from_name: Liviu Andronic

body:
Current Moldovan Wikipedia content is not appropriate to the given domain,
and thus it shouldn't be kept
on mo.wiki. And I support the redirect to ro.wiki.

Furthermore, I believe that the results of the vote can be applied to the
Moldovan Wiktionary. It is quite absurd from my point of view, considering
that even in Moldova (and most probably in Transnistria) there is no such
thing as Moldovan explanatory dictionaries (like the *Oxford Dictionary of
English*) and especially no dictionaries translating Moldovan to other
languages (*Moldovan - English* or* Italian - Moldovan*, for example). Well,
there is one such work of art - *The Moldovan - Romanian *dictionary. Thus
mo.wiktionary should as well become a redirect to ro.wiktionary.

On 06/03/06, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
>
> Since most content is (rather badly) transliterated from Romanian
> Wikipedia and the few original articles are short and badly written,
> I wouldn't say that the current content on mo.wiki has any value.
>
> The transliteration between "Romanian" Latin alphabet and "Moldovan"
> Cyrillic alphabet can be done pretty accurate by a script. I have made a
> php script for testing and I think it could be improved to near 100%
> accuracy, but I doubt it would be necessary.
>
> Latin alphabet has been official in the Republic of Moldova for
> the last 17 years and virtually all Moldovans can use it.
> Then, there's the unrecognized territory of Transnistria where
> Moldovan children are still taught in that alphabet, (although it's
> not what they really want, see the 2004 crisis)
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3631436.stm
>
> There has been some discussion on whether Romanian Wikipedia should
> have a Cyrillic alphabet section or that we should have a transliteration
> script integrated, but the truth is that we have yet to find a Moldovan
> willing to contribute using the Cyrillic alphabet.
>
> As such, I think that it would be better to be a redirect.
>
> Sunday, March 5, 2006, 11:38:13 PM, you wrote:
>
> A> Well...
>
> A> This is a summary such as we would be happy to see more often ! Thanks
> A> for it Bogdan !
>
> A> A question : do you think it should just be "frozen" as is ? (no more
> A> editable).
> A> Or do you think mo.wikipedia should redirect to ro.wikipedia ?
>
> A> ant
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Liviu


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Austrian Wikiversity project

body:
Apparently around since February:

http://wikiversity.at/

This means that, with http://de.wikiversity.org/ , there are now two
German-language "Wikiversity" projects. Perhaps they should be asked to
change their name, or we could change ours (*cough* Wikisophia *cough*).
Alternatively, the projects could be merged.

Erik


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikien-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Our Featured Article of the Day Contains Probable
 Copyright Violations

body:
John Lee wrote:

>[[Triumph of the Will]] has a gallery of fair use pictures. The gallery
>itself violates fair use under American law, which requires that the
>subject of the images be critically discussed by the article using those
>images. As if that were not enough, the images are *high-resolution*. It
>has been suggested that the images are public domain, but this has not
>been conclusively proven, and the images are currently marked with a
>copyright of 2005 by the uploader, who also wrote much of the article.
>It would be bad enough if this is any ordinary article, but...
>
>   1. It's a featured article, which means it's the best we have to offer
>   2. It's on the frickin' main page right now
>
>Then again, I suppose this does reflect the condition of how fair use
>and copyright law are blatantly ignored/misunderstood by most
>Wikipedians...for further information, see [[Wikipedia:Fair use
>review]], which has a fuller description of what's going on.
>
Why are we talking about fair use when the film is clearly in the public
domain?  It was released in 1935!!!  1935 + 70 = 2005.

Ec


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] [WikiEn-l] Article surveys, revisited

body:
On 3/6/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> Indeed - which is why we have extensive coverage of Pokemon cards and
> other minor fictional subjects (like it or not).

I would have to argue that there is a difference between a *fictional*
entity, and an allegedly (but unproven) existing entity. No one claims
to have invented donkey punches.

(Not that this changes the result of anything for me, but for others it might).

Steve


from_name: michael_irwin at verizon.net

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>Apparently around since February:
>
>http://wikiversity.at/
>
>This means that, with http://de.wikiversity.org/ , there are now two
>German-language "Wikiversity" projects. Perhaps they should be asked to
>change their name, or we could change ours (*cough* Wikisophia *cough*).
>Alternatively, the projects could be merged.
>
>Erik
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
>
Erik, you free information voter registration spamming volatile
barbarian radical/paleoliberal you,

If this were not a troll then why would the "Foreign Information For
Illegal Alien Students" link
(http://wikiversity.at/MyWiki/index.php?title=Kategorie:Information_for_foreign_students)
on the front page be in English instead of Russian or Ancient Mayan to
take advantage of the soon to be released Lethal Weapon 42 collaboration
between Canadian and Australian conspirators bent on stealing
Hollywood's golden geese plantations?

One of these days I am going to start advocating that others ignore
anonymously owned sites unwilling to even to fake affidavits of non
association with the evil associates who are unduly influencing the
Wikimedia Foundation.  Obviously this will require some participation at
the offending sites ... inevitably leaving dribbles of valuable top
secret proprietary thoughts virally released to the world.

A terrible dillemma ... at times like this I ask myself ... what would
bad copy screecher do at a time like this?  Since he is my arch rival
and an agent of Satan, I have only to flip the bozo bit and proceed in
an appropriately complex direction partially tangential to zero.  He
advises ignoring trolls!  Therefore I do not! Excellent! Vorticity check
confirms viable congruence with personal inclination previously proven
in transparent play pens.  The word is given.

Go! Away! Back! Somewhere! Here! There! Where! When! Sooner! Later! i^2
Origin, Uno, Bi, Hex, Pluto, iq^3, Boom!  Very funny.  Soon. Enough.


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Tony Sidaway on the "Mark Sweep,
	Guanaco et al" application to the Arbitration Committee

body:
Well look at it this way.  If arbcom says this has nothing to do with
userboxes, this will be the third case in five weeks about which it
has had to say that.  And no doubt there will be more, until the
issues can no longer be avoided.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Jan Vanoverpelt

subject: [Wikitech-l] How do i hide users from User List?

body:
>Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com>:
>You can't. Why do you need to hide them? I know the docs say not to,
>but it *might* be safe to do so under certain circumstances...

What are these "certain circumstances"? Why is it not safe do delete users
from the database? Certain user-ids are missing then, but in which
situations is this a problem?

>
>
> Rob Church
>
> On 04/02/06, Jon Savian <worknit at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hello
> >
> > How do i go about hiding users on the User List page?  Since the
> > mediawiki documentation says not to delete suers from the database, i
> > figure hiding them on the webpage is the next best thing.  Even
> > removing the User List page from the special pages would work too.
> >
> > how can i do this?
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Platonides

subject: [Wikitech-l] Changing interface's language by hacking code

body:
"admin Yellowikis" > At
>
> http://www.giswiki.de/
>
> Users can change the interface from Deutsch to English and back.
>
> Anyone on the list from GISWiki?
>
> Paul
>
Well, it seems it's only changing from www.giswiki.de to en.giswiki.de, and
it doesn't translate the pagename (and they exist) so i think it's a bad
hack.


from_name: Matt R

body:
--- Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:

> Well look at it this way.  If arbcom says this has nothing to do with
> userboxes, this will be the third case in five weeks about which it
> has had to say that.  And no doubt there will be more, until the
> issues can no longer be avoided.

Have these ArbCom cases been directly about userboxes being used as networking
tools for POV pushers? Or have they been about people acting disruptively in
their response to this perceived peril (and likewise others in response to the
response)?

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com

___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com


from_name: Death Phoenix

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
Hi folks,

I've made a proposal on how we present the [[Main Page]] on April Fool's Day
to address some concerns we had last year.

You can read the proposal here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:April_Fool%27s_Main_Page

I'd appreciate any feedback that you may have.

Thanks!


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/6/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/6/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 3/7/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Not any slur against you, but I consider this basically lame. Being
> > > willing to post News of the Weird is not the same thing as Not Taking
> > > Ourselves Too Seriously.
> > >
> > > Being willing to act like Uncyclopedia for 24 out of 8765 hours of the
> year is.
> >
> > Kind of have to agree there. If major newspapers allow themselves to
> > print non-factual stories on that day, I think we can forgive
> > ourselves as well. Can we fudge up a hoax, new information on the flat
> > earth theory, etc etc?
>
> Probably not: but what we can do is announce some spurious change to
> Wikipedia policy or governance.
>
> What would REALLY mess with people's heads would be announcing some
> dramatic change in policy like the abolishment of Articles For
> Deletion on April 1, and then sticking with it.

