I feel I should also add something about my being a sysop.
My actions as a sysop (which I have been for about 3 days following an
emergency request):
1) protecting both main pages. The NPOV notices on them were added by
IP users, and I saw them as vandalism. In addition, one of these pages
had only 1 sentence on it, so labelling it as POV is a bit extreme. It
was also my view that NPOV notices belong on content pages, not the
mainpage which should be kept clear to avoid confusion to new users.
In addition, _the POV notice itself_ said "There is no such thing as a
moldovan language. The fact that Romanian can and may be written in
another alphabet does not make it a language other the..." which is
obviously not NPOV.
2) making translations to the interface.
3) deleting a couple of pages. They were:
3a) "Hincesti" (title actually in Cyrillic). Contents: "super puper
stadt- acolo verishoara mea traieshte, olea cebotaru"
3b) Kazahstan. Empty, title in Latin alphabet.
3c) Geschäftspartnern. Contents: "Siehe auch: MO, Gedanken, Schmiede,
Übertragung, Bilder, Psychose, Hypnose". ie, it was in German.
3d) Template:POV. Contents: "content was: '{{Message_box|id
=NPOV|backgroundcolor =AntiqueWhite|image =Stop_hand.png|heading =The
neutrality of this arti..." (referred to template:message_box, which
had a very POV message about the Moldovan speech, and also was used
only on the main pages).
3e) Template:Messagebox. Contents: "There is no such thing as a
moldovan language. The fact that Romanian can and may be written in
another alphabet does not make it a language other the..."
(irreparably POV)
Unlike the Stalinist I am accused of being, I have put Latin alphabet
FIRST in all interface translations, and have banned nobody, and have
not protected anything except the mainpage.
Although I'm not at all happy with all of the people who are accusing
me of being a Stalinist, and at Danutz for calling me a "Japanese
fag", I have not blocked any of them, and do not plan to.
Mark
On 22/06/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com> wrote:
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(a)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:Паӂ
…80;на
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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