[Wikipedia-l] Voting for the closing down of Moldovan Wikipedia

Tue Mar 7 02:56:44 UTC 2006

I have to object to this summary. There are a number of things about
the vote which were unfair. Please see 
http://mo.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Node_ue/Rezultat_alegeri_-_%D0%A0%D0%B5%D0%B7%D1%83%D0%BB%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82_%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B5%D3%82%D0%B5%D1%80%D1%8C

Note especially points 2, 3, 4, and 5.

It seems highly suspect to me that of all voters (the dozens and
dozens of them), only 6 are actually "from Moldova", and even that
cannot be confirmed.

I should note that I, for one, boycotted the vote; other votes were
deleted unfairly.

Mark

On 05/03/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Well...
>
> This is a summary such as we would be happy to see more often ! Thanks
> for it Bogdan !
>
> A question : do you think it should just be "frozen" as is ? (no more
> editable).
> Or do you think mo.wikipedia should redirect to ro.wikipedia ?
>
> ant
>
>
> Bogdan Giusca wrote:
> > The Moldovan Wikipedia community has decided to close down the
> > Wikipedia.
> >
> > A bit of background on this: Moldovan was the name given to the
> > standard Romanian language written with Cyrillic alphabet in the
> > Soviet Union.
> >
> > After the fall of the Soviet Union, the independent Republic of
> > Moldova kept this name for the language, although it asserted to
> > be the same language with Romanian and began to be written once
> > again with Latin script.
> >
> > More on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldovan_language
> >
> > As such, the "Moldovan language" got its own ISO code and a Wikipedia
> > was created for it, although practically it's the same language as
> > Romanian.
> >
> > This Wikipedia remained empty with a redirect to Romanian Wikipedia on
> > the main page, until User:Node_ue was made admin and began writing
> > articles in Cyrillic alphabet.
> >
> > About 95% of these articles were simply transliterations of articles
> > from Romanian Wikipedia, a part of the transliterations being done
> > manually by User:Russ, who can't speak Moldovan/Romanian and the
> > resulting articles were rather wrong.
> >
> > A few articles were actually written by User:Node_ue, but they were
> > mostly stubs and rather badly written (with several grammatical
> > mistakes per sentence).
> >
> > The translation of the interface used a large number of obscure
> > "pure Moldovan and not found in Romanian" words, which however,
> > were not known to actual Moldovans. (examples include
> > "bircieste" = "search" and "halaturi" = "tools")
> >
> > The Voting
> > -----------
> >
> > During the period of 12 January - 12 February, a local voting has been
> > organized to determine whether the community sees the need for the
> > existence of a Moldovan Wikipedia.
> >
> > The vote was opened to confirmed (>25 edits) Moldovan and Romanian
> > editors. While many of the side discussions were held in English
> > and Russian (in addition to Moldovan/Romanian), the vote was
> > restrained to determine the will of actual and potential editors.
> > Some votes were rejected on this basis.
> >
> > Romanian editors were accepted to vote for two reasons:
> >
> > * 95% of the content was simply copied here and transliterated (no
> > translation is necessary) from the Romanian wikipedia. In the oppinion
> > of the moldovan organizers of the referendum, this gives Romanians a
> > right to express their vote.
> >
> > * Romanian and Moldovan are the same language for all day-to-day
> > purposes (cf. [[:en:Moldovan language]]), which makes them potential
> > editors.
> >
> > Two votes were rejected because they were from people who did not
> > speak Romanian/Moldovan and didn't had enough contributions to
> > either wikipedia.
> >
