Free/open "this site has gone dark to fight SOPA" site template

Zachary sez, "I needed someplace to vent my frustration with SOPA between calls to my Congress members. I created a homepage design option for people who want to take their sites dark on January 18. It's public domain and on github so people can fork it."

You can preview it here.

zachstronaut / stop-sopa (Thanks, Zachary!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Copyfight • floss • law • protest • sopa • web theory

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http://twitter.com/der_bluthund Political Dissident

Can someone turn that into a wordpress plugin that you can set the time for to activate and then deactivate automatically pl0x?
- http://twitter.com/Zipster90 Zach
  
  This would be great.
- zarray
  
  Tumblr too please.
Phil Fot

Thanks. I’ll be using that.
Grey Eyed Man of Destiny

Might be worth giving it a quick proof reading before distribution
valiant66

Grammer error: Congress is about TO censor
- beslayed
  
  Forked and fixed: https://github.com/BeSlayed/stop-sopa
  - http://www.zachstronaut.com/ zachstronaut
    
    Ah, gotta love github and open source. =)
Graysmith

Nice. The only thing I object to would be the suggestion that the “vast majority of Americans” are opposed to SOPA/PIPA. The truth is that the vast majority of Americans have probably never even heard of it and don’t know anything about what’s at stake.

Certainly something one can hope will change on Wednesday. If only Facebook, Google, et al. would shut down as well. Then shit really would hit the fan.
MB44

It sure has been a good illustration of the elite in power in America. The overwhelming majority of our citizens is against this piece of shit legislative act and we have voiced it. They just ignore their entire constituency and do what they think is best for them. It sure pisses me off. So frustratingly unjust. It really starts to eat away at me.
Trevcaru

Great idea… only, its so dark that i cant even read it on my computer screen. I think you can still achieve the same feeling if its illuminated enough so that it is readable.
Andrew Singleton

How do I import this to blogger?
- Guest
  
  Back up your original template.Upload Blackout Blogger Template:http://pastebin.com/YuGdFJ16
  Paste as a post entry: http://pastebin.com/3EgHftJ7
- Guest
  
  One more thing, you have to go to the Design Panel and Configure your Blog Posts section to 1 post & disable all post page options, such as the date, author, etc.
ssam

it is even darker without javascript. maybe there should be static version for folks using noscript.
- http://www.zachstronaut.com/ zachstronaut
  
  Whoops. I fixed it so it is readable in its default state even without JS. Thanks for your comment.
D Wyatt

I say block it entirely, I love all my frequent sites but I would give up weeks without them to have them forever!

Show the world a glimpse of the future.
Larry Anderson

I would rather see something like:

“The federal government is trying to pass legislation that could censor or take down internet sites without a proper legal process to first prove fault; without such legal process internet sites could be shut down by private companies for any reason they make up. Two bills currently in congress are SOPA (Stop On-line Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) are attempting to circumvent the legal process and others are being drafted. Please contact your members of Congress and Senate to urge to protect sites from allowing such actions to be done without proper legal oversight.”

Something like that. I just know once these are taken off it will start again with some other fancy acronym bill.
http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

“It’s public domain and on github so people can fork it.”

That must be such an amazing sentence to read if you don’t work with development. I tried to imagine mum reading it and the face she’d make.
ricksaunders

Ditto Help with using this on blogger. Y’all rule. Thanks!
flickerKuu

So, if this isn’t going to happen why are we still doing this?
stephenl123

Given how much is at stake and who the coalition is, I’m disappointed by the landing page they have. The first action they ask you to take (and therefore one they will get far the most of is) to sign up for their email list. You actually have to scroll down to find the contact-your-representative page, which is not in the navigation. And it doesn’t give the congressional switchboard number or an interface to get your representatives’ phone numbers.
odds

I don’t know what you people are worried about. SOPA and PIPA are merely show votes so that people in Congress can continue to earn big contributions from big media. There is NO WAY this gets signed by President Obama.

It’s all a game that is designed for the biggest payday legislators can get.
- A. .
  
  Just like there was NO WAY Obama would sign those other bills, right? Besides, it’s not just about our current sitting President. It’s about setting a precedent and sending a message to our politicians. It’s about boycotting those companies which support these bills.
Kat Hooper

Thank you for this. Excellent work, easy to add to my website.
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/stop-sopa.html
David M. Cotter

is this moot now that congress has shelved SOPA?
- toyg
  
  The House shelved SOPA, but PIPA is still going through the Senate. Better squash that out as well, before declaring victory. Even better, it would be nice to keep the momentum going and propose a strong anti-censorship law, to push the Overton window back.
  - David M. Cotter
    
    then shouldn’t the page say “Stop SOPA and PIPA” ?
stephenl123

Clicking the link for team@fightforthefuture.org at the bottom of americancensorship.org sends email to team@fightforthefuture.com. The correct address is team@fightforthefuture.org
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Your comments keep going to the spam bin, probably because of the repetitiveness of the address. But when you keep making the comment over and over, it makes the filter even more convinced that you’re a spammer.
habbi1974

I’ll wait for the IE working version ;)
- willyboy
  
  That one went dark a while ago…
  - Andrew Singleton
    
    Yet we need a version that works on IE to hit the folk that randomly brows while at work when work won’t allow another browser, or libraries that have defaulted to IE (like the one nearest me.)
    
    IE is behind the times, but we can’t just laugh and disregard it here. Those users equel voices. To laugh and say that ‘Oh our message wont’ get to them because they’re too stupid to use a proper browser.’ is pure utter nonsense and on the same order as Lamar Smith’s ‘Oh they’re just a vocal minority, we can ignore them.’
    - habbi1974
      
      that’s the point, I feel the lack of support is deliberate. And that’s not funny.