the online encyclopedia may have had a change of heart. After all, GoDaddy did withdraw its backing of the controversial antipiracy legislation, at least publicly. But fear not, SOPA foes, as Wikipedia says its days with GoDaddy are indeed numbered and that number is getting very small."

Comments

SOPA isn't the only reason GoDaddy sucks

[MrEricSir]

Let's also not forget all the other ways GoDaddy sucks:

• So much up-selling a car dealer would blush
• Obnoxious TV advertisements that are straight out of Idiocracy
• Customer service worse than the post office or a bank
• That whole elephant-killing thing.

So fuck GoDaddy. There's plenty of registrars with better service that cost less anyway.

Re:SOPA isn't the only reason GoDaddy sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL.
After following your link to waterboarding, which then leads to another page 60 links deep proclaiming the GoDaddy CEO supports waterboarding, the only thing it eventually led to is a blog posting by the CEO calling Guantanamo Bay an "important asset" to protect Americans. So yes, I suppose you could say he therefore supports waterboarding, in the same way that if a staff member at Guantanamo Bay was into BDSM, you could say Bob Parson supports BDSM tooly. Or in the same way that you support Open Source, of which Linux is a leading example, which contains components written by Hans Reiser, who was a murderer; and therefore you publicly support murder.

Re:SOPA isn't the only reason GoDaddy sucks

[Arrepiadd]

Put two fish of the same species in a proper environment and safe from predators and after one year you have 10000 of them.
Put two elephants in an equivalent scenario and after one year you have two elephants. After two years you may have three. After 10 years, all things perfect, you'll have about 5 of them.

Now go back to the end of year one... kill one fish, kill one elephant. Do you see where this is going?

forgivness

[SuperTechnoNerd]

I have not forgiven my congress critters either. Looking forward to November.

Re:forgivness

[bky1701]

So you can vote in the other (potentially worse) corporate candidate? Or do you plan to vote for a third party with little chance of winning? If the first, at least do the due diligence of figuring out if the opposition is more fanatical in support of the things you dislike. This is a step I fear most people do not realize is necessary. If the second, well... have fun being a statistical outlier.

Re:forgivness

[EuclideanSilence]

What the hell is wrong with being a statistical outlier? Elections aren't some horserace that you win by voting for the candidate that gets office, they are won when public opinion changes.

Re:forgivness

[artor3]

What the hell is wrong with being a statistical outlier? Elections aren't some horserace that you win by voting for the candidate that gets office, they are won when public opinion changes.

True, but public opinion isn't changed by the fact that 0.2% of the vote went to Generic Third Party #17. Not even a little bit.

If you want to effect change via voting:
1) Primary for the best candidate you can find (a lot of people ignore this step, and then go on to bemoan that they only have two choices in the general election)
2) Vote for the least bad of the two major party nominees at the federal level
3) Vote for third parties at the local and state level

Non-federal politics matter a whole lot -- more than federal politics for many aspects of life -- and are easier to influence. Plus the pool of people who get taken seriously at a federal level tends to be drawn from those who have been successful at the lower levels. If you can get a great candidate to be a popular and successful state senator, then he's got a good shot at becoming governor. If you've got a popular and successful independent governor, I know a whole lot of people who'd love to see him become president. It's admittedly a long shot, but it's better than throwing away your vote every cycle in a protest that 99.9% of the populace won't even notice.

Re:forgivness

[epine]

True, but public opinion isn't changed by the fact that 0.2% of the vote went to Generic Third Party #17. Not even a little bit.

You can't back that up, I don't believe it to begin with, and the argument from continuity suggests it's not even logically possible, not to mention the problem with induction.

There exists threshold j below which your vote matters not at all in the minds of dullards who believe this. At some point you have to cross the dullard threshhold. Only a non-dullard can move the dullards. But even the non-dullard concedes that there exists k much less than j below which his inductive impetus is wasted. Only a double non-dullard can move the non-dullards. But even a double non-dullard concedes that there exists m much less than k ...

On a more practical basis, there was a time in the nineties in a Canadian election where the dismal third option failed to clear a threshold I didn't even know about: percentage of popular vote which granted them official party status and the resources which flow from that. All the idiots were saying "don't waste your vote" over votes this party desperately needed to clear this bar.

The big one in America, of course, is excluding Ralph Nadar (or anyone like him) from the presidential debate. I think that's the worst possible outcome of all, because it grants the asylum complete control over the speaking points. All you have left are two candidates promising the same small opposites. We're left arguing over the colour of the paint rather than whether to adopt a gasoline or diesel engine.

