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bleucheese
Veejay
Joined: Aug 01, 2003
Posts: 1980
Location: this side of the tracks
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 Posted:
Aug 06, 2007 - 12:32 PM |
 
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| Post subject: wikimania 2007: social retards gather in taiwan |
wikipedia has been working for awhile. maybe the chinese version is still blocked?
Politically Neutral, in a Blurry Sense
TAIPEI, Taiwan — A half-hour into a packed news conference here raising a curtain on Wikimania 2007, the annual gathering of a few hundred rank-and-file editors and high-minded theorists devoted to Wikipedia, a Taiwanese reporter raised his hand and apologized for being late.
“Some time ago, the Chinese government blocked Wikipedia, so the Chinese people cannot access your content,” he said. “What is the status quo right now? Do you guys have any legal — ?”
Before he could finish his question, Jimmy Wales, a co-founder of Wikipedia, cut him off. “I am sorry, you came late, and we did this question already.”
A version of that journalist’s question was the first put to Mr. Wales and the other Wikipedia officials on Friday in a youth center near Taipei’s Keelung River. It also was the first one he was asked last week at a luncheon organized by a business magazine.
“Wikipedia is still blocked in mainland China,” Mr. Wales said at the news conference. “Wikipedia is neutral, politically neutral, so we should not be blocked in China. It is a wonderful educational resource to help with economic growth.”
Taipei in the summer is an odd choice for any convention, other than, perhaps, the Competitive Sweating Association. But for the wildly successful collaborative project to edit a free encyclopedia in the world’s languages, it seems doubly out of character.
Simply put, politics is an irritant to Wikipedians, an annoying human tic that stops people from agreeing on facts and spreading reliable information. Enforcing a politics-free policy has helped the Web site achieve unprecedented growth. The various Wikipedias have more than 200 million unique visitors a month, far short of the more than six billion people in the world but still not too shabby.
But more than influence, Wikipedians at their most utopian believe that knowledge will free minds, and, ultimately, free governments as it travels the globe.
The story about Chinese Wikipedia, however, undercuts that claim.
For a brief time in 2005, Chinese Wikipedia was readily available across the Chinese-speaking world and operated as a pan-Chinese club. Nearly half of the contributions came from the mainland, with the rest from Hong Kong, Taiwan and other outposts.
Then came the block, part of what is jokingly called the Great Firewall of China. The block of Wikipedia has never been officially explained or acknowledged, but it is presumably based on the neutral descriptions of controversial topics like the fah1on g0ng spiritual sect or the Tiananmen Square prοtests of 1989.
The block can drift in and out briefly, said Andrew Lih, an American writing a book about Wikipedia who lives in Beijing and helps run Wikipedia, and it appears to be a local network problem. This last feature, he said, helps play down the censorship taking place.
There are still technologically sophisticated contributors on the mainland who can evade the block, said Chieh Deng, 30, a legal affairs reporter in Taipei and the main Taipei organizer. But there are very few new contributors, he added. Over the last year or two, Mr. Deng said, he “lost a lot of friends — they just disappeared.”
In the heyday of the freely accessible Chinese Wikipedia, he said, there were 70 administrators (editors with some supervisory responsibilities), 30 of them from the mainland. Now there are just “the survivors,” about five, he said.
Wikipedia officials insist that the decision to hold the convention in Taiwan was not politically motivated. It was a matter of who had the best bid among the rival cities that made a proposal, they said.
“I think there was a certain sense that we had done it in Europe and the U.S. and we wanted to get attention in Asia, maybe do it in Asia,” Mr. Wales said in an interview. “Certainly, there was no intent to be provocative about that. If I was going to be provocative, I would want to do it in Beijing, which I am sure they would have let us.”
After all, he added slyly, “It is not illegal to have a conference in Beijing.”
Of the 450 or so people attending the conference, about 250 have come from outside Taiwan, including five or six Wikipedians from the mainland. This small total from the mainland is not the result of a lack of trying, the organizers said.
The organizers left it to the mainland Wikipedians to try to get travel documents to leave China. And some of the mainlanders attending, who so far have been understandably press shy, had to come via Thailand, because their visit is not exactly illegal but not exactly legal, either, according to a person from mainland China who lives abroad and is attending the conference.
The Chinese government was not the only hurdle. Taiwan’s government made it difficult for the Wikimania organizers to file the paperwork needed to invite someone from the mainland to Taiwan, some said.
“Our government doesn’t want it, so there weren’t clear instructions,” said Tzu-Chiang Liou, 31, another organizer, who ended up signing a document making him the guarantor that the mainlanders would return. “We’re not travel agents,” Mr. Deng added.
In the end, they gained permission for eight people from the mainland, but a couple had to cancel, including a high school student who cited the cost involved, they said.
There is an incredible spirit among the volunteers, who are continually thinking of ways to improve communication for those attending. For example, they created stickers that attendees could wear. A popular one lists the languages someone speaks to help promote discussions.
I was pointed to one of the mainlanders in attendance. He was wearing another sticker the organizers had provided at the registration desk. It showed a camera with a line through it.
No pictures, please.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/business/media/06link.html?ref=busin ess |
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*CheerLeader*Mao
Post Roaster
Joined: July 07, 2004
Posts: 4678
Location: frenCh belgiuM
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Aug 06, 2007 - 01:19 PM |
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Very interesting article.
To me the whole interesting thing about the Chinese gov'ts censorship of the internet, and i dont just mean Wikipedia, but the blocking of news sites or education sites or picture sites like flickr.com is that they literally have no chance of surviving. And to top it off, it is only going to make things greatly worse for them in the long run.
The only reason it is working now is for a few reasons.
1. The rest of the world clearly doesn't really give a sh1t about China, so they can censor whatever the fcuk they want really.
2. Most of the censorship happens for corporate reasons. Google and MSN were blocked to foster local Chinese sites ie. Baidu. The actual censorship of F L G, Taiwan, Tiananmen and this bullsh1t, they dont fcuking care, how can they, its nothing but a smoke screen. Blocking flickr.com clearly proved this as it happened the same week the Chinese copy of flickr.com was launched.
3. Most sites that get blocked are English language sites. Explain this one? It makes no sense really.
The only reason Wikipedia is blocked in my opinion is they are waiting to figure out how to make a Chinese version that can line their pockets. |
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