Talk:Net Neutrality

Discussion draft

Proposal: A US-only CentralNotice in support of Net Neutrality.

Net Neutrality is the principle that service providers should treat all Internet traffic as equal, and not discriminate on the basis of origin, destination, or type of data. Net Neutrality protects people's access to knowledge by prohibiting internet service providers from blocking, slowing, or prioritizing data traffic for a fee.

The Wikimedia Foundation and several US Wikimedia affiliates have come out in support of Net Neutrality in the United States, as well as the efforts in Congress to keep the Open Internet rules in place. Just as the Foundation considers Net Neutrality as essential for access to knowledge, the Wikimedia community should realize that equal access to knowledge is important to our mission and knowledge equity and act accordingly. The concern is that if access to Wikipedia and/or its sources is slowed, or allowed only as part of a paid premium, this could gravely harm our fundamental mission to provide free access to knowledge for all. Any restricted access could reduce the quality of articles and reduce the diversity of contributors who create and maintain Wikipedia’s content. If access is limited in a way that restricts access to sources we use to create Wikipedia articles, that hinders our mission of delivering free knowledge.

This proposal is to gauge the community's interest in presenting a banner to US-based viewers of the English Wikipedia, which would show the importance of Net Neutrality to Wikipedia's mission and encourage further reading and action. A landing page with more details has been produced here. A proposed banner with expandable information is previewable here, with a preview of its unexpanded form as follows:

Free knowledge depends on net neutrality.
We are asking for your support.

LEARN WHY AND TAKE ACTION

The reason this proposal is being brought up now is that on May 9, a petition will be filed in the U.S. Senate to force a vote on a bill to block the FCC's December repeal of net neutrality rules. The bill currently has bipartisan support from half the Senators, and only one more vote is needed for the bill to pass in the Senate.

In general, Wikipedia should remain non-partisan and non-political; however, Wikipedia's own mission of free and open knowledge for all is a political one, and the community must support public policy when that policy is vital to protecting its mission. Just this week the German Wikipedia ran a banner to support European Union copyright reform; in the past, banners were run in South Africa in support of freedom of panorama, and banners were run in Australia to support fair use. This proposed Net Neutrality geo-targeted banner would be in line with previous community efforts to support policies in the best interest of Wikimedia.

Some may remember SOPA and PIPA, two other laws that would have radically altered how the internet is used in the United States in a way that negatively impacted our mission. A Wikipedia blackout and banner was instrumental in turning public and legislative opinion against these detrimental bills. We're not going for a blackout this time, but hope that a US-focused banner can direct attention to the issue and preserve Net Neutrality by promoting a grassroots effort to convince Congress to act.

Further reading:

• Wikimedia Foundation: "Net neutrality is essential for access to knowledge"
• Fight for the Future: Battle for the Net
• Public Knowledge: "Tell Congress to Use the CRA to Save Net Neutrality"
• Wikipedia articles: w:Net neutrality, w:Net neutrality in the United States

Discussion

Take action?

The "take action" button (the one which isn't embedded in a picture that goes to the file page) currently goes to a nonexistent meta page called Take action. Where is this supposed to/going to point? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 20:18, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

@Rhododendrites: Thanks for the note. The original idea was linking to a list of Congress contacts, but if this thing goes into action, the current prevailing idea is to bring CongressLookup back into play here (similar to how it was used for SOPA). In that case that button will likely be removed. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 20:42, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

W

The block containing the big W and its shadow is making the text that also occupies that space render in a way that affects readability and doesn't allow for clicking of links (e.g. the key net neutrality link). It's been too long since I've CSSed, but pushing that div to the back might fix it? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 20:22, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

@Seddon (WMF): Also, that W is pretty obviously not the Wikipedia W. Is there time to fix that? Ryan Kaldari (WMF) (talk) 03:37, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Nevermind, I fixed it. Ryan Kaldari (WMF) (talk) 17:11, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Asking for your support

Maybe it's just me, but We are asking for your support sounds a lot like a donation-drive message; I'd be worried folks would dismiss the banner without clicking to read more. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 21:45, 6 May 2018 (UTC)