[Wikipedia-l] Re: Conflict between two Wikipedias

In response to Mark's message of Sat Apr 16 20:46:14 UTC 2005: emphasising >what is should >we care? I am emphasising what is right because that is what we should be striving towards. Just because any Moldovans, who you seem to think are the only ones who have an authoritative right to a say in this, haven't complained, doesn't mean that the idea of is right. Now, you're going to say again something along the lines of "Yes, you keep on using the word right. Who cares what's right". Well, we *should* care about what's right! For example, we couldn't go ahead now and form a Romanian Wikipedia without diacritical symbols, just because the Romanian community supports it, even when it is incorrect. In this example, writing Romanian with no diacritics would be easier and, hypothetically, let's say it would be supported by the community, which , hypothetically, is made up of 1 person. Does that mean we should actually implement that proposal? Just because the "community" agrees to something doesn't make it right, doesn't mean that it's correct for, in the example, the ro.wiki to be written without diacritic symbols. The same goes for mo.wiki. There is basically *one* Moldovan Cyrillic contributor, and you're saying that just because he hasn't complained, then it's OK, because no Moldovan contributor has so far complained. Why? Because *there is no Moldovan wiki community*. There is just one person! I think there might have actually been a Moldovan contributor at ro.wiki which is no longer active. But that's about all. For that reason, we can't base ourselves here on "we do what the Moldovans think, because they're the ones who should have the most say." If we go by that principle, then we won't get anywhere, because there isn't yet, unfortunately, a Moldovan Wikipedia community. So, as you keep on blaming the ro.wiki community for, there's nothing wrong with us getting involved. The same goes in your case - there's nothing wrong about you getting involved, as a non-Moldovan, in this issue. We *all*, as Wikimedia contributors, have a right to involve ourselves in *all* Wikimedia issues as long as we are adequately informed. And I think both of us, and many other people who have given an opinion, have done so in an informed, comprehensive manner. I don't think you can actually say that all the comments are politically motivated. If you read the discussion page at ro.wiki, you will see that many Romanians actually enforce the idea of having a Moldovan Wikipedia, and recognise the need for one. I don't think you can blame most of the community for being either superficial or politically-motivated. Most of us have said that - yes, having a mo.wiki is OK, even in Cyrillic script, but it needs to be at a separate subdomain, due to all the reasons that I've mentioned in my numerous past messages. True. By the way, don't think I'm trying to argue with you just for the sake of it. Your POV is actually a very legitimate one on this issue and it is the most practical. I "admit" that as you said. And it's working fine. At the moment. What I mean by at the moment is that 1) it will get more problematic in the future and it's better to solve the problems now and 2) you can't really call it working, because the is 1 contributor! There is basically no community yet. I see there have been people (it may be the same user as the Cyrillic one, actually I think it is) who have already made Latin script contributions. Already it's starting to become problematic. What happens if a user comes and makes Latin script contributions? Should we simply move them to ro.wiki? Or should we keep the mo.wiki a biscriptal confusion? There have been many cases where a single contributor has started something, which is not technically right, and then when a larger community came, the project had to be moved somewhere. You must realise that by putting only Cyrillic content at mo.wiki, we become terribly biased towards that script? Why should Wikipedia, the free, NPOV encyclopedia, be like that? And why should we then have to change everything when Moldovan Latin users come over and start adding content to the mo.wiki? You're saying this as if it would require registering a new domain, setting up a new interface and writing new software! It's really not that hard to make a new subdomain! It's being done all the time, when new language projects are being launched. So what if we require the assistance of a developer? I think that you really are too practical - just for the sake of easiness and practicality, it doesn't matter how wrong something is, or how biased it is, you won't support it just because it requires more work. I believe that we must first be correct, then practical. Being practical now will just cause more problems later on. Finally, I'm not happy with the status quo. I've tried until now numerous ways to negotiate, I started writing on this mailing list, and yet nothing has worked. The status quo has just been maintained, and you haven't considered the point of view than anyone else. Honestly, that's really frustrating. I mean, I've written many messages that just basically say the same thing over and over again -- we've covered no ground here. And you can't say I haven't been reasonable. I've proposed something that doesn't denigrate Moldovan Cyrillic, that is perfectly fair to it, gives it space to grow, but at the same time doesn't put it in favour of Moldovan Latin. Yes, it's practically harder, but I don't see anything theoretically wrong with it. On the practical side, I will go and contact a developer to do it if we reach concensus. That's not that hard a move. Neither is the whole setting up. It's not as if you now have to go and waste a week's work on setting up a new subdomain! __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Plan great trips with Yahoo! Travel: Now over 17,000 guides! http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide