Submissions/Who and why of the SOPA blackout vote

From Wikimania 2012 • Washington, D.C., USA

This is a rejected submission for Wikimania 2012.

Submission no. 733
Title of the submission
Who and why of the SOPA blackout vote
Type of submission (workshop, tutorial, panel, presentation)
presentation
Author of the submission
E-mail address
piokon@post.pl
Username
User:Piotrus
Country of origin
Poland
Affiliation, if any (organization, company etc.)
University of Pittsburgh
Personal homepage or blog
User:Piotrus
Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal)

Wikipedia participation in what was labelled as the "first Internet strike" of January 18th has accounted for about a fifth of related Tweets (or about 1.5m total). About 20 millions saw the dark blackout page, and about 170 millions visited articles on SOPA/PIPA and over eight million looked up their elected representatives' contact information via the Wikipedia tool. In the end, the strike was a success, and SOPA/PIPA legislation have been discarded.

All of this was possible because the Wikipedia community, in the form of several thousands Wikipedians, expressed their desire, through two rounds of voting, for a global blackout. Who were the Wikipedians who participated in the voting? Where the established editors, or newbies? Administrators or not? Editors hailing from US or members of the international community? And, perhaps most crucially, what were their reasons for supporting or opposing this protest?

Track
  • WikiCulture and Community; Research, Analysis, and Education
Length of presentation/talk
25 Minutes
Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?
not sure


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