[youngian]

My impression is that this is a publicity move on their part to get people interested and get donations. The presentation seems part of that. They're pitching "hey, look at how useful we are."

Before the shutdown, Wikileaks did present most of their content without editing or editorializing. Content would generally be accompanied by a short couple of paragraphs discussing the context, veracity, and format. If memory serves, they did write some opinion/publicity pieces, but labeled them as such and published them separately from the content itself.

I guess what I'm saying is this: I think the extra stuff is there because they need money badly and are basically marketing themselves with this. I don't think they intend to make a habit of straying from their original focus on content. I don't have any proof of this, but that's because they're still short on money. So if you would donate to the former, donate. Hopefully they'll be back to their old selves soon.

[jacquesm]

They need the money badly for what exactly ?

Wikileaks could run on a shoestring budget and be just as effective as they are today. A simple rss feed with the magnet links of available torrents would be all it takes.

[youngian]

Oh, and who would provide the tracker? Who would make sure there were always seeders? Who would protect the servers when every person they've ever pissed off comes knocking?

Wikileaks has managed to protect all their sources and repel all the legal assaults on their publishing. And they're not playing in the kiddie pool with those RIAA clowns. The intelligence arm of just about every major country wants them extinguished, not to mention a bunch of multinational companies and some very pissed-off warlords.

This "Wikileaks costs too much" discourse on HN is ridiculous. $600,000 a year for unprecedented whistleblowing, provided to the entire world, against all comers, is a fucking bargain.

[jacquesm]

> Oh, and who would provide the tracker?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_tracker#Trackerless_...

Hence the magnet links.

> Who would make sure there were always seeders?

The same people that would find it important enough that this information is distributed. I would certainly dedicate a bunch of bandwidth for something like this.

> Who would protect the servers when every person they've ever pissed off comes knocking?

The Streisand effect is partial protection here, if you don't want your stuff to be even wider disseminated 'coming knocking' (by which you probably mean lawsuits) would actually increase the stature of the project. As long as you do not accuse without hard proof.

But simply spreading the information would be the first move in a game of whack-a-mole that can only be lost.

The 'RIAA' clowns are some of the best funded legal teams and they don't seem to be making much headway. A much more serious threat is the threat of overt violence, but that's not something where money will help.

Agreed that the service that wikileaks provides is a bargain, but they could be going about their fundraising a lot better than they do. Most of it seems to be along the lines of 'pay up or the data gets it'. And literally holding stuff hostage and pretend-shut-downs is not the right way to make the point.

That just plays in to the hands of the people that would like to see wikileaks disappear.

[youngian]

I'm not crazy about their chosen marketing stance either. I've been careful not to say that I like what they're doing, just that I think I know why they're doing it. It's a little distasteful, but so are the various fundraising strategies most other orgs employ ("Don't you have two minutes for starving orphans in Irkutsk?" or public radio's week of not playing any music to lecture you about donating instead).

At the end of the day, if this is what it takes to get Wikileaks back online, then I support it because of that. Because I still very much believe in their mission, and believe that they are unique in what they provide the world right now.