back to article Wikipedia: YES! we’ve SAVED the INTERNET again!

Just as we predicted only yesterday, Wikipedia has proclaimed a famous “victory” over something that was never going to happen. The site launched a high-profile campaign to “Save the Freedom of Panorama”, after an amendment was tacked onto a European Parliament report produced by the Parliament’s only Pirate MEP. The amendment …

  1. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

    "But on Wikipedia, being right means you can be outvoted by the ignorant or the narcissistic."

    Happens outside Wikipedia as well; those that have the best story win. That's just demagogy democracy.

  2. Bob Wheeler
    Joke

    I've saved the Internet

    It's called a bookmark......

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    (sheepish)

    I had to look up what Freedom of panorama actually meant.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_panorama

    The freedom of taking "photographs and video footage and creating other images (such as paintings), of buildings and sometimes sculptures and other art works which are permanently located in a public place, without infringing on any copyright that may otherwise subsist in such works, and to publishing such images"

    1. Sarah Balfour
      FAIL

      Re: (sheepish)

      Glad you did - my first thought was "I didn't think the Beeb was THAT influential - and why Panorama…? Why not 'Freedom of Newsnight' or 'Freedom of Question Time'…? Why's 'Panorama' so special…?"

      And, no, this isn't even one of my shit jokes this time - I HONESTLY thought that - for a couple of seconds, before I clocked it was an EU thing. Okay, you can all laugh at me now. See…? I've failed myself, so YOU don't have to.

    2. anonCoward24
      FAIL

      Re: (sheepish)

      same here. I kept reading the article way past its lameness point just to be able to understand what the *issue* was.

      BTW, among the nonsense of those rules is that in places [where? citation needed] works that are copyright-free because of old age can be photographed and freely published if they are flat: paintings, photographs, maps..., but not if they are three-dimensional: sculptures, carvings, models...

      All in all, I do applaud at least going through the motion of disagreeing with even *more* nonsense, and glad about your a.k.a. Teenage MP. The EU legislative system is a silly thing to us in the former Colonies, but then y'all laugh at our counties where you cannot buy beer on Sunday, but buying a gun is OK...

      BTW, I did get in HR trouble at work here (to the point of being called in to meet a boss behind closed doors), after I addressed this co-worker as "young man", so, beware of age-based dissing...

  4. spam 1

    Teenaged*

    *Or Thereabouts.

    The MEP you named is 28 years old. May I ask what the snipe about her age was about?

    1. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Teenaged*

      Andrew could easily have looked it up on Wikipedia.

    2. Sarah Balfour

      Re: Teenaged*

      Evidently, El Reg - or whoever this hack is - doesn't think the Pirate Party - of which I'm a member - is a serious political party, it's just kiddies playing at being politicians.

      Obviously, he doesn't believe copyright and privacy are things worth fighting for…

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Teenaged*

      It's so that you can more easily dismiss her as a stupid little girl without looking at any of the arguments.

  5. Martin Summers Silver badge

    Not agreeing with Wikipedia's actions, however I guess there is a case for kicking up a stink about something even at the 'never going to happen' stage, just so that it doesn't escape those that would have some dodgy legislation pass that the population do not in fact want it. If you don't cause some noise it might make them think we are quite happy about it and they begin to get more serious ideas.

    On the subject of Wikipedia, I say bring back the Encarta brand fully online with ads and have contributors wiki style but who are paid and held accountable for what they put in to it.

    1. GrumpenKraut

      a case for kicking up a stink ...

      Yes, see here

  6. MissingSecurity
    Trollface

    Facts?

    Don't you dare threaten the current state of the internet with facts!

    WE NEED A NEW WIKI CAMPAIGN, RIGHT MEOW!

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If Wikipedia says so ...

    ... then it must be true, right?

  8. Tim Starling

    Senior member...

    Not senior in as in authority, just senior as in a dev who has been hanging around for a long time. I was speaking for myself at the time and I am speaking for myself now.

    It's my job to keep the site up, and I didn't think blackouts were consistent with that goal. Blackouts seem to directly conflict with our educational mission. I let the SOPA thing go without making much noise, but in July 2012 it was looking like we had set a precedent, and I was worried that blackouts would become a common event. That's why I spoke out at that time.

    There's no evidence that anyone was lying, it's just that I (a developer, not a lawyer), had a different opinion to that of the WMF legal team.

  9. Tannin

    Most people have trouble taking Wikipedia's bleating about copyright in photographs seriously now - not since that organisation's disgraceful and utterly self-serving campaign to post-hoc justify the monkey photographs they stole.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wait, have we just misled millions of Wikipedia users?

    I thought that was the whole point of Wikipedia's existence?

    Now, I used to support the concept (perhaps I still do), but then I was hit by reality in the form of its current implementation.

    Much as I dislike Orlowski's opinionated and seldom informative or interesting articles, describing contributors as "narcissistic" seems quite accurate, IMO. Take for example a random article about some random person, e.g., a politician or an actor, and see how often you find utterly irrelevant self-serving references. Case in point, and without having looked, but what's the bet there is a "Freedom of Panorama" article in Wankypedia with a full section on how Wankypedia single-handedly saved us all from some imminent legislative catastrophe.

    With due respect to seemingly sensible people like Mr Tim Starling (who posted just above), I get the impression they're way outnumbered by freeloaders and plain losers like the French nobody whose name I don't even recall who came up with the idiotic Flickr-like image viewer.

  11. This post has been deleted by its author

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