Wikipedia:Italian Wikipedia lockout October 2011

This essay, WP:Italian Wikipedia lockout October 2011 describes the editing-lockout of the Italian Wikipedia, which occurred on October 4-6, 2011, and prevented most users from displaying or editing any article. The article count on Italian Wikipedia resumed at 847,280 by 18:00, 6 October 2011, and began growing, again, with about 25 articles per hour, once editing was restored.

The Italian Wikipedia had been restored to allow editing of articles, on the third morning, as of 12:16, 6 October 2011. During October 4-6, articles on the Italian Wikipedia had been restricted to View-source mode (Italian: "Visualizza sorgente") when users tried to edit a page, then after a few seconds, the screen would switch to a political announcement about a proposed law in Italy, to require corrections to misleading reports about people. Each page in Italian Wikipedia was formerly switched, without choice, to force readers to view the announcement "it:Wikipedia:Comunicato 4 ottobre 2011".

After editing was restored, the option "modifica" ("edit") was allowed, but each page would display a top banner, on a dark-orange background, with the following text (translation below):


 * {| style="border:1px solid black; background:#FFB711;"


 * Il 4, 5 e 6 ottobre 2011 gli utenti di Wikipedia in lingua italiana hanno ritenuto necessario oscurare le voci dell'enciclopedia per sottolineare che un disegno di legge in fase di approvazione alla Camera potrebbe minare alla base la neutralità di Wikipedia.
 * (qui il testo approvato dalla Camera dei deputati l'11 giugno 2009, poi modificato dal Senato il 10 giugno 2010; qui gli emendamenti)
 * (qui il testo approvato dalla Camera dei deputati l'11 giugno 2009, poi modificato dal Senato il 10 giugno 2010; qui gli emendamenti)


 * Sono stati proposti degli emendamenti, ma le modifiche al disegno di legge non sono ancora state approvate in via definitiva. Non sappiamo, quindi, se sia ormai scongiurata l'approvazione della norma nella sua formulazione originaria, approvazione che vanificherebbe gran parte del lavoro fatto su Wikipedia.


 * Grazie a chi ha supportato la nostra iniziativa, tesa esclusivamente alla salvaguardia di un sapere libero e neutrale.

The above box-text translates, in English:
 * }
 * "The 4, 5 and 6 October 2011, users of Wikipedia in Italian have found it necessary to obscure the encyclopedia entries to point out that a bill pending approval in the House would undermine the neutrality of Wikipedia.


 * (here the text approved by the Chamber of Deputies on 11 June 2009, then amended by the Senate June 10, 2010, the amendments here)
 * "Amendments have been proposed, but the changes to the bill have not yet been definitively approved. We do not know, then, is now avoided if the approval of the rule in its original formulation, approval and negate much of the work done on Wikipedia.
 * "Thanks to those who have supported our initiative, aimed exclusively to the protection of a free and neutral knowledge." –Italian WP, 6 October 2011

During the Italian lockout, other pages would display a hollow, blanked center, such as the history-tab (Italian: "cronologia") showing no edit-history entries in the center of the page.