[Foundation-l] Delete "moldovan" Wikipedia

[Mark Williamson]

2009/2/7 Cetateanu Moldovanu <cetateanumd at gmail.com>:
> The point is you did not the yet renamed mo to mo-cyrl as stated here (
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-November/047554.html).

"You"? I hope you realize this is a mailinglist. The majority of
people who are getting these e-mails aren't capable of making such a
change, myself included. This is just an annoyance for most of us.

> I'll send a remind every month, I want to let you know this is important for
> us.

I think we understand that already. However, the developers are very
busy. It's on their radar, they will do it eventually.

> Also I feel responsible for this, since I wrote on my blog that
> "mo.wikipedia becomes mo-cyrl.wikipedia" in November 2008, everyone was
> happy, but It's February now and the change didn't come.

Give it more time. In English there is a saying, "good things come to
those who wait". Patience, please.

>>Mark Williamson
>>the way that most Moldavian-language schools
>>teach Moldavian children to use Cyrillic in that territory
> And if a English school in some country ruled by a army start to teach their
> children to write English in Arabic, would you change en.wikipedia to Arabic
> script too ?

If that were the case, I wouldn't object to having a such a version of
Wikipedia. Why should I? If it's being taught to children.

> You should know that in Transitria there's a Russian army, and
> it's not a democratic country(even if they say so), if you'll try to do any

I don't care about the politics, that is irrelevant here. I can read
Moldovan, and I have read all of your blogs and many of the articles
related to this Wikipedia, and I have seen how people call it "Soviet
Wikipedia" and things like that. However, when considering such
issues, politics are not considered relevant by the Wikimedia
Foundation. What is relevant is whether or not people actually are
using a language, and that is very clear in this situation, although
it is also clear that most of those people have no Internet access.

> protest there here is what happening "In September 2007, the leader of the
> Transnistrian Communist party, Oleg
> Horjan<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oleg_Horjan&action=edit&redlink=1>,

I'm familiar with the situation.

> Also did you know "Despite the fact that Moldovans are around a third of
> Transnistrian population, no ethnic Moldovans are members in the
> Transnistrian council of ministers."

It's true that ethnic Moldavians are underrepresented in the PMR
government, but it's absolutely false to say that they aren't present
at all. There are certainly Moldavian politicians in PMR. Also,
independent polls by Western organizations show very clearly that the
vast majority of Moldavian inhabitants of the area under PMR control
support PMR independence.

> "Transnistrian local authorities insist that public education for ethnic
> Moldovans in their mother tongue is done using the Soviet-originated Moldovan
> Cyrillic alphabet <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldovan_Cyrillic_alphabet>,
> having restricted the usage of the Latin
> script<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_script>
> "

That paragraph isn't exactly NPOV.

> A foreign power cannot decide in witch script our language on mo.wikipedia
> should be.

A foreign power?

> And since in "Transnistrian council of ministers" there is no moldovian
> representant, they have no right to say in witch script moldovans there
> should be write, and I call you to delete mo.wikipedia for ever.

This is somewhat deceptive. There are indeed Latin-script schools in
PMR area, as far as I am aware, although they are small in number.
Demand is not as huge as you imply; most people have more pressing
concerns (such as putting food on the table).

Mark