The result of the following proposal for closing a WMF project is to CLOSE the project. Please, do not modify this page.
The following discussion is closed: The result was to close the Moldovan Wikipedia.
Background: This wikipedia is already freezed by decision of Anthere [1]. This is a call for its full closure. See comments for two opposing histories. The next steps were:
All Moldovans read and write in Latin-script Romanian. There are no Moldovan contributors at mo.wp simply because they are active at ro.wp. This has been going on for a while (six months now on meta and more than one year on mo.wp) with no recent votes or comments. I think it is about time that we end this discussion. Bogdan
Really? Are we actually going there? Look, just see Moldovan written in Cyrillic as English written in tengwa, it'd be the exact same thing. By the way, would this suit your craving for proof that the language in Moldova is written in latin-script? Constitution, tit.1, art.13
quote: "Limba de stat a Republicii Moldova este limba moldovenească funcţionînd pe baza grafiei latine" = "The state language of the Republic of Moldova is the Moldovan language [sic] functioning on latin-graphy" Alzwded19:46, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support closing MO (106 votes, 98 signed)
Support Too few people speak the language and it was supposed to be a Romanian dialect. The page only creates this discussion, no information --Alecsescu22:32, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support There are virtually no users who contribute on that version except for Node and it is highly doubtful that the site will ever have enough users to make it functional. The only activity going on at the moment is an edit war between Node, Bonaparte, and Telex. TSO1D23:23, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support - the Wikipedia is plagued by edit wars and the propagation of insults, and there was agreement to close this before (it is crossed out at the wikipedia.org international portal). There also seem to be no long-term editors who are native speakers. Ronline05:23, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support An overwhelming majority voted for closing mo.wiki months ago (including every single Moldovan user), the project is mostly supported by an American who barely speaks the "Moldovan language" at a basic level and many Romanian and Moldovan users find the project downright offensive. Anclation
I would agree to that too. I wouldn`t mind for the Romanian wikipedia to be in any script: cyrillic, arab, greek, etc, as long as it`s the same language written with different scripts (e.g. see the romany wikipedia. Greier10:46, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
By now, I don't care what the language is called, as long as that content has a guaranteed permanent home at Wikipedia where more can be added. Even if it has to be called Japanese, I won't mind anymore. I faught that in the earlier days, but now it's too much of a headache -- whether or not the Wiki will last another week has been in question for months now, so I'm not in much of a position to argue over such trivial matters. --Node ue10:58, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support. All Moldovans read and write in Latin-script Romanian. There are no Moldovan contributors at mo.wp simply because they are active at ro.wp. --AdiJapan07:27, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support There is no support for the Moldovan Wikipedia, no real native users (as I could notice nobody that wants to keep the Moldovan Wikipedia has never used Romanian for the long discussions at mo.wiki). Otherwise, in an article in the Moldovan daily newspaper Timpul, some journalist expressed their indignation about the existence of such an Wikipedia, and even contacted the Moldovan Guvernament to ask for explanations for the existence of this Wikipedia, as it harms the image of Moldova in the world. --Danutz08:44, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You realize, Danutz, that this would only stop edits, not delete the wiki? People would no longer be able to edit, but all the articles would still be there. --Node ue09:42, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support - The so called "Moldovan" wikipedia could constitute a dangerous antecedent for a sort of political moves. Then how about making an "ulster wikipedia"? Node`s idea of making articles in "moldovan language" is to copy articles from the Romanian wikipedia, deliberately miss-spell them (so from the start it make`s them non-moldovan, as moldovan is identicall to romanian --> logical fallacy), and rewrite them using the cyrilic alphabet. Greier
And just what do you have against an Ulstér Wikipedia, Greier? Do you hate Ullans, too? Mind your own business, and stop trying to keep others from having Wikipedias in their languages. --Node ue10:19, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Greier, I have to say I appreciate you not calling me a vandal for accidentally deleting your post here -- that's what BOnaparte would've done. ...anyhow, did I say you hated anyone? No. And if some Ulster-English people wrote it in Ogham, I would support a separate Wikipedia. But they don't. And they never have. And I doubt they ever will. --Node ue10:38, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support as per Bogdan, FrancisTyers and others - mo:User:Pavel
Support There is no moldovan language. This is purely an attempt to keep up the fairytales that the russians served the people of Basarabia for decades. For a language to come into being it takes more than 45-50 years of artificial brain-washing anyway.Leinarius
Possible sockpuppet -- user has 0 contribs on en.wp and 2 on ro.wp total
I am no puppet. I admit I am lazy. But no puppet. Si sunt roman, asta ca sa nu fie indoieli.Leinarius
Strong support - this is a playground for trolls, and a blatant disregard for the fact that "Moldovan" is not written in Cyrillic. I challenge anyone to find me a "Moldavian" speaker who cannot read the Latin alphabet. If you do find one, send him back to school. Dahn
Support. Romanian is my native language; if you can send me a fragment of text from a Moldovan newspaper, radio or TV (in this so-called moldovan language) and I can't understand 99% of it, I'll change my mind... until then: strong support. Laur2ro
Support, because mo:wiki is the expression of a communist concept on the internet. And by the way, could an administrator check how many of the users that voted "against" are sockpuppets? Many accounts were created when the voting begun.--Eres10:39, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Language can't be related to political views. By the way, communism isn't crime. ru:user:VanHelsing.16
YES, communism is a totalitarian global crime propagated by Russians, Bolsheviks, and people such as Lenin, Stalin and all the herd that supported it. Wars15:27, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Huh, that's a bit strange view on this topic. But we speak here about language, not communism :) Wiki is not a forum ru:user:VanHelsing.16
Support - strongly. This was a closed discussion. We voted to close it and that was IT. Now, we have to face all Russofils, all puppets that mimetically follow the path of "Mother Russia's" global politics of imperialism that started at least with Ivan the Terrible, and all socket puppets they have created, etcaetara ... "You've got the global picture, have you not?". Wars15:11, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There are no sockpuppets (it can be checked easily), there's just too many users from russian wikipedia :) ru:user:VanHelsing.16
It seems to me that some wikipedist over here don't want to accept the truth... If you speak about the "moldovian language" you speak about soviet communist, as this "language" is a communist invention. So, supporting the existance of mo.wiki, you support the communism (which is, by the wy, a crime). Eres
In case you've spent the last few years on the Moon, Moldova is currently run by freaking communists, so by your perverted logic, if you are from there, you should probably go shoot yourself, since supporting commies is a crime! Csman21:18, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In case you don't understand common english I will rephrase and simplify the phrase: "Moldovian language" = communist concept. Eres
Support. Moldovian wiki is a non-sense because this language doesn't exists. (personal attack removed) Ditae
Strong support This is a blatant showcase of soviet intimidation practices towards Romanians. Wikipedia should be above politics. This is really a poor place to have this proposal. It shouldd be addressed to a much wider audience rather than having only the two sides involved. A pitty. --Radufan21:32, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Total Support - for all the reasons stated above. "Moldovan" is in fact Romanian, and all its speakers use the Latin alphabet, save perhaps in the Stalinist dictatorship of Transnistria, where Cyrillic is imposed. Furthermore, anti-Romanian sentiment is behind this Wikipedia, which boasts no native speakers and is the project of users determined to undermine Romanian unity and identity. Biruitorul23:51, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I can certify that Biruitorul has nothing to do with Bonaparte, and even if he is banned at enwiki, that doesn't prevent him on voting on a topic not related to enwiki.--Theios tou Euthymiou18:44, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Total Support- "Moldovan" was not and is not a language, maintaining this not only servers no purpose, but harms the image and reliability of wikipedia.After Shock07:32, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Many people died in Transdnestria, because the russians didn't ( and still don't) want to take their greedy hands from Bessarabia. Now the same russians are voting for the existence of the mo.wiki. The moldavian language is as real as the Arhanghelsian language, and I promise, that if the moldavian will exist, I will create an Arhanghelskian wiki, just to mess in your internal affairs, like you mess in ours. Basarab
Well, why don't you just do that, and then you'll see that people around you are more tolerant than you are. Csman09:04, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You want to talk about tolerance? How would you feel, if in your own country, people would call you a nazi and a fascist, if you wanted to speak freely in your own language? I have been called many times maldavan baran, ruminskaia ovtsa, jid nesciasntii, by the same people who have lived in this country for 16 years and haven't learnt Romanian? This is russian tolerance!!!Basarab
Let's compare the Bosnian and "Moldovan" Wikipedias, shall, we? Bosnian: almost 9600 articles (many original to the Bosnian Wikipedia) 12 admins--all native speakers--1162 users, and it's an official language in a democratic state. "Moldovan": 384 articles (none of which have been demonstrated to be anything but crude transliterations from the Romanian Wikipedia), 1 admin--not a native speaker--193 users (many of whom are also not native speakers), and (in its Cyrillic manifestation) only official in a Soviet-style puppet dictatorship. The "achievements" of the "Moldovan" Wikipedia have been slight indeed after many months of existence, and in case this comparison didn't drive the message home, let me make it clear: it's time to pull the plug on this ignoble venture. Biruitorul00:21, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Very Strong Support - why not a wikipedia in oltenian, transilvanian, dobrogenian, maramureshenian or something like this? B.B.
Support. There is no reason for this WP section except political ambitions. Unfortunately, there are many opposing votes from Russia because too many people in Russia still think of Moldavia as a part of Soviet empire. wikipedia:ru:Дмитрий Кузьмин
Yes, and that's why we have separate Serbian and Croatian Wikipedias, or separate Tajik and Farsi Wikipedias. --Node ue02:22, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Very strong support <removed personal attack> Close this now!!!!! ROmanian is the same as fuckin' Moldovan. Now after we helped so much Moldvoa they spit on us!!! Come on, is just too retarded to make a wikipedia in two exactly languages. Russians, would you like that we create create a Siberian language wikipeida different from Russian??????????? Arthur 23 June 2006
Strong Support There is no such thing as the "Moldovan language". It's the Moldovan (Bessarabian) dialect of Romanian. Is there an Australian language or Canadian language ? No. They are dialects of English, with different accents and vocabulary. The French that is spoken in Quebec is still French, but with very specific regionalisms. Would "Ardeleneşte" or "Olteneşte" exist ? No, eu vorbesc Ardeleneşte acuma ? It's Romanian with the Ardeal accent ! Even if you do say that you speak "Ardeleneşte", you're still speaking Romanian ! Our Moldovan brothers were speaking Romanian for centuries before the Russians came, illegaly annexed Bessarabia, split it into the "Moldovan SSR" and added the south-eastern part of it to Ukraine and imposed their cyrillic alphabet, thus creating a so-called "Moldovan" language, that is merely a dialect of Romanian. After the fall of communism in ' 89, Romanians and Moldovans were once again destined to become one people and one nation, until Moscow sent its acolytes to sabotage a historical reunification, brand Romanian-Bessarabian friendship as "Romanian expansionism" and poison the minds of the people so that the referendum may fail ! For years, Moldova has been governed by Soviet lieutenants, Voronin at the helm, who have suffocated any attempt at reunification, lambasting the so-called "Romanian imperialism" and acting as Moscow's lapdogs. It is not only arogant, but dangerously propagandistic to claim the existence of a separate "Moldovan language". If we truly are Romanian nationalist pigs, that what are you, Node ue ? A Bessarabian nationalst pig ? Or maybe a USSR nostalgic ? So brainwashed by the Evil Empire of yesteryear, far too many Moldovans refuse their Romanian roots. They identify with a language and alphabet that has been shoved down their throats. Assimilated into the Russian way of thinking, they now consider themselves more Slav than Latin. Inasmuch that they would oppose a natural reunification of the historical Romanian lands. I pity individuals like Node ue, for they have become more attached to the marauding invaders than to the very countrymen that they are related to through common language and common history, the Romanian ones. But lo, the forces of ignorance will not triumph idefinitely, for destiny itself conspires that the brotherhood beetween the two Romanian nations will be stronger than the spiteful propaganda of the various separatist forces. -- Voievod
Strong Support It's a nonsense. There is no "Moldovan language", just a dialect of Romanian.--Koga 26 June 2006
Very Strong Support Moldovan? What's that? I could repeat all the arguments written above, but that woud be useless, wouldn't it? Strainu 26 June 2006
Very Strong Support The reasons have been expressed extensively by other users; nevertheless I will recall some of them: lack of object (even the autorities in Chisinau recognise the identity of Romanian/Moldovan language) and lack of interest of the so-called native speakers. Furthermore, the Latin script official in the Republic of Moldova does not justify a separate wikipedia. #:I am surprised that people without even basic knowledge of Romanian language express value judgments almost claiming authority in such a complicated topic. Razvan200100:06, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
For those who still consider that Romanian and Moldovan are two different languages I want to give you the following thoughts of a Moldovan writer, Miron Costin, in his work called „On the nation of Moldovans” („De neamul moldovenilor”)
„Even though histories, languages and foreigners have changed and gave other names the old one stays righfully and deeeply rooted: romanian. As we see that, even though we call ourselves Moldavians, we do not ask : „Do you know Moldavian?” but „Do you know Romanian?”. (the text written in old Romanian may be found at http://ro.wikisource.org/wiki/De_neamul_moldovenilor
Possible sockpuppet, user's last edit to Romanian Wikipedia was in February, with a total of 7 edits at ro.wp, one to vote in a poll.
Support For all the reasons expressed above - Simu Horia 27 june 2006
Strong support - If the Moldavian Parliament voted that Moldavian language exists should we trust them ? If some parliament would vote gravitation doesn't exist should we trust their judgement ? The scientific facts are not to be voted by any legislative body. I think WP must be as accurate as possible and must be politically neutral. Users should be able to write about 1989 events in China despite China's official position, users should not use hypothetical languages as Moldavian, and so on. I remember a visit of the Moldavian president in Romania. He was talking to the Romanian president. Asked by a journalist why they don't use an interpreter, the Moldavian president said that Mr. Iliescu (the Romanian president) is a polyglot. LOL. That means the discussion was in Moldavian. But no one (staff or journalist) needed an interpreter to understand what the two were talking. More, no TV station in Romania translated the discussion. Returning to the facts, the idea of a Moldavian language has it's origins in Stalin's intentions of changing the ethnical identity of Romanians in Bessarabia. Fact: in communist Romania anyone using the word Bessarabia had to face political police investigations. Currently, this lingustic "argument" is used not for defining the identity of a group of people (citizens of the Republic of Moldova), but in a cold conflict lasting from 15 years - Transnistria. We should add to the picture: the colapse of the Soviet Union, the advancement of NATO to the East, the de facto refuse of Russia to withdraw its army forces from Transnistria (despite international agreements signed by Russian Government), the nostalgia of a powerful Russia opposing US, the lack of civic conscience, civic movements and proper historical education of the people in the region after so many years of cummunist propaganda (NOTE: communism in Eastern Europe was very different - dictatureship, oppression, one million years (!) of political prison in Romania etc. - from Communist Parties in the West). In conclusion, let us free WP from political manipulations and see the facts only. And Moldavian language isn't a fact, is a chimera of one of the tragedies that shook the 20th century - the Communism. Adriatikus --- Adriatikus16:03, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support - As far as I understand, the wiki project is about helping people to find quality up-to-date information. Moldovan Wikipedia is an artificial invention that uses resources without offering anything to the www community. This is not a political debate and it is strange to see that those against the closing don't even understand the "language". Alex RO, Alex EN16:32, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Total Support - People communicating on some Moldovan forums I found on the internet use the Latin alphabet. True, the language has some vocabulary and spelling differences compared to Romanian, but it is NOT written in the Cyrillic alphabet. Furthermore, the OFFICIAL alphabet for the Moldovan language (in the Republic of Moldova) is Latin. The Cyrillic writing was used by the Soviets. Therefore, as someone said, the "Moldovan" wiki looks more like a pet or hobby project of someone who has nothing better to do. Just as if I's started to write a wiki in Gibberish Romanian Djinn RO, Djinn EN10:21, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support Moldova related articles in latin script, with moldovan regionalisms is welcome in the romanian wiki, similarly as Swiss related articles written in standard german but with swiss regionalisms are welcome in the german wikipedia (see for example the ss/ß difference). However, I don't see the point of having a wikipedia with cyrilic script which translitterates the articles from the romanian wikipedia. For those liking to write in cyrilic, there's enough wikipedias with it, and for those writing in romanian can do it in the latin script. Don't waste your time on this moldovan wikipedia. defrenrokorit 16:13, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Support There are no such things like "Moldovan language" and "Moldovan nationality". My wife is born in Bassarabia and I can tell you that we have the same mother tongue. We don’t need any translation. She was born in Soviet Union as a "Moldovan" and now she proudly consider herself a "Romanian". We can read and write with Cyrillic alphabet but we don’t need to do that, because we are Romanians born in Romania, respectively in Moldavian SSR. Moldovan language is defended by Russian minority in Transnistria and communist officials from Chisinau.Vali 15:00, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Support There is already a romanian wikipedia. --Adrian2 12:49, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Total support A moldovan wikipedia is ridiculous and insulting to the native people of Moldova Hugoaes 30 june 2006
Definitely supportive Whoever says that Moldovan is any different from Romanian should be ready to accept that Canadian English is a different language than American or U.K. English, which is obviously absolute nonsense--BenjaminFranklin22:42, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Even if some may consider Moldovan and Romanian two separate languages because the official language of the Republic of Moldova is "Moldovan Language", but this "Moldovan Language" is officially written with latin alphabet. So the current version of Moldovan Wikipedia is unaccurate because it uses the Cyrillic alphabet. Švitrigaila23:03, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support - a hopeless troll playground; check the revision history of this picture. There's nothing this Wikipedia could accomplish that rowiki can't (or already hasn't). --Telex13:56, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support As somebody said somewhere in the page, there's no different Wikipedia for American, English, Canadian, Australian, etc. Moreover, official language of Moldova is written with latin alphabet. So there! -- 70.108.122.16903:15, 1 July 2006 (UTC) Please sign in TSO1D[reply]
Strongly Support Instead of a moldovan wikipedia, which implies a community, which implies people wasting away in front of the screen, I propose an all-purpose Latin-to-Cyrillic transtiterator, if there are people who wish to read a different script. If I had a say on this, it would be the following: Moldovan = Romanian. But Moldovans oppose that for God-knows-what reason, forcing a moldovan wikipedia to exist, and so waste time, money and webspace.20:00, 1 July 2006 (UTC) Please sign in TSO1D
FYI, Moldovans have started the vote for closing down the mo.wiki in the first place.
