Vote against sopa..

[-Vince-]

Who is participating in the January 18 SOPA Blackout?

Is there a Joomla plugin for it or an easy way to shut down the whole site from 8 AM to 8 PM?

[yaanimai]

Maybe just change the Site down for maintenance page to an announcement about the blackout?

Or create an index.html file in hte root directory & rename your index.php file to something else temporarily?

[jager]

I took the html from this template:

http://www.zachstronaut.com/lab/text-sh ... -sopa.html

I copied templates/system/offline.php into my site template directory then deleted everything except the initial bits here:

Code: Select all

<?php
/**
 * @version             $Id: offline.php 22183 2011-09-30 09:04:32Z infograf768 $
 * @package             Joomla.Site
 * @copyright   Copyright (C) 2005 - 2011 Open Source Matters, Inc. All rights reserved.
 * @license             GNU General Public License version 2 or later; see LICENSE.txt
 */

defined('_JEXEC') or die;
$app = JFactory::getApplication();
?>

And then I attach the full contents of the html file linked above to the end of the new offline.php (you can view source and copy/paste it from the link above.) Now when I go to the global site control panel and set the site to offline, it shows the spiffy html liked above, and moreover it will redirect to that html from all possible entry points to the site. If there is anyone out there who can make a plugin that does this, that would be sweet, but I've been searching for a couple days for something like that and found nothing. This is a simple 'roll my own' solution, hope it helps others.

[pm4dev]

Siteground has a free plugin but only for joomla 1.7

http://www.siteground.com/joomla-hostin ... orship.htm

[pmcnamara]

STOP SOPA !

[BionicCube]

THX jager for this hint!

now at midnight my page can go dark...

[mysticmedia]

Jager did an awesome job figuring this out. Thanks a million!!
To simplify it, I just added the full offline.php file here, in a text file (since php isn't allowed) so now everyone can just grab it, then copy and paste.

STOP SOPA!!

[shanekiller]

I know this is not the right forum but it seemed more suitable than any other section. And honestly this will affect Joomla owners greatly..

"On Jan 24th, Congress will vote to pass internet censorship in the Senate, even though the vast majority of Americans are opposed. We need to kill the bill - PIPA in the Senate and SOPA in the House - to protect our rights to free speech, privacy, and prosperity. We need internet companies to follow [red dit]'s lead and stand up for the web, as we internet users are doing every day."

I Know The Joomla owner won't read this in time "or might likely choose not to follow" but I hope you Joomla owners do and do it on your website as I will..

And forum admin please don't remove this, if anything sticky it YOU know how badly this will affect us HELP US! GOOGLE, WIKIPEDIA, WORDPRESS THERE ALREADY GOING TO DO IT!!!! LETS HELP TOO!!!!!

Please sign the petition and if your a owner of a Joomla website please do this tomorrow!!!!

http://sopastrike.com/#how-to-strike

http://sopastrike.com/#how-to-strike

http://sopastrike.com/#how-to-strike

[sacredgaming]

That worked like a charm and it looks great thanks!

[mysticmedia]

Thanks for bringing this to the attention of Joomla! users. SOPA will most definitely affect us all, and in a very negative way. How much site cleaning will we have to do? How much will it cost us with large sites to monitor every post made by members? It's a horribly disgusting bill that is being proposed strictly to appease the big boy media companies, like CBS, Comcast, and the most evil of all, Viacom.

With the help of another user, I created an offline.php that everyone can download, then copy and paste as a new offline.php (just rename your current one something like offline-old.php.
The message itself is not my creation, but rather was created by a developer against SOPA. I simply put it together so that it will work as your offline.php... enabling us Joomla! users to easily upload it, then set their site to offline.
Here's the original post. Scroll down until you see my attachment.
http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=428&t=688813

Fight SOPA!!

[yaanimai]

www.gaddywebdesign.com has already blacked out in support of the strike. I used the script I found here http://sopablackout.org/

It makes a black page appear which contains a couple of links to contact your representative & send them an email and a link for more info on SOPA.

You can click anywhere else on the page to proceed to the website.

[mysticmedia]

http://www.gaddywebdesign.com has already blacked out in support of the strike. I used the script I found here http://sopablackout.org/

It makes a black page appear which contains a couple of links to contact your representative & send them an email and a link for more info on SOPA.

You can click anywhere else on the page to proceed to the website.

Thanks for the info! I wondered what their blackout would look like. The only thing I didn't like is that you can still continue to the page. With all of ours, then entire sites are shut down. But either way, it's a great way to make a stance.

Thanks for posting!