> > There are several strong reasons that compelled us to request the
> > deletion of the Moldovan language Wikipedia. Among them technical,
> > originality, and ethical arguments that we briefly expose here.
> >
> > History
> > -------
> > It was created by Node_ue, who was the first admin.
> >
> > Its deletion has already been discussed. Consensus not reached, for
> > the intentions of Node_ue, and the reaction of Moldovan editors was
> > not clear at the time. At that time, it was already clear that a
> > Latin-script Moldovan wikipedia has no reason to exist (so that even
> > Node_ue agreed to point the latin version to the Romanian wikipedia).
> > It appeared that his only concern is to maintain the cyrillic version
> > of the moldovan wikipedia, which uses the Sovied-imposed script.
> >
> > Following several abusive administration incidents, the adminship has
> > been removed from Node_ue.
> >
> > ==Deletion referendum==
> >
> > Was held between between 12 January and 12 February and it was opened
> > to confirmed (>25 edits) Moldovan and Romanian editors. Romanian
> > editors were accepted here for two reasons:
> >
> > - 95% of the content was simply copied here and transliterated (no
> > translation is necessary). In the oppinion of the moldovan organizers
> > of the referendum, this gives Romanians a right to express their vote.
> >
> > - Romanian and Moldovan are arguably the same language for all
> > day-to-day purposes.
> >
> > The result of the referendum is the following:
> >
> > * No Moldovan editor supports the existence of this wikipedia.
> >
> > * No Romanian editor supports the existence of this wikipedia.
> >
> > * Only two editors have abstained, showing that the overwhelming
> > majority of the users find the existence of the moldovan wikipedia
> > offensive.
> >
> > By Moldovan editor we understand here an editor that is able to
> > contribute originally in the language.
> >
> > Conclusion
> > ------------
> >
> > In conclusion, we, the Moldovan and Romanian wikipedia editors,
> > believe that the current moldovan wikipedia has no reason to exist
> > for:
> >
> > - it has no editor fluent in Moldovan
> >
> > - it brings no information
> >
> > - it is considered offensive by many Moldovans and Romanians.
> >
> > Voting results
> > --------------
> >
> > The following people voted for the closing of the Wikipedia:
> >
> > Moldova
> > ----------
> > #[[User:Pavel|Pavel]]
> > #[[User:Furculita|Furculita]]
> > #[[User:AndersoN|AndersoN]]
> > #[[User:Landroni|Landroni]]
> > #[[User:Argos|Argos]]
> > #[[:ro:Utilizator:TSO1D|TSO1D]]
> >
> > Romania
> > ---------
> > #[[:ro:Utilizator:Out_slide|Out_slide]]
> > #[[User:Bogdan|Bogdan]]
> > #[[User:Romihaitza|Romihaitza]]
> > #[[User:AdiJapan|AdiJapan]]
> > #[[User:Dpotop]]/[[:ro:Utilizator:Dpotop]]
> > #[[User:Ditae|Ditae]]
> > #[[:ro:Utilizator:Vlad|Vlad]]
> > #[[:ro:Utilizator:Orioane]]
> > #[[:ro:Utilizator:Leinarius]]
> > #[[:ro:Utilizator:Wars]]
> > #[[Utilizator:Dacodava|Dacodava]]
> > #[[User:Vasile|Vasile]]
> > #[[:ro:Utilizator:MobyDick]]
> > #[[:ro:Utilizator:Arado]]
> > #[[:ro:Utilizator:Waelsch]]
> > #[[:ro:Utilizator:olario]]
> > #[[:ro:Utilizator:Bunu vio]]
> > #[[:ro:Utilizator:SCriBu]]
> > #[[:ro:Utilizator:Emily]]
> > #[[:ro:Utilizator:R.S.]]
> > #[[:ro:Utilizator:Constantzeanu]]
> > #[[User:Fratele lui Bonaparte, il cunosti?|Fratele lui Bonaparte, il cunosti?]]
> > #[[User:Cosco|Cosco]]
> > #[[:ro:Utilizator:AnaZ|AnaZ]]
> > #[[:ro:Utilizator:Dumiac|Dumiac]]
> > #[[:ro:Utilizator:Evosphere]]
> > #[[:ro:Utilizator:Laurap]]
> > #[[:ro:Utilizator:KlaudiuMihaila]]
> > #[[:ro:Utilizator:Strainu]]
> >
> > With these results, a clear consensus has been reached in the group
> > of those who speak Romanian/Moldovan language.
> >
> > http://mo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Alegeri
>
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--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin