4 ms·

There's more to this - Wikiless was an unmodified passthrough proxy that iirc just unloaded a bunch of regular mediawiki JS because the author thought it consti

There's more to this - Wikiless was an unmodified passthrough proxy that iirc just unloaded a bunch of regular mediawiki JS because the author thought it constituted a privacy violation/they were afraid that for some reason the WMF was tracking them for malicious purposes[0]. On its own, not harmful. That being said, it ran afoul of the WMFs trademarks and was actively confusing people with regular Mediawiki, which is likely what prompted the takedown. You can read the ins and outs on Wikipedias own page about mirrors and forks, there's an explanation listed there[1]. Codeberg likely complied because if you're weighting a vaguely conspiratorial-minded (the developer of Wikiless is a "feds in the walls" type if it wasn't obvious from the previous paragraph) proxy tool against possibly being shut down since you decided to stand up for an easy trademark violation, the choice is easy. [0]: I'd like to note that as far as I can tell, no such tooling exists on Wikipedia, nor does the WMF employ the usual culprit (ad networks) of that kind of nonsense. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks/VWXYZ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks/VW...

mort96 4y ago
That doesn't really change anything? Taking down a repository with no explanation is unacceptable regardless of context.
- throwawaaarrgh 4y ago
  It sounds like there was an explanation?
- noirscape 4y ago
  It does change things. Codeberg responded to orenom's request for explanation on the same day (see the archive link in the first source about people mentioning it was taken down) and further detailed it in the subsequent days. That's decent time to respond with an explanation if you don't have a formalized process to deal with this stuff (which given Codeberg is pretty small, seems likely). Very few providers will shoulder the risk of being dragged to court to stand in front of you when legal is involved. Most don't have the funding to go the legal route to begin with, so they just comply. "We'll go to court for you" isn't a selling point of Codeberg, which makes it silly to expect it.
  - mort96 4y ago
    "Wikiless was an unmodified passthrough proxy, it ran afoul of trademarks and it was confusing people" doesn't change anything. "Codeberg responded to orenom's request for explanation on the same day" does change things. You didn't include this in your previous comment from what I can see. Thanks for pointing it out.
forgotmypw17 4y ago
I rely on Wikiless for making wikipedia accessible to me. It is not even about privacy, just being able to use the site without obstructions. The whole project has been broken ever since.
- Rexogamer 4y ago
  Is this about the skin? If so can use the old skin (Vector 2010) if you create an account/append ?useskin=vector to the end of your URL; if not, I'm curious to hear more.

mort96 4y ago

That doesn't really change anything? Taking down a repository with no explanation is unacceptable regardless of context.

throwawaaarrgh 4y ago
It sounds like there was an explanation?
noirscape 4y ago
It does change things. Codeberg responded to orenom's request for explanation on the same day (see the archive link in the first source about people mentioning it was taken down) and further detailed it in the subsequent days. That's decent time to respond with an explanation if you don't have a formalized process to deal with this stuff (which given Codeberg is pretty small, seems likely). Very few providers will shoulder the risk of being dragged to court to stand in front of you when legal is involved. Most don't have the funding to go the legal route to begin with, so they just comply. "We'll go to court for you" isn't a selling point of Codeberg, which makes it silly to expect it.
- mort96 4y ago
  "Wikiless was an unmodified passthrough proxy, it ran afoul of trademarks and it was confusing people" doesn't change anything. "Codeberg responded to orenom's request for explanation on the same day" does change things. You didn't include this in your previous comment from what I can see. Thanks for pointing it out.

forgotmypw17 4y ago

I rely on Wikiless for making wikipedia accessible to me. It is not even about privacy, just being able to use the site without obstructions. The whole project has been broken ever since.

Rexogamer 4y ago
Is this about the skin? If so can use the old skin (Vector 2010) if you create an account/append ?useskin=vector to the end of your URL; if not, I'm curious to hear more.