On 6/28/06, mboverload <mboverload(a)gmail.com > wrote:
Sounds like an utter mess. Thanks so much for
taking the time to
explain it
to me, even if I'm still not sure why it's
such a big issue =O
The big issue comes mainly from the desinformation that mo.wikipediacreates.
The content that is currently on mo.wikipedia is written in a language that
is not used any more in the Republic of Moldova. It could be argued that
Moldovan is used by a minority in the territory of Moldova (in private and
personal matters), and by a part of population (mainly Moldovan schools) in
Transnistria. Please note that Cyrillic Moldovan is not used on a large
scale (that is, generally speaking, you won't encounter Moldovan Cyrillic
anywhere in Moldova). At least for Moldova, I can assure you, as I am a
native Moldovan. As far as Transnistria is concerned, I really doubt it.
Even the official presidential website
<http://www.president-pmr.org/>doesn't
contain any Cyrillic Moldovan content.
The big issue: when people visit
mo.wikipedia.org and see the Cyrillic
content, they believe that this is the language currently used in Moldova.
One thing that is false, as it is the content of
ro.wikipedia.org that one
may see in Moldova (anywhere: advertisment, television, newspapers, books,
laws, documents, anywhere). While Wikipedia is supposed to provide readers
with correct information. For Moldovans and Romanians
alike such a situation is frustrating.
By all this I am trying to explain that current Cyrillic content has nothing
to do on mo.wikipedia. If it has any right to exist (low quality content, no
native contributors, no native people's support of its existance [at least
not here, not on this mailing-list]), it should be somewhere on a
mo-cyr.wikipedia.
I'll have you know that Moldovan is my native
language. It is the first
language I
heard, and I heard no other language until the age of
3.
Please see:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22first+language+attrition%22
Mark
What concerns the native speakers present on Wikipedia, I personally do not
qualify Mark Williamson's affirmation of him being a native speaker of
Moldovan. The Moldovan Wikipedia issue was already discussed at least three
times in the recent past: in December
2005<http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-December/>r/>,
in March 2006 <http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-March/>and
currently in June
2006 <http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-June/>.
The reason for my opinion is that before 28 June
2006<http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-June/044584.ht…ml>,
not one time (at least not to my knowledge and not on the Wikipedia-I
mailing list ; please correct me if I am wrong) did Mark ackowledge himself
as being a native Moldovan speaker. Although he had plenty of occasions, for
example<http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-March/04399…
, to use this argument.
On Jacky PB's simple assertion on 12 March
2006<http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-March/043910.h…ml>:
"no
Moldovan speaker ever asked for a Moldovan Wikipedia", Mark's response is
"Dpotop is spreading FUD". And, as far as I know, Moldovan Wikipedia was
created on Mark Williamson's demand.
I am wondering if shouldn't the decision on closing down the Moldovan
Wikipedia<http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-March/043…
put in action as soon as possible, to avoid all these useless
discussions
(if my calculations are correct, the next re-openning of this discussion is
scheduled on September
2006<http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-September/>)/>).
The closing
should have been carried out by Brion
somewhere in March.
If there are users who want to get out of the state of confusion regarding
this issue, they could look here for an acceptably well put status
quo<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects#What_d…
here for some
background <http://mo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Rezultat_alegeri>
information<http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-March/0…
on the Moldovan Wikipedia, the other on the mailing list; both contain
the results of a vote that took place several months ago).
--
Liviu