Wikipedia goes dark for a day

Can the world live without Wikipedia for a day? The shutdown Wednesday of one of the Internet's most-visited sites is not sitting well with some of its volunteer editors, who say the protest of anti-piracy legislation could threaten their work's credibility.

"My main concern is that it puts the organization in the role of advocacy, and that's a slippery slope," said editor Robert Lawton, a Michigan computer consultant who would prefer that the encyclopedia stick to being a neutral repository of knowledge. "Before we know it, we're blacked out because we want to save the whales."

Wikipedia shut down access to its English-language site for 24 hours beginning at midnight Tuesday night. Instead of encyclopedia articles, visitors saw information about the two congressional bills and details about how to reach lawmakers.

It's the first time the English site has been blacked out. Wikipedia's Italian site came down once, briefly, in protest of an Internet censorship bill put forward by the Berlusconi government. The bill did not advance.

Wednesday's shutdown adds to a growing body of critics speaking out against the legislation.

One of the site's "five pillars" of conduct says Wikipedia "is written from a neutral point of view." The site strives to "avoid advocacy, and we characterize information and issues rather than debate them." Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales argues that the site can maintain neutrality in content even as it takes public positions on issues.

The Wikimedia Foundation announced the blackout Monday, after polling its community of volunteer contributors and editors and getting responses from 1,800 of them. The protest is aimed at the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and the Protect Intellectual Property Act under consideration in the Senate.

"If passed, this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and bring about new tools for censorship of international websites inside the United States," the foundation said.