These throw-away votes don't decide between the donkey and the elephant, but they have a big impact on whether good candidates, or at least strong voices for a different future, bother to show up at all.

I believe America should outlaw two party debate in presidential elections. There should always be at least a third voice who gets equal time, selected by whatever mechanism proves workable. (This is probably a long term arms race where the incumbents constantly work to scupper whatever worked the time before.)

In fact, I wouldn't mind having an entire panel of third party voices who collectively get 1/3 of the total debate time. They can have a bidding system among themselves for who gets to cut in on which issues.

Your rule of thumb is a good one for people who don't wish to think. Not even a little bit.

To be fair...

[Daetrin]

I expect with a company the size of Wikipedia, particularly one with Wikipedia's web presence, switching your hosting around isn't really something you can do on the turn of a dime.

On the other side of the coin though (er, so to speak) i wonder if this is really the best tactic. I mean, i couldn't wish for the fallout to land on a more deserving company, but will this affect Wikipedia's bargaining position for similar situations in the future? Threatening to punish people for actions you don't like is just fine (well, assuming you stick to legal methods of course) but if they recant and you follow through on your threats regardless, would the next company you deal with have any reason to recant?

Re:To be fair...

[EdIII]

switching your hosting around isn't really something you can do on the turn of a dime

Exactly. It does take time, especially for a large organization, to find a suitable replacement for services.

.....but if they recant and you follow through on your threats regardless, would the next company you deal with have any reason to recant?

That's not the point. There is no forgiveness for GoDaddy. Absolute Utter Destruction Required. They KNOW better.

Some actions are not possible to take back. Yes, I will compare it to murder. You just can't take it back. Do I care that the murderer is blubbering in the court room? Nope. Not at all. Fry his ass.

That is what it really comes down too. A deterrent. When we partially hang GoDaddy, cut off their balls, disembowel them, chop of their head, and distribute the remaining portions of their body on spikes to the far reaches of the Internet it will stand as warning to all companies to not support laws that threaten the base functionality of the Internet and a free and open network.

Their cries for mercy fall on deaf ears and hardened resolve.

Re:To be fair...

[Anonymous Coward]

Except Godaddy didn't really recant.

Re:Fun, but...

[EdIII]

That's being a bit simplistic.

If I walked into a local restaurant and received poor service and bad tasting food, the people there might be a bit dismissive when I complain loudly and tell them that I am going "blog that shit all over the Internet".

Now if President Obama walked in (unlikely I know) and then mentioned how shitty the place was to the White House press core, it might be a little more devastating.

Both of us spent the same amount of money, and represent the same amount of loss in the future on an individual basis, but one certainly stings a bit more.

Re:And this costs GoDaddy what, $2.95?

[FreakyGreenLeaky]

It costs them reputation.

Re:I won't be donating to Wikipedia

[TapeCutter]

I though you had staked out the moral high ground very neatly, but in the last paragraph you went all self-indulgence about WP and fell back to the level of choosing sides based on personal prejudice, like the rest of us mere mortals.

The fact is that most people believe they are doing TheRightThing(TM) most of the time. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Ivan the terrible, OBL, George Washington, you, me, grandma, and the wiggles, did not get to where they did by believing what they were doing was evil. For example if you could ask OBL what he did with his life he would probably tell you with genuine sincerity that he spent it "fighting evil". So from my POV good intentions are not a valid excuse for supporting racketeering via congressional decree, particularly for a corporation one would expect has the expertise to build decision trees that would likely foresee the potential harm. If it wasn't on their decision tree before all the hoohaa, it is now.

Being generous I'd say GD displayed admirable self-skepticisim on the issue. Being cynical I'd say GD are like any other company, what they fear most is becoming a public pariah.

seriously, don't try to defend Bob Parsons

[Onymous Coward]

Bob Parsons on Guantamo Bay:

"The interrogation techniques at Gitmo are very mild."

(Note from Wikipedia: By May 2011 there had been at least six suicides and hundreds of suicide attempts in GuantÃnamo that are in public knowledge.)

"Key prisoners at Gitmo still have not talked -- because our interrogation methods are so weak."

(Are we really going to get into a sincere discussion about the efficacy of torture? What about we pause first at the idea of whether it's ethical?)

"Given the type of individuals we have incarcerated at Gitmo (all of them would love to gouge out your eyes-"

(including children and old men?)

Bob Parsons is the ugliest face of America. Hateful and uninformed, but pushing to make things work the way he thinks they should. Don't be like Bob. And don't empower him with your money.