The Signpost

Technology report

Wikimedia in Go Daddy boycott, and why you should 'Join the Swarm'

Wikimedia in domain name hosting move

Wikimedia's domain names (including wikipedia.org) will no longer be managed by U.S.-based registrar Go Daddy, it was decided this week following concerns over the registrar's political activities.

The process that led to the decision to ditch the company that has managed Wikimedia's domains since at least 2007 seems to have begun with a December 23 post on the social news website reddit. The post, which has since received 35,000 votes and hundreds of responses, was a simple request directed at Jimmy Wales to "transfer Wikimedia domains away from Go Daddy to show you're serious about opposing SOPA". It refers to the registrar's then open support of the Stop Online Piracy Act, to which many Wikimedians and redditors are emphatically opposed. Many reddit commenters pledged donations if Wales committed to moving Wikimedia domains away from Go Daddy, part of a wider reddit campaign to get organisations to leave Go Daddy.

The response to the post was swift. The same day as the post, Wales committed to a move away from Go Daddy on his Twitter page, although an orderly transition is likely to take some time. (Wales also announced the transfer of Wikia domains as part of the same process.) A twist came shortly after the announcement, when Go Daddy issued a press release stating that it was withdrawing its support for SOPA. The statement, a world away from their earlier description of their opposition to SOPA as "myopic", does not seem to have yet prompted any change of action by Wales or the Foundation.

In brief

Not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing; some may not be scheduled to go live for many weeks.


















Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-12-26/Technology_report