How to survive the Wikipedia blackout

Most of us will be able to cope when the Cheezburger Network goes offline tomorrow. But news that Wikipedia is joining protests against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) is more serious. The “blackout” on all 3,847,673 of its English-language pages tomorrow will disrupt the routines of the site’s 25m daily visitors, making obscure references ungoogleable and frustrating urges for idle browsing. Here are five ways to prepare before the internet’s fount of all (not necessarily reliable) knowledge dries up for 24 hours.

1. Have the last say. In a Wikipedia edit tussle, you may be able to win the battle even if you can't win the war. Hold out till a minute before midnight and get your edit in before rival Wikipedians can change the page back. You will enjoy a whole day and night of unchallenged glory. But bear in mind that no one will be able to view the masterfully edited page either.

2. Go international. Just because the English-language version of Wikipedia will be down, you don't need to go cold turkey on your daily dose of sloppily-cited facts. Browse the encyclopedia site in foreign languages you are familiar with. Or, if you don't mind the odd garbled sentence and occasional lack of nuance, run the whole site through Google Translate.

3. Go back in time. As long as you're not bothered about the latest updates to the further reading section or the most up-to-the-minute academic research on your subject—and let's face it, if you were, you should ask yourself why you're visiting Wikipedia in the first place—it could be worth trawling an archive site like the Wayback Machine to find the information you crave. It's also a good time to indulge in nostalgia for earlier versions of your favourite Wikipedia pages, long since sacrificed to the exigencies of Web 2.0.

4. Open a book. Don't worry—this isn't a facetious suggestion to head to your local library. But who needs Wikipedia when a deft search of Google Books may well lead you to a more credible source? Take full advantage of the "preview" function and, if you're desperate, you could even resort to "snippet view."

5. Crowdsourcing. Before you could look up folk customs and turn of the century railway timetables on Wikipedia, people had to "ask around." Explain the extenuating circumstances to your friends on Twitter and Facebook—as if they're not already suffering the consequences of the blackout as acutely as you are—and then bombard them with every trivial question that passes through your mind.

And—one last thing—it's probably a good idea to give this week's pub quiz a miss.

Follow Laura Marsh on Twitter @lmlauramarsh