I have nothing to add, except:
Approximately 33% of Moldovans believe there is, in fact, a Moldovan language. This is hundreds of thousands of people.
In my view, the NPOV is that "some people say a Moldovan language exists, others say it doesn't", because this is actually the case. (I personally believe that Moldovan and Romanian are the same language with two different names).
My accusations of them being Romanian extremist nationalists are not unsubstantiated. One person signs their messages as "Organizatia Romana Unionista" (Romanian Unionist Organisation, unionist refers to advocating the re-integration of Moldova into Romania).
Others have cited such reasons as the alleged ugliness of Cyrillic, or that anybody who uses Cyrillic to write Moldovan must be a Stalinist, and therefore should be ignored.
Danutz called me a "Japanese fag", as well. "Nationalist" is not an insult, just a label trying to indicate bias. However, I perceive both "stalinist" and "fag" as intentional insults.
So far, there have been a few actual people in Moldova who have visited: 1) Vertaler. He produced a great portion of the content that currently exists at mo.wiki. He left contact information, but doesn't seem to visit regularly anymore. He didn't make a statement about his position on whether the Wiki should exist, but he contributed a lot to it, so my guess is that he supports it. He demonstrated fluency by posting a bit of content in the language. 2) Anonymous Moldovan user. He made some changes to the Moldovan on several pages, in Cyrillic. He has a Moldovan IP, but the timestamps on his edits indicate that he's probably not Vertaler or Dmitriid. He demonstrated fluency by posting a bit of content in the language. 3) Dmitriid. He has expressed that the Wikipedia is "redundant", since the articles say the same thing as the Romanian version (they are written in a different alphabet, though, and there's probably about 3% original content). Originally he expressed a belief that the Wikipedia should be deleted, but about a day ago he revised his opinion to say that a Cyrillic version might be nessecary. He demonstrated fluency by posting a bit of content in the language. (in Latin script; however other signs indicate that he can read Cyrillic)
There is also Landroni, who says he's a Moldovan man in France. He is diametrically opposed to the existance of the Wikipedia, and has said some pretty extreme stuff against it. However, he has not demonstrated fluency on even the most basic level because everything he said was in English.
The major Romanian participants (besides Ronline): Danutz. Originally, it seemed he was OK with the existance of mo.wiki in its present form. However, recently he began to oppose it, including calling me names. He is a sysop at ro.wiki. Duca. Originally, both myself and Danutz discussed with him why it was essential that mo.wiki exist. He labelled me as Stalinist and Russian, and asked why Danutz, a Romanian, was supporting a Stalinist. He also accused me of being a KGB agent. He seems to have disappeared a couple of days ago. He is not an established user on any Wikipedia. Domnu Goie. Domnu Goie entered the situation only in the last few days. His accusations are more alarming to me than Duca's. One of his main beliefs is that a mainpage that says "Moldovan Wikipedia" is extremely POV (and "stalinist propaganda"), and that to be "neutral" it must say "Moldovan (Romanian) Wikipedia". He has variously accused me of being a Russian, a Stalinist, a KGB agent... he is not, to my knowledge, an established user on any Wikipedia. Organizatia Romana Unionista. Only made a couple of posts. Vasile. I have no idea about this user.
Mark
On 22/06/05, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) rowikipedia@yahoo.com wrote:
Hi to all,
This is Ronline from the Romanian Wikipedia. We have currently (in the past week especially) had quite a lot of controversy about the Moldovan Wikipedia at http://mo.wikipedia.org.
The reason I'm raising the issue here is to gauge the response of the wider community towards my proposal and also what's happening over at mo:
Mo.wikipedia.org was founded a while ago, but until about this year, it basically had no content and simply contained a redirect link to the Romanian Wikipedia, since Moldovan is identical to Romanian, renamed for political reasons (I won't go into the whole story now, you can see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldovan_language).
Anyway, so a few months ago, a user called Vertaler came and added some Cyrillic content to the Moldovan Wikipedia. Cyrillic is a script used by a minority of Moldovans. Node_ue (Mark Williamson) supported that and said that he wishes to convert mo.wikipedia.org into a Cyrillic-Moldovan Wikipedia, with all Latin content being placed at ro.wikipedia.org in order to avoid duplication.
After negotation with Node, I have come forward with a proposal that he has agreed with, which seeks to establish mo.wikipedia.org as a biscriptal Latin/Cyrillic Wikipedia in interface, and a biscriptal portal, but with Cyrillic content hosted on mo.wikipedia in order to avoid duplication with ro.wiki.
The entire proposal is at http://mo.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ronline/Propunere, in English and Romanian.
Now, the reason I've come here is because some users from the Romanian Wikipedia do not agree with keeping a Moldovan Wikipedia for Cyrillic content, because they believe that a Moldovan language doesn't exist (most linguists agree with this) and that since Wikipedia is neutral, it shouldn't have a Wikipedia in a language renamed for political reasons like Moldovan. Also, since Cyrillic is no longer the official script in Moldova (it used to be during Communist times), there is no place for it as mo.wiki. Other users agree to Cyrillic content, but not under the "Moldovan language" name.
The controversy, which can be viewed at http://mo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:%D0%9F%D0%B0%D3%82%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0; принчипалэ, has been exacerbated by the fact that there has been mutual distrust between Node on one hand, and a series of Romanian users, on the other. Node has blamed the Romanian users for being "nationalist" and "radical" and "anti-Moldovan", this being the reason why they don't support a Moldovan Wikipedia. The Romanian users have labelled Node a "Stalinist" and claim that he is not listening to them even though they are in the majority.
Danutz, a Romanian user, pointed out that it is unfair that Node is the only user which supports the Moldovan Wikipedia, when he does not even speak Moldovan/Romanian very well (it seems he has some Moldovan roots, though) and has placed himself as sysop undemocratically (without any community consensus - note, though, that at that time the Romanian visitors weren't yet aware of the mo.wiki). They therefore feel that an abuse of power is taking place, especially since Node is saying that the Romanian users shouldn't be able to have a say because they aren't Moldovan (in which case, the Romanian users claim that Node also doesn't have a right because he can "barely" speak Romanian/Moldovan).
Now, personally, I have taken a very neutral stance and compelled both sides to argue more rationally and stop the criticism. I also am entirely committed to hearing both sides out and acting in a professional manner.
We have made some headway recently, and I have struck an agreement with Node over my proposal, which he seems to support. Some of the Romanian users, however, still do not agree with all parts of the proposal, some of them asking for a separate subdomain for a Moldovan-Cyrillic wiki. What do people say to that? I would personally agree to that, meaning a mo.wiki which is simply a portal, and a mo-cyr.wikipedia.org which hosts only Cyrillic content.
I have presented my case here in order to gauge public response. I have also opened a consultation period with the community to allow for any complaints to the proposal, at http://mo.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ronline/Propunere. I'd just like to hear some opinions of people which aren't involved in this case so we can get more neutral, unaffiliated viewpoints.
Thanks,
Ronline
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