Weak support. This form of the written language does exist and has some currency in parts of Moldova and (I believe) Ukraine. In principle, there could at some future time either be a Moldovan Wikipedia or articles using the Cyrillic script in the Romanian Wikipedia. However, it appears that this has been almost entirely an effort to create a POV fork and avoid consensus on issues in the Romanian Wikipedia. Node ue, in particular, has been a POV warrior of the most recalcitrant sort on language issues in the English-language Wikipedia, grasping at straws, constantly citing discredited Soviet-era scholarship, and ignoring clear consensus. The effort to establish as administrators in the Moldovan Wikipedia people who have been in danger of being banned from other Wikipedias speaks for itself. In short, I support closing this project because of what it is in practice; I'd be open to a petition in the future to re-open it if there were an appropriate set of people behind it who I believed were attempting an NPOV project instead of an actively POV one. -- Jmabel15:56, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly Support Instead of a moldovan wikipedia, which implies a community, which implies people wasting away in front of the screen, I propose an all-purpose Latin-to-Cyrillic transtiterator, if there are people who wish to read a different script. If I had a say on this, it would be the following: Moldovan = Romanian. But Moldovans oppose that for God-knows-what reason, forcing a moldovan wikipedia to exist, and so waste time, money and webspace. Danielsavoiu 06:18, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
Support Although I would prefer a move of mo.wikipedia.org to a certain mo-cyr.wikipedia.org, agreement on such a compromise cannot be achieved on the Wikipedia-I mailing list. Thus, I support closing it down. --Landroni09:22, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support By now it's abundantly clear that Moldovan == Romanian written in Cyrillic. The mo: Wikipedia should be closed immediately. With mo: closed, the energies currently being devoted to lobbying for its continuation can then be applied to implementing and enhancing machine transliteration for those who wish to read and edit the Latin-script ro: Wikipedia in Cyrillic, something which seems a perfectly reasonable goal. If that's implemented, we might then consider pointing mo: at the ro: Wikipedia with auto-transliteration turned on. -- The Anome10:28, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Surely Support I am from Moldova and I can't understand why that stupidity called mo.wiki still exists!?! Muşatin 13:18, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
strong support I am a Moldavian and I know that does not exist a Moldavian language! Dacodava
Very strong support There's no utility for a Moldovan language wikipedia... since this language doesn't exist! This is a fictional language invented by sister Russia while it's occupation in the so called Basarabia (also a fictional name for the Eastern part of Moldova). 81.180.130.11808:00, 13 July 2006 (UTC)D39[reply]
Very strong support This wikipedia can only induce even more confusion. People in Republic of Moldavia will go to wikipedia in Romanian like they do now or in Russian or in Ukrainian. Wikipedia in moldavian will never be more than some kind of stripped down wikipedia in romanian. 86.122.94.1313:59, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Close it yes shot it down. I subscribe to above point of view. I'm a native of Republic of Moldova.kalatorul
Support - Mainly on the basis that Wikimedia projects should always have NPOV standards, and merely having a language that by itself is expressing a POV should not be allowed to exist. I get the arguments about the Russian occupation of Romania, together with the Russian occupation of East Prussia (still under Russian control). It surprises me that anybody takes seriously political disinformation arguments from a government that no longer exists. Keeping this project expresses support for a clear POV for what scholarly research suggests is merely a variant of an established language. My support for this is similar to opposition of the pt-br.wikipedia --Roberth18:16, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support Если бы какие-то молдаване боролись, как у нас реально славяне борются за сибвику, я бы был против. А так это русская интервенция в Молдавию. Support, because no moldavanian opposes this. And I see many russian nationalists voting in oppose, so they only want to subdue moldavanians. --Yaroslav Zolotaryov09:39, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support If there is need for a Cyrillic version, one can do with the Romanian Wikipedia as with the Serbian Wikipedia (among others), supporting multiple orthographies in one wiki. /The Phoenix09:11, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Extremly Strong Support - moldovian language is still romanian language. any attempt to deny that have political basis.89.32.1.8209:43, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support. - Moldovan language is an extremely artificial and divisive definition created by the Soviets.Kober
Strong support. - Moldovan language is just a name for the Romanian language spoken in Moldova and Ukraine. In the Republic of Moldova, oficially, they must use the latin alphabet. The only ones who use cyrillic alphabet to write romanian words are the filo-russians from Transnistria, whitch is not recognised as a separate state, so they have the same .mo domain. And I don't think it's fair to create an artificial moldavian wikipedia just because some stupid robot can transliterate any article present in ro.wikipedia from latin to cyrillic alphabet. It's hilarious, really. Who are we trying to lie? Alex:D
Support. If multiple orthographies are needed, it must be possible to create a solution like the one used on the Serbian Wikipedia. Valentinian15:30, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Extremely strong support. (Vă rog să mă scuzaţi pentru că nu scriu în engleză, deoarece nu o stăpânesc atât de bine că să pot şi scrie orice doresc) - Versiunea "moldovenească" este un duplicat inutil, şi sunt pe deplin de acord cu opiniile expuse de ceilalţi care s-au exprimat până aici în ce priveşte înrădăcinarea ideii c-ar fi suficient să se scrie o limbă cu alte caractere că să se ajungă la concluzia c-ar fi vorbă de o altă limbă. În plus, din câte ştiu, grafemele întrebuinţate pentru a reda "Ă ă" şi "g" nu corespundă cu fonemele la care au fost asociate de ruşi. De altfel, multe limbi se pot transcrie cu un alt alfabet: de-am transcrie, italiană, franceza, germană cu literele armeneşti sau devanagari, astă nu înseamnă că s-ar crea nişte limbi noi. Cazuri asemănătoare s-au întâmplat cu limba sârbă, care, transcrisă cu literele latine a devenit croată (şi numai după 1990 cea din urmă, modificând structural elementele lexicale, a devenit o limbă separată), Hindi care, transcrisă cu scrierea "nushri" a fost numită Urdu, vorbită, aşa cum se ştie, în Pakistan, dar, în pofida scrierii diferite, indienii şi pakistanezii, vorbind între ei, se înţeleg, pentru că vorbesc aceeiaş limbă. În amândouă cazurile, modificările lingvistice au fost însoţite şi de conflicte interetnice. În ce priveşte ideea de a realiza o secţiune în pretinsa "limbă moldovenească", pe lângă faptul de a încuraja ideea greşită că Românii şi "Moldovenii" ar fi două popoare diferite, când ştiim bine că nu e aşa, este absolut inutilă şi de prisos, realizându-se astfel un duplicat, transcris în chirilică. Aşadar, sunt pe deplin de acord cu desfiinţarea secţii cu pricină. --Vedaşarmă 22:31, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Total Support - If they want to read something in Romanian they go to Romanian Wiki, if they preffer russian, they go to Russion Wiki. Moldavia is not an language!! Also there are are no users who can contribute to that category, also, why edit 'moldavia' when they can contrbute to Romanian Wiki or Russian Wiki? --PET12:39, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Can't comment on whever or not Moldavian is sufficiently diffrent from Romanian to require a seperate wikipedia, but even if it is the language of the republic of Moldova is written in Latin script. I would feel greatly offended if some foreigner was to write the Azerbaijani wikipedia in the obsolete soviet script that was imposed by Russians in Azerbaijan SSR. --Baku8716:58, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I thought this vote was closed and the result was delete. No need to wait more, just delte it, as the vote results shows.--MariusM17:09, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Moldovan is essentially Romanian. Also, I am persuaded by the arguments raised here that the Moldovan Wikipedia lacks sufficient Moldovan contributors, and that its most visible editor appears to be dominating the project. —Psychonaut13:50, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support or split en:wiki to American, Australian, UKian, Canadian etc. Also split el:wiki to Greek and Cypriotic. Also split French to French and Quebeqian. Also split German to Deutch and Osterreich. Also split... en:User:NikoSilver
Support. I am a Moldovan, and I would like to testify that: 1. The cyrillic script was used during 1940-1989, but is no longer in usage. Also during that time, for political, not linguistical, reasons the language was named Moldovan. In 1989 the language got back its original name, and the latin script. All schools from 1989 taught in latin script, and people easily switched to the latin script. During the first 2-3 years (after 1989) there were some poorly educated people (up to 3-4% of population) who had difficulty in reading and writting with latin alphabet (because they had general problems with reading and writing), but after a couple years those difficulties were surmounted. The reasons for such an easy switch were that most people knew to write and read (albeit with mistakes) with latin script before 1988-89, because people could exchange books and journals with latin script acquired in Romania; because 100% of those already in grade 4 knew latin alphabet from French classes; because people were watching Romanian TV (any small home-made antena would do it, and over 50% of population had such non-official antenas); and because during 1988-89 there was a lot of talk about the language and the script: you would be amazed, but sometimes people during that time would discuss rules to write correctly in latin script instead of gossiping. Gossiping resumed its normal social role after 1989. 2. The terms "Romanian language", "Moldovan language" and "official langiage" are nowadays used as synonims in the Republic of Moldova, and all refer to the latin script. I would like to emphasize again: the official script, and the only one in usage, of the "Moldovan language" is Latin. Cyrillic script is no longer used. In 1990s there was a current that the language, although identical with Romanian, should be called differently for political reasons, because some politicians were afraid that would be an additional argument for union with Romania. But nowadays noone advocates a different name for the language. There are many politicians (in fact the majority) who oppose stronger ties with Romania, but they no longer see the identical language as a factor. Average person sees no connection between language and politics. The main example that an average person in Moldova would point you out is Austria and Germany. Average person, if asked, says that cyrillic script is part of the history of their language, as slavonic script was during middle ages. 3. Moldavians (from Republic of Moldova and from the region Moldavia of Romania) are very proud of their dialect. Moldovan dialect of the Romanian language is written exactly as the standard dialect, but the pronounciation and the choice of synonims sometimes differs. For example, "e" in Moldovan dialect is much softer than in the official dialect, in certain words "p" is pronouced close to "k", "c" close to "ş" etc. However, there is no way to write that down differently - if you do everyone laughs. It would be like writing "stait" for "straight" in English: everyone knows that a Britton and an American would say "straight" differntly, but if you write "stait", everyone would laugh. The biggest difference is the choice of synonims: for example, "dinsul" instead of "el" (people from the south of Romania can not understand how people from Moldova - both from Republic of Moldova and the region Moldavia of Romania - can say "dinsul" referring to a dog, they consider "dinsul" super-polite), or preferential usage of past perfect tense over past simple, or of the second future form over the first future form. All these are correct in all dialects, but the frequency of using one or the other can differ. In fact, in some regards other dialects of Romanian are even further than Moldavian than from the standard dialect. Maybe the best example is email: Moldavians write email just as any Romanian, but some people from Bucharest are surprised to see that when Moldavians read aloud what they write, they read it directly with Moldavian accent. 4 I was very unpleased to see the cyrillic alphabet used on mo.wikipedia with hundreds of mistakes. People forget (or maybe they never knew this, but pretend on Wikipedia to know) that the cyrillic script had very many rules and exceptions, about 3-4 times more than latin script. If you take a given word written with latin script, and write it with cyrillic script, sometimes there are 7-8 choices, and only one is correct. You have to know very well the rules to write correctly. The opposite is different: if you take a word with cyrillic script, then almost always there is a unique choice. As far as I remeber from when the transition was made, there are 3 exceptions in total: chiar, abia, and a third word. Theoretically one can write chear, abea, and you have to know which one is correct. But compare with 90% of words if you go in the other directions, and with the fact that here there are only 2 choices, but their can be as many as 10. The moral is: cyrillic script is part of the history of the Romanian language, and there should be several such examples on wikipedia's article Romanian language in section "history of the script". But they must be written strictly according to the rules that existed then. I see it very offensive when people who do not know neither the rules during 1940-1989, not even the language, are trying to portrait themselves on Wikipedia as specialists and give non-sense arguments. That would be like me trying to teach gothic script when I only know a couple words in German. 5. I am very surprised to see that many people on Wikipedia, who do not know the language, think that if they read something, that is sufficiant to dictate to other nations how to write. I find such attitude uncivilized and offensive. 6. I think that this poll is conducted inappropriately. There should have been 3 polls: one for people who know the language and have known the cyrillic script (all Romanians and Russians are out), one for those who know the language (everyone who knows tha language is in), and one for everybody else (everybody who does not know the langiuge is here). You will see 100%:0% vote in the first category. I think that is the only category that should count. If we come from a small country, why do so many outsiders think they can dictate us how to read and write? If you come from a big country, nobody gives you the right to behave collonially. With all due respect, mind your own business, we don't need your advice on how to read and write!7. I move for a similar vote to take place on wikipedia itslef, not only on wikimedia:Dc7617:23, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please sign in, using either your meta-account or if you don't have one, your English Wikipedia account. Thanks
Oppose closing MO (62 votes, 56 signed)
Oppose. It's all lies these two, Bogdan and Tsoid, are telling you. The people who voted made 0 other edits besides that. There are currently 3 active users, and 383 articles, with about 1 new article every 2 days on average. Don't delete a vibrant Wikipedia with an active community and good articles. Romanian nationalist liars do not deserve to be heard here. --Node ue03:03, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Dude, a word of encouragement. Keep up a clean battle for your beliefs. If you back up your claims, there will always be fair and decent people to support you. All these ****ers that try to attack your background, you know they look like lunatics cuz all they can think of is personal attacks -- nothing more, and anyone reasonable will notice that. Csman09:11, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
To a question the usual and normal response is the answer, not another question. You are free to ask the ones who didn`t, to argumentize or to aks them whatever you want Greier10:17, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Greier, follow links before making a fool of yourself. You should be able to see that new pages were written on the 19th, just 3 days ago. --Node ue10:20, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Greier, the average byte size on mo.wiki is larger than on ro.wiki. The new articles nowadays are always more than two sentences, and some are multi-paragraph. We are trying to become a high-quality Wikipedia, as the Romanian Wikipedia spirals down towards a pile of crap by allowing one-sentence (and even one-word) articles. This is one reason why I asked for sysop recently -- to delete the 50 or so pile-of-crap articles we still have. --Node ue10:41, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
К вашему сведенью я не гражданин Румынии, а гражданин Молдовы. Во вторых, 2.55 это не 3, в третьих в России сколько жителей ? (ro: K vaşemu svedeniu ia ne grajdanin Rumâniii, a grajdanin Moldovî. Vo vtorâh, 2.55 -eto ne 3, v tretiih v Rossiii scolico jitelei ?)
Тем более удивительно... хотя если у вас с кириллическим алфавитом со школы не сложились взаимоотношения, тогда мне понятна ваша точка зрения... иначе я просто не могу понять такую ненависть к традициям своей страны... А в прогнозе надо смотреть не только актуальные числа но и экспоненту роста: У вас 35К будет в августе, а у нас 100К тоже в августе, а может и в июле... и дальше разрыв будет увеличиваться по экпоненте, а вот когда приднестровцы в РФ попросятся, тогда и у них дела пойдут... :) И жителей в России будет ещё больше. --Morpheios Melas12:13, 22 June 2006 (UTC) (ro: Tem boleie udivitelino... hotea esli u vas s chirilliceschim alfavitom so şcolî ne slojilisi vzaimootnoşenia, togda mnie poneatna vaşa tocica zrenia... inace ia prosto ne mogu poneati tacuiu nenavissti c tradiţiiam svoiei stranî... A v prognoze nado smotreti ne tolico actualinâie cisla no i ăxponentu rosta: U vas 35K budet v avguste, a u nas 100K toje v avguste, a mojet i v iiule... i dalişe razrâv budet uvelicivatisea po ăcponente, a vot cogda pridnestrovţî v RF poproseatsea, togda i u nih dela poidut... :) I jitelei v Rossiii budet eştio bolişe.)[reply]
Ничего удивительного я в этом не вижу, до 10 лет я только русский язык и знал. Есть румынский язык, мы его пишем латинскими буквами, это и есть норма. А утверждать что существует некий Молдавский язык это просто проявление неведения. (ro: Nicego udivitelinogo ia v ătom ne viju, do 10 let ia tolico russchii iazâc i znal. Esti rumânschii iazâc, mî ego pişem latinschimi bucvami, ăto i esti norma. A utverjdati cito suştestvuiet nechii Moldavschii iazâc ăto prosto proiavlenie nevedenia.)
Молдавский диалект отличается немного от румынского, как впрочем и мунтенский, олтенский, арделенский (трансильванский)... И неплохо было бы донести их до потомков... А то что вы до 10 лет только русский знали, это в этом повинна школа, дедский сад, родители... никто на молдавском/румынском разговаривать не запрещал... Если человек интересовался корнями, то для него это не проблема... Но мы отвлекаемся от цели голосования... --Morpheios Melas12:29, 22 June 2006 (UTC) (ro: Moldavischii dialect otliceaietsea nemnogo ot rumânscogo, cac vprocem i muntenschii, oltenschii, ardelenschii (transilivanschii)... I neploho bâlo bî donesti ih do potomcov... A to cito vî do 10 let tolico russchii znali, ăto v ătom povinna şcola, dedschii sad, roditeli... nicto na moldavscom/rumânscom razgovarivati ne zapreştal... Esli celovec interesovalsea corneami, to dlea nego ăto ne problema... No mî otvlecaiemsea ot ţeli golosovania...)[reply]
Я вообще не в Молдове жил, но не в этом суть, а на счет запретов, здесь вы не правы, поощрялся русский язык, всех заставляли учить русский. А идея этого голосования в том что один 16 летний американец который рум. не знает но думает что существует молд. язык которй в корне отличается от рум., вот он свою идею и пиарит, а с Молдовы его естественно никто не поддерживает. А вот если бы вы знали рум. язык то вы бы поняли сколько много бреда там. Это если бы кто-то вам сказал что настоящий русский это язык падонкоффф, и мол давайте ру. вики перепишем...Мне жаль что русскии его в этом поддерживают, имея в виду что я когда-то жил в России. (ro: Ia voobşte ne v Moldove jil, no ne v ătom suti, a na scet zapretov, zdesi vî ne pravî, pooştrealsea russchii iazâc, vseh zastavleali uciti russchii. A ideia ătogo golosovania v tom cito odin 16 letnii americaneţ cotorâi rum. ne znaiet no dumaiet cito suştestvuiet mold. iazâc cotori v corne otliceaietsea ot rum., vot on svoiu ideiu i piarit, a s Moldovî ego estestvenno nicto ne podderjivaiet. A vot esli bî vî znali rum. iazâc to vî bî poneali scolico mnogo breda tam. Ato esli bî cto-to vam scazal cito nastoiaştii russchii ăto iazâc padoncofff, i mol davaite ru. vichi perepişem...Mnie jali cito russchiii ego v ătom podderjivaiut, imeia v vidu cito ia cogda-to jil v Rossiii.)
Тогда извините за наезды... действительно в дан ном случае вы вряд ли могли на территории РСФСР другие языки выучить... Но я все равно остаюсь при своём мнении, что этот диалект уже достаточно выделился из Румынского, плюс в отличии от мунтенского, олтенского и арделенского ещё и написанием, если хоть кто то хочет им заниматься почему бы и нет... В 23 веке, можно будет рассказать про историю СССР и как осколок ее показать mo.wikipedia что же буджет в этом плохого? Трафик Викимедии экономить? Так с этого раздела его не много уйдёт... Кстати если насчёт создания раздела на языке падонкафф только шутки ходят, то ребята продвигающие Сибирский Язык (он в отличии от естественного диалека искуственен) всерьез планируют создать раздел на этом языке... и я не против, что бы там не говорили, о том что этот язык создавался в целях сепаратизма, терроризма итд... Я и Клингонский бы оставил... --Morpheios Melas12:53, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Проблема в том что мо.вики редактируют люди не знающии языка, то что будет показанно в 23 веке ничего общего с реальностью не имело бы. Они работали по схеме - берем статью из ро.вики, транслитирируем (кстати активно это делал один кореец), и всё, а иногда для пущего счастья берут словарь, находят синоним (которые очень часто не подходят в данном контексте) и делают замену, вот тебе и обычная статья из мо.вики (а ну и еще стати по схеме - все города Литвы - "ААА это город в Литве" и всё, etc), а интерфейс там вообще не имеет смысла, это если бы всесто кнопки "Поиск" вам написать "Скитаться", а вместо "Иструменты" - "Халат" (смешно, да ? но это реальный случай на мо.вики, и сейчас там так.. ) и эти люди утверждают что именно так все говорят в Молдове, а все кто против автоматически злые рум. империалисты. Ну не обидно... ?
Обидно, но эти люди уйдут, а носителям языка (или диалекта если вам так больше нравится) прийти будет некуда... это будет ещё больше обидно. --Morpheios Melas13:25, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Вот в этом я сомневаюсь, во первых не уйдут они..уже не первый год, а во вторых никто не прийдёт...
Просто я в отличии от вас оптимист и верю, что лучшие времена настанут, Молдавия и Преднестровье выберутся из кризиса и многих достаточно умных носителей языка появится время для того что бы поделиться знаниями, оно не будет уходить все на то чтобы добыть кусок хлеба... Закрыть проще всего, но кто может прийти в закрытый раздел? Никто. А добиваться его повторного открытия у них может и не будет сил/желания, а если раздел будет существовать даже в таком виде им будет прощей прийти... В конце концов он никому не мешает... у нас десятки разделов с 1 единственной статьёй и их никто не закрывает. --Morpheios Melas05:11, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
При чём здесь оптимизм я не понимаю, но смысла в данной вики я вообще не вижу, у нас если даже и написанно в конституции что язык у нас молд., там-же и говорится что пишется он _латинским_ алфавитом, так что если бы они назвали проект "Moldovan Cyrillic (USSR)" тогда пусть себе и делают что хотят, а так выходит люди считают что мы пишем кир.