# '''Support'''  ~~~~


from_name: Rob Church

body:
Localisation files tend to retain the English synonyms of things, to
allow non-native speakers to continue to use the wiki. It also doubles
up as useful when we're asked to check a bug or quirk in a wiki using
a language we aren't fluent in. ;-)

Rob Church

On 06/03/06, Tels <nospam-abuse at bloodgate.com> wrote:
> Moin,
>
> On Monday 06 March 2006 18:43, Heinz wrote:
> > Platonides schrieb:
> > > "admin Yellowikis" > At
> > Several variables can't have an equivalent in different language, when
> > using one database. E.g. you must decide how images shall be described:
> > [[Image:XXX]], [[Bild:XXX]] or [[somethingelse:XXX]]?
>
> On a wiki I maintain both "[Bild:" and "[Image:" work perfectly to link to
> the same file, probably even in the same page. What am I missing?
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Tels
>
>
> --
>  Signed on Mon Mar  6 18:50:42 2006 with key 0x93B84C15.
>  Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/
>  PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.
>
>  "A Thaum is the basic unit of magical strength. It has been universally
>  established as the amount of magic needed to create one small white
>  pigeon or three normal-sized billiard balls." -- Terry Pratchett
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/6/06, Death Phoenix <originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I've made a proposal on how we present the [[Main Page]] on April Fool's Day
> to address some concerns we had last year.
>
> You can read the proposal here:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:April_Fool%27s_Main_Page
>
> I'd appreciate any feedback that you may have.

Not any slur against you, but I consider this basically lame. Being
willing to post News of the Weird is not the same thing as Not Taking
Ourselves Too Seriously.

Being willing to act like Uncyclopedia for 24 out of 8765 hours of the year is.


from_name: Heinz

body:
Platonides schrieb:
> "admin Yellowikis" > At
>> http://www.giswiki.de/
>>
>> Users can change the interface from Deutsch to English and back.
>>
>> Anyone on the list from GISWiki?
>>
>> Paul
>>
> Well, it seems it's only changing from www.giswiki.de to en.giswiki.de, and
> it doesn't translate the pagename (and they exist) so i think it's a bad
> hack.

The interface language is hard-coded. there is no translation going on.

In Giswiki the german interface uses the language of the main
installation. the variables are available in the mediawiki-namespace an
can be edited whitin mediawiki
(http://www.giswiki.de/index.php/Spezial:Allmessages)

The english user-interface is a second mediawiki-installation. according
to "highlander" - there can only be one!(language). The english
userinterface gets been read from the language.php file. Changing that
interface is only possible by changing that file.
This is a liitle bit a Disatvantage. I often change things there. E.g.
editable left menues etc...

When you are +/- not intend to change the default setting within the
languageXXX.php-files the ?uselang=XXX can be used. That parameter makes
sense, when a user is not logged in. But it have to be added somehow on
each page.

http://en.giswiki.de/index.php/Benutzer:HeinzJ?uselang=fr

Logged in users can change the language code in their personal settings.

Of cause the pagenames do'nt get translated. Therefor (and for the
translation of the whole content) you can use e.g. google's translation
service. but the result is not that nice.

http://64.233.179.104/translate_c?hl=de&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&langpair=de%7Cen&u=http://www.giswiki.de/index.php/Benutzer:HeinzJ&prev=/language_tools

Several variables can't have an equivalent in different language, when
using one database. E.g. you must decide how images shall be described:
[[Image:XXX]], [[Bild:XXX]] or [[somethingelse:XXX]]?

Thats all, adios,

Heinz


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin Power Abuse

body:
On 3/6/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> >Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> >>It's
> >>inappropriate for them to do so in an infantile
> >>fashion. That applies
> >>to you and to Freakofnurture.
> >
> >
>
> Stefan wrote:
> > Is it what you say official? If it is, then I would
> > like to see this policy. Or perhaps you are Jimbo's
> > right hand and have the authority to say what is, and
> > what is not, appropriate. I think that the most
> > appropriate thing for people to do, is to mind their
> > own business when something is not harming anyone. And
> > if Jimbo is Libertarian, as someone suggested in the
> > past, then he should start acting like one.
>
> If you're asking me to assert an absolute right of infantile stupidity
> and freedom to stalk and harass other users, then you won't get it, sorry.

Whoa, where did the freedom to stalk and harass other users come into
this conversation?

Hello, straw man, burning in the square.


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/6/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/7/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Not any slur against you, but I consider this basically lame. Being
> > willing to post News of the Weird is not the same thing as Not Taking
> > Ourselves Too Seriously.
> >
> > Being willing to act like Uncyclopedia for 24 out of 8765 hours of the year is.
>
> Kind of have to agree there. If major newspapers allow themselves to
> print non-factual stories on that day, I think we can forgive
> ourselves as well. Can we fudge up a hoax, new information on the flat
> earth theory, etc etc?

Probably not: but what we can do is announce some spurious change to
Wikipedia policy or governance.

What would REALLY mess with people's heads would be announcing some
dramatic change in policy like the abolishment of Articles For
Deletion on April 1, and then sticking with it.


from_name: Tels

references:
<bf4479300603011133o54908c3ahd86aa1a955b9eb1e@mail.gmail.com>
	<duhm10$1h4$1@sea.gmane.org> <duhs8o$rdc$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Moin,

On Monday 06 March 2006 18:43, Heinz wrote:
> Platonides schrieb:
> > "admin Yellowikis" > At
> Several variables can't have an equivalent in different language, when
> using one database. E.g. you must decide how images shall be described:
> [[Image:XXX]], [[Bild:XXX]] or [[somethingelse:XXX]]?

On a wiki I maintain both "[Bild:" and "[Image:" work perfectly to link to
the same file, probably even in the same page. What am I missing?

Best wishes,

Tels

--
 Signed on Mon Mar  6 18:50:42 2006 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "A Thaum is the basic unit of magical strength. It has been universally
 established as the amount of magic needed to create one small white
 pigeon or three normal-sized billiard balls." -- Terry Pratchett

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body:
On 3/6/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Stan Shebs wrote:
> > Sean Barrett wrote:
> >>Guy Chapman aka JzG stated for the record:
> >>>Sounds familiar.  For reasons now lost in the mists of time I have
> >>>"donkey punch" on my watchlist; it never ceases to amaze me how so
> >>>little can be said in so many words by so many editors.  For all that,
> >>>it remains a "supposed sex move" which has never been documented by
> >>>any reliable source as having been used.
> >>>Guy (JzG)
> >>>
> >>
> >>If the very existence of the subject of an article is unverifiable, can
> >>the entire article be removed by any editor as unsourced?
> >>
> >
> > It would be a shame to lose [[F-19]].
> >
>
> I have a book which explains the story of F-19 and how it came into
> being in about one paragraph; unfortunately I can't add the reference at
> the moment because I've lent it to someone.
>
Let me guess: you're related to Pierre de Fermat.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitrary Block

body:
On 3/6/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> <silaslynch at aol.com> wrote in message
> news:8C80AEA0A7FB81D-1638-791C at MBLK-M39.sysops.aol.com...
> > My username, user:Please Don't Block, has been banned from editing
> > on wikipedia either for having an inappropriate username or for
> > "vandalism." I encourage any administrator to look into my editing
> > history (which includes numerous excellent edits), I have vandalized
> > no one's page. I left a comment at someone's userpage that offended
> > another user, and therefore I was blocked. However, leaving unpleasant
> > comments is not banned according to wikipedia policy. My username is
> > additionally not offensive. I demand to have the block removed
> > immediately or some explanation as to why I am blocked.
>
> If you were to walk around your local neighbourhood with a sign on your back
> saying "please don't throw stuff at me", how long do you think it would be
> before some wag threw something at you, and how much explanation for their
> actions would you require?
>
> How long do you think it would take you to explain to such authorities as
> you might try to invoke in your favour why you were doing such a silly
> thing?
>
Still wouldn't get people out of criminal culpability if they threw
stuff at the person.