[Webdongle]

So you guys agree that copyrighted material should be downloaded for free ? Perhaps we should have shops giving away free CD's to their customers as well ?

[jager]

That looks neat, yaanimai. I would, however, suggest you locally host that .js that you are pulling from js.stopsopa.org, as that site is clearly getting pounded (already!) and is slowing your page load, a lot. A whole whole lot. Even the main stopsopa.org site is slow. It looks to just be a random linode vps, and may not be configured to handle the sort of traffic it will get from a billion nerds pulling their javascript all day. Anyway, I'm glad you are all participating, regardless of how you do it. Good work, guys.

STOP SOPA!

(edit) PS: I ought not to even have to say that opposing these bills is not the same thing as supporting rampant infringement of copyright, but since it seems to need to be said, I will let the EFF make the case:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/12/s ... d-analysis

And here is the open letter sent to Congress by 83 of the engineers most responsible for the internet as we know it:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/12/i ... a-and-pipa

Do you think the EFF believes that we should be able to download copyrighted materials at will? What about the Wikipedia?

[northdecoder]

I've tried this. It works in IE (without the flashlight feature) but does not seem to work at all in Firefox or Chrome. I've tried clearing cache. Tried flushing dns. Tried shutting off browsers AND clearing cache AND flushing DNS. It still works in IE (without the flashlight) but doesn't work in Firefox or Chrome.

Any ideas?

[mysticmedia]

I've tried this. It works in IE (without the flashlight feature) but does not seem to work at all in Firefox or Chrome. I've tried clearing cache. Tried flushing dns. Tried shutting off browsers AND clearing cache AND flushing DNS. It still works in IE (without the flashlight) but doesn't work in Firefox or Chrome.

Any ideas?

Humm, I'm not sure, bud. It's working for me right now in FF and Chrome with the spotlight. In Opera and IE9, the spotlight doesn't work (go figure!).
Here's one of our sites... You can check and see how it works for you.

[jager]

This looks simple and effective. Perhaps it will work for you?

https://github.com/mbabker/Stop-SOPA-Sy ... oomla--1.7

[northdecoder]

I got it to work. I just had to (save a renamed copy of the index.php file in my templates folder and) rename the offline.php to index.php.

At the end of the blackout i'll just need to undo that.

Whatever works, right?

Thanks.

[mysticmedia]

So you guys agree that copyrighted material should be downloaded for free ? Perhaps we should have shops giving away free CD's to their customers as well ?

No we don't. But SOPA and the Protect-IP Act will do little to protect copyright holders. Instead, it will severely damage the web and put YOU in jeopardy. Do you realize that if you own a site where members post, like a forum, and they post a link to a site that has links to what "they" consider copyrighted material, then YOU could be sent to Federal prison for up to 5 years and fined up to $2500.
A mother posts a video on [youtube] of her cute toddler singing a Miley Cyrus song... and it's pulled. A cover of a song on [youtube] could land you in prison. And do you realize that half of the web could be shut down because of these bills? Sites like [youtube], [spam], Wikipedia, and Facebook. Search engines like Google and Yahoo and Bing could be shut down or blocked. And do you also realize that YOUR site could be shut down and redirected to the FBI's website based ONLY on an accusation? It also allows the government to order your internet service provider to trace and block any IP you visit, based on their discretion. In addition, it allows fines to be issued to ISP's and web hosts because of what their customers do. Do YOU want that?

You really need to read the bills and understand what they're about rather than making an uneducated guess. That's like voting for a president without doing the research. I'm against copyright infringement, but SOPA IS NOT the way to handle it. SOPA will bring the government into your home, invade your privacy.

[Webdongle]

You really need to read the bills and understand what they're about rather than making an uneducated guess.

And you like everyone else who is supporting the 'Blackout' has read it ? This mania about the 'Blackout' may be based on fact or based on someone trying to stir the muck. But whatever the truth ... how many are getting caught in the mania just like those idiots who forward the emails (about little Tommy) to everyone in their address book.

Rumours and jumping on the bandwagon are common for mass hysteria.

[mysticmedia]

Rumours and jumping on the bandwagon are common for mass hysteria.

It's not rumors. If you read both proposed bills, you will see what's there in black and white. The fact is the bills, especially SOPA, are too vague and allow for many innocent to be caught in the crossfire. What, you support censorship? Copyright infringement is dead wrong, but SOPA isn't the answer. By the way, yes, of course I read the proposed bills.

[Kotuha]

For those still interested, just stopping by to point you to https://github.com/Kotuha/plg_sopablackout - if you are looking for a quick way to support the blackout through your Joomla websites!