There are a lot of people using cyrillic, so his argument is invalid. So what is it Node? Is it about the language, or is it about the script!?!??! Make up your mind Greier10:24, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The script is very important for people which feeling that the romanization is against their freedom and free will. - Vald10:34, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So neither do you know what this is all about...What the hell is the Moldovan wikipedia about????? Is it about the language, or about the script??? It`s the second time I ask this question, which Node seems deliberately ignore it... Greier10:39, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. It's a normal young developing wiki in an existing natural language. Also, keep in mind that we have Sebian sr-wiki, Croatian hr-wiki, and Serbo-Croatian sh-wiki. Dr Bug10:30, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If Moldovan Wikipedians don't want it to exist anymore, why is it still growing? If Moldovan Wikipedians hate it so much, who is creating the new articles? Little green men from the non-existant country of Pridnestrovie? lol. --Node ue07:11, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Would you mind showing me a difference between the Moldovan language and the Romanian one ? And why I wonder the Linguistics department of Moldova's Academy of Sciences doesn't acknowledge the existence of a Moldovan language ? Maybe you know something about our language that we, poor Moldovans, don't know about ? -- mo:User:Pavel
Strong oppose. The language exists, it uses different alphabet with Romanian language (cyrillic one), there are active contributors, it is young growing wiki. MountainBlueAllah12:20, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: that is a lie. Even those who say it is a different language do not use Cyrillic to express themselves. This "young and vibrant" piece of sophistry has only been venue for transliterating (ie: not "translating") material from the Romanian-language wikipedia. Even Node knows this is true, since he was able to do it in several instances. Dahn
I'll repeat this for those unfamiliar with this issue: even for those who believe the language does exist, that language is written in Latin script. Whatever is official in Transnistria is not only without legal or logical status throughout the world, it is a demonstration of Russian nationalism and xenophobia. Dahn
No, Dahn, the language written in cyrillic exists. Denying this you demonstrate a kind of nationalism. ru:user:VanHelsing.16
Where does it exist? In Moldova? No, it's in that bullshit republic where civil rights are denied on a regular basis. Stop conning other users. Dahn
It doesn't matter where it exists, Wikipedia is not a place for political bullshit. Even if it only exists in that republic, there should be a wikipedia for it. MountainBlueAllah13:48, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That is sheer hypocrisy: the fact that it "should exist" because an unrecognized gvt. forces it down the throat of public opinion simply because it (and no one else, no one including those who claim to speak Moldovan and not Romania) has a political statement to make - which it otherwise contradicts, when stating that Moldovans are foreigners on Transnistrian soil! Wake up and smell the manure. Dahn
That is a pure lie. I've been there, people actually use this language (and, besides, support the government). Just travel there and see the real public opinion. MountainBlueAllah14:09, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What is this supposed to even mean? Some people will use the Cyrillic alphabet when writing "Moldovan", right? Is that your great point? How the hell does this matter over the fact that while Moldova only recognizes the Latin alphabet, the Dnestrians only recognize Cyrillic for the same language? Who has precedence here? Admitting that Dnestria would have a legible claim to legitimacy, it still only refernces Moldovan, in the way it has decided to spell it, as a minority language, while the state does not claim Moldovan identity. In that context, let's start a "Romanian in Morse" wikipedia, because it would have the same legitimacy and claim. Dahn
Oppose/Contra/Против - Wikipedia is not place for politics. wikipedia:ru:GrainCalling off, because have no position pro or contra. Too few moldavan people voted-contra, pretty ugly site - even not translated well. wikipedia:ru:Grain See below. wikipedia:ru:Grain
Oppose - Moldovan in Cyrillic is one of the three official languages of en:Transnistria, and was one of the two de facto official languages of the en:Moldavian SSR. If we have Latin, Anglo-Saxon, and Serbo-Croatian Wikipedias, this one is certainly in place. If the Romanian Wikipedia could be modified like the Serbian Wikipedia, which at present had a button which the reader can click and will transliterate the page into a different script (srwiki has a choice of four), I would support that, as mowiki does indeed have a serious troll problem. --Telex13:27, 22 June 2006 (UTC) (changed to support)[reply]
Please inform yourself o the existence of a Romanian Cyrillic alphabet, Telex. It would add tremendously to the complications of this issue. Dahn
No, I'm saying that I am agains NEWSPEAK. I am not against a French wikipedia, I am not against a Châlerwè wikipedia, but I would certainly be against a Belgian wikipedia - "in Belgian", especially if the difference between French and "Belgian" would only be a "Belgian script". Dahn
What you fail to point out is that historically (or at present), there is no such thing as a "Belgian language" (or none that I've heard of). A Moldovan language in Cyrillic has been used officially (or de facto officially) in the cases I described above. Can the same be said for "Belgian"? I understand that those cases are viewed as the black pages of Romanian history by nationalists of all orientations, but that doesn't change history. --Telex16:14, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have asked you before not to slander me by calling me a nationalist. I have pointed out on this very page why that isn't. I should receive the basic decency of not being dealt with as a suspect just because I'm Romanian. The very goddamn logical point here is that anybody with basic knowledge of the Latin letters will be forced to admit that Moldovan in Latin script is the very same as Romanian, and that Cyrillic was used as a means to hide that fact. That requirement was political, which is surprising only for someone unfamiliar with Stalin. It was an experimental construct, and did not stand to logic - as a Belgian language would not have stood to logic. Dahn
Now we return to my point. What's wrong with having a transliteration switch like the one at srwiki? As any Moldovan Wikipedia will only be inferior in content to rowiki, this solves both problems by providing a wiki in a script still used today (due to those evil Russian propagandists in Transnistria), and not sacrificing article quality. --Telex16:57, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, great, Telex, why don't you teach me some more? Look, friend: wouldn't you be debasing your own (and Node's) criteria by admitting that language in Cyrillic would be Romanian? Wouldn't you be contradicting the only people who use Cyrillic and those guys with no knowledge of either language who answered on this very page that "it is a language on its own"? Wouldn't "see this page in Cyrillic" clash with the concept of the other version of Cyrillic (Romanian Cyrillic)? And, would that be of any goddamn help considering that neither variants of Cyrillic have been in use, and that all those who speak Romanian do not use them, most are unfamiliar with them, and those familiar with them are usually familiar with Latin script as well?! Way to get my point, Telex. Now, quick, tell me off, for I am but a moronic Romanian Iron Guardsman, and likes to kills them minoritees who doesn't agrees to becomes Romanian. Dahn
I think it's well known that Moldovan is Romanian pressured by communist terror just like Montenegrin and Macedonian. Basically, they are relics of the days of communism. What I don't get is what is your problem with a little transliteration switch - you wouldn't even notice it. --Telex17:12, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What would be its purpose, its use, and, hell, what would be its name? "Moldovan Cyrillic"? "Node's Moldovan"? "Version 2 of Romanian Cyrillic"? "Bullshit for people with no common sense"? Dahn
That would contradict the claim that "Moldovan is actually different from Romanian": for sure, people who have used it ever since Stalin could not have agreed with Moldovan being a mere transliteration of Romanian, hence the version would have no use in hell. Dahn
We could call it either "Кирилик" (because there's also a Romanian Cyrillic) or "Кошмарул Ромынией Маре", whichever you like. --Telex17:40, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The Romanian Cyrillic is actually different, just bother to check it out befotre speaking. If you keep identifing me with Greater Romania, I shall have to call you "a troll". Dahn
Ye, we are both Hitlerian. In a civilized context, coming up with such a sentence would have made you look like a fool in front of everybody. But, here, among your cronies, you puppy can sure feel secure to deny all violent aspects of Stalinism, claim knowledge of Moldovan/Romanian without being able to speak a single line in it/either, and slander us as nationalists when what you support reeks of Russian vigilantism in favor of fifth columns such as the Dnestr one. Dahn
Well, despite your apparent obsession with "violent aspects of Stalinism", you are behaving like a true Bolshevik here, trying to ban shit left and right. Csman23:24, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So easy to slander, so hard to actually inform oneself on the topic at hand... Dahn
Well, first, I wasn't the one who absolutely needlessly brought up Stalin and Bolsheviks and commies. Second, even if this was an ultra-artificial language with the weirdest alphabet that was created in the depths of hell with the purpose to destroy all humans, in the sprit of the Wikipedia there would be no reason to ban an active community in it, regardless of the race, age, political beliefs of contributors, purported transliteration of some articles with open licenses, and whatever other false pretenses I've read so far on this page. Why are you guys itching so much to prohibit something? Why can't you instead just play peacefully in your own playground, and make your section the best section of the Wikipedia, to show the real power of the one and only, the *true* Romanian? Csman23:58, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You don't seem to get that there are no "speakers" of this "dialect", and that the only difference between it and standard Romanian is the alphabet, which has been discarded universally when dealing with "Moldovan". What "active community"? Node? He can't even spell the language on his own, and has admitted to transliterating texts from rowiki into his own language (which should adequately prove to you just what sort of a dialect this is). Node is now in the 1,000 monkeys with 1,000 typewriters phase - the reason to bring Stalin into this was that he was the first of these monkeys, and not a very consistent one. Dahn
Strong oppose. As long as there are people willing to maintain that part of Wikipedia, as long as they are going to update it regularly and work on it, the project should not be terminated. Let them be as they like and raise the question again after a year or two if it really gets stalled. --Ru.spider14:58, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose. If something works, why to broke it up? Somebody definitely are sure that this language exists and want to work in it (and are working now), this wiki is developing (slow, but anyway faster than dozens of others). If you want to close something, close all empty wikis and then discuss closing of wikis that are working. --AndyVolykhov16:47, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Meanwhile, I am not the one insulting Islam with my very presence. Yes, I guess I must be a fascist for not complying with that habit of trolls. Return to whatever it is you do. Dahn
Did the whole russian population connected to the internet voted on this pole? I`m only expecting Putin to vote, and the issue would be set. And who are these users which appeared all of a sudden??? (e.g. Zserghei) Greier19:02, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose. If there people who are working on this wiki, just let them do it. These countinuing efforts to close Moldovan wiki begin to give a kind of impression that Romanian people a bit chauvinist... (I hope it isn't true). Why don't you propose merging of Serbian/Croatian/Slovenian/Macedonian wikipedias into one? Most linguists consider them to be rather dialects of the same language then separate languages. Kneiphof19:32, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You are opposing for the sake of opposing. Of course the language exists, as those people are not mutes. The language exists and it`s Romanian. In fact, the number of "Moldovan" in Romania in greater than the number of Moldovans anywhere else. Greier11:20, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose. Are we promoting banning and censorship here? I propose the next step: anyone who speaks a dialect of some language should be executed, and their works banned forever. How about that? ...Let people read and write whatever language they want, including Volapük, Interlingua, Simple English or whatever anyone else comes up with, regardless of their background. What the hell is your problem? Csman21:34, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody sayd anything about that... This is a matter of principles: you argue against censorship, I argue against perpetuating a state of confusion and the result of lies. There is no Moldovan language, it`s not even a dialect. How many times do people have to say this for you to understand??? What is wrong with you people? Is it so hard to follow: the matter here are the script and the name used. Calling it "Moldovan" is ludircrous because: 1. calling it "Moldovan", and at the same time using the Latin script would mean that the MD wikipedia would be a copy of the RO wikipedia 2. calling it "Moldovan", and at the same time using the Cyrillic scrip would be baseless, as the official script in Moldova is LATIN. The only place where Moldovan is used with Cyrillic script (by an imfimum number of people compared with the users of the latin scrip) is in Transnistria, a breakway, unrecognised state, a state where Moldovans are a minority, and the Russian-speaking goverment aparatus still continues a stalinist policy when dealing with minorities and history.... Greier
So, people speak it in Transnistria. Let them have a Wikipedia! ru:user:VanHelsing.16
Oppose. I don't see harm in allowing people write articles there if they are interested. The closure drive seems mostly politically motivated. --Irpen05:24, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose - The official language of Transnistria is Moldovan and it is written in the Cyrillic script. Transnistria was once part of Moldavia and they declared independence because they wanted to establish close ties with Russia and therefore they prefer the Cyrillic script instead. Hence I suggest that the name of that encyclopedia be changed from Moldavian to Transnistria wikipedia rather than closing the entire wiki down. The opinions of Transnistrians should be relevant as well, not just the opinion of Romanians, Moldvans, or Russians. -- Phillip J, 07:45, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose - cyrillics is still in use there. lots of people just not speak romanian. moldavian wikipedia seem to be alive and well. --jno11:49, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, per users Greier, Leinarius, Eres, Wars and anon support entry 21. Disgusting attitude. Suggest copying useful content to ro:wiki, per user:Telex. Also suggest leaving the mo:wiki be for a while and archive or delete it only when it stagnates to the point of no new articles appearing for months. --en:user:Illythr
"for a while"?! You clearly know nothing about this wikipedia. It's been months that mo.wiki is exactly in the state you describe: freezed after a discussion on wikipedia-l, but not deleted. A playground for Node_ue and his Romanian troll counterparts. The content is garbage, or copied (most often both, because Node_ue introduces grammar errors by trying to make articles different from the original on ro.wiki). What more do you want? Dpotop17:12, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My, my... aren`t you a sensitive one? So that is your reason for opposing: my disgusting attitude... It`s easy to insult rather than to argue, right? You`re free to make yourself as many "wikipedias for russian colonists" as you want, just leave this issue of Moldovan alone... Greier17:38, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Insult rather than argue" - right, that's what many of you are doing and that's what I'm opposing. Some of the opposers seem to be no better, unfortunately. :(
To DPotop: Last time I saw (a few weeks ago), it was still expanding, despite the "Go away!" marker and the gloating remarks on the main talk page. Anyways, my opinion is that as long as anybody is still willing to work on it, it should not be closed down. --en:user:illythr
Strong oppose Moldavian is similar to Romanian but this isn't identical wiki. Please for brain and not redirect to RO wiki because this wiki is neccesary and Moldova not depend to Romania! Pietras1988 20:33, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Opposewikipedia:ru:S.Felix I don't understand what a problem in existans mo:wikipedia for people from ro:wikipedia. Talks about 'copy-pasting' likes absurd, because GFDL.
The point is not that it's illegal, just stupid. What is the point of having another section of wikipedia where that same infomration is copied, it's like having a mirror of the site. Some articles are actually transliterated, but there is a tool (with some imperfections) that can be used for that purpose already. TSO1D22:24, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
GFDL is very weak argument, becouse that licence requires showing the source and the list of autors. And Node_ue is copying everything, adding interwikis (all except the one to ro.wiki) and claiming that this is another language. And some arguments higher, like Moldova not depend to Romania are a fake and misunderstanding. United States don't depend to the United Kingdom, but they do not want to create a separate wiki in American English. Michał (ro, pl) 10:46, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose/Contra/Против - back again, after all. Project can be closed, w/ technical reasons - stagnation, lack of support, internal community decision, but not w/ language existence/inexistence theories or political reasons, like "Moldova is part of Romania" etc. Also, technical reason closure is extreme measure, and I see no reasons for it. It's obvious, that mo:wikipedia needs to be improve, but it can't be reason to closure. I don't see anything bad on borrowing articles from Romanian cluster, but, of course, articles should be corrected by native speakers (for example - readers on target group), to conform Wikipedia level. More, I remommend to borrow it's site infrastructure translation (since Romanian & Moldavan languages are seems to be similar or same). Yes, my vote is political (geopolitics/wikipedia politics), I want to block closure w/ current primary reasons, formulated close to political claim (Romanian user proposing to close Moldavan project because "Moldovan" is simply a synonym for "Romanian". Moldova's cluster existance can't be Romanian affair, and not Russian, either) and block other side political voters, to let moldavan cluster community to decide internally. I think, this preposition proposal must be taken off, as obvious trolling. wikipedia:ru:Grain
I disagree with you that all those who want to close the encyclopedia are politically motivated nationalists. I myself want it closed because I don't like to see my native language perverted by some ignorant American who does not speak the language and digs up archaic words like "bîrcîeşte" claiming them to represent "real" Moldovan. Personally I find your Russian colleages to be mostly politically motivated as the Russian Wiki forum demonstrates, by shouting anti-Romanian phrases and demonstrating an ignorance of the topic. TSO1D21:06, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I never said that original proposal was nationalism, but it seemes to (why closure proposal was issued by Romanian community member ?). It's nonadequate by demand itself and it's formulating, that make it trolling, de facto. wikipedia:ru:Grain
There is no any anti-romanian shouting on our forum, except, maybe, Node_eu's appeal and some reaction to his words. The rest of discussion is pretty neutral, and more techical, then political. wikipedia:ru:Grain
It was nominated by Bogdan for closure because he currently is the administrator of the page. He was given that authority when Node was stripped of his admin powers for abuse and now Bogdan decided that it is logical to close it as no one was working on that wiki (except until five days ago when Node began his frantic effort to put up the illusion that Mo receives numerous contributions daily). As for the forum thing, I'll take that back, I suppose I was exaggerating a bit. The only one to make some mild Anti-Romanian comments was Андрушка. TSO1D13:43, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Bogdan's not a very good admin -- he failed to clean up vandalism (that task was left to me), he failed to ban userpage vandals, he failed to respond to inquiries. And I have been adding pages for weeks, not just since this vote began. Get your facts straight. --Node ue18:06, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Although I don't agree with your label of nationalism, I agree that it makes as much sense to have a Montenegrin language (not officially recognized by any state nor regulated by any body) Wiki as it does to have a Moldovan Wiki. TSO1D14:03, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Montenegrin language has three different words then Serbian Latin Iyekavian standard, unlike Moldovan Cyrillic written language. More then a half Montenegrins say that they are speaking Serbian (i.e. 22% of inhabitants of Montenegro [around 100.000 of people] say that they are speaking Montenegrin), which is AFAIK (I didn't check it) some more people then in the northern part of Moldova (I forgot the name of the province). Nationalism is to prevent those people to express their cultural identity only because some other people think that "this language is not a language". --Millosh17:19, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have the same suggestion to Romanian Wikipedians as to Serbian Wikipedians: if you want Moldovan Cyrillic Wikipedia to be closed (or Montenegrin not to be opened), you should give a possibility to people to write in their native script, orthography and standard on your Wikipedia (conversion is possible as conversion on Serbian Wikipedia between four Serbian standards is). A couple of months ago I asked it, but people from Romanian Wikipedia didn't want to do that. --Millosh17:19, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I voted for opening Montenegrin Wikipedia even it didn't have enough of people who are Montenegrin native speakers. But, this Wikipedia is opened (maybe I wouldn't vote for opening in this moment) and I see no reason to close this Wikipedia if it is opened. Mark is pain in the ass and I don't agree with a lot of his actions (including putting archisms as "right words"), but there are some people in Northern Moldova who use this orthography and who would come to Wikipedia some day. --Millosh17:19, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But the fact remains that no user asked for a Cyrillic version of Romanian, so why implement it now? I am sure that if some user requests it, arrangements can be made, whether to have it directly in the Romanian page or have a redirect to ro-cyr where a transliteration tool cool convert the articles from Ro to cyrillic. TSO1D19:50, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
One of the most important rules of all Wikipedias is the Neutral Point of Viev. I think that supporting the separatist movements against the de iure government from Kiszyniów is neither mission nor purpose nor NPOV of Wikimedia Foundation. Michał (ro, pl) 10:41, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The point is that people use it. Antares did not say anything like "WE MUST SUPPORT..." or anything.
"De facto" independent ?! What are ya, an Igor Smirnov sympathiser ? I swear, they'll let anyone in here ... -- Voievod
Apparently you don't understand the meaning of de-facto.
Oppose. If there is a population that prefers to use the language in Cyrillic script, let them. (If it is even the same language, about which there are differences of opinion here. Even a linguistic concept created by the Soviets cannot be discarded when there is a population that still views the language that way. Why should we take sides on a political debate?) Anyone who thinks that two different scripts is not a good reason for a separate Wikipedia is simply mistaken. Look at the Kurdish and Ladino Wikipedias, for example, where the attempt to have two different scripts on the same wikipedia has utterly failed. Not everything can work like Chinese.Dovi20:06, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Language difference - I agree with Romanian people that Moldavian phonetically is not so far from Romanian but have to point out that graphically it differs completely (using the cyrillic alphabet). Therefore as there is no way cyrillic-reading people to access Romanian Wiki, the existence of Moldavian Wiki is feasible. Arguments with Australian English, Canadian French and Austrian German compare apples with oranges as neither of those is written in cyrillic. -- Goldie ± (talk)16:01, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Romanian vandalism - Even if the Wiki is to be closed (somehow, someday) as I see it the editing might be blocked but reading is not until the Wiki is brought down. So I hardly can attribute the changes to Main page (Bogdan, Fratele lui Bonaparte, il cunosti?) as something different than vandalism. -- Goldie ± (talk)16:01, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You have to realize that Bogdan made these changes when the decision to close the encyclopedia was already taken on wiki-l and only waited to be implemented through the technical closure. TSO1D16:08, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So you are trying to say that the whole discussion here is useless as it was already decided?! Could you provide some verifiable proof about the decision, and (more important) a link to a procedure stating that such "decision" is legitimate? -- Goldie ± (talk)22:43, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion I am referring to took place on wiki-l and policy is decided there by administrators and stewards. Here is one link :Closure. If you look at other messages from that period it appears clear that there was a consensus to close it, but for some reason it was never enforced, and now everyone is pretending like this is something new started by Romanian nationalists. TSO1D18:07, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
POV-pushing - The only sysop on that Wiki is a Romanian, voting for its closure and vandalising the Main page!? Despite my respect to Bogdan's contributions on other Wikies (I've seen them here and there) I am positive he is not neutral on the subject. I guess that if rules for voting from English (or even Romanian) Wiki are applied there, only handful of users would have legitimate votes, the set of administrators will be different, and the overall content in the Wiki will be different. -- Goldie ± (talk)16:01, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Moldovan's relationship with Romanian is kind of like Pennsylvanian german's relationship with German. It seems that pdc is allowed and there seem to be a fair amount of articles for a recently developing wiki. Blue caterpillar19:45, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually that's really not how it is. There are significant differences between the formal versions of Pennsylvanian German and Modern German, whereas the literary forms of Romanian and "Moldovan" are identical. TSO1D21:39, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But the point is that many "dialects" of languages exist in Wikimedia and many of those are allowed to exist and grow. Why can't this one? Blue caterpillar13:03, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is though that the written forms of the various Romanian dialects are all identical. Thus there would be absolutely no way of distinguishing a Moldovan text from a Romanian text, so the dialect wouldn't really grow unless we changed it here to be distinct from Romanian. Virtually no one advocates the continuation of this Wiki because it is a distinct language, but so that there would be a Molkdovan-Cyrillic Romanian version (as that alphabet is still used in a small break-away part of Moldova and used to be official in Moldova before 1989. TSO1D13:19, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But it seems that whoever is editing that Wikipedia and making it grow, he/she would probably think it is different than Romanian, or they probably wouldn't edit there in the first place. Blue caterpillar20:18, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, go to mo and see for yourself. There isn't really much progress going on, but there are five or so constructive edits a day and they are all in cyrillic. Intitially some articles were copied from Ro for the latin part of the encyclopedia but people realized that that was a waste of time and space. Even the cyrillic articles that exist were transliterated from the Romanian Wiki with no "translation" as even Node will admit. TSO1D20:50, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The vote is not about deleting the encyclopedia, but freezing it so that no further changes will be made. The reasons given for this are that there are few constructive edits, it is a battlegground for trolls, etc. In any case the current articles will be accessible in the future. As for integration with Ro, below you can see the discussion about the possible creation of a transliteration tool that would automatically present the pages from Ro in Cyrillic. TSO1D01:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still opposed because it is a possibility, but I don't think consensus has been reached about the transliteration tool. However it seems to be supported and I added my support, so if they decide to use it, then I might change to Neutral. Blue caterpillar18:29, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Moldavian is really language. Молдавский язык реально существует, в отличие от Сибирского. То что он похож на румынский - не препятствие для существования мо-вики. В противном случае следовало бы закрывать белорусскую вики, simple english и все такое. --Nikolay Kolpakov20:21, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. (Like the person above I came here from the Sibirskoi voting page). This is not a conlang; there is a real place on Earth where people write in this way. Ilqram19:27, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh the irony, you talk about hypocrisy and then vote here just to spite those who voted on the Siberian page. I have no idea why some Romanian Wikipedians voted there, though many of them probably did it just to get back at those who voted for keeping the Moldovan page here. I haven't voted on the Siberian page, because I don't really worry about that case, but if I would , I would probably follow my reason and vote yes, rather than try to punish those I don't agree with. It's incredibly funny though, when some of the Russian users who voted for the preservation of this Wikipedia because "wikis can be written in dialect" and "live and let live" are now presenting the very same arguments that I presented against Moldovan here on the Siberian page. And really if you think about it, the Moldovan case is even more obvious than the Siberian one. At least there they invented a coded dialect, on the Moldovan page, text from Romanian articles is not even changed, just presented in an other alphabet, which they call a separate language. TSO1D15:50, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose (Do I have the right to vote here?) 1) For some people, who had been using Cyrillic graphics for fifty years and Latin for several months, with switching back to Cyr after that, it is easiear to _read_ in Cyrillics; 2) For some people living in places where an average computer has no Romanian keyboard it is easier to _type_ in Cyrillics. Wiki is a project for anyone sitting at a computer with a browser and internet connection, not for some advanced users or for the generation which had time to learn Latin graphics at school (like me). Ilana08:29, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Compare to English, French and German
There is one single Wikipedia for English speakers, be they from the UK, US, Canada and so on. One Wikipedia for French speakers, be they from France, Québec or elsewhere. Same for Germany, no matter if they are from the former West/East Germany [or Austria, by the way, lets us not forget Austria = Österreich.]. It makes absolutely no sense to have two wikis, one in Romanian and one in Moldovan--plus, there are basically no native contributors to the Moldovan wiki, except for a decrepit USSR-flag bearer who does not even speak "Moldovan". Then why on earth should we keep the Moldovan wiki alive artificially? --BenjaminFranklinfr:User:Franklin23:09, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
We all know that Romanian ("Moldovan") written in the Cyrillic alphabet is an artificial creation of the USSR, don't we? Plus, since all Mo articles are transliterated from the RO wiki and we have the technology to transliterate automatically, there are no more excuses for your purely political mumbo-jumbo. And the second artificial thing about your huffing and puffing is, you are not a native speaker of "Moldovan". Absolutely everything in this "keep the Mo wiki alive" is entirely artificial.--BenjaminFranklin16:07, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you insist on artificially created languages, please consider the South Slavic languages, where according to most linguists there are exactly and only three South Slavic languages, let us not relapse in double standards, there are probably 5-6 Wikipedias in diverse dialects of Serbo-Croation and Bulgarian and one more has just been (fortunately) rebuffed. Opposing separatism only when it is supported by Russia is far from impartiality. Bogorm21:16, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Background 1: "Moldovan" is simply a synonym for "Romanian", see: w:en:Moldovan language, but for some complex reasons, it has it's own ISO code and a wikipedia for it was created by default. This wikipedia used to be the pet wikipedia of a certain editor called Node_ue (who is not fluent in the language). Currently, it's mostly used by trolls who do nothing constructive.
It has no community and many of the edits are related to the debates/flame-wars regarding its closing down. I haven't seen more than two original articles (excluding those copied from the Romanian Wikipedia) There was a voting, in which people of both Romania and Moldova voted for the closing down.
Background 2: Bogdan is lying. Moldovan is not the same as Romanian, it is NOT used only by trolls, it has 3 active users and nearly 400 articles, and is now growing rapidly. There was indeed a vote for the closure of this Wiki, but no actual Moldovan Wikipedians participated, and its validity was contested by a few people. --Node ue03:10, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Note, I am not voting this way because I don't think that Moldovan can't be a language, but really, if there are actually any Moldovans wanting to work on a Wikipedia where they can write in the Cyrillic orthography, then we can add this to the Romanian Wikipedia. - FrancisTyers22:36, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What is the point of having a Wikipedia in a language where no-one working on it speaks natively? And I'm not talking about con-langs here. Regarding the other point, if there are sufficient users who request a Wikipedia in Moldovan Cyrillic, who are actually native speakers then I would whole-heartedly support its reintroduction, providing the Romanians remain intransigent. - FrancisTyers09:27, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps you've been believing the crap fed to you by the Romanians. There are plenty of native speakers who have contributed to the Moldovan Wikipedia, although there are presently none, all current active users are fluent.