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
Stan Shebs wrote:
> Sean Barrett wrote:
>
>>
>>Guy Chapman aka JzG stated for the record:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Sounds familiar.  For reasons now lost in the mists of time I have
>>>"donkey punch" on my watchlist; it never ceases to amaze me how so
>>>little can be said in so many words by so many editors.  For all that,
>>>it remains a "supposed sex move" which has never been documented by
>>>any reliable source as having been used.
>>>Guy (JzG)
>>>
>>
>>If the very existence of the subject of an article is unverifiable, can
>>the entire article be removed by any editor as unsourced?
>>
>
> It would be a shame to lose [[F-19]].
>

I have a book which explains the story of F-19 and how it came into
being in about one paragraph; unfortunately I can't add the reference at
the moment because I've lent it to someone.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Mark Williamson

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

body:
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
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


body:
Andreas, did you visit the Moldovan Wikipedia? The frontpage actually
says if you want to read content in Latin alphabet, go to the Romanian
WP.

M

On 06/03/06, Andreas Vil?n <andreas.vilen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Since the languages are virtually the same it's probably better for
> the mopedia to redir to the ropedia, so that Moldovan users can reach
> info in a language understood by them, instead of being restricted to
> the crappy Moldovan wp, perhaps without knowledge of the Romanian one.
> >From the summary above I see no reason to keep the mowiki in a locked
> state.
>
> /Andreas
>
> On 3/6/06, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
> > Since most content is (rather badly) transliterated from Romanian
> > Wikipedia and the few original articles are short and badly written,
> > I wouldn't say that the current content on mo.wiki has any value.
> >
> > The transliteration between "Romanian" Latin alphabet and "Moldovan"
> > Cyrillic alphabet can be done pretty accurate by a script. I have made a
> > php script for testing and I think it could be improved to near 100%
> > accuracy, but I doubt it would be necessary.
> >
> > Latin alphabet has been official in the Republic of Moldova for
> > the last 17 years and virtually all Moldovans can use it.
> > Then, there's the unrecognized territory of Transnistria where
> > Moldovan children are still taught in that alphabet, (although it's
> > not what they really want, see the 2004 crisis)
> >
> > http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3631436.stm
> >
> > There has been some discussion on whether Romanian Wikipedia should
> > have a Cyrillic alphabet section or that we should have a transliteration
> > script integrated, but the truth is that we have yet to find a Moldovan
> > willing to contribute using the Cyrillic alphabet.
> >
> > As such, I think that it would be better to be a redirect.
> >
> > Sunday, March 5, 2006, 11:38:13 PM, you wrote:
> >
> > A> Well...
> >
> > A> This is a summary such as we would be happy to see more often ! Thanks
> > A> for it Bogdan !
> >
> > A> A question : do you think it should just be "frozen" as is ? (no more
> > A> editable).
> > A> Or do you think mo.wikipedia should redirect to ro.wikipedia ?
> >
> > A> ant
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


body:
> The Moldovan Wikipedia community has decided to close down the
> Wikipedia.

Bogdan's definition of "community" is very liberal here. 90% of these
people showed up to vote, and made 0 edits other than that to the
Moldovan WP. I would hardly consider them members of the "community".

> 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.

What you _forgot_ to mention is that in Transnistria, Cyrillic is
still official for the language. Thousands of schoolchildren each year
go to school with textbooks in Cyrillic Moldovan.

> 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.

Actually, it happened exactly the other way around. I wrote hundreds
of articles BEFORE I was made admin.

> 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.

How do you know whether or not Russ can speak Moldovan? How do you
know the results are wrong? You can't write Cyrillic with good
spelling, you're Romanian.

> A few articles were a
ctually written by User:Node_ue, but they were
> mostly stubs and rather badly written (with several grammatical
> mistakes per sentence).

Other users also contributed original articles. You can't really judge
the quality of the articles unless you know which ones they were,
which you don't.

> 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")

Both words appear in Romanian dictionaries. (hint: "^i" is written
"^a" in Romania)

> 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.

You use the passive, and again you use the word "community" in an
extremely liberal sense. There is much more to the story, which you
choose to exclude because it reflects badly upon your cause.

> 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.

Rejected on this basis? On whose authority? And given what evidence?

> * 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.

This is an outright lie -- there was only one organiser of the
referendum. I would not be surprised if he is just Bonaparte using a
proxy, too.

> * Romanian and Moldovan are the same language for all day-to-day
> purposes (cf. [[:en:Moldovan language]]), which makes them potential
> editors.

Yes, well then, if they are potential editors, why can't they have
registered and made edits already? If they're the same language, why
can't they have contributions? In my opinion, just because they could
potentially edit someday, doesn't mean they should be able to vote
_today_.

> Two votes were rejected because they were from people who did not
> speak Romanian/Moldovan and didn't had enough contributions to
> either wikipedia.

How do you know what they spoke?

> 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.

That's an outright lie. It was "created" by a developer long before I
even knew it existed.

> 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.

No, it was clear. The first vote on the future of that Wikipedia,
votes were in favour of keeping it. And THAT time, not any Romanian
guys were allowed to vote.

> Following several abusive administration incidents, the adminship has
> been removed from Node_ue.

"Several abusive administration incidents" is another lie. There is
more to it than Dpotop's description. My "abuses" were much more minor
than yours -- you allowed numerous people to vandalise pages with not
even a warning, and you used your powers to enforce your own POV. I
simply blocked a user who was moving pages recklessly.

> 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

Another lie.

> - it brings no information

Oh? How so? There are hundreds of informative pages, in both Cyrillic and Latin.

> - it is considered offensive by many Moldovans and Romanians.

Well, the Kurdish Wikipedia offends many Turks, but it still exists.

> With these results, a clear consensus has been reached in the group
> of those who speak Romanian/Moldovan language.

Hah.

Mark


body:
You don't seem to get it. There is Cyrillic content there that does
not exist at rowiki. Why does it matter what it's called? Romanian
with cyrillic letters, Moldovan, etc...

"As I understood it" demonstrates that you haven't actually
investigated at all, which makes me wonder why you speak about the
issue at all.

Mark

On 06/03/06, Andreas Vil?n <andreas.vilen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Nope I didn't. But I don't see what good a separate language edition
> is if the difference is just the characters. In that case, it would be
> better to create a "romanian with cyrillic letters" pedia. As I've
> understood it, mowiki contains virtually nothing worth saving that
> isn't already at rowiki. Most moldavian people probably earn more
> knowledge from rowiki than mowiki anyway.
>
> /Andreas
>
> On 3/7/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Andreas, did you visit the Moldovan Wikipedia? The frontpage actually
> > says if you want to read content in Latin alphabet, go to the Romanian
> > WP.
> >
> > M
> >
> > On 06/03/06, Andreas Vil?n <andreas.vilen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Since the languages are virtually the same it's probably better for
> > > the mopedia to redir to the ropedia, so that Moldovan users can reach
> > > info in a language understood by them, instead of being restricted to
> > > the crappy Moldovan wp, perhaps without knowledge of the Romanian one.
> > > >From the summary above I see no reason to keep the mowiki in a locked
> > > state.
> > >
> > > /Andreas
> > >
> > > On 3/6/06, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
> > > > Since most content is (rather badly) transliterated from Romanian
> > > > Wikipedia and the few original articles are short and badly written,
> > > > I wouldn't say that the current content on mo.wiki has any value.
> > > >
> > > > The transliteration between "Romanian" Latin alphabet and "Moldovan"
> > > > Cyrillic alphabet can be done pretty accurate by a script. I have made a
> > > > php script for testing and I think it could be improved to near 100%
> > > > accuracy, but I doubt it would be necessary.
> > > >
> > > > Latin alphabet has been official in the Republic of Moldova for
> > > > the last 17 years and virtually all Moldovans can use it.
> > > > Then, there's the unrecognized territory of Transnistria where
> > > > Moldovan children are still taught in that alphabet, (although it's
> > > > not what they really want, see the 2004 crisis)
> > > >
> > > > http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3631436.stm
> > > >
> > > > There has been some discussion on whether Romanian Wikipedia should
> > > > have a Cyrillic alphabet section or that we should have a transliteration
> > > > script integrated, but the truth is that we have yet to find a Moldovan
> > > > willing to contribute using the Cyrillic alphabet.
> > > >
> > > > As such, I think that it would be better to be a redirect.
> > > >
> > > > Sunday, March 5, 2006, 11:38:13 PM, you wrote:
> > > >
> > > > A> Well...
> > > >
> > > > A> This is a summary such as we would be happy to see more often ! Thanks
> > > > A> for it Bogdan !
> > > >
> > > > A> A question : do you think it should just be "frozen" as is ? (no more
> > > > A> editable).
> > > > A> Or do you think mo.wikipedia should redirect to ro.wikipedia ?
> > > >
> > > > A> ant
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


from_name: Sean Barrett

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Ray Saintonge stated for the record:

> Why are we talking about fair use when the film is clearly in the public
> domain?  It was released in 1935!!!  1935 + 70 = 2005.