It blacks out just like on http://sopablackout.org/ and works just fine for J! 1.5, 1.6 & 1.7.

[Webdongle]

...
It's not rumors. If you read both proposed bills, you will see what's there in black and white. The fact is the bills, especially SOPA, are too vague and allow for many innocent to be caught in the crossfire. .....

That is your interpretation and going by your example you may not be interpreting them accurately. What you say will be law if they are passed appears to already exist as a law http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-so ... e-15841234

But even if you are correct it is irrelevant to the point I was making. The point is that the majority wanting to participate in the 'Blackout' are just being caught up in the hype. And have no idea about the rights or wrongs of the issue.

[jager]

I find it worth noting that Senators supporting pipa have said that since these measures work in China they will work in America. Just because other countries have similar laws is not a good reason to emulate them. In fact since we can see how other countries use these powers we have good reason to be very cautious about supporting such things here.

[Webdongle]

... since these measures work in China they will work in America. Just because other countries have similar laws is not a good reason to emulate them....

I don't disagree with that but still say that the majority don't have a clue to the facts and are just getting caught up in the hype. Just like the emails
'Poor little Tommy is ill and will die if you do not forward this email to everyone in your address book. You must do it straight away or bad luck will befall you'.

And what about the SERPs for all those sites that are 'Blacking out' ? Wikipedia is big enough to recover but the avererage sites are not.

Interesting to note that joomla.org remained open

[Webdongle]

....
Signed a few petitions today and glad to see Joomla supports killing this bill.
....]

Joomla did not 'Blackout' so how can you think it 'supports killing this bill'

[mysticmedia]

Joomla did not 'Blackout' so how can you think it 'supports killing this bill'

A site doesn't need to blackout for them or their company to oppose it. Microsoft opposes it. So does Twitter and Facebook, and Apple and Google and Yahoo and GoDaddy... yet none of them completely blacked out.

Joomla has been opposed to the bill ever since its inception. It's on the front page of the main Joomla site
http://www.joomla.org/announcements/gen ... -sopa.html

And blacking out poses very little risk to SEO or SERP. Even if it did somehow harm it, we're talking one day, not one month. And no, we don't already have what is proposed in PIPA.
I agree that many are on-board due to the hype, but I don't agree that its most. You have to understand that we're not against copyright protection... just against infringing upon our rights and privacy and making the internet and DNS unstable and insecure.

Why is it that anytime someone opposes a bill against piracy, many automatically assume that the one's opposed are the one's doing infringing or trying to protect the one's doing it?

[Webdongle]

....
Why is it that anytime someone opposes a bill against piracy, many automatically assume that the one's opposed are the one's doing infringing or trying to protect the one's doing it?

I don't know if many think that.

I have been trying to find links to the bill but as yet can't find an official government site with it. Even if I do then I doubt if I know enough about legal matters to know how the law would manifest. I doubt also that most who support the Blackout understand it completely.

I do agree there must be a balance between freedom of speech and controlling illegal activity. But I for one do not have enough experience to know the legal ramifications of it all.

One thing for sure that the way to tell if a Politician is lying is to watch their lips. If their lips move and sound comes out then they are lying

[jager]

Joomla's post explaining their support of the protest (which is linked at joomla.org on a prominent black banner at the top of the page) has links to the text of the bills at opencongress.org, but the text of both bills resides at the Library of Congress:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?c ... c112sqNyQc
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?c ... c112rgjSHZ

Khan Academy has a summary of the harmful effects of the bill and highlights some of the objectionable language:

https://www.[youtube].com/watch?feature=p ... zqMoOk9NWc

Many of the people *affected* by this protest didn't understand what was going on, but I'm betting most of the site administrators were very much aware. This is not the first time this bill has come up (see COICA) and it will almost certainly come up again. This protest has raised awareness, but there is a long way to go. Check this last link for some choice tweets about the wikipedia black out:

https://twitter.com/#!/herpderpedia

[mysticmedia]

One thing for sure that the way to tell if a Politician is lying is to watch their lips. If their lips move and sound comes out then they are lying

Isn't that the truth, Webdongle!! I bet these politicians lie so much that it's impossible for them to distinguish between truth and lie.
I think we can add it to the list of yet another of America's major problems (as if we don't have enough).
To be honest, I think the burden should be on Hollywood to prevent or deter infringement. They have the money. They can delve into technology and embrace it and develop the means to fight this on their own rather than handing down another ignorant law that will never work.

I really do agree with you though, that many don't understand and just join the hype. Much like when Obama was campaigning. Most had no clue to his lack of experience, etc,... and simply jumped on the bandwagon because it seemed like the cool thing to do. Surprise!!