99% transliterated, not copied, and that was nearly half a year ago. Wasn't it you saying you didn't speak English? --Node ue10:14, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, really ? It pretty much says "copied" in your message. Could you show me let's say 30 original articles ? Judging from what you said minimum 270 articles are original, so that shoulnd't be much of a problem, no ? As for me speaking English, unlike you with Romanian/Moldovan (call it what you like), I managed to learn it. Anyway, Node, you're as boring as always, I suggest you start by visiting Moldova, I'd personally show you Chisinau around, I think after that you'll stop having a wrong impression of Moldova. mo:User:Pavel
Pavel, it's difficult for me to believe that you went from a level of 0 mastery in the English language about 6 months ago, to your current level of mastery today. I started learning Spanish a year ago, and I still can't speak it fluently, and I can't write it fluently without heavy help from a dictionary. The only reason I've picked it up as fast as I have is the fact that I grew up until age 3 with Moldovan, which I would probably be better at with some practice. If you would show me around Chisinau, that would be fun, but I don't anticipate being in Moldova soon. If I do go without family, though, I'll be sure to contact you. --Node ue10:32, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Great, now what about those 30 articles ? mo:User:Pavel
Only most of the Latin articles are copied. 0 of the Cyrillic ones are copied, given that Cyrillic articles are not allowed at the Romanian Wikipedia. --Node ue11:23, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sheesh, stop twisting my words and show me 30 out of 353 allegedly original articles (it would be great if they would contain more than one sentence too, you know). mo:User:Pavel
By that reasoning, why do we have Manx or Cornish Wikipedias? I'm 99% certain that none of the contributers there are native speakers, either. I don't think whether or not contributors are native should be that much of an issue. The Jade Knight22:50, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the native speakers who prefer to write in Cyrillic, I don't believe you. I'd ask for a CheckUser on these alledged users, but I'm not sure that it would be granted in this instant. You aren't fluent in either Romanian or Moldovan, although you do make a good effort. If you could find ten confirmed native speakers then I would be inclined to change my vote. But I would have to be as sure of the fact that they are Moldovan as you are that I am an Englishman. - FrancisTyers09:48, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Three active users is not enough to build an encyclopaedia, especially if none of them are native speakers. Furthermore, may I ask why you are editing the Tajik Wikipedia if you don't know Tajik? You've already made one spelling mistake that I've managed to spot. Please try and find users who are native speakers who are interested in editing! - FrancisTyers09:55, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, at least I tried to write some content. You, on the other hand, said you think it should be deleted. I may have made some errors. But if non-native-speakers aren't allowed to edit, why don't we ban Bogdan from en.wiki? --Node ue10:10, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please do not twist my words, I said that I think it should be archived and a placeholder put in place informing native speakers of how they can re-open it. For a start, Bogdan can contribute with a professional level of English, you cannot contribute with a professional level of Tajik or Moldovan. Further to this, your point is invalidated by the fact that there are so many native speakers of English on the en.wiki that if he does happen to make a mistake it can be corrected. I have no problem with non-native speakers editing Wikipedias (I edit both Romanian and French), but if there are no native speakers around then we are just going to end up with refuse. - FrancisTyers10:21, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I may not have a professional level of either language, but I have contributed articles to both Wikipedias. You may have your view, but you're not the one who jump-started the Albanian Wikipedia when nobody else wanted to write there. Given that Tajik is essentially Farsi written in Cyrillic and infused with loan words, it's not difficult for an intelligent foreigner to translate one to the other. I simply have a better grasp of how to Cyrillicise Farsi than do you. I may have made some mistakes, but it's better to have articles with a couple of misspellings than to have none at all. I checked nearly every word to make sure it was spelt correctly, and if it wasn't, I tried other probable spellings until I found the right one. There were only a few cases where I couldn't find it, in those cases I replaced it with a synonym most of the time, and when a suitable synonym wasn't available, I took my best guess (probably about 3 words in the article on encyclopaedias, 1 word max in the article about Wikipedia, and 0 in the translation of "Main Page", which I copied directly from ozodi.org) --Node ue10:27, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No hard feelings man, I seriously think you are trying to help build an encyclopaedia. But this is not the way to do it. I've no doubt that you are better at Cyrillic and Farsi than am I. Notwithstanding this, exactly how can you be sure that it even makes sense ? I'm not berating you for making an effort, rather I am merely saying "is this how we write an encyclopaedia", with "best guesses"? Oh, and I'd love your input over at en:Tajik alphabet, as you seem to be more proficient than I am. - FrancisTyers11:54, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I can definitely be sure it makes sense, given that the vast majority of the words exist in Tajik with the same meaning as in Farsi (it's basically the same situation as Romanian and Moldovan Cyrillic, except the scripts differ more, and there are some Russian words in Tajik -- in fact, it's so similar that many Iranians and even some Tajiks insist that they are "the same language"). It's certainly possible that a couple of my "best guesses" are totally nonexistant words, and that's why I tried to keep them to a minimum. There is a small enough numbre of "guesses" without any sort of verification (maybe two or three in the "encyclopedia" article) that even if they don't exist as words (which is relatively improbable), it will still be obvious what was meant there. Now, I would agree that it's not right to right an entire encyclopedia with "best guesses". I certainly don't plan on populating the Tajik Wikipedia singlehandedly. I just wanted to write a few core articles to say to any Tajik passing through "See, there is something here, we're really trying to accomplish something". A year ago, I wouldn't be so sure about that method, but after I used it at the Limburgish, Georgian, Armenian, Amharic, Romansh, Yiddish, and Haitian Creole Wikipedias with a huge success rate (each got active native-speaking contributors within a couple of months of my work), I am pretty sure now. Yes, there are some that haven't really worked yet -- Yoruba and Hawai'ian -- but these can be ascribed to other factors (low internet proliferation in Yorubaland; poor infrastructure in Hawai'ian). Some Wikipedias take off with no help; others lie inactive and become waste heaps until someone makes a little effort to make it look nice, with at least some content in the target language. --Node ue04:59, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Interestingly I've seen both:
Саҳифаи аслӣ and
Саҳифаи асосӣ
Both aslij and asosij seem to mean "Main", but which one is more appropriate? If we had a native speaker to help out we'd know, but as we haven't we are just guessing, which is a sucky way to write an encyclopaedia. - FrancisTyers14:24, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the Farsi Wikipedia uses "aslii", and so does the Tajik version RFERL (ozodi.org). I think it's safe to assume that RFE/RL knows what they're doing. --Node ue04:59, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Who said I was trying to write an encyclopaedia? I certainly hope you're not trying to, considering your command of Tajik is even worse than mine (as far as I know, at least -- you may be a native speaker of Tajik pretending not to know the language, though I can't understand what your possible motivation for that would be). I'm simply trying to lay a solid foundation to encourage anyone who might wish to write an encyclopaedia in that space, much as I did at the Haitian, Albanian, Georgian, or Amharic Wikipedias. --Node ue00:40, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You are correct, I don't speak Tajik at all, neither Farsi, I am a monolingual Englishman. I'm not sure quite what you mean by solid foundation. I think maybe we have different approaches. Of course it leaves me wondering why you are writing on an enyclopaedia if you aren't trying to write an encyclopaedia. I'm really not trying to be hostile here, I'm sorry if you see it that way. - FrancisTyers14:01, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think I have misevaluated most of your comments here, because I've failed to take into account that it was you who was making them. For example, when you say you don't believe me, you don't mean you mistrust me, at least I don't think you do; rather, you mean that what I am saying seems improbable and you don't believe it for that reason, not because you find me untrustworthy in general. Anyhow, when I say I'm not trying to write an encyclopaedia, I mean I'm not trying to "write an encyclopaedia" -- just as an anon who contributes two or three articles to the English Wikipedia isn't trying to write an encyclopaedia, while a registered user who contributes regularly is probably trying to "write an encyclopaedia". That is, I'm not trying to really turn tg.wp into Энсиклопæдия Тоҷикистоника, I'm just trying to inject some minimal content in the hopes that some Tajik human will be inspired to expand and correct, and perhaps add more articles. It's worked at other Wikis... --Node ue15:24, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, yes you got it. I'm not saying that I don't trust you outright, I just have my own reasons for thinking that what you say is highly improbable, I can't remember who said it, but "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" and I just don't see that. I can see your point, and I certainly think that an encyclopaedia with some reasonable articles with mistakes will garner more productive editing from anons than one with one liners and spam. I think it would (if you have time) be good to do a further analysis of these success stories. I am perfectly willing to be convinced, for example on the Albanian Wikipedia, did you do any interface translation?, if so how much needed correcting. In the articles, how many that you have created have been expanded, etc. Some basic statistics would be good and would be something that can be pointed to in the arguments above, instead of simply "anecdotal evidence". - FrancisTyers17:35, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Furthermore, where did you get your translation of "Recent changes" as "вироишҳо тоза" from? Browsing the KDE localisation effort, I found "Регдонҳои ҷорӣ" for "Recent Sandboxes", where "Регдон" is probably "Sandbox". Notably, "ҷорӣ" also appears for "Current" [6]. It would be cool to have a native speaker to explain the difference. - FrancisTyers14:29, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The answer is painfully obvious -- "chorii" and "toza" are synonyms in this case (they can both be used, although they certainly have different meanings). Like "New changes" or "Recent modifications". --Node ue04:59, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Painfully obvious to you maybe, but I'm not suffering any physical symptoms at least. Again, if we had a native speaker we'd know which was more appropriate. Incidentally I have attempted to contact people from tajikngo.org and another site, although no reply as of yet. Have you tried to find anyone to help contribute. I do hope you realise that requesting closure of a Wikipedia is a last resort and not something I would do lightly. - FrancisTyers09:20, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Moldovans did participate in the vote Node, don't twist the truth to suit your cause.
No Moldovan Wikipedians did. All users were either Romanians, or signed up less than 10 days before the vote (max). --Node ue10:10, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Funny way to put it. First you say that no Moldovans participated in the vote, then you go on to claim that all the users who voted were either Romanians OR signed up less than 10 days before the vote. Does that mean that the newcomers were actually Moldovans, and that you're keen to avoid admitting it? You should be careful about accusing respected Wikipedians (such as Bogdan) of lying when you yourself rely so heavily on half-truths. And anyway, on the page I linked to, 6 users are identified as Moldovans, do you have any evidence to indicate that those are all imposters?
Anclation
You're just a bad reader -- I never said no Moldovans participated. Read my statement -- "There was indeed a vote for the closure of this Wiki, but no actual Moldovan Wikipedians participated, and its validity was contested by a few people." I may try to propagandize sometimes, but I'm not the sort to flat-out lie like that. --Node ue10:27, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, so basically you're admitting that several Moldovans (native speakers of "Moldovan", unlike you) expressed their hostility to the project, but since they are not Moldovan Wikipedians they don't count? If you by Moldovan Wikipedian mean a Moldovan, active contributor on the mo.wiki, then no wonder no one of those voted in the poll, because your project didn't have a single such user in the first place. The Moldovan users who want to contribute on a Wikipedia in their native language contribute on the Romanian Wikipedia.
Anclation
Six Moldovans participated in vote according to the vote-summary I brought here, I don't know whether all of them are active on the ro.wiki, nor what it has to do with validity of the vote. A 6/0 vote for closing mo.wiki from the Moldovan community anyway seems pretty clear cut for me, when considering their take on the project.
Anclation
Bottom line is that they are Moldovans opposed to the mo.wiki, which they duly showed in a vote which by the way ended with a 35/0 result for closing it, from people with actual knowledge about the Romanian/Moldovan-situation and mastery of the language in question.
Anclation
It was 35-0 because all oppose votes were deleted. By the way, do you think it would be alright to ask 6 Americans from freerepublic.com whether or not they thought abortion should remain legal, and then illegalize it because all 6 said "no"? Similarly, going in to, say, #md-unionisti and asking whether or not they think mo.wp should exist is frighteningly unrepresentative. --Node ue11:01, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Could you should me please where the votes have been _deleted_ (direct link to diffs would be great) ? mo:User:Pavel
From what I saw, two votes were deleted, both from Russians with no knowledge of the language and no prior contributions to the project. Nobody kept you from finding and bringing genuine Moldovans to the vote (or to the Wiki itself for that matter), but I understand very well why you would consider that futile to begin with. There is after all a reason for why not a single native Moldovan is contributing to the mo.wiki.
Here's the poll itself by the way, so that we have the facts clear:
You keep discussing the viability of the Moldovan language as though there would actually exist a scientific debate on the subject. Yes I am sure Vald can copy and paste crap from some random Russian website, however that is not the point. Virtually no one disputes that the formal Moldovan and Romanian "languages" are identical. The only arguments that support the theory behind a separate Moldovan language concentrate on the vernacular, however that is not really relevant to the discussion, as no one writes an encyclopedia in slang. Thus the only true point of dispute is the alphabet to be used. The vast majority of those who speak Romanian use the latin alphabet. The only exception is roughly the 200.000 Moldovans in Transnistria. However, up to this point I have never seen a single person from that population request an encyclopedia in Cyrilic Moldovan. The only active user on the Moldovan Encyclopedia was Node, there was virtually no autochtonous support. And he does not even have an adequate command of the language, he used archaic words like "bîrcîeşte" or "halaturi" which the vast majority of Moldovans would not know. I just don't see the point in preserving it any longer. TSO1D16:24, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Jon, I appreciate your personal support. I am tired of baseless attacks on my character. I'm not entirely surprised that User:Moldova had a sockpuppet, though. --Node ue05:08, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Continuing the tiresome discussions that we have had on en:Moldovan language and the various other tedious exchanges is futile. The whole "language", "dialect", "is", "isn't" is really retarded when it makes people miss the main point, which is (drumroll):
There are no native speakers interested in working on this Wikipedia. The majority of articles they have are transliterations from the Romanian Wikipedia.
Furthermore, if people are genuinely interested in being able to contribute to Wikipedia in the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet, the capacity can fairly easily be added to the Romanian Wikipedia, saving unecessary duplication. Hell you could even have it so that going to mo.wikipedia.org brings up the Romanian Wikipedia in Cyrillic if you wanted. But that is a digression.
It is worth noting that no native Moldovan speakers have requested that Cyrillic be added, the people pushing Cyrillic are not native speakers of either Romanian or Moldovan. Should a reasonable number of genuine users come along requesting that Cyrillic support be added to the Romanian Wikipedia, I'm sure it would be done. But if it is pushed there is no chance. Polite requests need to be made, bridges need to be built. Then, if after all this, there are users who wish to write Moldovan in Cyrillic, and the Romanian side is intransigent about altering their Wikipedia to make this possible, then certainly the Moldovan Wikipedia should be reopened.
This pathetic attempt at "democracy" by vote stacking on both sides with Russians, Romanians and whatever else is seriously flawed. I seriously hope that the closing sysop ignores the vote count, and pays attention to the facts. Something which both sides will do their utmost to try and cloud with their (finely sprayed) drivel. - FrancisTyers15:23, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In its current form, the Wikipedia should be closed, archived. In place of the mo.wikipedia.org main page, there should be a placeholder which will state something along the lines of the following in both Romanian, Moldovan and Moldovan Cyrillic: "There was a Wikipedia in the Moldovan Cyrillic script, but it is currently closed due to lack of interest by native speakers. If you wish to contribute to a Wikipedia in Moldovan Cyrillic, please contact X", where X will be some non-partisan individual who is willing to co-ordinate interested parties. Following this contact, efforts should be made to ascertain if the capability to contribute in Cyrillic would be welcome on the Romanian Wikipedia. If Romanians decide against this then the Wikipedia should be re-opened. Personally I would put the threshold at nine individuals who can be certified as being native speakers who are interested in working on it. - FrancisTyers15:40, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Why are you so fixated on the native speakers? There are dozens of Wikipedia sections that also have 0 native speakers, and no one in their right mind would try to ban them just because of that. Csman23:01, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And, pray tell Csaman, do you know of any speakers, native or not, who would speak an alphabet? Dahn
And again: where does the Cyrillic alphabet have any status for writing "Moldovan" or Romanian? Dahn
Among 200 000 people in Transnistria, who, regardless of whatever irrelevant thoughts of their government you may have, are real people, not animals. Csman23:35, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, those people write in Russian and Ukrainian, and "Moldovan" is oficially-enforced in Cyrillic. Those people who can write freely, and can even claim to speak Moldovan freely, use the Latin script. Way to hide the point, regardless of what irrelevant thoughts you may have on the Dnestrian "government". Dahn
People right here on this page claim otherwise: Cyrillic script and this dialect are used there. The facts that there is not a whole lot of speakers, that this dialect may be artificial, that most of them are not online yet, that this is a mere dialect/slang/not-so-different transliteration do not matter, as, once again, there are dozens of thriving Wikipedias that fall under the exact same categories. Csman00:18, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Because there is no point, except dirty political games & trolling. Moldovan language and Moldova exists and is recognized by other nations, except, maybe, Romanians. wikipedia:ru:Grain
You accuse others of playing dirty political games when your own actions were politically motivated. A formal Moldovan language distinct from Romanian is virtually unrecognized, even by the Moldovan government. The funniest aspect of the language dispute, whether in Moldova or here is that the biggest proponents of the Moldovan language are those who do not posses the least knowledge about it. TSO1D02:35, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe you're right. But why you supporting project closure instead of validating it ? It would be more contructive idea. Anyway I can't agree w/ romanian initiative to close moldavan (at least moldavan-by-name) project, w/ reason "There is no Moldavan Language". wikipedia:ru:Grain
If you disagree with it then it's automagically a romanian initiative ? AFAIK the Moldovans were the ones against it just as well, just have a look at the main page discussions history... mo:User:Pavel
Well, "Moldavan is synonim on Romanian" is not, seemes to be Moldavan "slogan", but I understand that pro-voters aren't all romanian. I slightly confused, that only few of moldavans voted against closure ...
I guess, mo. society must decide internally, to be or not to be, without ro. & ru. members "support". And if not, request for closure without any Moldavan language existence/unexistence theories. wikipedia:ru:Grain
Well Moldovan society as a whole did in '89 when the Latin alphabet was chosen, only the PMR chose to retain the Cyrillic in opposition to Moldova. But I agree with you, the people who should decide this issue here on Wikipedia should be the few Moldovan users, but I don't see how that will happen as users from both Ru and Ro flocked here, with most of them only bent on proving a political point TSO1D16:35, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wrong -- it was the Soviets who chose Latin in 89. More specifically, the parliament of the RSSM. There was no sort of magical Republic-wide vote on script use. The only people who say thing like "Well, of course, if they had voted on it, they would've naturally chosen Latin" are just fooling themselves. --Node ue00:35, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
An inoffensive subheading
I rather resent the belief that this is an issue of partisanship. I am a Romanian, and yet I have stated my lack of interest in Moldo-Romanian unionism, and have clashed with other Romanian users on this very topic. I am also willing to believe that citizenship, which is a matter for political choice, is able to create identity - and thus the issue of whether "Moldovans are Romanians" is mute.
With that, I want to point out essental things which render invalid the idea that this is a matter for subjectivity. Russian contributors and Node have been attacking Romanians on principle, and calling this "politically-motivated"; I do not care what prompts Node's trolling, but I know one simple thing: other than him, none of those guys speak Romanian. It is certainly not "subjective" to say Romanian and "Moldovan" are the same, as proven by the fact that Node has admitted to transliterating articles from ro:wiki into the latter, and as backed by those few Moldovans who have actually made their voices heard. What is political about that? What is political about telling others that the Earth is round?
But, ok, I'm wrong, and Moldovan is different from Romanian (although I fail to see how a Russian-speaker could know that much). Why the issue of the alphabet? If we don't consider as staple the fact that those who claim they speak Moldovan in Moldova use the Latin alphabet exclusively. The only region where this does not happen, an unrecognized state, does not even want to be part of Moldova, and should thus have no claim in hell to be speaking for it. The resurgence of the Cyrillic alphabet in this context is the only political choice.