Because it doesn't enter the public domain until 70 AFTER THE DEATH OF
THE AUTHOR.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | No, Grasshopper! Carry hibachi by handles!
 sean at epoptic.org |
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFEDQuWMAt1wyd9d+URAhDfAJ48H+dPISbMbvgMmyWEeg8pyHkz0wCeMb1T
ClVsgGaYRLbgwBm3USnFdyg=
=GrID
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: geni

body:
On 3/6/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/6/06, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > --- Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I've decided to recuse as a clerk in this one, mostly in order to say
> > > this: this case is about userboxes.
> >
> > I had a quick look at it, and to me it would seem to be more a case about
> > admins revert-warring using rollback; userboxes are just the backdrop.
>
> On the other hand, many (if not most) recent incidents of
> wheel-warring (and admin edit-warring in general) have been centered
> around userboxes.  They can hardly be considered just a backdrop at
> this point.
>
> Kirill Lokshin

They are just a conveient battle ground for a number of other issues
that are comeing to a head (generational, level of respect for policy
and community consensus and the like).

--
geni


from_name: Ben Lowe

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
I think we could get [[Donkey punch]] up to FA status by April Fool's,
especially now that we have that reputable, published source.

Ben

On 3/6/06, NSLE (Wikipedia) <nsle.wikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Good point. Damn. Can't we put flaccidpenises on the mainpage? :P
>
> --NSLE
>
> On 3/7/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 3/7/06, NSLE (Wikipedia) <nsle.wikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Allow political userboxen? *runs*
> > > --NSLE
> >
> > Don't need a policy change for that. Created, speeded then undeleted
> > through DR and you have a political userbox.
> >
> > --
> > geni
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin Power Abuse

body:
On 3/6/06, STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA <wizzard_bane at yahoo.com> wrote:
> No, it doesn't. You just mind your own business.
> Whether you like a nickname or not, should not be an
> issue. Corny, annoying, and childish nicknames should
> be allowed.

I don't think "you just mind your own business while just I urinate in
this public square" is a strategy that usually works very well. YMMV.

Steve


from_name: SJ

body:
It occurs to me that BJAODN will one day eclipse the encyclopedia
in size and popularity.

On Mon, 6 Mar 2006, michael_irwin at verizon.net wrote:
>
> Erik, you free information voter registration spamming volatile
> barbarian radical/paleoliberal you,
>
> If this were not a troll then why would the "Foreign Information For
> Illegal Alien Students" link
> (http://wikiversity.at/MyWiki/index.php?title=Kategorie:Information_for_foreign_students)
> on the front page be in English instead of Russian or Ancient Mayan to
> take advantage of the soon to be released Lethal Weapon 42 collaboration
> between Canadian and Australian conspirators bent on stealing
> Hollywood's golden geese plantations?
>
> One of these days I am going to start advocating that others ignore
> anonymously owned sites unwilling to even to fake affidavits of non
> association with the evil associates who are unduly influencing the
> Wikimedia Foundation.  Obviously this will require some participation at
> the offending sites ... inevitably leaving dribbles of valuable top
> secret proprietary thoughts virally released to the world.
>
> A terrible dillemma ... at times like this I ask myself ... what would
> bad copy screecher do at a time like this?  Since he is my arch rival
> and an agent of Satan, I have only to flip the bozo bit and proceed in
> an appropriately complex direction partially tangential to zero.  He
> advises ignoring trolls!  Therefore I do not! Excellent! Vorticity check
> confirms viable congruence with personal inclination previously proven
> in transparent play pens.  The word is given.
>
> Go! Away! Back! Somewhere! Here! There! Where! When! Sooner! Later! i^2
> Origin, Uno, Bi, Hex, Pluto, iq^3, Boom!  Very funny.  Soon. Enough.
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Cormac Lawler

body:
On 3/6/06, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> Apparently around since February:
>
> http://wikiversity.at/
>
> This means that, with http://de.wikiversity.org/ , there are now two
> German-language "Wikiversity" projects. Perhaps they should be asked to
> change their name, or we could change ours (*cough* Wikisophia *cough*).
> Alternatively, the projects could be merged.
>
> Erik

Thanks Erik,

well, my preference would be to merge efforts if possible, but having
looked through their "all pages" -
http://wikiversity.at/MyWiki/index.php?title=Spezial:Allpages - it
seems that this site is specifically devoted to Universities in
Austria (I presume this is what "UniPortal" means), and so it seems to
overlap more with the University Node Wikicity -
http://universitywikinodewiki.wikicities.com/wiki/Main_Page . I had
thought that it was pretty big, but the allpages overstates it
somewhat - most of those pages are yet to be created (though they
aren't red links, hmmm).

On names - I haven't seen much enthusiasm for any name other than
"Wikiversity" - for whatever reason. I understand the concern about
limiting the scope of the project to "university-like" activity - but
we should simply make it clear that we are about *all* levels of
education (as this is pretty much the consensus). Otherwise, we could
rehash the discussion on the name here or on-wiki, but I'm not
convinced it'll be very productive.

(If you're sensing urgency here, it's because there is - I'm currently
trying to give the proposal the final push - more on which later.)

Cormac

> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: NSLE (Wikipedia)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Blocking for inappropriate usernames

body:
And I remember getting stick for blocking a [[User:SuperButchBitch]]. We
definitely need to clarify this.

-NSLE

On 3/6/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> XaosFluX wrote:
>
> > This policy may need some review, but as an admin I've
> > {{usernameblock}}'ed on sight new accounts such as "Another wiki
> > cheese-ology vandal".  Users declaring their intenet to vandalize the
> > project in their username should be clear enough.
>
> I don't see any problem with it when the intent is that obvious. There
> was some controversy a while back about user names that announced
> themselves to be "trolls", since that may suggest a variety of things
> and even if people can agree that you're talking about an [[internet
> troll]], they may not agree on what behavior is implied and whether it
> warrants blocking. However, as I'm quite certain that nobody from a
> Germanic tribe of Late Antiquity will be editing Wikipedia, anyone
> announcing themselves as a vandal can and should be blocked.
>
> --Michael Snow
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Gareth Hughes ([[User:Garzo]])

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
That looks like a great suggestion. There has been some silliness in
the past over April Fool's, so I like the idea of 100% true facts on
the Main Page, just that they are as unbelievable as they can be
presented to be. Good idea!

Gareth.

On 06/03/06, Death Phoenix <originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I've made a proposal on how we present the [[Main Page]] on April Fool's Day
> to address some concerns we had last year.
>
> You can read the proposal here:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:April_Fool%27s_Main_Page
>
> I'd appreciate any feedback that you may have.
>
> Thanks!
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Will "Sceptre" Noble

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
I remember in IRC around Christmas where one of the users said he'd move the
main page to "Main Page on Wheels!".

On 3/6/06, Gareth Hughes ([[User:Garzo]]) <garzohugo+wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> That looks like a great suggestion. There has been some silliness in
> the past over April Fool's, so I like the idea of 100% true facts on
> the Main Page, just that they are as unbelievable as they can be
> presented to be. Good idea!
>
> Gareth.
>
> On 06/03/06, Death Phoenix <originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > I've made a proposal on how we present the [[Main Page]] on April Fool's
> Day
> > to address some concerns we had last year.
> >
> > You can read the proposal here:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:April_Fool%27s_Main_Page
> >
> > I'd appreciate any feedback that you may have.
> >
> > Thanks!
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
-Sceptre
http://tintower.co.uk


from_name: Snowspinner

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On Mar 6, 2006, at 6:43 PM, The Cunctator wrote:
>
> Not any slur against you, but I consider this basically lame. Being
> willing to post News of the Weird is not the same thing as Not Taking
> Ourselves Too Seriously.
>
> Being willing to act like Uncyclopedia for 24 out of 8765 hours of
> the year is.

The problem with April Fool's Day is and has always been that on a
project of this size you A) Get lots of unfunny, and B) Get a
sufficient volume of unfunny that the site stops being usable. c.f.
the massive banners people were dropping into the mediawiki namespace
last year.

I would personally say the main page is good, and that we should also
restrict other hijinks to the Wikipedia namespace.

And ban them from the template namespace.

-Phil


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin Power Abuse

body:
On 3/6/06, STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA <wizzard_bane at yahoo.com> wrote:
> got involved and messaged that admin, etc. Somewhere
> on the way, you guys started talking about userpages.
> I don't know how it's possible to change the topic
> like that and I don't read all messages, but anyway;
<snip>
> no biggie, tho. I just wish people would stay on topic
> all the time.

Are you a troll? Just curious.

Steve


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Verifiability - Case Study II (charles matthews) and
	Google test

body:
On 3/5/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/5/06, guru brahma <wikibra at yahoo.co.in> wrote:
> >   The message below has set me thinking about an article I had nominated for deletion sometime back, [[Taran Adarsh]]. He is a film critic, widely loved and hated in the online community and his reviews are picked up and amplified by several blogs. He gets 35,000 hits on google but none of the first 100 hits has anything except his name - some of them have opinions about him but none of them have any biographical data. The afd closed as no consensus to delete, because people say that the no. of hits implies notability. Even if that is taken as a measure of notability, the article does not contain anything related to the biographical data of the person as no such information appears to be available easily and the person remains non-verifiable. Any thoughts on how to deal with such issues??
>
> Perhaps, like with Brian Peppers, the biographical information is not
> relevant to the article? If his reviews are widely disseminated, is
> discussion of the reviews and opinions of the person enough? We don't
> have a lot of biographical details on Shakespeare, or probably lots of
> other famous historical figures, but that's not a problem, if their
> contributions are well known and notable.
>
Yeah, I don't understand the logic here, that someone would nominate
for deletion an entry on a person they themselves describe as "widely
loved and hated in the online community and his reviews are picked up
and amplified by several blogs."


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-03-07

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

Running test BUG 361: URL within URL, not bracketed... FAILED!
Running test External links: invalid character... FAILED!
Running test Bug 2702: Mismatched <i> and <a> tags are invalid... FAILED!
Running test A table with no data.... FAILED!
Running test A table with nothing but a caption... FAILED!
Running test Link containing "#<" and "#>" % as a hex sequences... FAILED!
Running test Template with thumb image (wiht link in description)... FAILED!
Running test Link to image page... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A ISBN with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A <math> with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 561: {{/Subpage}}... FAILED!
Running test Simple category... FAILED!
Running test Basic section headings... FAILED!
Running test Section headings with TOC... FAILED!
Running test Handling of sections up to level 6 and beyond... FAILED!
Running test Resolving duplicate section names... FAILED!
Running test Template with sections, __NOTOC__... FAILED!
Running test Link inside a section heading... FAILED!
Running test Media link with nasty text... FAILED!
Running test Bug 2095: link with pipe and three closing brackets... FAILED!
Running test Parser hook: static parser hook inside a comment... FAILED!
Running test Sanitizer: Validating the contents of the id attribute (bug 4515)... FAILED!

Passed 266 of 288 tests (92.36%) FAILED!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin Power Abuse

body:
On 3/6/06, STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA <wizzard_bane at yahoo.com> wrote:
> If you are asking whether I like to provoke people and
> arguments, then yes, sometimes I like to do that, but
> not without purpose. Is that wrong?

Well, I don't do moral decisions, but you may not be getting many more
replies from me or others :)

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/7/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> Not any slur against you, but I consider this basically lame. Being
> willing to post News of the Weird is not the same thing as Not Taking
> Ourselves Too Seriously.
>
> Being willing to act like Uncyclopedia for 24 out of 8765 hours of the year is.

Kind of have to agree there. If major newspapers allow themselves to
print non-factual stories on that day, I think we can forgive
ourselves as well. Can we fudge up a hoax, new information on the flat
earth theory, etc etc?

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/6/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/7/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Not any slur against you, but I consider this basically lame. Being
> > willing to post News of the Weird is not the same thing as Not Taking
> > Ourselves Too Seriously.
> >
> > Being willing to act like Uncyclopedia for 24 out of 8765 hours of the year is.
>
> Kind of have to agree there. If major newspapers allow themselves to
> print non-factual stories on that day, I think we can forgive
> ourselves as well. Can we fudge up a hoax, new information on the flat
> earth theory, etc etc?
>
> Steve

No. Dare to be different.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/6/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> What would REALLY mess with people's heads would be announcing some
> dramatic change in policy like the abolishment of Articles For
> Deletion on April 1, and then sticking with it.

Done by google.

--
geni


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Our Featured Article of the Day Contains Probable
	Copyright Violations

body:
On 3/7/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> John Lee wrote:
>
> >[[Triumph of the Will]] has a gallery of fair use pictures. The gallery
> >itself violates fair use under American law, which requires that the
> >subject of the images be critically discussed by the article using those
> >images. As if that were not enough, the images are *high-resolution*. It
> >has been suggested that the images are public domain, but this has not
> >been conclusively proven, and the images are currently marked with a
> >copyright of 2005 by the uploader, who also wrote much of the article.
> >It would be bad enough if this is any ordinary article, but...
> >
> >   1. It's a featured article, which means it's the best we have to offer
> >   2. It's on the frickin' main page right now
> >
> >Then again, I suppose this does reflect the condition of how fair use
> >and copyright law are blatantly ignored/misunderstood by most
> >Wikipedians...for further information, see [[Wikipedia:Fair use
> >review]], which has a fuller description of what's going on.
> >
> Why are we talking about fair use when the film is clearly in the public
> domain?  It was released in 1935!!!  1935 + 70 = 2005.
>
> Ec

Wrong country. Leni Riefenstahl died in 2003.

Further details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)&diff=42060761&oldid=41976931
--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/7/06, NSLE (Wikipedia) <nsle.wikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> Allow political userboxen? *runs*
> --NSLE

Don't need a policy change for that. Created, speeded then undeleted
through DR and you have a political userbox.

--
geni


from_name: Jacky PB

body:
And Mark Williamson starts again to spread his FUD, which is the only way he can keep his creation online.

 Dear Craig, the vote results we presented are split into two tabs: Moldovans and Romanians. Therefore, you can forget about the Romanians. I don know what the problem of Mark is, but:
 1. He is not able to contribute correctly in Moldovan. All original text by him is full of grammar and spelling mistakes. And you must understand that this is a disgrace for a language that has a rather complex grammar, close to the Latin one.
 2. The correct articles added by Mark have been transliterated from ro.wiki. This guy is not even interested in learning correct moldovan. All he wants is to make a political statement (which is not the purpose of wikipedia).
 3. Mark is alone in claiming that he speaks Moldovan ***and*** wants a mo.wiki. All other users that declare themselves Moldovan (and prove it by writing correctly) believe that the current mo.wiki is at best weird and/or a very bad joke. And note that Moldovans are the actual audience Mark claims to care for.
 4. As you say, the creation and development of mo.wiki should be the work of Moldovans themselves. The problem being that no Moldovan editor wants it. I therefore suggest we close it until actual Moldovan contributors want to create and develop it.

 Yours, [[:en:Dpotop]]

---------------------------------
Yahoo! Mail
Bring photos to life! New PhotoMail  makes sharing a breeze.


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject:
[Foundation-l] Results of second (German) Wikipedia usability
	test online

body:
On 3/7/06, Tim 'avatar' Bartel <wikipedia at computerkultur.org> wrote:
> Hi Wikipedians,
>
> please note, that you can find first results of the second usability
> test ("Editing Information in the German Wikipedia") from
> OpenUsability.org here:
> http://openusability.org/download.php/89/germanwikipedia_usabilitytest_edit.pdf
>
> This isn't only interesting for Germans.

I think it's interesting that it mentions the "Don't know" license trap.

I created the initial version of this on enwiki. It was actually
intended to be somewhat unhelpful to the uploader: The problem we were
having is that uploaders were selecting licenses at random because
they did not take the time to read the instruction. This was creating
a huge problem of incorrectly tagged images which was very difficult
to clean up.

The initial version on enwiki
(http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Don%27t_know&oldid=23465403)
intentionally underplayed the importance of the template. It does not
feature the stop hand or alert icons which most warning templates
have, and it did not have the deletion warning in bold.

The idea was the users who are just care about getting something
uploaded will be satisfied, and the image will survive only with the
help of more established users. We don't want new users changing the
notice, even if this means that some users who could have selected the
right license will not do so... it's better to have 5 more images
flagged for review than 1 incorrectly flagged as free licensed.

I see on english wiki that someone has bolded the text mentioning
deletion, I've changed that.


from_name: Jesse W

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On Mar 7, 2006, at 2:27 AM, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> I'm sure we can come up with a hilarious spoof on userboxes if we try.
> Or not.
Considering what I've seen of userboxes - It's been done.  Multiple
times.  Sigh.

Jesse Weinstein


body:
It seems that I need to justify my participation in this discussion.
 I have two arguments for it:
 1. Fluency in Moldovan.  By any linguistic standards I speak  the Moldovan
 dialect of Romanian (with the accent). And I do it correctly. This fact alone
 should allow me to participate in the vote and discussions. I can even read and write using cyrillic script. Correctly. :)
 2.  I have relatives in the Republic of Moldova, and I know what they have
 no linguistic identity problems. Just take a look in the list of Moldovan
 editors: regardless of official politics (aimed at preserving good relations
 with Russia), not one is for a moldovan wikipedia.
 3. My participation into this discussion was subject to one strong rule: I have never entered in conflict with a Moldovan editor, for I believe they have the moral authority to do what they want with mo.wiki. What I have done was in line with their requirements.

 Yours, [[:en:Dpotop]]

---------------------------------
Yahoo! Mail
Bring photos to life! New PhotoMail  makes sharing a breeze.


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

body:
Besides that, the major players in the fight against the Moldovan
Wikipedia are and have always been Romanians:

Dpotop
Bonaparte (banned on the English Wikipedia for sockpuppetry)
Bogdangiusca

In fact, Bogdangiusca is now an admin, and he has abused his admin
powers to promote his views re: mo.wiki's existance.

Dpotop is the major author of the e-mail Bogdangiusca sent.

Bonaparte is responsible for vandalism and user harassment on mowiki.

Mark

On 07/03/06, Craig Franklin <craig at halo-17.net> wrote:
> I hate to say, but I find myself agreeing with Node about this.  It seems
> absurd to me that Romanians should be allowed to participate in the vote, to
> the exclusion of all others.  It would be similar to having a vote on
> closing the Scots wikipedia, where only English and Scots voters were
> permitted to voice an opinion.
>
> Note that I'm not disputing the facts that "Moldovian" and "Romanian" are
> essentially the same language, or the assertation that all the content on
> mo.wiki is rubbish, but it seems grossly unfair to me to gerrymander the
> electorate in such a way as to exclude many people who might have a
> legitimate point of view.
>
> Regards,
> Craig Franklin
> [en:User:Lankiveil]
>
> -------------------
> Craig Franklin
> PO Box 764
> Ashgrove, Q, 4060
> Australia
> http://www.halo-17.net - Australia's Favourite Source of Indie Music, Art,
> and Culture.
>
> Scr?obh Mark Williamson:
>
> >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%D
> 0%B7%D1%83%D0%BB%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82_%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B5%D3%82%D0%B5%D1%80%D1%8
> C
>
> >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.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] Glad we are not in New Jersey

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

>Hoi,
>I found this http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2006/Bills/A1500/1327_I1.HTM
>My question, if this happened in Florida, would we indeed insist on
>knowing the names of our users ? Or would we say that our projects are
>not a forum?
>
>Thanks,
>   GerardM
>
>
I have no idea how they are going to enforce this law, as you are not
even legally required to put correct addresses into contact information
for top-level domain name registration.  Indeed, I've seen it suggested
on some forums that if you register a domain name that you should *not*
put in correct information, and I've seen addresses like "Somewhere in
the middle of the Pacific Ocean" or "Utopia Plantia, Mars" as the
address for the person listed as owning a domain regsitration.  The
reason for putting incorrect information is to avoid spamming (including
junk snail mail) or having some terrorist drop a bomb at your home address.

If the domain registration doesn't have to be correct, how can you
require user information to be correct?  Or on what grounds can you
supeona information?  Send a sheriff to Mars to deliver a summons?
 There may be a paper trail with the domain registration agency in terms
of who actually paid for the domain, but that would take some serious
digging and require a search warrent as well.

None of this even addresses the legal knot of trying to see exactly what
servers would be under New Jersey law.  Even if this were U.S. Federal
law instead, the legal issues would be a mess just to see if a server
could even qualify for enforcement of this law.

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: Andreas Vilén

body:
Nope I didn't. But I don't see what good a separate language edition
is if the difference is just the characters. In that case, it would be
better to create a "romanian with cyrillic letters" pedia. As I've
understood it, mowiki contains virtually nothing worth saving that
isn't already at rowiki. Most moldavian people probably earn more
knowledge from rowiki than mowiki anyway.

/Andreas

On 3/7/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Andreas, did you visit the Moldovan Wikipedia? The frontpage actually
> says if you want to read content in Latin alphabet, go to the Romanian
> WP.
>
> M
>
> On 06/03/06, Andreas Vil?n <andreas.vilen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Since the languages are virtually the same it's probably better for
> > the mopedia to redir to the ropedia, so that Moldovan users can reach
> > info in a language understood by them, instead of being restricted to
> > the crappy Moldovan wp, perhaps without knowledge of the Romanian one.
> > >From the summary above I see no reason to keep the mowiki in a locked
> > state.
> >
> > /Andreas
> >
> > On 3/6/06, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
> > > Since most content is (rather badly) transliterated from Romanian
> > > Wikipedia and the few original articles are short and badly written,
> > > I wouldn't say that the current content on mo.wiki has any value.
> > >
> > > The transliteration between "Romanian" Latin alphabet and "Moldovan"
> > > Cyrillic alphabet can be done pretty accurate by a script. I have made a
> > > php script for testing and I think it could be improved to near 100%
> > > accuracy, but I doubt it would be necessary.
> > >
> > > Latin alphabet has been official in the Republic of Moldova for
> > > the last 17 years and virtually all Moldovans can use it.
> > > Then, there's the unrecognized territory of Transnistria where
> > > Moldovan children are still taught in that alphabet, (although it's
> > > not what they really want, see the 2004 crisis)
> > >
> > > http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3631436.stm
> > >
> > > There has been some discussion on whether Romanian Wikipedia should
> > > have a Cyrillic alphabet section or that we should have a transliteration
> > > script integrated, but the truth is that we have yet to find a Moldovan
> > > willing to contribute using the Cyrillic alphabet.
> > >
> > > As such, I think that it would be better to be a redirect.
> > >
> > > Sunday, March 5, 2006, 11:38:13 PM, you wrote:
> > >
> > > A> Well...
> > >
> > > A> This is a summary such as we would be happy to see more often ! Thanks
> > > A> for it Bogdan !
> > >
> > > A> A question : do you think it should just be "frozen" as is ? (no more
> > > A> editable).
> > > A> Or do you think mo.wikipedia should redirect to ro.wikipedia ?
> > >
> > > A> ant
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
> --
> "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
>  1. He is not able to contribute correctly in Moldovan. All original text by him is full of grammar and spelling mistakes. And you must understand that this is a disgrace for a language that has a rather complex grammar, close to the Latin one.

I'm not sure how that is relevant to the issue at hand, and I also
have a hard time believing you've read all of my original articles.

To state that Moldovan grammar is close to Latin is a load of bull --
Moldovan may have a case system, but there are less cases than in
Latin. Verbs also are much simpler than Latin. Overall it's somewhere
between French and Latin as far as grammatical complexity goes.

>  2. The correct articles added by Mark have been transliterated from ro.wiki. This guy is not even interested in learning correct moldovan. All he wants is to make a political statement (which is not the purpose of wikipedia).

You think I want to make a political statement, you are wrong. My
concern is equitable distribution of information. If I was really
wanting to make a political statement, I would inject POV into
articles at mowiki.

>  3. Mark is alone in claiming that he speaks Moldovan ***and*** wants a mo.wiki. All other users that declare themselves Moldovan (and prove it by writing correctly) believe that the current mo.wiki is at best weird and/or a very bad joke. And note that Moldovans are the actual audience Mark claims to care for.

This is quite inaccurate. A few Moldovan users have surfaced. Some
have been against mowiki, some have been ambivalent, and some have
supported it. I don't claim to "care for" a Moldovan audience. What I
care for is the facts. People really do use Cyrillic. It really is
used for teaching schoolchildren.

>  4. As you say, the creation and development of mo.wiki should be the work of Moldovans themselves. The problem being that no Moldovan editor wants it. I therefore suggest we close it until actual Moldovan contributors want to create and develop it.

That's entirely untrue -- an outright lie.

Mark


body:
> It seems that I need to justify my participation in this discussion.
>  I have two arguments for it:
>  1. Fluency in Moldovan.  By any linguistic standards I speak  the Moldovan
>  dialect of Romanian (with the accent). And I do it correctly. This fact alone
>  should allow me to participate in the vote and discussions. I can even read and write using cyrillic script. Correctly. :)

Somehow I doubt you are able to read and write "correctly" in Cyrillic.

>  2.  I have relatives in the Republic of Moldova, and I know what they have
>  no linguistic identity problems. Just take a look in the list of Moldovan
>  editors: regardless of official politics (aimed at preserving good relations
>  with Russia), not one is for a moldovan wikipedia.

Five or six "Moldovan editors" voted. There is no proof that they are
all separate people or that they are all even Moldovans. Some of them
barely have 25 edits, or registered within the duration of the vote.
Anyhow, even if they were all confirmable as real people with hundreds
of edits, 6 editors voting for the deletion of a Wikipedia are hardly
enough for it to be a for-sure thing.

>  3. My participation into this discussion was subject to one strong rule: I have never entered in conflict with a Moldovan editor, for I believe they have the moral authority to do what they want with mo.wiki. What I have done was in line with their requirements.

That's because you've downright never communicated with a Moldovan
editor. They are elusive creatures. The only ones who make more than
the occasional appearance aren't living in Moldova, examples being
Oleg Alexandrov (California) and Liviu Andronic (Toulouse). Then there
is Serhio Dudnic (who is in Chisinau), but he didn't want to get
involved and all he said is that although he claims to speak Romanian,
he believes everybody can choose their own name (more or less).

All other Moldovan editors showed up and then left within a matter of
days; some made only one edit.

There are a couple of exceptions. But including all of the Moldovan
editors, there are a few who do support a Moldovan-Cyrillic WP, and a
few who are ambivalent.

Mark


body:
The difference is that people still use Cyrillic for Moldovan, and it
is used to teach schoolchildren.

Runes, on the other hand...

Mark

On 07/03/06, Servien Ilaino <servien at gmail.com> wrote:
> Lets create an English, Dutch and German Wikipedia in runes... seems just as
> weird.
>
> Serv
>
>
> 2006/3/7, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
> >
> > >  1. He is not able to contribute correctly in Moldovan. All original
> > text by him is full of grammar and spelling mistakes. And you must
> > understand that this is a disgrace for a language that has a rather complex
> > grammar, close to the Latin one.
> >
> > I'm not sure how that is relevant to the issue at hand, and I also
> > have a hard time believing you've read all of my original articles.
> >
> > To state that Moldovan grammar is close to Latin is a load of bull --
> > Moldovan may have a case system, but there are less cases than in
> > Latin. Verbs also are much simpler than Latin. Overall it's somewhere
> > between French and Latin as far as grammatical complexity goes.
> >
> > >  2. The correct articles added by Mark have been transliterated from
> > ro.wiki. This guy is not even interested in learning correct moldovan. All
> > he wants is to make a political statement (which is not the purpose of
> > wikipedia).
> >
> > You think I want to make a political statement, you are wrong. My
> > concern is equitable distribution of information. If I was really
> > wanting to make a political statement, I would inject POV into
> > articles at mowiki.
> >
> > >  3. Mark is alone in claiming that he speaks Moldovan ***and*** wants a
> > mo.wiki. All other users that declare themselves Moldovan (and prove it by
> > writing correctly) believe that the current mo.wiki is at best weird
> > and/or a very bad joke. And note that Moldovans are the actual audience Mark
> > claims to care for.
> >
> > This is quite inaccurate. A few Moldovan users have surfaced. Some
> > have been against mowiki, some have been ambivalent, and some have
> > supported it. I don't claim to "care for" a Moldovan audience. What I
> > care for is the facts. People really do use Cyrillic. It really is
> > used for teaching schoolchildren.
> >
> > >  4. As you say, the creation and development of mo.wiki should be the
> > work of Moldovans themselves. The problem being that no Moldovan editor
> > wants it. I therefore suggest we close it until actual Moldovan contributors
> > want to create and develop it.
> >
> > That's entirely untrue -- an outright lie.
> >
> > Mark
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
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--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


body:
I don't think that's particularly relevant. At least 30% of Moldovans
claim to speak Moldovan as their mother tongue.

Perhaps as a language separate from Romanian, it exists only
politically, but as a linguistic entity, it certainly exists truly.

One could easily move the Cyrillic content to a "Romanian in Cyrillic
Wikipedia", but that would be absurd -- every person who writes or has
ever written this language in Cyrillic, calls it Moldovan.

It's essentially an issue of naming that you're bringing up, while the
bigger issue at hand is one of Cyrillic script and politics.

Mark

On 07/03/06, Servien Ilaino <servien at gmail.com> wrote:
> Moldovan only exist politically, not linguistically so I've been told
> (confirmed by Moldovans). I don't think that is a good 'starting point' to
> set up a wiki (not very neutral as Wikipedia says it should be)
>
> Serv
>
>
> 2006/3/7, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
> >
> > > It seems that I need to justify my participation in this discussion.
> > >  I have two arguments for it:
> > >  1. Fluency in Moldovan.  By any linguistic standards I speak  the
> > Moldovan
> > >  dialect of Romanian (with the accent). And I do it correctly. This fact
> > alone
> > >  should allow me to participate in the vote and discussions. I can even
> > read and write using cyrillic script. Correctly. :)
> >
> > Somehow I doubt you are able to read and write "correctly" in Cyrillic.
> >
> > >  2.  I have relatives in the Republic of Moldova, and I know what they
> > have
> > >  no linguistic identity problems. Just take a look in the list of
> > Moldovan
> > >  editors: regardless of official politics (aimed at preserving good
> > relations
> > >  with Russia), not one is for a moldovan wikipedia.
> >
> > Five or six "Moldovan editors" voted. There is no proof that they are
> > all separate people or that they are all even Moldovans. Some of them
> > barely have 25 edits, or registered within the duration of the vote.
> > Anyhow, even if they were all confirmable as real people with hundreds
> > of edits, 6 editors voting for the deletion of a Wikipedia are hardly
> > enough for it to be a for-sure thing.
> >
> > >  3. My participation into this discussion was subject to one strong
> > rule: I have never entered in conflict with a Moldovan editor, for I believe
> > they have the moral authority to do what they want with mo.wiki. What I
> > have done was in line with their requirements.
> >
> > That's because you've downright never communicated with a Moldovan
> > editor. They are elusive creatures. The only ones who make more than
> > the occasional appearance aren't living in Moldova, examples being
> > Oleg Alexandrov (California) and Liviu Andronic (Toulouse). Then there
> > is Serhio Dudnic (who is in Chisinau), but he didn't want to get
> > involved and all he said is that although he claims to speak Romanian,
> > he believes everybody can choose their own name (more or less).
> >
> > All other Moldovan editors showed up and then left within a matter of
> > days; some made only one edit.
> >
> > There are a couple of exceptions. But including all of the Moldovan
> > editors, there are a few who do support a Moldovan-Cyrillic WP, and a
> > few who are ambivalent.
> >
> > Mark
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


body:
I'm not sure all of those questions are relevant. Most of them are
publicly-accessible information anyhow. I will answer those that
aren't.

> 1. How old are you?
> 2. Where do you live?
> 3. Where were you brought up?
> 4. How many languages do you claim to speak?
I don't "claim to speak" any languages. I know a number of languages
to widely varying degrees -- for example, I can say a few things in
Okinawan, I can understand Spanish to a degree, and I can make myself
understood in Japanese. Whether I "speak" a language or not depends on
what you mean -- what level of fluency?
> 5. How did you learn those languages?
How does anyone learn any language? By hearing it/reading it, and
speaking it/writing it.

