But while a visit to Wikipedia’s English site shows a gloomy black screen with the stark words “Imagine a world without free knowledge,” intrepid users have to imagine no such thing — it is still possible to access Wikipedia’s content via a number of ways.
For example: typing Wikipedia.org in a Web browser (or any of the site’s pages for that matter), and as the page loads, pressing the escape key, circumvents or stops the blackout placeholder page from appearing. Timing the maneuver exactly right, may take a few tries.
I'm curious if the author of this story, or the quoted "intrepid users," discovered this fact because it is a great way to read as many nytimes.com stories you want a month. That's right, the wonderful paywall that the Times spent piles of money and pissed off lots of people over can be defeated by simply pressing the escape key at the right time.
I posted a comment to this effect on the story, but would be surprised if it makes it through the approval process. It's fine to take information that wikipedia would prefer you not see (to make a point), but to do the same thing to the nytimes (who is only trying to make money in a failing industry) is clearly not allowed.
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