Node has compared the existence of a Moldovan Cyrillic wiki to that of the Anglo-Saxon one. That is a fraudulent argument: not only is Anglo-Saxon something other than English (which Moldovan/Romanian with Latin script is not to Cyrillic), the very idea is comparable to and as necessary as writing Romanian with Arabic letters or Arabic with Latin ones as the basis of a new wikipedia ("for those Romanians who cannot read Romanian" and "for those Arabs who cannot read Arabic"). Dahn
Romanian in the Arabic alphabet, unlike the Cyrillic alphabet, has never been used officially (or has it, in which case it would merit a wiki). --Telex16:35, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What about Romanian with Romanian Cyrillic, which has been official? What about Bosnian with Arabic, which has as well? The variations are infinite, and past use has its obvious limitations, especially since they would only cover an obviously antiquated version of what would be in fact the very same language (call it "Moldovan" or "Romanian"). Dahn
Make any of those, if you're prepared to manage it. What you're saying now is clashing with what you said above when I proposed what was done at srwiki. --Telex16:41, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Why would I make such things? What would be their use, their relevance, their value beyond wanking around? And how the hell is this "clashing" with what I have said before? I'm going to ask you again to stop depicting me as a nationalist. This is a matter for objectivity: as it stands, I can speak the language and you can't. Dahn
If they're that identical, what's wrong with a transliteration switch like the one at srwiki? See my comment in the "oppose" section. Like it or not, due to Russian propagandists in Transnistria (they're horrible, aren't they?), the Cyrillic alphabet is in use today. --Telex16:59, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This vote is ridiculous. Originially I believed that the vote would include people interested in the subject who could present logical arguments to support their views and reach a certain conclusion to finally resolve the dispute. However, what is really taking place here is an abomination that makes a caricature out of the process. A few users actually participate in the discussion, whereas the majority are either from the Romanian Wikipedia or the Russian Wikipedia and instead of listening to the arguments of others and providing their own, they are simply voting according to the preconceived notions they have. Thus the democratic process here does not truly show how users knowledgeable about the subject view the necessity for the Moldovan Wikipedia, but rather whether there are more Romanian or Russians who can be mobilized rapidly. TSO1D16:08, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You know what cracks me up? The fact that at the momemt, there are more Keep votes than Delete votes. The result is that the wiki will be kept and used only as a troll playground by the likes of banned Bonaparte. --Telex16:17, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know whether I find it all that amusing, but I certainly agree with your analysis, the mo.wiki has gone from being an inactive, semi-dead wiki to now being the scene of a major revert war (even featuring some bogus bans) between Bonaparte, Varul lui Bonaparte (an enemy of his) and a user called Moldova (despite not being from the place). One of the more fierce battles is on the Admin-nomination page, which is seeing page blanking, vote-manipulation and frequent alteration of voting regulations. Quite the battle zone, really. Anclation
It appears that some things never change. Like, for instance, the Russian (ex-Soviet) support to Moldovanist theories. How else could one understand the massive vote of Russians against the closure of mo.wiki. But, frankly, I cannot understand the interest of Russians in the "Moldovan language". They don't know it, and I presume most of the Russian voters above know nothing about it. When I first came to wikipedia, I thought that people will be logical, because there's nothing to gain. But it appears that mo.wiki provides a surogate of imperialism. Dpotop18:49, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Francis, the basic difference is that we understand Romanian. Noting again that I do not support the unification of Moldova and Romania, I will repeat what I have posted on en:Talk:Moldovans: that persons can subjectively claim to be a different ethnic group establishes a fact (fact: "x number of people declare themselves y"), and all ethnicity is ultimately subjective. A language is a matter for objective investigation, and as such a different matter altogether: Moldovan cannot be argued to be "a different language" just because people claim it is (especially when those people are not able to speak it). This is a matter for science; it is also a matter for common sense. Dahn
Exactly. Francis, I'm not disputing the fact that Moldovans can be whatever they choose to be. If they choose to found a new ethnic or national identity different from the Romanian one, so be it. The Russian, then Soviet occupation left them changed. But it's up to them to decide how different they are from Romanians. Dpotop19:45, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Now, mo.wiki is another matter. Objectively, and recognized by linguists, the standard languages are identical. Moreover, there is no fluent speaker of Moldovan or Romanian willing to support a Cyrillic "Moldovan" wikipedia. The only "Moldovan speaker" on the entire wikipedia is Node_ue, with a level of mo-2. I presume this does not qualify as a "community of speakers". Dpotop19:45, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Which is why I voted close, as outlined above. I can (vaguely) envisage a community wanting to write Moldovan in Cyrillic, which is why I proposed what I did above. I said what I did above because that is the argument you should be making, not these facile ones about "not a language". The language thing is open to interpretation, the fact that there are no native, fluent speakers of Moldovan who wish to write in the Cyrillic alphabet is not. If you'd have opposed it on these grounds, we might not be entrenched in this current clown parade. - FrancisTyers20:21, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That issue is open to interpretation only to some extent. As I stated before virtually everyone, including the proponents of a spoken Moldovan language (such as Stati) admit that the written/formal language is identical to Moldovan. Thus the only issue is the alphabet and only a small number of people continue to use the Cyrillic alphabet, and I don't see how their numbure will ever increase. TSO1D21:57, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
How is it that you seem so interested in the oppression of Moldovans in Transnistria, and yet when it comes to their RIGHT to use Cyrillic if they should so choose in the future, you say they're insignificant? The Moldovans of Transnistria are not "insignificant". --Node ue05:05, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Where did I say insignificant? I never said that they do not have the right to use the Cyrillic alphabet, hell, they can use Egyptian hieroglyphs for all I care. I am simply pointing out that the number of those who still use the Cyrillic alphabet for Moldovan by choice is very small and I still have to find one on Wikipedia (after all that is the point, isn't it?). TSO1D16:31, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is disgusting how Node "invited" members from the Russian Wikipedia to participate here. Here is the message he posted:
Hi, sorry to write in English, but I don't know Russian. I am writing here to alert all Russian Wikipedians to the attempt by a group of Romanian nationalists to close the Moldovan Wikipedia, an active Wikipedia with over 300 articles which is growing rapidly, simply because they don't like the Cyrillic script. They have resorted to lies and slander, including saying that the Wikipedia has no community, and that it is inactive. Please vote here on the future of the Moldovan Wikipedia. ALso, I will appreciate it greatly if someone trnaslates this post to Russian. Thank you. --Node ue
According to him all Romanian users who are interested in Mo are nationalists because they want to shut the site down. And this non-sense about lies and slander... In any case, what is particularly annoying is that the only reason he contacted them is not because they are more knowledgable about the subject, but by making the issue one of Romanian nationalism, he would get a few Russians to actually come here and vote which is exactly what happened. I saw that Bonaparte also contacted a few users on Ro, however their number was much smaller and most were already interested in the subject and knew details about it. Wtely oblivious regarding the details of the issue, but simply due to their hostility to Romanians (e.g. Румыны мнhat frustrates me is that a couple of Russians (of course not all of them but some) came here to vote while being compleого пакостей Украине делают. Теперь Молдаванам. Вот-жеш)..TSO1D19:53, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Come, now. I've just been told that I belong in a prison. We all have been accused of being nationalists, and we were given a "No passaran". And, please, answer to the point next time, and don't address attitutes you think we "should have" since we're Romanians. All of this is for the sake of a fabricated language that is not even being used in the land that fabricated it. Dahn
No. You're thinking or Montenegrin - a fragment of socialist imagination. Montenegrin has been even less of a success than Moldovan. Compare the census results. Even Moldovan got a Wikipedia - it looks like Montenegrin is going to be denied that. The far more successful invented language is Macedonian, and that's because Tito marketed it properly. --Telex20:24, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Am I "allowed" to point out (as I have) that even people who use "Moldovan" never use Cyrillic? Dahn
I'd also like to know the titles of some books or newspapers published in Moldovan Cyrillic in the last 10 years. (I suspect none was published) Bogdan20:45, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The user Node_ue did not break the rules of Wikipedia when he asked for support. You should be shamed that you vote to close the living and growing information resourse. Let them be. - Vald22:31, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
O, my. Our plots have been uncovered! Let us seek refuge in the fascist Romanian pod that spawned us, and leave the world safe for fantasy languages advocated by 16-year-olds and people who cannot even speak them. Dahn
This puerility is really amusing. Do you really care what the outcome of the vote will be? We know that the project will be managed by Node, with a few trolls (Bonaparte and socks) to keep him company and wreck the place as they are doing as we speak. In the meantime, all the real Moldovans (Pavel et al) will be editing the Romanian Wikipedia (and who knows... maybe even the English Wikipedia). The Moldovans in Transnistria will be able to use mowiki when Internet access becomes widespread enough there, although there is no guarantee that they won't favor rowiki over mowiki. Lets wait and see though before declaring Node's wiki obsolete. --Telex23:02, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What is this drive you have to contradict yourself, Telex? First you tell me that this could work as a Cyrillic version of Romanian - I prove to you why that can't be. Now you tell me that it is justified as a language, even referenced as "Moldovan" (when it ought to be clear to you by now that it is not even "Moldovan", but rather a political statement of people who hardly speak whatever the language is). I find this type of sophistry to be closer to the image invoked by the word "puerile", and I pray to God that at least by now you would have understood just how I am not a nationalist of any sort. Dahn
By the same logic, if Moldovans (or Romanians) did not find info that they look for in rowiki, they are welcome to contribute in ruwiki. - Vald23:19, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
... Yes that is correct. However as Romanian is the native language of the majority, it just seems it would be easier for them to contribute on Ro. But of course, if they can express themselves easier in Russian, Ukrainian, or Bulgarian, they can go to those respective encyclopedias. TSO1D00:34, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
They're welcome at elwiki at any time. That wiki is disproportionately small for the number of users able to write in that language. --Telex23:20, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Vald, what I detest about Node's actions is that he appealed to the Russian community not because he believed that those users were acquainted with the subject, but because some users there would support him simply due to their political views. TSO1D02:37, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No -- I trusted that they would all be acquainted with the subject, Transnistria has been in newspapers in Russia too. People aren't stupid, they know about script politics in PMR. And why do you think Bonaparte did the exact same thing with Romanians? Do you think he appealed to them because he thought they would have good insight? NO! He appealed to them because he knew they would vote "support". ...and then he accused me of having sockpuppets. That is soooo funny -- bonaparte, king of sockpuppets, accusing me of having socks. I put my feet in my shoes directly, no socks. I may get sweaty feet at the end of the day, but it's no big deal. --Node ue05:03, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's not as if Russians are getting information about the Moldovan language issue in Transnistria. As for Romanians, they obviously know the issue better as the two countries neighboor each other, have the same language, and even the same grai in Moldavia and Moldova. TSO1D14:57, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I know English, and the US neighbors Canada, so obviously I am more qualified to comment on issues of Quebec seperatism than you are? ...not. ---Node ue23:07, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am not stating the Romanians are better qualify to comment on the Transnistrian dispute, but about the people of Moldova. To some extent your Canadian analogy does make sense as you might know more about Canadian customs due to the common cultural roots of the two states than a Russian or a Romanian would know. TSO1D23:23, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Bottom line — this is a vote over whether or not to close a Wikimedia project with a relative degree of finality. For this reason, all Wikimedians have equal voting rights. So colleague, I respectfully request you to shut your trap, please. --Node ue00:32, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You want juvenile, do you? I'm rubber you're glue whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you. lol amirite folks? The only rebuttal I need is that we can argue until the cows come home about how well-informed they are or aren't, but it doesn't matter, because they're Wikimedians, and that alone gives them the right to vote. --Node ue04:01, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Haha, you win the prize for making me laugh first thing on a Friday morning :) "That is soooo funny -- bonaparte, king of sockpuppets, accusing me of having socks. I put my feet in my shoes directly, no socks. I may get sweaty feet at the end of the day, but it's no big deal." :)) - FrancisTyers09:20, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me that the Russians here feel they are protecting Russian interests by defending Moldovanism. I remind them that the problem here is the creation of two Non-Russians:
the GeorgianStalin, who invented the "Moldovan language". BTW, he also killed millions of Russians and hundreds of thousands of Moldovans/Romanians.
the AmericanJewNode_ue, who is the only contributor to the Moldovan wikipedia (although he does not speak it). I took the data on Node_ue from his posts. I invented nothing.
Yes, Stalin killed millions of people of different nationalities. But that's not related to the existence of the language. Thousands of people use it, so they have the right to have a Wikipedia. There's only one contributor? That's not critical, others will join him eventually. I neither hate Romanians or Moldavians nor love them. ru:user:VanHelsing.16
I'm sorry, but you are not well informed. The "Moldovan language" is indeed a creation of the Stalinist period. Dpotop13:00, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So what? The "Macedonian language" is a creation of the Titoist period, yet they have an (extremely POV) wiki. --Telex13:23, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I know that. But it might be created by Hitler, Mussolini, Bush-jr, Blair, Chavez or anyone else, but wants to use is the Soviet one, whiit's spoken the cyrilic script is used by a large group of people. ru:user:VanHelsing.16
Can you introduce me to one native speaker of Moldovan, here on wikipedia? Or to one native speaker of Moldovan or Romanian that expressed the desire to contribute in Cyrillic? Dpotop14:12, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You are illogical. We are talking now about things that exist, not about the possible existence of a Siberian Chinese wikipedia in year 2200 (which is quite possible, given the rate at which the population of Eastern Europe decreases). Right now there is no user of a moldovan wiki, so the existing wikipedia serves no purpose except malicious propaganda. Dpotop14:32, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Again, you are illogical. You made your vote based on something that exists no more than the little green men or the Chinese Siberia. Dpotop06:28, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've found some information about this language. First books written in old cyrillic are dated back to XV-XVI centuries. Modern cyrillic has been used since XIX century. Latin script was officially used only in 1932-39 and since 1989. That's modern information, not from Soviet books ru:user:VanHelsing.16
So you don't want to reply to the previous question. The fact that a script has been used at a certain time does not mean it is still used, which in turn does not mean it is used on wikipedia. Which is actually the point. Dpotop15:18, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it is. But it has nothing to do with the discussion here, which is about whether there's a wikipedia community wanting to contribute in Cyrillic Moldovan. I proved to you, and you agreed with me that there's none. So, in all honestity, you should change your vote and be neutral (I don't ask you to vote my way, because it's not your fight). Dpotop06:28, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What decision makers need to know
Those in position to make a decision about closing or keeping Moldovan Wikipedia will need to know some facts about that project. A lot of things have been said on this page that painfully twist the truth. Democracy on Wikipedia proved its limits again, as many of the votes here were cast without proper knowledge of the issue.
The so-called Moldovan language is the Romanian language. Even the loudest defender of the Moldovan language concept, Vasile Stati, has agreed that Moldovan and Romanian are identical in their literary forms. Since an encyclopedia uses the cultivated form of a language, this would mean having the same contents twice. Imagine a separate American English Wikipedia. This comparison is no exaggeration.
Writing Romanian in Cyrillic is a past tense reality. Even Romanian speakers in Transnistria would write it in Latin script, were they allowed by the authorities.
The main contributor to the Moldovan Wikipedia is user Node_ue, a 16-year old kid from the US, smart and articulate, with a passion for working on small projects, but who doesn't speak the language. He has been transliterating articles from ro.wp and using dictionaries or machine translation to write others. The quality of his writing is as low as you can imagine, and has been harshly criticized in a Moldovan newspaper. Also morally, he is not fit to lead the project, much as he would like to. He used to be an admin at mo.wp but has been desysoped. He was repeatedly blocked on en.wp. This is the man who fights for the project, not real Moldovans.
Technically it is possible to display the Latin-script contents of ro.wp in Cyrillic script, as it only requires a transliteration procedure. Such tools already exist on the internet for whomever cannot learn the twenty-something Latin characters. Hand-transliterating the 35000 Romanian articles is not necessary.
A more significant keep-close vote, limited to the potential contributors at mo.wp, has already shown that there is no utility whatsoever in keeping the project.
If there were even one single proficient speaker of the language, whether native or not, eager to contribute in Cyrillic Romanian if that suits his or her freedom of expression, I would agree to keeping this Moldovan Wikipedia. As it is, mo.wp is just Node_ue's playgound and vandals' target.
Just in case someone wonders what authority I have to say all this: I am a frequent editor at en.wp having contributed full articles on subjects related to the Romanian language (phonology, nouns, verbs, substratum, etc.) so I know my stuff. I am also an administrator on the Romanian Wikipedia. --AdiJapan10:39, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
On a side note: It's kind of amusing, really, that the resolution of that conflict (the schools have long since been reopened and licensed) has somehow managed to avoid the public attention...
As for the "past tense" - this is certainly true in the rest of Moldova. Of course, when the switch from Cyrillic to Latin alphabet was made throughout the country, it was just as governmentally enforced, but that hardly matters now. --en:user:Illythr
Cool! So you say that Moldovan teaching in Transnistria is today made in Latin Moldovan? That solves the problem, doesn't it. So change your vote. Dpotop17:14, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I was just teasing him. Regardless of this, the fact that no native user is present on wikipedia is reason enough to delete it. Dpotop17:24, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That I agree with. Actually there are some native users there, but they are just fighting to get it shut down. TSO1D15:30, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I completely disagree. I'm fairly certain no native speakers are on the Manx or Cornish Wikipedias, and yet no one is clamoring about for their deletion, as there isn't the political battle there as there is here. The Jade Knight23:05, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What decision makers really need to know
Those in position to make a decision about closing or keeping Moldovan Wikipedia will need to know some facts about that project. A lot of things have been said on this page that painfully twist the truth. Democracy on Wikipedia proved its limits again, as many of the votes here were cast without proper knowledge of the issue.
How many people vote "for" and "against" the closing of this Wikipedia.
Nothing else. Except that mo.wiki is a fairly nice place to live.
The only thing that will prove is the size of the Russian vs Romanian communities on Wiki. If you look at those who voted "against", the vast majority are Russian, whereas most of those who voted for are mostly Romanians (though this category also includes of the actual Moldovans who voted). TSO1D01:54, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is funny: There is not one single oppose vote that says "I want to contribute to the Moldovan Wikipedia, let me do it!" The only user who actually does want to contibute is Node_ue, but he has proven countless times his inability.
On the other hand there are several support voters who did in fact contribute to mo.wp, either by directly editing, or indirectly by writing ro.wp articles which were then transliterated at mo.wp. AdiJapan08:49, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You really see this like a game, don't you? You feel sooo important, being the center of the attention, don't you? You weren't even able to rally "Moldovan" contributors to support it, you had to beg for the russians (so actually people not speaking "Moldovan") to help you keep your little playground (they don't care about it anyway, they'll never contribute to it). Would you stick around in the unfortunate case this mo.wiki thing stays, but you won't be a sysop anymore? I don't think so! Grow up, Node, and get a a life, a real life, an offline one! --Vlad12:39, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean, "anymore"? I'm not a sysop now, but I HAVE BEEN ADDING NEW ARTICLES FOR QUITE SOME TIME. The simple reason I couldn't rally Moldovans to support it, is because there are so few. Maybe 10 Moldovan Wikipedians, max, and so far perhaps only 5 have voted. And one so far voted to keep this Wiki, see if you can spot him through your ignorance-coloured glasses. --Node ue13:13, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, I actionally did not see any Moldovans vote to keep the encyclopedia. Maybe you were talking about Moldova, but he's not obviously not Moldovan, or Zserghei, but he is Russian. As for rallying Moldovans, do you not notice that all ethnic "Moldovans" voted against it. TSO1D13:25, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You haven't been around very long, then -- there is a name up there that would be recognized by sight by anyone who has been involved in the Keep/Delete debate for very long. Ask Ronline to have a look, he will tell you who the Moldovan is. --Node ue15:09, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, he's right. Before understanding how malicious Node_ue is, Oleg Alexandrov tried to work with him. But Oleg always stated that he speaks Romanian, and once he saw what Node_ue stands for he simply left him alone. His last vote (if I remember well) was "Abstain". The problem with Node_ue is that he fools "positive action" editors when they first meet him. I myself tried to have a logical discussion with him some one year ago. You know: you try to understand the position of the guy, make some concessions, etc. Doesn't work with Node_ue, of course. Dpotop15:18, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, I'm talking about this vote. Oleg never said anything about me being malicious. If you look at all of his statements, as far as I can tell, he still prefers me over Anittas or Bonaparte. And the Moldovan who voted here joined the decision-making process relatively early. Maybe this will ring a bell: he was educated at a Turkish school. --Node ue02:35, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There are 8 new articles created today and 2 newly active users. Please let them work. As for myself I want to work in this wiki, although I'm not Moldovian. --AndyVolykhov18:04, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Păduroiul is the only new active user and he clearly is not a native speaker due to the nature of the basic grammatical errors he made. As for the new article, they are simply short stubs. TSO1D18:09, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You sort of sabotaged yourself -- if what we need is a native speaker helping, and you're a native speaker, and you're helping, that sort of speaks against your own cause. --Node ue02:35, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I admit that was not a wise decision on my part, but I was really bored so I made a few small edits. TSO1D03:24, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As I understand it, this is not supposed to be determined by sheer numbers. The decision makers are allowed to take into account whether the arguments are coherent, whether the people voting are active in Wikipedia, etc. - 69.17.114.18306:45, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Don't feed the troll
I have strong feeling, that current preposition proposal is obvious trolling. Because it formulated like this to bring together Romanians, Moldavans and Russians and let them fight. There is no future for this preposition proposal, so take it off, to save time, wasting on this discussion. wikipedia:ru:Grain
I am sorry, do you mean pretext, or basis for the discussion? Maybe you translated предлог literally in its grammatical sense. In any case I agree with you that this is a highly sensitive issue subject to trolling by all sides. I don't believe that the wish to close the encyclopedia was trolling though, but an honest wish to destroy this anomaly. However, I believe that spme users (on both sides) did exacerbate the conflict by petitioning two communities that are generally at odds over related issues. TSO1D03:20, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm yes, I made slip in speaking. Not "preposition", but "proposal". Thank you for correction. wikipedia:ru:Grain
Hmm, I mean that there is no sense to discuss about Moldavan identity/status. Orignal reason rhetoric is not good for closure. On the other hand, voluntarily or not, it's trollish, because, needlessly, raises number of complicated questions about Moldova & Romania national relations, so most of voters are politically motivated. wikipedia:ru:Grain
Indeed. Whether or not this Wiki is "logical" shouldn't be the issue. The real issue should be, "How does it harm you?". For most people who voted here the answer is quite simply "It doesn't", unless you are talking about their ego because it might hurt that. --Node ue18:10, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand that argument. By that logic you can add an article about yourself on Wikipedia, even though nobody knows you claiming that it doesn't hurt anyone else either, except for their egoes because they do not have similar articles. And what does Greater Romania have to do with this. I just think it's stupid to have a Wiki written in a language that is identical to an existing one written in a script used by few and using archaic vocabulary (Node, you must agree that bîrcîeşte and halaturi are not used by the general population nowadays), when a simple transliteration tool could be implemented (although no one requested it). TSO1D19:01, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is incorrect. It would hurt someone, simply because there are so many other people named Mark Williamson, including people who are much more notable than am I. Also, if I made one, everyone else would want to make one.
Neither of these arguments can be applied to mo.wiki. There is no other language using that ISO code. The other one can't be applied either -- Moldovan is a rather unique case. The only similar case, Tajik (basically the same as Farsi, but sometimes written in Cyrillic), already has its own Wiki.
I used "a bîrcî" every single day. And "halat"... of course I use that word! What else is a hammer but a halat? --Node ue04:46, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's not my point. Say your name was something unique and you were the only person in the world who had that name, if you did not accomplish anything notable in your life and created an article about yourself it would still be deleted as non-important. My point is that although the existence of the article would not hurt another person, it would not help many either so it would be deleted. My anology with Mo is that its contininuing existence will in fact hurt few, but how many will it actually help? For me the number 0 comes to mind (or maybe 1 if it's really fun for you). TSO1D13:04, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You're fooling yourself if you think that nobody in Transnistria would ever read it.
An outsider's take on this
The only major difference between Romanian and Moldovan is apparently that the latter can sometimes be written in Cyrillic. So what? We simply add an automated transliteration mechanism into the Romanian wiki, as we have it for South Slavic languages that can be written in Latin or in Cyrillic, and the case is closed. —Nightstallion(?)05:52, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I believe it would not be too difficult to implement a tool of this kind. However, the question arises: is it truly necessary? Developing such a tool would take some work, and at this point as there are no users who asked for a cyrillic Romanian encyclopedia I don't really see the point for it. Of course if someone does come requesting such a project, we can follow the Serbian example and set up a transliteration tool (though probably not on Ro but redirect it to Ro-cyr were the tool will automatically transliterate the Ro interface). TSO1D14:09, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As usual, I strongly support Nightstallion. The funniest thing is that "Moldovan Language" as is called the official language of the Republic of Romania is officially written in Latin alphabet. So the name of "Moldovan Wikipedia" is wrong by itself, because this Wikipeia uses an alphabet which is not the one used by this language. If it were "Romanian Cyrillic Wikipedai", I woudn't support its closure. Švitrigaila23:14, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I truly cannot understand those who vote to keep the encyclopedia. Of course most who did so will never see this message as after they got excited about "нужно в обязательном порядке поддержать молдаван" (all of whom by the way voted against mo here), left never to return, without even looking at that encyclopedia. If one were to look at what was going on in the near past, one would discover miraculous things! Other than the usual trolling, now Node and his "friends" keep uploading a picture of Igor Smirnov in the place of three other pictures, a map of the EU, a symbol of Eminescu and one of Greater Romania. These very same people claim that they encyclopedia should be kept as it has valuable information. TSO1D00:50, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Template:RPA I systematically took a look at the contributions, including yours. It appears that you are now copying only parts of articles from ro.wiki, so it's more difficult to see that you copy, for a person that does not read cyrillic easily. Still, you add no actual text of your own. As for your Russian friends, they are just moving pages around and adding interwiki links, something even I could do in any language I understand the alphabet. Anyway, if someone is interested, I can easily explain how you cheat. Dpotop09:22, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's not copying, it's transliterating, and there is nothing wrong with it.
It's a stupid case of vandalism and goes a long way to show the worth of the encyclopedia and its main proponent. TSO1D
Oh, vandalism, is it? Just because symbols which are used only on a userpage are replaced with a potentially useful image?
Come on Node, it's one thing to upload a picture of Smirnov to its rightful place so it can be used in other articles, and entirely another to replace existing images with one that is not related to the original intent of the editor just to spite him. This is a simple case of childish vandalism. TSO1D00:04, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Stats for mowiki
It is probbly worthwhile to look at Special:Statistics on mowiki. I have been looking at a number of marks claims here and on the mailing list and it while I suppose his claims to have created hundreds of articles may be possible with the 390 some articles that are there, some of the other claims are a bit of a streach. Does anyone have a tool that will do article space edit counts for the 198 users? Dalf00:16, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
When does voting end?
“
I win, you lose. You are the weakest link. Goodbye!
If there's no date for ending the vote, the above will implicitly be true, since we're going to linger in status quo forever regardless of how voting goes at any particular time. --Gutza14:22, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I would not be too sure about that. The vote shows a clear support for closure. The arguments are running against the Moldovenist theory. And most importantly, most neutral and outside observers that come here, point out that not only is "Moldovan" written officially in Latin, but that the mo:wiki as it stands -> is virtually pointless. --en:user:Dapiks
As I noted before, the status quo is likely to stand. See, there is no set date for voting; this page was set up with no rules decided on beforehand. The validity of many of the votes is suspect (users with little or no contributions); and the same argument raised by Dpotop when his side was losing could still be used (-> that votes are being stacked and that voters are not well informed). All that aside, the attitude of the people in power is clearly that there is no good reason to shut down this Wikipedia, and things have gotten to the point where they are now ignoring the debate entirely because of its very nature. --Node ue07:59, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I notice there are no ending dates for any of the votes going on on this page. As a matter of fact, I don't see anything radically different on other votes on this page. I don't think there's anything very special about this particular vote, and I don't see any reason why this vote would be more or less ignored than others. Therefore the question is actually not whether the Moldovan Wikipedia's vote is relevant, but rather whether any of the votes on this page is. Or, in short, is this a useless page or not? --Gutza09:23, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The answer is that really, this is a useless page. No concrete rules were set, and the page was not originally endorsed by anybody in power. Essentially, the only power it has is as a gauge of public opinion. It can show the people in charge that, for example, there will be very little opposition if they quietly close the September 11 Wiki, or that there is an ongoing debate regarding what is best to do about small inactive Wikipedias. In the case of Moldovan, however, the result has shown that it is still a very hot topic and that any action on the issue, or lack thereof, will draw some sort of criticism, no matter what. --Node ue01:05, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What reliable sources say about Moldovan Language
Linguapax Institute - a non-governmental organisation located in Barcelona that was created in 2001 to give continuity to a series of meetings organized by UNESCO:
"In order to better understand the roots and causes of the specific socio-linguistic situation in the Republic of Moldova, we need to revisit the history of the problem. The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic that was created in 1940 after annexation of Bessarabia by the Soviet Union, became a laboratory for a nationalities policy focused on Russification (Neukirch, 1996). The main aim was to deny that Moldovans and Romanians had been one people, separated because of territorial claims by the Soviet Union. A first step was to reform the Romanian script in Moldavia: the Romanian language that was written in Latin characters, after 1941 in the "Soviet part" of Moldavia was imposed to switch to the Cyrillic alphabet. A cohort of linguists worked to prove that the "Moldavian" language was independent of Romanian. One thesis said that Moldavian was an independent Eastern Roman Language (Sergievski), another one (Ceban) proclaimed that, because of intense contacts between Moldavians on the one hand and Russians and Ukrainians on the other, the formerly Roman language was being transformed into a Slavic one." [9]
Library of the US Congress Country Study # Language, Religion and Culture > Language [10]:
"Stalin justified the creation of the Moldavian SSR by claiming that a distinct "Moldavian" language was an indicator that "Moldavians" were a separate nationality from the Romanians in Romania. In order to give greater credence to this claim, in 1940 Stalin imposed the Cyrillic alphabet on "Moldavian" to make it look more like Russian and less like Romanian; archaic Romanian words of Slavic origin were imposed on "Moldavian"; Russian loanwords and phrases were added to "Moldavian"; and a new theory was advanced that "Moldavian" was at least partially Slavic in origin. (Romanian is a Romance language descended from Latin.) In 1949 Moldavian citizens were publicly reprimanded in a journal for daring to express themselves in literary Romanian. The Soviet government continued this type of behavior for decades.
Proper names in Moldova were subjected to Russianization as well. Russian endings were added to purely Romanian names, and individuals were referred to in the Russian manner by using a patronymic (based on one's father's first name) as a middle name."
UCLA:
"Romanian is the official language of Romania and claims a total of 25 million speakers (Grimes 1992). Approximately 20 million live in Romania (90% of the population); 3 million in Moldovia (Moldovian Romanian) ..." (note also that there is no entry for Moldovan). [11]
Encyclopedia Britannica (On-line Version):
"The majority of the people of Moldova are ethnic Romanians, and the native language of Moldova is Romanian." (cf. Indiana.edu [12])
NY University School of Law - East European Constitutional Review:
"MCP [Moldovan Communist Party] mounted a sustained campaign in favor of Russian as an official language and against the identification of Moldovan and Romanian as the same language. The differences between the latter two are minimal and are mainly those of vocabulary. The theory of "Moldovenism," which argues that the languages are distinct, seeks to emphasize Moldova's separateness from Romania." [13]
James Madison University, College of Political Science - The Sovietization of Moldova
"It was necessary for the Russian government to move Romanians out of the Moldavian Republic so that Russians could settle in their place. In order for the Moldavian Republic to be a separate state, Russia wanted all Moldova's ties with Romania to be severed. Consequently, plans to obliterate the Romanian past were immediately put into action. In Kishinev, the capital of Moldova, the Romanian Orthodox Cathedral that had been damaged in WWII was turned into the Central Exhibition Hall for Moldova."
"Additionally, the Romanian language that is spoken in Moldova was also Russified by changing the Latin alphabet to the Cyrillic alphabet. At this time, the language was renamed Moldavian. The Romanian language was removed from the schools and from the republican administration. Even up until 1989, many people who supposedly spoke Moldavian still had not mastered it. Nonetheless, the importance of Russian culture was emphasized throughout Moldova and Moldova's Romanian past was ignored. The complete negation of Romanian culture shows the fear that the Soviets had of not consolidating power in this republic due to the strength of ethnic Romanian identity felt by most of Moldova's inhabitants." [14]
Culture and the Politics of Identity in Modern Romania - an international conference on Modern Romanian intellectual and cultural history -- page at University of Pittsburgh:
"Questions about the meaning of Moldovan identity -- especially the vexed issue of the existence of a distinct Moldovan language -- have haunted policymakers for much of this century. The Moldovan case, moreover,has been seen by most scholars as a vast exercise in Stalinist "denationalization" designed to construct an "artificial" Moldovan identity and to throw the Moldovans into a state of collective amnesia about their "true" Romanian-ness. Much of the existing Western and now, post-Soviet literature on Moldova has seen the period of the MASSR (Moldovan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic) -- with its heated debates over the relationship between the Moldovan and Romanian languages, its frequent alphabet changes, and its strange neologisms based on indigenous roots or Slavic calques -- as an amusing, though sinister, episode in Moldovan and Romanian history." [15]
Indiana University - Center for the Study of Global Change:
"Moldovan, virtually the same language as Romanian, is the republic’s official language and is practiced by approximately 75 percent of the population." [16]
"National or official language: Romanian (Moldovan)."
"Living languages: Romanian, Romani, Gagauz, Bulgarian" (Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International.)
Donald L. Dyer, AM'82, PhD'90, The Romanian Dialect of Moldova: A Study in Language and Politics (Edwin Mellen Press)
review: "Dyer examines the history of Soviet language policy in Moldova, where Soviet linguists attempted to create an independent literary language called "Moldavian." He focuses on the dialectal features of Moldovan Romanian and the relationship between the Romanian of Moldova and other regional languages." [18]
harvard.edu: Elizabeth Anderson, PhD Candidate in International Education, Steinhardt School of Education, New York University (New York, New York) - Disillusionment with Democracy: Notes from the Field in Moldova:
"Explaining who is a Moldovan is not a simple task. It may be assumed that Moldovans essentially are Romanians because the countries are historically linked; legend has it that a Romanian prince founded the region of Moldova in the early fourteenth century. Also, the countries share a border, similar cultural traditions, and a common language. However, Moldova, unlike Romania, has not traditionally been an independent state."
"Romanian Studies professor Charles King writes “Moldova [remains], even a decade after independence, the only country in Eastern Europe in which major disputes existed among political and cultural elites over the fundamentals of national identity.” King further argues that national Moldovan identity is not a concept that arose naturally among the region’s inhabitants but it was an artificial idea that was imposed by the Soviet Union. King explains that prior to the 1920s, scholars considered the inhabitants of Moldova to be nothing “more than an eastern offshoot of the Romanians” because their spoken dialect shared its origins with that Romanian. He explains that a distinct Moldovan identity emerged in 1924 when the Soviet Union created The Moldovan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (MASSR). [...] Soviet officials created this new nationality by declaring that Moldovans had a distinct heritage and culture from their neighbors in Romania proper."
"Building on the premise that Moldovans were distinctly different from their Romanian cousins, the Soviets took measures to separate the regions. For example, Soviet linguists created the Moldovan language by converting their current Romanian dialect (essentially Romanian with a Slavic influence) from the Latin alphabet to the Cyrillic. The Soviets did this intentionally to control the region and prevent its citizens from fraternizing with their Romanian neighbors." [19]
BBC - Languages across Europe:
"Moldovan corresponds to the Romanian language spoken in what was the Moldovan Socialist Republic."
"Moldovan was created as a definition, to make a distinction between Romanian and Moldovan during Russian occupation." [20]
I can and have in the past provided sources to dispute that, including from some of the same people (for example, you have totally misrepresented Donald Dyer's opinion). However, that's no longer constructive here. What you need to realise is that nobody with any real power is watching this page, so you are cluttering up the page with your endless references rather than helping anything. Everyone already knows this stuff. --Node ue01:02, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
At least have the decency to shut up. If you are bored get a toy, but do not argue on matters that obviously surpass your sense and sensibility. Be happy the gametes you were born from met in the right country, in the right times. Drink a coke. Have a burger. Be happy you have the opportunity to learn history from school. Use your free speech right as smartly as you pretend to be. Others died in prisons for theirs; their wives and children were prosecuted. I really don't think you'd have the guts to do a thousandth other thousands did. Try thinking twice before speaking and, most importantly, constantly doubt yourself as you proved your are absolutely not reliable when it's up to logical argumentation. Be smart or die trying! Adriatikus04:01, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, that's a borderline personal attack. I suggest you discuss Node's arguments, and leave his personality to his own consciuosness. If you succeed in refuting him logically and in a civil way, he will either cease and desist or discredit himself enough to stop any support for his cause. Should you follow Bonaparte's path, however, the same will eventually happen to you. --Illythr
Mark, if you can, provide once again. I would be interested to see them. And compare the weight of yours to those provided by Adriatikus. --Landroni11:20, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I challenge Mr. Mark Williamson (aka Node ue) - or anyone taking his part - to provide counterarguments from western academic, neutral sources. Arguments of Moldovan, Russian or Ukrainian origin should not be considered (these countries being subject and parts of the dispute). I didn't present the position of the Romanian Academy or of the Romanian officials on the matter. (If I'm asked or it isn't obvious, I can justify why western) Adriatikus16:18, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Let me draw some conclusions:
existence
"Moldovan" isn't a language. It was (and sadly still is) a political experiment of communist origin.
speakers
As it's an invented language, there aren't native speakers.
The people of Moldova speak a dialect of Romanian.
The differences between the language spoken in Moldova and Romania are minimal.
I challenge anyone to provide a single example of translation between Romanian and "Moldovan" - like a book, a news conference etc. (I refute, as all academics do, Vasile Stati's dictionary -- click the links to see why it's not scientifically based).
There are books edited in Chişinău (capital of Moldova) that can be bought in Romania. E.g. Litera Publishing House sells fairytales and school books in Romania (these are for children!). (argument on "Moldovan-Romanian translation")
The Romanian TV station ProTV is broadcasting in Moldova. (argument on "Romanian-Moldovan translation")
cyrillic alphabet
Althought it was imposed by the Soviets and abolished about 15 years ago, I'm not ab initio against. But before starting a "Cyrillic Romanian" project we should see how many users prefer it. And the voters should firstly prove they know the language (solution: live on IRC, tested by an admin). Otherwise they are free to use/edit WP in their mother tongues.
official use
The Moldovan Academy's Institute for Linguistics uses the term "Romanian language" [21]. May I ask who is studying and regulating the official language of Moldova ? On what basis could someone correct the misspellings in MoWiki ?
The only official body stating the existence of this language is the Moldovan Parlament, ruled by the communists (this is not the place to discuss why they made this choice).
The discussions between Moldovan and Romanian officials are never translated.
finally
Since this "language" is a proven political manipulation and not a scientific fact, maintaining MoWiki would imply making WP to comply with political arbitrary decisions. This is not a political decision. This is a decision on two choices: a political one (maintaining MoWiki) and a scientific one (deleting MoWiki).
I will not dispute the nature of this language or dialect. Insead, I would like to point out, that it was taught as *the* script for a native language in schools for 50 years and still is being taught in Transnistria. --Illythr
speakers - native
"Native writers" would be a more correct designation... After being in active use during the period of 1934-1989 it has gained native users in Bessarabia before it was cancelled, forcing those people to re-learn writing in their own languge practically overnight. In Transnistria, the script was never cancelled and is still in use. --Illythr
cyrillic:
Again, it is in use in Transnistria. It doesn't matter whether the language or the state is not officially recognised as long as people somewhere are taught this language/dialect/form of writing as a native language. --Illythr
official - parliament
With the Moldovan Constitution being its official document. Note that the change to "Moldovan" there was done in 1994 - well before the Communists came to power and that these Communists are currently in a coalition with the unionist CDPP. --Illythr
finally
Whether it really is a political manipulation makes no difference to the people who were taught it and/or in it all these years. --Illythr
You have offered strong and logical poits, Adriaticus, and I believe you will prevail, as neither Cyrillic Moldovan, nor the place it is official in - Transnistria - are internationally recognised. Still, as long as I know that there are living people who use Moldovan Cyrillic as their native language, I will oppose the closure of the corresponding Wikipedia. --Illythr
I see no sense to talk about Moldavan language or Moldavans existence, because it can't be a reason to close mo:wiki. I understand that if there is no project support and development (or use), it should be closed, I have no oppose on this. But I do oppose closure w/ main reason "Moldovan language/Moldovans does not exist" (even, if it's correct), that I can see on Backgrounds and bunch of support voters. wikipedia:ru:Grain
I agree that the main argument for closing the encyclopedia should focus on its technical details not its political aspects. But initially it wasn't clear that mo-wiki would only be written in the cyrillic script (which even now is not a rule there), and people were just copying articles from Ro to Mo in the latin alphabet. That situation was a bit stupid as artciles from one Wikipedia were copied to another (presumably in another language), with no changes effected, simply causing a waste of resources, and in that contxt this debate was partially relevant. I believe though that regardless of the political arguments presented, the current state of the Moldovan encyclopedia is sufficient to warrant its closure. TSO1D15:32, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Let me see if I understood: It should be OK if I start a wiki in sjrehbd-ddkjhdeA (a language I just made up). No one would oppose. No one would think I'm insane.
Well, if you round up a group of people and force them to speak sjrehbd-ddkjhdeA in an isolated environment, teach their children to speak sjrehbd-ddkjhdeA as a native language and keep this up for several generations, then yes, a wiki must be made for them. Whether you should be hanged for your actions will not be relevant. --Illythr
No ! Let me start a wiki in Adriatikus-English. I would copy the English wiki, but for the sake of amusement, I could change from 1 up to 5 words on the page to their synonyms. I will know I can count on you to support my wikis. Thank you.
I had proposed a pre-1917 Cyrillic Russian wiki. Dahn
I don't think any of those languages are currently being taught at schools. I will not oppose their creation, but I don't think they're going to be very popular.
<offtopic>I'd suggest Quenya, though - it's kinda cool ;-) As for the Synonymous English one - well, good luck with all of its 1100000+ articles. I would only like to warn you against using bots - they tend to pick the wrong synonyms all the time. Be bold, and check out every article by yourself! ;-)</offtopic> --Illythr
Yeah, but for Quenya you actually have to learn a language. By serving the needs of Lipovans or whatever, I could just copy articles off the Russian wikipedia and scientifically turn them into pre-1917 Russian. And what about popularity? If I get all the indignant Russians to feature as trolls in there, it shall by far surpass Node's amateurish effort. However, if you ever start a wiki in Quenya, count on me: I shall be helping along with the Ñoldor version, which would (of course) be entirely different. Dahn
This is getting way off topic, answered on your talk page.
I did a little trick. Since I asked for counterarguments and no one was providing them, I nicely asked a few randomly chosen opposing voters to read my argumentation. This had effect. The one I was expecting for: no valid arguments. No one is proving we should keep a chimera. Please, give me solid counterarguments. I'm still waiting. BTW, Node ue (the little kid who started all this) is lost in the fog. Adriatikus16:48, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and I thought you asked us all. Should I post a summons at the Russian news page to get more replies for you?
Well, my only counterarguments are 1) living native writers and 2) the "language version" still being taught at schools in Transnistria.
Should a transliteration tool appear on the ro: wiki, I'll change my vote to "abstained" (as if it matters).
Chimera, eh? Now it didn't even exist at all? I think I see where this is heading... hope I'm wrong.--en:user:Illythr
1). "Written language should be distinguished from natural language" [22]. Also see my proposal for Cyrillic transliteration. 2). I proved (see neutral references) the differences are minor.
I can read and write a little in this language, but I don't see how this relates to my arguments [above]. I'm not disputing whether these are different languages, only that there are people who speak it, but don't understand the Latin script [having never learned a Latin-based language before]. Illythr
I am sincerely impressed, well impressed (the grammar is correct, and it's obviously original text). Nothing to do with the productions of our mutual acquaitance. Much kudos.
As for the content: I do agree with you that many moldovans still use cyrillic to communicate, and that some even learn using cyrillic script. I don't know for others here, but my push for the full freeze/deletion of the Moldovan wiki has another cause: Currently, there are exactly zero moldovans willing to contribute on this wikipedia. Dpotop19:23, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Let me start with what you proved. You proved you can speak the language. If you want, you may consider yourself the 1st person signing for a transliteration tool from Latin to Cyrillic script in RoWiki (as I proposed). What you didn't proved is that you can distinguish between a written and a natural language. For that I don't think you are familiar with the conceptual tools to argue on the existence of a "Moldovan language" and a MoWiki. (PS. Please don't bring political arguments neither here, nor on my talk page. I'm not an I will not be in the mood to explain things to you as long as there is no direct profit for me. One thing I can tell you: I very well know communism, by living with it and its consequences, and by studying it. So well that it taught me something: the hate backed up by arguments turns into pain.) Adriatikus22:47, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps I wasn't sufficiently clear the last several times. I'll try again one last time. I am not discussing the existence or the nature of this language/dialect/form of writing/evil Stalinist plot. In fact, I believe that this entire section of yours is grossly irrelevant to the discussion and should only exist as a small clarification about one paragraph large. There are numerous Wikipedias that do not pass your "validity criteria", most notably ia:interlingua, eo:esperanto (invented, no native speakers) and simple English (a "dialect" of English), as well as a Serbo-Croatian one that uses two scripts at once. The one serious argument for closure is exactly zero moldovans willing to contribute on this wikipedia (DPotop: cheers!). To this I can only reply that Internet is becoming widespread in Transnistria during the last 10 months or so and that we thus should wait around and see if any potential users show up. My sole concern is that many Moldovans still use cyrillic to communicate, and that some even learn using cyrillic script. (DPotop: cheers again!). As soon as it will become apparent, that nobody uses this Cyrillic version of Moldovan/Romanian exclusively, the project can be closed without further notice. Although it would probably be nice to preserve mo.wiki somewhere if only for the history.
(PS: Please note that my arguments have nothing to do with politics. Also note that I was not the first to mention the Communists' role in this (if that's what you meant by political arguments). Saying "Communists did this or that" in such a way resembles a trick called Reduction ad Hitlerum, which I detest (especially since it's factually incorrect - they weren't the ones to do the renaming) and attempted to foil - no "argumentation" there. As for the lesson - en:xenophobia had taught me just the same). --Illythr
I mostly agree. (BTW, not to the "political" part, but that's life). The solution and the user criterion seems right to me. Against resentments: sorry if I overreacted. Cheers. Adriatikus02:14, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Shoddy Romania
Take a look at this screenshot. The message is sent to me by User:Node_ue (it's his gmail account, and the e-mail is certified by yahoo).
The nasty content itself aside, the mail is actually quite embarrassing for Node, considering that he has constantly denied being anti-Romanian (though all his actions would strongly indicate otherwise). I don't want to do a Bonaparte-like rant, so instead I'll just quote what Node has written on his own userpage and let you draw your own conclusions:
"I have been accused of Anti-Romanian actions and sentiments. However, this accusation has not been backed up with evidence. I would like to issue a challenge to all interested parties to provide me with irrefutable evidence of the alleged Anti-Romanian actions and sentiments. Please post them to my talk page."
So, anyone knows what you get for providing this evidence? I personally think Dpotop deserves a barnstar from Node, as well as a written apology for attempting to mislead the Wikipedia community
- Anclation
Well, considering the endless revert wars and personal attacks he had to face from certain colleagues of DPotop, I'd say this behaviour is understandable.
To Node_ue: This kind of crap indeed makes you look like an irresponsible anti-romanian kid. Whether it was done on impulse or not - please stop doing that as it will only hurt your cause further. I believe, you owe DPotop an apology. Mail it to him so that he can post it here as evidence, then we can remove this section as irrelevant to the issue at hand. --Illythr
Colleagues of mine... You mean, wikipedians? Anyway, I thought a person is responsible for his/her own acts, not for the acts of others. Dpotop18:27, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I see you imply Node_ue has some en:extenuating circumstances because Anittas harassed him. But it's Node_ue that pushed Anittas into trolling (I have seen it from the moment he started to edit on wikipedia, and until he was definitively banned). But Anittas was punished for this, regardless of "extenuating circumstances". Node_ue should be punished, too. Dpotop18:27, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, he is alone against many. But that does not make him right, or give him the right to do everything he wants. Dpotop18:27, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As for the anti-Romanian part. He does not seem to be one. He is one, regardless of his motivations. I cite from mo:Wikipedia_talk:Administrator:
Please don't write in Romanian here, write Moldovan. Every time you write Romanian on the Moldovan wikipedia, god kills a kitten.
