Tag Archives: Wiki

Join the new Netzdemo Wiki

We launched the new Netzdemo Wiki on wikidot.com in October 2021. Meanwhile most pages from the previous FANDOM Netzdemo Wiki have been moved to the new place. The new Netzdemo Wiki is in the WikiMedia style which resembles the classical Wikipedia look. We continue with writing in German language. It will become the biggest German encyclopedia on net activism and history of online demonstrations. Currently, the wiki contains 83 pages on different aspects of net activism and digital resistance – and still growing. The wiki is open and anyone can become a member. If you want to be part of this exciting work, please join the new Netzdemo Wiki at wikidot.com:

http://netzdemo.wikidot.com/start

FANDOM has closed the former Netzdemo Wiki first in October 2021, without any notice. After posting a complaint to the (German) FANDOM community, it was re-opened but is threatened to be closed again. The reason given by the FANDOM help team was:

„Wikis with very few calls will be closed if your topic and the previous growth suggest that in the future no (significant) growth is to be expected.“

FANDOM agreed to keep the wiki open until the end of 2021. Netzdemo Wiki existed on Wikia/FANDOM since August 2008. It was finally closed on New Year’s Eve.

Netzdemo Wiki now on wikidot

FANDOM closed the Netzdemo Wiki some days ago without any further notice. After filing a complaint to the FANDOM community, it was re-opened but is threatened to be closed again if traffic statistics of the wiki pages show little interest. Netzdemo Wiki existed on Wikia/FANDOM since August 2008 and is the biggest collection of information on net activism in German language. The most common reason for closing wikis seems to be inactivity. However, Netzdemo Wiki was not inactive, it was steadily growing over the years, but the user community was very small from the beginning and only very few were writing or editing wiki entries.

FANDOM (originally Wikicities, and later Wikia) was a new platform that built off the core technology powering Wikipedia. We experience the closure of Netzdemo Wiki as kind of commercially motivated censorship. FANDOM is very much centered on gaming and entertainment. In reality they focus not on the wikis but more on their costumers, who they calls „fans“, meaning gaming-addicted people. We speculate that FANDOM wanted to get rid of some wikis with critical content.

We create the Netzdemo Wiki again – this time on Wikidot. The layout is now in the WikiMedia style which more resembles the classical Wikipedia look. We continue with writing in German language. It will become the biggest German encyclopedia on net activism and history of online demonstrations. It will take some time to move the wiki pages to the new place – but it’s worth it. The wiki is open and anyone can become a member.

If you want to be part of this exciting work, please join the new Netzdemo Wiki at wikidot:


http://netzdemo.wikidot.com/start

Netzdemo Wiki still alive

The German-language Netzdemo Wiki was started on 11 August 2008 to document the history of netstrikes, virtual sitins and online-demonstrations and to provide a platform for digital activism and online protest events. Netzdemo Wiki illuminates the contributions of various network activists worldwide and their online activities. The wiki wants to be a place for discussions about practical democracy on the world wide web on topics such as Internet censorship.

The history of netstrikes started in Italy, where in 1994 computers from more than 150 mailboxes were confiscated in nationwide coordinated raids. The crackdown of the mailbox networks in Italy indirectly triggered the netstrikes. In the winter of 1995, administrators of mailboxes, political and media activists met to find strategies for better publicizing their concerns. In 1995, the first ideas for online political activism were developed and implemented. In December 1995, the Italian hacktivist group StranoNet called for participation in the first global netstrike via emails in Italian and English.

It took a while before internet activism became a popular medium for protests in Germany. In March 2001 the anti-rassist initiatives Libertad! and Kein Mensch ist illegal started with the mobilization of an online-demonstration in connection with the deportation.class campaign against the Lufthansa deportation business. According to human rights activists, a total of 13,000 Internet users took part in the protest. Lufthansa had counted a total of 1.2 million page views and announced that the blocking of the booking system had caused economic damage.

Lufthansa and the public prosecutors saw the action as a deliberate coercion and that the call to the online-demonstration was a call to crime. The offices of Libertad! in Frankfurt were searched and computers confiscated – years of investigation followed. The first trial against one of the initiators of the first online-demonstration in Germany ended in June 2005 at the Frankfurt district court with a conviction and a fine of 900 euros. In the days leading up to the trial, the initiative Die Kellerasseln organized a campaign against the expansion plans of Frankfurt airport operator Fraport, to draw attention to this process.

The jurisdiction was rejected by the OLG Frankfurt one year later and the accused was acquitted. Online protest is not a crime!

On July 4th, 2011 a tweet from Libertad! promoted our Netzdemo Wiki:

Currently, the community is working on a new chapter on Digital Resistance about the Electronic Civil Disobedience in the times of big data and mass surveillance in the online and offline world. Feel free to make additions to this growing encyclopedia and help us to expand and supplement the information collection!