Mark


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Moldovan/Romanian

body:
You excel in hiding important issues under details. Fact is that  Romanian/Moldovan is complex, and that you cannot write Moldovan  correctly.

  Concerning your claim that Moldovans are not Moldovans, it's pure FUD.  If you want to continue in the same direction, please provide proof of  your existence, and that you are not a KGB/FSB agent. :)

  As concerns the "Moldovan" schools of Transnistria, you forgot to tell  that Moldovans there are forced to go to these schools, and that their  attempts to open latin-scripted schools were crushed by security forces.

Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:  > Sorry for not replying to Mark's emails, but I think that discussing
> politics and whether Romanian or French has a grammar closer to Latin
> is off-topic on this list. :-)

That was a sub-topic of an e-mail. When replying to e-mails, you are
more than welcome to ignore topics you find irrelevant.

> Node, please do not accuse people for sockpuppetry without any
> evidence: when Pavel was on #wikipedia, he had an IP address of
> a .md ISP and since Freenode does not allow proxies, he really
> must be in Moldova.

Still, do you have evidence that any of the other so-called
"Moldovans" are real people, in Moldova?

> Also, we should not confuse this Romanian/Moldovan situation
> with other situations where it's the debate whether a dialect/close
> language should have a Wikipedia, like Scots/English or Serbian/Croat.
>
> Nowadays, the dispute that "Moldovan" is different from "Romanian"
> is absurd: even Voronin, the Moldovan president said that they're the
> same language and just the name is different.

That's not really the issue here. What is the issue, is that 36% of
Moldovans (excluding residents of Transnistria) claim "Moldovan" as
their native language; the official script in Transnistria is
Cyrillic, the official language in Transnistria is Moldavian (they
still call it that in English officially in Transnistria, I think),
and many schoolchildren in Transnistria/PMR/Stinga Nistrului go to
"Moldavian schools", where the teaching is in Moldovan Cyrillic, or
"Russian/Moldavian bilingual schools", where teaching time is divided
between Russian, and Moldovan Cyrillic.

Mark
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Moldovan/Romanian

body:
> Sorry for not replying to Mark's emails, but I think that discussing
> politics and whether Romanian or French has a grammar closer to Latin
> is off-topic on this list. :-)

That was a sub-topic of an e-mail. When replying to e-mails, you are
more than welcome to ignore topics you find irrelevant.

> Node, please do not accuse people for sockpuppetry without any
> evidence: when Pavel was on #wikipedia, he had an IP address of
> a .md ISP and since Freenode does not allow proxies, he really
> must be in Moldova.

Still, do you have evidence that any of the other so-called
"Moldovans" are real people, in Moldova?

> Also, we should not confuse this Romanian/Moldovan situation
> with other situations where it's the debate whether a dialect/close
> language should have a Wikipedia, like Scots/English or Serbian/Croat.
>
> Nowadays, the dispute that "Moldovan" is different from "Romanian"
> is absurd: even Voronin, the Moldovan president said that they're the
> same language and just the name is different.

That's not really the issue here. What is the issue, is that 36% of
Moldovans (excluding residents of Transnistria) claim "Moldovan" as
their native language; the official script in Transnistria is
Cyrillic, the official language in Transnistria is Moldavian (they
still call it that in English officially in Transnistria, I think),
and many schoolchildren in Transnistria/PMR/Stinga Nistrului go to
"Moldavian schools", where the teaching is in Moldovan Cyrillic, or
"Russian/Moldavian bilingual schools", where teaching time is divided
between Russian, and Moldovan Cyrillic.

Mark


body:
Of course. But what do you think the chances are that Romanians will
allow it on "their" Wikipedia?

Many Romanians (and many Moldovans as well) regard Cyrillic as a
symbol of communism or Russian imperialism, and if an automatic
converter was added to the Romanian Wikipedia, I think it would get
negative attention in romania, and some WP'ans might actually leave
over it.

Mark

On 07/03/06, Servien Ilaino <servien at gmail.com> wrote:
> If the only difference is that it's written in Cyrillic then you can use
> some kind of program for that.
>
> Serv
>
>
> 2006/3/7, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
> >
> > I'm not sure all of those questions are relevant. Most of them are
> > publicly-accessible information anyhow. I will answer those that
> > aren't.
> >
> > > 1. How old are you?
> > > 2. Where do you live?
> > > 3. Where were you brought up?
> > > 4. How many languages do you claim to speak?
> > I don't "claim to speak" any languages. I know a number of languages
> > to widely varying degrees -- for example, I can say a few things in
> > Okinawan, I can understand Spanish to a degree, and I can make myself
> > understood in Japanese. Whether I "speak" a language or not depends on
> > what you mean -- what level of fluency?
> > > 5. How did you learn those languages?
> > How does anyone learn any language? By hearing it/reading it, and
> > speaking it/writing it.
> >
> > Mark
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Moldovan/Romanian

body:
Mark,

 Whether or not you are fluent in Moldovan is extremely important here,
 because you are the unique contributor. You created mo.wiki, you
 copied (from ro.wiki) most articles, and you, alone, are fighting for it.
 Given that this wiki is by you and for you, it could be justified as a
 hobby. But there are two problems: you do not seem to learn Moldovan
 and you promote old stalinist linguistic policies that hurt people's feelings.
 It still is a mystery to me how an American came to profess such
 conservative communist linguistic policies.

 And, BTW, you called me a liar earlier, but you somehow failed to mention
 a single Moldovan editor (i.e. one that claims to be Moldovan) that supports
 your views.

Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:> You excel in hiding important issues under details. Fact is that Romanian/Moldovan is complex, and that you cannot write Moldovan correctly.

Whether or not the language(s) is/are complex is entirely irrelevant
to the discussion. Also, my abilities (or alleged lack thereof) aren't
particularly relevant to the discussion.

> Concerning your claim that Moldovans are not Moldovans, it's pure FUD. If you want to continue in the same direction, please provide proof of your existence, and that you are not a KGB/FSB agent. :)

I never claimed that "Moldovans are not Moldovans". What I did claim
is that those people who claim on Wikipedia to be Moldovans have not
substantiated their identity in the least, with the exception of
Pavel.

> As concerns the "Moldovan" schools of Transnistria, you forgot to tell that Moldovans there are forced to go to these schools, and that their attempts to open latin-scripted schools were crushed by security forces.

No -- there are schools that teach in Latin. However, they are forced
to operate as private schools and do not receive support from the
state.  There are two Latin-script highschools and a total of 8% of
Transnistrian kids go to Latin-script schools. There are also 14
Moldavian schools (total), using Cyrillic, and 2 Moldavian-Russian
bilingual schools.

The Romanian press was happy to report when schools were closed, on
the front page, but when some were re-opened (as private
institutions), it was much farther back.

Mark

>
>
> Mark Williamson  wrote:  > Sorry for not replying to Mark's emails, but I think that discussing
> > politics and whether Romanian or French has a grammar closer to Latin
> > is off-topic on this list. :-)
>
> That was a sub-topic of an e-mail. When replying to e-mails, you are
> more than welcome to ignore topics you find irrelevant.
>
> > Node, please do not accuse people for sockpuppetry without any
> > evidence: when Pavel was on #wikipedia, he had an IP address of
> > a .md ISP and since Freenode does not allow proxies, he really
> > must be in Moldova.
>
> Still, do you have evidence that any of the other so-called
> "Moldovans" are real people, in Moldova?
>
> > Also, we should not confuse this Romanian/Moldovan situation
> > with other situations where it's the debate whether a dialect/close
> > language should have a Wikipedia, like Scots/English or Serbian/Croat.
> >
> > Nowadays, the dispute that "Moldovan" is different from "Romanian"
> > is absurd: even Voronin, the Moldovan president said that they're the
> > same language and just the name is different.
>
> That's not really the issue here. What is the issue, is that 36% of
> Moldovans (excluding residents of Transnistria) claim "Moldovan" as
> their native language; the official script in Transnistria is
> Cyrillic, the official language in Transnistria is Moldavian (they
> still call it that in English officially in Transnistria, I think),
> and many schoolchildren in Transnistria/PMR/Stinga Nistrului go to
> "Moldavian schools", where the teaching is in Moldovan Cyrillic, or
> "Russian/Moldavian bilingual schools", where teaching time is divided
> between Russian, and Moldovan Cyrillic.
>
> Mark
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
> __________________________________________________
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> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
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--
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