Following the (long waited) reply from the customer service of yahoo.com, the following post by User:Node_ue is officially considered forged. Here is the message I received from the customer service of yahoo.com:
From: "Yahoo! Mail" <mail-abuse@cc.yahoo-inc.com> Add to Address BookAdd to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
Hello,
Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Mail.
We have investigated your report, and, based on the information you've
given us, your account does not appear to have been accessed by the
sender of this email.
The sender seems to have forged your email address in the "reply-to"
and/or the "from" field of the message they sent out. Please know that
we are currently aware of this type of spam and are investigating it.
Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.
Regards,
Mike
Yahoo! Customer Care
24402472
Also, note that the "screen shot" below features a signature by yahoo.com. We know now that the signature is forged. So, either some super-spy cracked yahoo.com, of User:Node_ue forged the message himself. Shouldn't this guy be banned? Dpotop19:50, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You are simply lying, here. Please see [24], where I provided full original source text of the offensive e-mail you sent me after it was requested by a few experts. After that, nobody challenged its authenticity. --Node ue03:55, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So what are you saying is that the person working for Yahoo is lying and you're not? Boahhh....you're cought again with lies, and you deserve to be banned for good for your offensive act of forgery. BAN FOR NODE UE!!! --Fratele lui Bonaparte, il cunosti?06:01, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No -- I'm saying that either 1) That e-mail was fabricated by Dpotop and wasn't really from Yahoo! Customer Care or 2) He was deceptive in the report he sent to them. --Node ue06:05, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Bonaparte, I never said he did lie. I said Dpotop lied by forging that e-mail, or by lying to Yahoo! customer service to elicit that report. You have "made sure about" many other things and failed miserably -- banned from en.wiki permanently, the moldovan wikipedia still exists, I am not dead yet, Moldova is still an independent country. By the way, why is it that despite your claims that Moldovans are your brothers, you will insult them strongly if they disagree with you? You have insulted Elena Kornichuk beyond what anyone could ever possibly expect from a doctoral student such as yourself. --Node ue15:44, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You should take it up with an Administrator, as I saw Jmabel described such forgery as an extremely grave offensive against Wikipedia standards. Node's foul tactics should certainly not go unpunished. - Anclation
I've been ignoring this entire page for a while because it seems irrelevant now. However, I will comment on this matter. After all of this, Dpotop chooses to exploit my general obediance of the rules of netiquette -- do not forward private e-mails. However, this has gotten to a point where I will not do it anymore just so he can make me look like a bastard.
Offensive e-mail from Dpotop to Node_ue
That's the e-mail he sent to me. I only called Romania a "shoddy country". He went so far as to denigrate all Moldovan women, calling them prostitutes, in addition to calling Moldova a "piece-of-shit country". Mine was a relatively tame response, don't you think? I do not plan on apologising to him. --Node ue09:14, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Mark, I'm wondering... On Wikipedia-I mailing list, at Dpotop's denonciation of your email (the Harassment on wikipedia thread), you simply stated, and I quote: "I never sent you such an e-mail." While here you admit having "called Romania a shoddy country". So, I'm just wondering, where did you lie? On Wikipedia-I or on Meta? Landroni14:28, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Neither. (by the way, it's wikipedia-L, just with a lowercase L). I certainly did call Romania a shoddy country, but not in the alleged e-mail. I sent quite a different e-mail to Dpotop. He modified the text of it to make it more offensive. --Node ue03:58, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, yes. I forgot. You are the only one around here not lying. You always tell the truth; well sometimes half of it, others only quarter; but why should anyone care: it's the truth. Right?
Sometimes I almost enjoy reading what you write. I feel almost like Alice in Wonderland. Basically, what you try to make everyone believe is that, in no way did you send this offensive message (screenshot from Dpotop's Yahoo! Mail account, while he is ready to give access to his account so that a trustee verify that this message is well there sent from node.ue). How could you, you honest innocent guy respecting the general rules of netiquette? You have never sent such an e-mail. Right? You couldn't have sent this offensive message containing the "shoddy Romania" offence. No. Instead, you sent another, quite different offensive message that was containing the same offensive remark "shoddy Romania". After all, this offensive message isn't so offensive. Right? Thus, as you sent and Dpotop received this other offensive message, Dpotop felt it wasn't offensive enough. So that, logically, he felt the need to forge your e-mail message so that it be offensive enough. That is, containing the remark "shoddy Romania". So that after forging it (fabricating the screenshot or sending himself a fabricated email), he denounced you on Wikipedia-l mailing list. So, Mark, did I correctly follow the white rabbit? --Landroni08:07, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As we say in Bulgaria - the thief is yelling "capture the thief". I would be interested whether Anclation will now point his finger to Dpotop asking for an apology/barnstar to Node ue?! Probably it would not happen. Node ue is not only "alone against many", he is also insulted many many times (from what I see on mo.wiki and on this page here). So I can only admire him for keeping more or less within the limits given the ammount of fire he gets. -- Goldie ± (talk)16:31, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed Node is very skilled at what he does, which is provoking people with his general pattern of behavior (which means it's hard to pin down clear-cut rule-violations), which includes constantly telling half-truths, spreading propaganda and promoting dubious ideas offensive to many Romanians/Moldovans. Personally I tolerate personal attacks written in anger and haste to a greater degree than cynical, meassured provocations, which can't get you kicked out of Wikipedia like the PAs, but often cause greater anger. Does this sound like a real stretch of imagination to you? In that case, consider this: Would you judge a politedly worded post denying that the Holacaust ever happened to be less offensive than a following post telling the first user where to shove his demented ideas?
It's about actually considering how those well-written and seemingly polite posts of Node actually read to many Romanians, as many see a history-revision, a white-wash of Soviet crimes in Moldova and a portrayal of Romanians as aggressors, occupants and imperialists in regards to Moldova. So don't try to portray Node as the lone voice of civility and objectivity here, when he is (and he must be fully aware of this) constantly provoking a whole community.
BTW, I would advice you to take a look at the discussion revolving around the closure of the Zhuang Wikipedia. Observe how Node has written several hysterical posts meant to be taken as attacks and insults against a dissenting user, only that the words he uses aren't really insults in themselves, thus avoiding being blocked for Personal Attacks. A creative way of finding a way around that rule, while maintaining the disruptive effects of PAs. That's how he's keeping within the limits, while offending and annoying many users all the same.
And now I can get to your point, as you pretty much accused me of being a hypocrite: The thing is that Dpotop had never challenged anybody to provide evidence of his alledged (and always denied by him) anti-Moldovan or anti-Node sentiments. Node on the other hand always denied being anti-Romanian (even though this mail was far from the first time he slipped up and revealed his true feelings) and had challenged users to prove him wrong at the very top of his userpage. I was merely pointing this out, and further adding my views about what public consequences this should have.
Considering that my impression of Node is that he is a very dishonest person, I'm not inclined to pass judgement on Dpotop as of now. Node has on the other hand already confirmed the validity of his mail, so if you had in mind to ask me why I don't give Node benefit of doubt in the same way, don't.
I have no words to comment considering that with this edit I am reverting a very dishonest change made by "Fratele lui Bonaparte, il cunosti?". It seems to me that there is no trace here of those smart and proud Romanians I've seen across that lovely country, just edit-warriors. -- Goldie ± (talk)23:00, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wowee, I wonder how you became Node's bestest buddy all of a sudden, defending the poor helpless little dude against us bullies. Oh, and have fun in the Quadrilateral this summer ! Is like a gift of fraternity from our country to yours ! --Voievod01:00, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So, a handful of less than constructive users lead you to making this sort of generalization? This Bonaparte character is not representative of the community, and various Romanian users have over the months tried to calm him down and keep him from giving Romania a bad name with his actions (it has unfortunately proved futile).
Even if it was only one "less than constructive user" and the rest of the community is not explicitly differentiating from him/her I take this as silent endorsement what he/she says. Sure it may well apply to me as well, as I have not differentiated myself from what Node ue says :-) Consider I've just done it - I do not agree with all his arguments and for sure do not endorse the personal attacks he is making.
As I have seen way too many times the word "Anti-Romanian" as the only argument in this discussion I am seeing it as a Romanian kill-the-opponent rally instead of constructive debate. Hope I am wrong on this one but it actually "Fratele ..." was active in the discussion while many other have just cast votes without any meaningful justification. Judge for yourself whether I have some grounds for the generalization. -- Goldie ± (talk)07:29, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That was true on both sides though, just look at the demographic pattern in the oppose section. I agree that many Romanians voted without fully participating in the discussion, but most probably viewed the issue as one of common sense, not dwelling in the more subtle aspects of the debate, which if truth be told are based on a primitive and false basis of a Moldovan languge separate from Romanian. TSO1D14:13, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Goldie, all reasonable Romanians have reasonable lifestyles: they're on vacation right now, bathing in the Black Sea. On the Bulgarian coast, obviously.
On a more serious note, I think of myself as a reasonable person. And if by "differentiating myself" you mean telling other people to shove it, I honestly don't have time for that kind of thing. I even find it difficult to get involved in Wikipedia projects for the little time that I do nowadays. IMHO it's unfair to ask people to fight everybody they don't agree with. But I and, as far as I could tell, many other Romanian contributors as well have avoided associating with our more radical conationals. As I see it, avoiding association is a passive way of differentiating oneself, and it requires a lot less time and effort. Hate it if you will, but in the essentially communist society of Wikipedia, most of us have to work that way ("communism was a world in which each gave according to his abilities, and received according to his needs", en:Communism.) --Gutza08:10, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A Modest Proposal
For Preventing The Transylvanian Language From Becoming Unregulated
It is dreadful to think about Transylvanian, the native language of many Magyar ethnics living in the Western area of Romania known as Transylvania. This creole is utterly neglected by all regulating bodies, while being actively spoken and written by a vibrant community of lovely, hard-working people.
Wouldn't it be wonderful, and in the interest of all, if the Romanian Academy made a selfless step towards helping these poor people? Is there any stone-hearted individual here who would not be moved by such a noble undertaking?
My proposal essentially consists of setting up a regulating body in Bucharest for this neglected language.
Of course, given the technical and social problems inherent to dealing with this, some compromise must be reached. One of the most acute problems is that of the alphabet. It would be unthinkable to suddenly start using letters unknown to the dominant Romanians. Therefore the Transylvanian language, as officially regulated, will have to use Romanian diacriticals--I'm confident the able Romanian linguists will find satisfactory solutions of mapping those silly Magyar diacriticals to our own ş, ţ, ă, î and â.
Also, some of the words used predominantly under their Romanian form will automatically be mandatory in Transylvanian, instead of their Magyar counterparts. A fitting set of words will be wisely chosen by our Romanian linguists expert panel. For Hungarian citizens visiting from abroad, a Magyar-Transylvanian dictionary will be made available, courtesy of the Romanian Government.
I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good of my country.
IMHO ditto. Is this an attempt at sarcasm of some sort? Illythr
Resolution proposal
implementing a transliteration system in RoWiki
freezing MoWiki
copying (if existing) extra content from Mo to Ro
deleting MoWiki
I see 2 advantages:
The user can choose it's displaying script as requested. (for the Romanian contingent - you may see this as a help for Romanian speakers of all ex-Soviet space)
The MoWiki disappears (as Moldovan language does not exist).
(please argue on proposal - it's useless if we start it over again)
NOTE: As I expect many Ro users to be at least intrigued by the existence of the Cyrillic transliteration, and to prevent moving the "war" to RoWiki (or even mass-media, sadly but possible), I also propose a link from the main page to a locked page explaining what happened here. But this is just a personal POV.
I believe that no problem will subsist if mo.wikipedia is reduced to the main page, which in turn contains the transliteration tool. There could be no "war" at ro.wikipedia in this case, because ro.wikipedia stays untouched. The transliteration page must also notify the user that everything is based on transliteration from ro.wikipedia, and this also solves ethical problems. Dpotop05:51, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I also agree to this proposal. It raises a concern that any such "native writers" will be spooked away as they realise that they're reading a Romanian transliteration, but it's still the best attempt at acheiving compromise, IMHO. Besides, a lot of mo:wiki IS already transliterated from ro: So, support. Should we vote on this as well? :-) Illythr
I suggest one of you tries to rally as many Russians as possible to this proposal, and the other as many Moldovans (it's a problem of confidence). If you agree to doing this, I will post it on ro.wikipedia and the Romanian noticeboard on en.wikipedia, to rally Romanians. Then, if we manage to do this, we can push the proposal upper in the hierarchy, and this time as a joint Moldovan/Russian/Romanian proposal. It's the only way this can work. Given that this is a going to be a long-term discussion, I suggest setting up a discussion page. Either here, on meta, or on en.wikipedia. What do you say? Dpotop08:50, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Note, however, that I see a definite technical problem: we can all agree that there are certain things which do not need transliteration and should not be transliterated - for example, letters of a Latin-based alphabet in an article about that particular alphabet, versions of names given in a language that uses a Latin-based alphabet etc etc. Is there a way of making the engine avoid transliterating them, and, if so, does it imply someone needs to watch each and every "incoming" article? Dahn
You obviously forget that Paris, in Russian, is not copied in Latin script, but transliterated as ru:Париж. So, your remark is pointless for Latin scripts. And, of course, chinese characters should stay unchanged. Also, I have never seen a Cyrillic Moldovan book where Latin text was left unchanged (maybe in references, but references are identifiable). Dpotop07:10, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanking Adriatikus for the info (I suppose the change will be applied to texts that are subject to transliteration, and not to the page with transliteration), I would like to point out to Dpotop that he missed the point entirely: go to the page for ro:Bruxelles and read me the text in parantheses on the first line; better yet, go to the page for ro:Alfabetul latin and tell me how and why we should transliterate all that is present on that page. Dahn
Let me explain: The data is stored in the db in Latin script. When displaying in Cyrillic, the transliterator system does its job excepting <notlit>...</notlit> (and removes these tags). This has to work for any alphabet (Ch, Jap, Cyr, modified Latin etc.). When displaying in Latin, the transliteration system only removes <notlit> tags. I guess (don't argue on this) the majority of users will choose a Latin based display. This should ease the load on the server. Adriatikus11:27, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I had understood the first time around. I was only pointing out to Dpotop what my original query was all about. Dahn
More (like my last post, it is for all who may ask): On the edit page should be an info about this tag system (and a button for writing the tags, for not forcing a Cyr editor to change it's keyboard layout just for a few chars). Also, editing should be possible in Cyr, too. This time the system has to do the transliteration reversely (Cyr to Lat for storing in the db). Adriatikus11:51, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I thought it was an established fact that the effort put into the Moldovan Wikipedia was the transliteration itself. --Gutza07:38, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
* strong oppose - it would be modest POV-pushing instead of the hard one (as if it is closed). I do not see in the proposal what is supposed to be the destiny of edits in cyrillic. I guess they would be simply deleted from ro.wiki and no one will care to transliterate them into Romanian latin alphabet. Also I do not know whether there is one-to-one mapping between Romanian latin and Moldavian cyrillic letters (and would not believe to any Romanian given what I see in the current discussion). -- Goldie ± (talk)16:14, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's pretty much the same as Cyr<->Lat tool at www.translit.ru, with a few simple additions, since the phonetics of the language is pretty simple.
Ă = Э
 = Ы
ce, ci = че, чи
ge, gi = же, жи
Î = Ы
Ţ = Ц
What I do wonder, though, is whether the tool will translit all the articles, or will it first check if a corresponding cyr article exists? Illythr
The articles are supposed to be stored in Latin. The translit should work on both data (articles) and interface. Read my last 2 posts.
The problem I don't yet have a solution for is how to keep â different from î when editing/expanding an article in Cyr. Suggestions? (my solution would require a dictionary, but that's load on the server and not a perfect solution from the start since someone should write/update the dictionary). I'd like a simple solution from the viewpoint of the Cyr editor. Adriatikus21:43, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There are more serious problems than that in the Latin -> Cyrillic transliteration. For instance, how would the tool be induced to transliterate copaci as копачь rather than копачи and gândi as гынди and not гындь? TSO1D00:49, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think by analyzing the word, not the letter. Romanian is regular enough in syllabification and accentuation. I can obtain the list of rules from an "official" (published by the Academy) grammar book. Adriatikus01:39, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I can try to build the engine (GPL'd) if no one else is willing to, provided that: 1). you are not so strict on time limit (it'll be done in my spare time); 2) someone translates me some few pages from Russian; 3) you give me a reliable source stating the rules of transliteration (I've never lived in Md); 4) someone else will do the integration into MediaWiki.
I would agree to this if conversion were implemented first, ie, prior to clearing of mo.wiki, rather than after. This seems unlikely. --Node ue09:16, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So, let me guess... You favour both transliteration and maintaining this absurd little thing? Woa, that's constructive... Dahn
No -- I would be alright with the deletion of mo.wiki, but only after conversion was implemented. This is because I doubt that Romanian Wikipedians would ever accept a transliteration system, and I know there is a chance it could cause an outrage in the national media as well. Also, I will only support it if, as part of the new system, users may also post content in Cyrillic -- after all, what does it matter, if it will be converted to Latin upon viewing anyhow. This is because at such time when we do get Transnistrian users who wish to read in this alphabet, it seems only reasonable to allow them to edit in it, too. I do fear that this will be rejected by ro.wp'ans though. --Node ue20:24, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
HELP ! If anyone has the transliteration rules, in any format (URL, html, pdf, doc etc.), please send them to my En talk page [25] or e-mail them to adriatikus/at/gmaildotcom. I'd like official sources (like a gramm book), but anything is welcome (I've already read en/md/ru articles in WP regarding Md alphabet). If you have a book, please scan the relevant pages if you can. I can read in English, French and Romanian (both Latin and Cyrillic scripts), or I could use an online translator for the other languages if the format allows select-copy action (eg. some PDF's allow it). Thank you. -- Adriatikus21:55, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure if this helps or if this was already mentioned here, but this is what I quote from the Wikipedia-I mailing list:
"You need the script of Bogdan Giusca (:en:User:Bogdangiusca), which will automatically convert to cyrillic (and with far less errors than you) any article on the Romanian wikipedia. This script is already functional at
To make it work on the article of your choice, replace the text "Limba_moldoveneasc%C4%83" with the page name of your choice." Landroni14:35, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I would support this proposal requiring that the tool be implimented before deletion of the Moldovan Wikipedia, that changes in Cyrillic be applied to the Romanian articles, and that dialectal differences (such as vocabulary preferences) are respected on the Romanian Wikipedia. Otherwise, I oppose this proposal. The Jade Knight23:38, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What concerns the "dialectal differences": Moldovan Cyrillic is just plain Romanian written with Moldovan Cyrillic script. So that there are no "dialectal differences" as such. The Moldovan dialect which is widely spoken in Moldova (and which is well different from Cyrillic Moldovan) is not writeable as such. So that normaly there should be no problem on this point. --Landroni07:41, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is writable, people just don't write it very often. This is a situation shared with many countries -- the spoken language has some differences from the literary language, and people tend not to write the vernacular. However, if they get too distant from one another, there might be a drive to write in vernacular (as happened with Greek), but this will not happen in Moldova anytime soon because right now Moldovan speech isn't radically different to the literary variety.
In certain decades of the Soviet era, extra differences were enforced, for example artificial creation of new words, use of certain dialectal grammatical features (such as "[def.] ista" instead of "acest [indef.]"), borrowing of Russian words (odecolon, subotnic), and the use of exactly 1 dialectal phonological feature (monophthongisation of "îi" before nasal consonants, as in "pîine" -> "pîne"). These features are, however, not current in Moldova proper, and are not used in the official Moldovan of Transnistria. --Node ue17:38, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, the main point in my previous paragraph was that there are no "dialectal differences" between formal, literary Moldovan and Romanian. Actually these are identical. Thus, there is no problem in installing a conversion script over the ro.wiki. This point stays.
Now, Mark, I am wondering... How the hell do you know that "people just don't write it very often"? Did you make some kind of a survey in Moldova, did you knock door by door in Chişinău, and ask whether they were writing down the Moldovan dialect or not? This is how you determined that Moldovans don't write it often?
And the second question: how the hell do you know it is writable? No. Let me reformulate. Who the hell are you to indicate me whether I can write or not my own language? Oh, yes. I forgot, you are a Moldovan. Right? So, you, the Moldovanest of Moldovans around here, have you ever been to Moldova? Have you ever heard the Moldovan dialect? I ask all this because it is not books and not the Internet articles that will help you understand what the Moldovan dialect is and how it sounds.
Now, if we consider that any sound that has a graphical symbol equivalent, then yes, this sound would be writable. Basically, you could also assert that if one assigns graphical characters to the sounds made by gorillas, for example, then their speech would also be writable. If you follow this same logic, then yes the Moldovan dialect is writable. However, I cannot imagine myself one sound Moldovan speaking person to write a similar phraze: "Di mititei copchii întotdeauna am înşercat sî-i ajutăm pi părinţîi noştri. În ogradî, în grădinî, în casî sau pi deal, c-o furcî, c-o coasî, c-un şiocan, c-o măturî, c-un chiron, c-un hîrleţ, c-o cartoafî, c-o patlajicî, c-un teasc, mai în scurt, ca nişti copchii cum sî cadi. Încî di pi-atunşi ţîn minti cî părinţîi noştri ni prigăteu pintru zîlili şeli greli di bătrîneţî cari îi aşteptau, ş-întotdeauna ni spuneu sî şim cuminţi, sî n-ajunjim beţîvani sau lodari, ca sî aibî şini sî li aducî o canî di apî la bătrîneţi..." One may speak like this, but never write like this.
So, Mark, the Moldovan dialect is not writable. Currently, it is not written either. By the way, good luck with the translation, as I cannot see how could an automatic translator be of great help to you. If you want to get a good grasp of the Moldovan dialect, you cannot do better than planetamoldova.net. --Landroni19:57, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You're not Moldovan, you're a Frenchman. And of course it's writable -- you just wrote in it! It may not be a way you are accustomed to writing, or that you would write very much, but it is certainly possible to write in it. Some people have a similar attitude towards writing down colloquial Cantonese that you do to writing down colloquial Moldovan. They say that you would not write it, that it is unreasonable, that you can't. But whether or not you own up to the language as yours, whether you use it as a symbol of pride or of shame, for literary pleasure or only for spoken use, is your decision. Every Moldovan will choose for themselves. And certainly some Moldovans will choose to write it, you can find examples of this sort of language already on the internet. There are even some poems written in this dialect by a Romanian woman. --Node ue20:09, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Who the hell are you to know this? Did you look into my passport or something? Do you know who I am? How do I speak? Are you sure you read what you write before you post it?
I wrote in it just to show you how stupid it would be to do it. And obviously, you do not realize it. And it's normal. It's not your language. In principal, like any sound that has a graphical equivalent, it is writable. However, NOT ONE normal decent in his own mind person will write anything similar. Ask any Moldovans that are around here, on Wikimedia. Moldovans choose currently not to write like this. And I can tell you this because I have never ever seen something like this written anywhere in Moldova.
Now, you bost again with examples: could you please give me these examples of this sort of language. Links would be preferable. --Landroni11:40, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe I did... are my fingerprints on it? Who knows...
Node, you're completely and utterly biased with those links--and you know it. I mean come on, is that all you can muster as proof? A couple of kids playing around, a dude making fun in a freaking feedback form and a satirical article? Could I please argue for the creation of the Romglish dialect? It would go like this: "Ză dacs cam from ză tracs. Mai ent smelz nais uen şi uerz părfium. End său on ad noziam." I can provide you with several examples of this dialect on the net, many people have fun or write satirical pieces using this dialect. Be serios. --Gutza21:25, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, I reconsidered. My proposal for a Romglish dialect doesn't stand--that's just plain English with a funny accent. We have proof that's the case because people who speak that way still write English properly. But... wait a second! Isn't it the same with Moldovan? Makes you wonder, doesn't it? --Gutza21:33, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, first of all, that's not a dialect you have there. You are simply writing English with Romanian orthographic practices. There are no dialect-specific words, there is no dialect-specific grammar, there is no phonology unique to your "dialect".
Second of all, I was not "proposing" anything. I am not "biased" with my links. Landroni asserted that nobody writes the Moldovan dialect, ever. I said that people do, in fact, write this language sometimes. The purpose is irrelevant -- if it's poetry, or playing, or poking fun, or for satire. And I proved myself right. --Node ue10:54, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Node, is that what you want for the Moldovan Wikipedia? I'm not sarcastic or anything, but since you advocate for the "writability" of the spoken dialect, I'm starting to wonder whether we misunderstood you all along... Such a Wikipedia would be a fun thing to witness--even Romanian Moldovans (i.e. Romanian citizens living in the Romanian part of Moldavia) would feel offended, because they speak exactly the same way; I don't even want to consider how Moldovan civizens would feel if someone was to create a Wikipedia making fun of their dialect, and in Cyrillic, no less. --Gutza22:18, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Did you get your doctorate yet? I had always imagined that anyone studying for their Ph.D would be pretty mature. I guess not. --Node ue22:37, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
HELP
OK, i'm officially LOST (in translation? I don't think so). I see the proposal, then 80 support votes, then 40 oppose votes, then a lot of more or less subjective comments and all sorts of proposals. So, I have a simple question: where do we stand? Was the vote for nothing? Is this some kind of a joke? We're called to vote just so you (whoever that is) can then say: "we'll ignore your vote"? I would like an answer from somebody than can actually close mo.wp if this decision will be taken (I don't know how that class of users is called). Furthermore, I would like the 2 "generals" (aka kids, copii, малыши ) -that is Bonaparte and Node ue- to abstain from responding to this message. Thank you and I'm sorry for any English errors I made. Strainu
The administrators have already said on wiki-l that they are going to ignore the previous concensus and the present discussion because they want to maintain the status-quo. TSO1D22:43, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I do not remember administrators say anything about this discussion. They did say that no one is interested in the issue, but no one said anything negative towards this vote. I believe that when the general policy on closing projects will emerge, this page will count. Landroni18:24, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Request
Hi everybody, since some of the "support" votes were based on the fact that no native users were present, I have sent some e-mails to various Transnistrian people to request their assistance on the project. So far I got only a handful of responses, and only a single result (user Elk19), who is apparently not a native speaker as I had previously believed. However, my question is, is native user participation enough to silence most of the controversy over this Wiki? I know that most opposition is based on the "this isn't a language" argument, but I don't think that can stand up by itself without the support of the more logical argument advanced mainly by Dpotop. --Node ue15:47, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Node, when you created the Moldovan language version of Wikipedia, did you intend it only to be written in the Cyrillic script? It was my impression that your belief was (and maybe still is) that Moldovan is distinct from Romanian even in its written form, so it was logical to create a Wiki in that language, and you used both alphabets that the language has been customarily written in. In that case the language issue should be the primary point of dispute in my view. If the formal version of the two languages is indeed distinct, than the Moldovan version would be needed and there would be no opposition. On the other hand, if formal Moldovan is identical to formal Romanian, than the project is superfluous. In my view most scientific evidence points to a Moldo-Romanian linguistic identity, to the point that questioning it would seem absurd, but you may of course disagree. As for finding an ethnic speaker (or writer in this case), once again, I have to ask, how will that affect the fundamental aspect of the question, whether Moldovan is distinct from Romanian? Can any native writer "translate" an article from Romanian where any changes would be required? In the contrary case what will change? For instance I am by all accounts a native speaker of Moldovan, but it would seem odd for me to write in the Mo-WIki rather than the Romanian Wikipedia as the latter is the source for virtually all articles on Mo that were copied or transliterated from the former. TSO1D16:19, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, hold it, I never "created" the Wikipedia. It existed already. I just added articles. This is a lie people keep repeating. If you look at the history, or ask someone like Ronline or Danutz, it was indeed originally intended to be written in Cyrillic, since Latin Moldovan and Romanian, although I do believe differences exist between them, are close enough that no sort of translation is required in the context of Wikipedia. In my period as admin, I deleted all Latin articles. The resurgence in Latin on that Wikipedia is due to protests by a handful of Moldovans that the constitution of Moldova defines the official script of the Moldovan language as Latin, and thus mo.wiki in Cyrillic was "illegal" (ignoring the fact that it is hosted on servers outside of Moldova and is thus not governed by Moldovan national law in the first place). I do not support, nor have I ever really supported wholeheartedly, the maintenance of a Latin-script section of mo.wiki. Anyone who wants to read a "Moldovan Wikipedia" in the Latin script will do just as well to read the Romanian Wikipedia, and in fact the edits from the full Moldovan political spectrum will assist in furthering NPOV at that Wikipedia.
I pretty much agree that the separation of facilities for Moldovan and Romanian is not rational when both are written in the Latin alphabet (similarly, the separation of Bosnian, Croatian, and Latin-Serbian seems ridiculous to me, although admittedly there are more differences in those cases), and that they may be combined in a single facility, ideally proclaiming itself to be written in "Limba noastra" rather than "Limba romana" (although this seems unlikely to happen unless a large group of people declaring Moldovan to be their native language comes to ro.wiki and suddenly decides they want to change the main page; however this is similar to the proposals in any modern unified SCR-advocating document to use names such as "our language" or "mother tongue education" rather than "Serbocroatian language" or "Bosnian language education").
But I digress, that is not particularly relevant to this closure argument. While your argument may be based on whether or not Moldovan and Romanian are "identical" (which no two regional varieties of any register may ever truly be, no matter how hard you pray, because there will always be usage differences, no matter how slight), that is not the one I feel it is necessary to argue against, but rather Dpotop's argument that there is no native speaker participation. You may have little problem with Cyrillic script, I don't know really, but I know that it offends Dpotop, as he stated many times before he tried to pretend he is alright with it "so long as some native speakers support it", because according to him it is an insult to all of those killed under stalin. At the same time, we could say that the mere existence of Macedonian as separate from Bulgarian is an insult to those killed under Tito, but nobody asserts that now do they?
Obviously this raises the issue of a script converter. I feel that it will 1) not be widely tolerated by Romanians in the first place giving reactions I have already faced from Romanians over Cyrillic script for this language, most of which are negative, some to a toxic extreme; 2) be difficult to perfect, given that many words, both common and uncommon, have patterns which can be converted in multiple ways (for example how do you convert occurances of the 3 letters "cea"? and how do you tell a computer the "ea" in "real" is not written the same as the "ea" in "mea"?); 3) Would relegate the Cyrillic-Moldovan to a second-class status, only accessable by clicking on a special button, having to visit Latin mainpage first; 4) Would most likely not allow for content to be posted in Cyrillic; and 5) would store all data in the database as Latin despite the fact that from a computational perspective it is easier to generate Latin from Cyrillic on-the-fly. Of course, a script converter is better than nothing at all, just as if it means the difference between life and death for mo.wiki, I would accept fully the movement to mo-cyr (but I do not believe we are at this stage yet). --Node ue10:13, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that a script converter would function more easily if the text is stored in the database in cyrillic, however that will almost certainly not happen. I also agree about the other aspects of the converter that you pointed out, such as its being found on the main latin page, making some incorrect transcriptions, etc. Frankly the tool has not been my idea and the more I've thought about it, the more skeptical I am about how well it will function and even if it's necessary. But generally, from what I can see languages with two used scripts are kept together, and in case one is no longer used, it is abolished completely. In the case of Moldovan (Romanian), it is difficult to assess how many people prefer the cyrillic alphabet for that language, so it is virtually impossible to know if there will ever be a need for it. In Moldova, virtually no one but the oldest generation use cyrillic, and in Transnistria it is difficult to know how many use it exclussively. You said that you incorrectly thought that Elena (elk19) was not a native speaker. I believe you are mistaken in this. There is a very low probability of a non-Romanian speaking the language in Transnistria. She is more than likely Moldovan/Romanian, but probably went to a Russian or a "mixed" school, so she is more proficient in Russian than in her native tongue. This is another part of the difficulty in finding potential users, because whereas in Moldova most of the autochtonous population would select the Romanian Wiki, as would many who frequent Romanian-language schools in Transnistria, most Transnistrian Moldovans probably would automatically go to the Russian version. I don't expect the number of constructive users to increase drastically or actually at all on Mo, but I do expect the continous cycle of the wiki alternating between periods of inactivity and trolling to go on, which is the main reason that I want the encyclopedia frozen. I honestly don't understand why you fight so much for this encyclopedia, do you really expect a decent number of Moldovan speakers to come who prefer to see the text in cyrillic? With its minimal number of articles and minimal potential user base (as I explained above), I sincerely don't believe that this encyclopedia has any future except as a trolling ground, which would not be beneficial to anyone.
(I have split up your text as this discussion is getting rather long, I hope you don't mind). Actually, in Transnistria, studying at a Russian school, one is required to choose in addition to take second-language classes in either Ukrainian or Moldovan, same as if you study at a Ukrainian school you must take a class in Russian or Moldovan, and if you study at a Moldovan school you must take classes in either Russian or Ukrainian (this is in addition to the requirement that you study one additional non-Transnistrian language, usually English or German). I don't know how deep the level of second-language study is, but I do know that it certainly exists. From what I can see, tales of Transnistria are often greatly exaggerated to make it look evil, for example they have had a free market for a while now, they hold completely democratic elections (certified by the CIS-EMO, since other observers have refused to attend at all) which actually have given the opposition control of the parliament, political activism and pluralism is not only accepted but widespread, and the hammer and sickle have been removed from the civil emblem. The percentage of children attending Moldovan and Ukrainian schools or mixed schools has risen with the economic and social liberalisation as well. Moldovan is, however, still relegated to the status of an ethnic language, and this seems unlikely to change. Russian is firmly entrenched as the language of interethnic communication. However, this does not mean that nobody is interested in Moldovan (preferred English name in Transnistria is actually "Moldavian"), just as we have Wikipedias in "ethnic languages" already such as Chuvash, Bashkir, Udmurt, Catalan, even Romany, with considerable public interest, it is not unreasonable to expect Transnistrian Moldovans to have at least a certain degree of interest in the Moldovan Wikipedia. I have been convinced long ago and continue to uphold that most Moldovans in Transnistria prefer Cyrillic to write their mother tongue, now I even found a livejournal written in Moldovan-Cyrillic. I do honestly believe that as the infrastructure of Transnistria improves, users from the area will embrace the Moldovan Wikipedia. As for containing two scripts in one Wikipedia: the policy varies widely. Where it is possible, they are kept to a single Wikipedia. But in situations where it would likely cause an outrage, such as Bosnian (Bosnian Cyrillic users are expected to go to the Serbian WP instead) or Farsi (Iranians are unlikely to tolerate Tajik Cyrillic text placed in their Wikipedia, and certainly not on an "equal level"), and I think Romanian fits into that list rather than the list of those who peacefully accept one another (Kurdish, Azeri, Serbian, Gothic...). If you could honestly get Ro.wiki to be turned into a site where Cyrillic and Latin had equal status, I would nominate you for a Nobel prize.
About Transnistria, exaggerations exist on both sides, and although some of the Romanian sources are biased, the Russian ones are not any less so. The elections in Transnistria might have been more or less democratic, though it is difficult to assess their quality since no credible monitoring organization sent observers (CIS-EMO is by no standard an independent entity, they even accepted the results of the Belorussian elections and the first Ukrainian round as perfectly adequate). As for pupils having to learn a secondary language, though I am glad to see this development, I am afraid that it is rather superficial, though I could not say for certain. And by the way the hammer and sickle remains on their flag en:Flag of Transnistria. TSO1D02:19, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, you only responded to my points about Transnistria and totally left out the parts that were most relevant to this discussion (that is, questions of language and script and whether there should be two Wikipedias). In response to what you *did* say, though: Yes, it is true that the credibility of CIS-EMO has been called into question, but then, OSCE simply refused to attend in the first place. However, even according to EU-ISS, "Transnistrian politics is moving towards more pluralism". Other international organisations have had some good things to say about the country in general as well. The fact that pupils are required to learn a second language is not a new development. It has been the case for quite some time. I don't see how that's superficial -- all 3 ethnic groups have a right to schooling in their native language, and they are also required to become familiarised with two additional languages. If an ethnic Moldavian going to a mixed school takes Ukrainian and English, they will end up quadrilingual. And you're wrong about the flag, see [30], I would say that is a more credible source than Wikipedia. --Node ue22:37, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As for the political undercurrents of the issue, they evidently exist, and although in theory they should not influence people's decisions on how to vote here, in reality they do and on both sides of the dispute. The project itself is not progressing, for the reasons I stated above, and there is a very low probability of it doing so in the future, however its very existence is seen as offensive by some. I am not saying that this is correct, or that you are to blame, but it is certainly the truth. If you did not live in Moldova or Romania, it might be difficult to understand why so many fight so vehemently against this project. When in your own land you are forced to deny your roots and your own language is slowly driven out of public life, it is never a pleasent experience. Although the cyrillic alphabet was used in the past for the Romanian language throughout the Principalities, its reimposition by the Soviets was in all ways political, as part of the agenda of differentiating between the native population of Moldova and that of the right side of the Prut. The very act of using the latin alphabet was seen as inciting nationalism, a punishable offence. Thus the script became a sort of a symbol and when the USSR was breaking down, one of the first actions of the new government was to reintroduce the latin alphabet. But as I said, the politics of the issue are not restricted to one side. The fact that the vast majority of Russian users voten in favor of the encyclopedia and the script was also largeley symbolic and I am certain that some, if not most of them were driven by the political aspects of the dispute much more than by the technical aspects, which is why I disliked the fact that you appealed specifically to the Russian Wiki for support. Once again, I am not presenting this little discourse to convince you of my views, but simply to help you understand why so many Romanians here take this issue so personally. TSO1D14:19, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I can certainly understand why it could be an imotional issue for Moldovans, but to Romanians (like with Russians), it seems like an issue of simple irridentism to me. Claiming to "feel for your brothers" is alright, but from what I have seen here and elsewhere, the same Romanians who shed tears for their "brothers across the Prut" will start insulting someone and calling him brainwashed and Stalinist and cursing his mother if he says that he is a Moldovan and not a Romanian (certainly there are more civil Romanians than this, but it is just an example). I only asked for Russian support because I knew Bonaparte was going to go around and tell every single Romanian on earth how I am evil and how this Wiki should be closed, as he has done every other time there has been a vote, and I wanted to preempt him. --Node ue23:49, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There will always be radicals in any group, so there will always be those who insult Moldovans for not being "Romanian" enough, however I am sure that most are moved by a certain sentiment of kin (although it is unilateral in many cases). And I am certain that many Romanians would have come whether or not others incited them (which actually was a rather limited factor this time) and for that matter so would some Russians, I just regret that you contacted them because you knew that some would be driven by their political stance on the issue. And you yourself took part in some misinformation by framing the issue as one of "Romainan nationalists [...] who spread lies and slander". Regardless of what others did, you could have been less negative, after all the issue is not of winning the game but of proceeding correctly. TSO1D02:19, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If nobody asked them to come here, how would they have found out about it? Are you proposing that there are hordes of Romanians just hanging around Meta anyways? The only reason anybody found out is the fact that somebody 1) Made a post to ro village pump and 2) Posted to many users' talkpages to implore them to vote here. I did initially think that this vote was going to be the vote to end all votes, so I was concerned with not letting anyone slant the issue their way any more than I could slant it mine. Besides, most of what Bogdan said about the Wiki were lies and slander. --Node ue22:37, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Bonaparte, repeating the same maxims over and over will get you nothing. You will change nobody's opinion, and you will achieve nothing. Haven't you seen this already? You have won no battles so far with your style. You have been banned from the English Wikipedia, and if somebody mounted a campaign against you and properly presented all the evidence, you would probably be banned from all Wikimedia projects (given your userpage vandalism on meta). We may disagree, but the difference between us is that at the end of the day, I see you as someone who is probably a good person in real life, must be intelligent (as Ronline told us you are to obtain your Ph.D soon), who is just a bit of a pain in how he does business on the Internet, whereas you see me as an evil kid Russian ex-KGB Stalinist Smirnovist Anti-Romanian terrorist gay Jew who is inherently evil and "[has] no credibility kid" and who "[a] pierdut copile", or at least that is the impression you give. What you need to realise is that no matter how toxic the battles may become, in the end it doesn't really matter as much as anything in real life. I no longer spend nearly as much time fighting for the Moldovan Wikipedia as I used to because I am now in a relationship and I have people who are more dear to me than the Moldovan Wikipedia would ever be. I hope you can say the same. --Node ue10:13, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I got it now. You mean you found your boyfriend (OOPS! girlfriend) and you live happily together. It's so nice of you...How strange your comparison with Moldovan Wikipedia, it was "dear" to you? You mean you fall in love to a Wikipedia??? That's so odd...But you can deny the fact that I correctly identified you as Anti-Romanian, as for the rest somebody else told you. I'm an italian jew ancestry who lives now in Romania, but I do pretend that I know and speak Romanian/Moldovan better than you. I know what I'm talking about and you failed to convinced me that for you this was just a game, kid :). You missed all the time the figurative comma before accentuated "kid". Is your first relationship because you seem in love nodule...--Fratele lui Bonaparte, il cunosti?15:14, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Boyfriend, Bonaparte, remember I am gay? Yes, my work on the Moldovan Wikipedia was and is a labour of love. And it's nice to know you're only pretending to speak Romanian better than can I. You often skipped the comma and said "credibility kid". --Node ue00:10, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
¿porqué no nos podemos estar amigos? quiero que vayamos juntos a hacerse borracho. hay tanto que quiero contarte, hay tanto que quiero saber de ti. ya podemos empezar poco a poco, cuentame qué te trae por aqui. no te asustes decirme la verdad, bonaparte, eso nunca puede estar asi tan mal. yo tambien tengo secretos para darte y que sepas que ya no me sirven más. hay tantos caminos por andar... dime si tu quisieras andar conmigo, bonaparte! andate conmigo ahora mismo y nos podemos decirnos tantas cosas. --Node ue00:10, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Don't forget for the question it's por qué, not porqué. The nos in the first sentence is not necessary the verb is not reflexive and it's ser amigos, not estar. Then it's hacernos not hacerse and borracho should be plural. It should be dime la verdad, not decirme. Dar un secreto is not right, you should have used contar or something of the sort, and you need a conjuction before the sepas part. TSO1D02:00, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You're not entirely correct there: [31]. "nos podemos estar amigos" means "we can be friends with each other". "Estar amigos" is correct when "amigos" is used as an adjective -- "estoy amigo de" means "I am fond of", "nos estamos amigos" means "we are fond of each other". You are right about "hacernos borrachos". As for the rest, it is taken directly from a song written by Julieta Venegas, a native Spanish speaker, so I will not attempt to defend her grammar other than to say that her Spanish is better than yours. However, I will try my best to explain why she is right. As for "no te asustes decirme", it should be "no te asustes de decirme", "no te asustes dime" is not correct unless you intend "dime" as a separate clause, in which case it should be separated by a comma. "Dar un secreto" is an idiomatic phrase, you can see it used much: [32], [33] (latter is results only in Mexico). As regards "que sepas", "que" is the conjunction. --Node ue22:37, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I understand the decirme thing now, but yea I did mean it as a separate clause, and I thought you had omitted the coma. But about amigos, ser is used more often, check the following number of hits for estar amigos and ser amigos. Yes when it's an adjecive estar can be used in certain cases, however in this case ser is used much more commonly. Dar secretos must be some Mexican peculiarity, I don't believe it's standard Spanish, but as you said it was from a song, and even in English the grammar in those is often jumbled. TSO1D22:51, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
TSO1D responded you properly and perfectly well. I trust people like TSO1D not delusive Kinder like you. Tu me odias tanto. You said it well that you hate all that is Romanian, and among those Romanians I'm also with them. Stop this sharade now, you are not going to have any secrets with me because I have nothing to share with an Anti-Romanian like you. Little soviets like you who pretend to defend the so-called Moldovan language have no mercy from me. Your fight was wrong from the beginning. Choose your japanese topics again. --Fratele lui Bonaparte, il cunosti?07:57, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I thought you knew Spanish, apparently not, he did not respond to any of the stuff I said, only to the grammar I used. "Tu me odias tanto" means "you hate me much", not the other way around. --Node ue22:37, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I believe it is time to close this vote. Originally it was intended to remain open for two weeks and a few months later still no conclusion has been reached. Whatever further deliberations will take place among the board members, this vote should be considered closed, after all it cannot go on forever. TSO1D21:48, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. We should leave it open indefinitely as a monument to the stupidity of humanity. I mean, seriously. Look at it. People are still voting. Norok! --Node ue22:57, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well the Moldovan Wikipedia already fulfills the purpose of such a monument. But certain guidelines were presented at the beginning of the voting process and those stipulated a definite period when the input of the community would be accepted, and that time frame should have closed a long time ago. A few votes will always continue to trickle, but most people interested in the issue have already voted and I believe that it is time for the board members to take this result into consideration and then present a final decision. TSO1D23:02, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please see GerardM's recent comments on Wikipedia-l. Actually, I was told they are still discussing it, but at this point, it seems to be what form the Moldavian Wikipedia should exist, not whether or not it should exist. --Node ue23:25, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Voting on subjects like this.. I refuse
Voting on a subject like this is proving extreme prejudice. It is discriminatory to suggest that people cannot have their information in the language as they use it. It is irrelevant how this came about; they are people who are denied information because of politics. What is relevant that there is no alternative on offer. To the winner all the spoils. Bah ! GerardM12:44, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
strong oppose - it would be modest POV-pushing instead of the hard one (as if it is closed). I do not see in the proposal what is supposed to be the destiny of edits in cyrillic. I guess they would be simply deleted from ro.wiki and no one will care to transliterate them into Romanian latin alphabet. Also I do not know whether there is one-to-one mapping between Romanian latin and Moldavian cyrillic letters (and would not believe to any Romanian given what I see in the current discussion). -- Goldie ± (talk) 16:14, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
