[Wikipedia-l] Re: Conflict between two Wikipedias

Mon Apr 18 11:22:51 UTC 2005

In response to Mark's message of Sat Apr 16 20:46:14
UTC 2005:

>Again I would like to point out that you are
emphasising >what is
>"right" or "correct". Why does that matter? Why
should >we care?

I am emphasising what is right because that is what we
should be striving towards. Just because any
Moldovans, who you seem to think are the only ones who
have an authoritative right to a say in this, haven't
complained, doesn't mean that the idea of is right.
Now, you're going to say again something along the
lines of "Yes, you keep on using the word right. Who
cares what's right". Well, we *should* care about
what's right! For example, we couldn't go ahead now
and form a Romanian Wikipedia without diacritical
symbols, just because the Romanian community supports
it, even when it is incorrect. In this example,
writing Romanian with no diacritics would be easier
and, hypothetically, let's say it would be supported
by the community, which , hypothetically, is made up
of 1 person. Does that mean we should actually
implement that proposal? Just because the "community"
agrees to something doesn't make it right, doesn't
mean that it's correct for, in the example, the
ro.wiki to be written without diacritic symbols.

The same goes for mo.wiki. There is basically *one*
Moldovan Cyrillic contributor, and you're saying that
just because he hasn't complained, then it's OK,
because no Moldovan contributor has so far complained.
Why? Because *there is no Moldovan wiki community*.
There is just one person! I think there might have
actually been a Moldovan contributor at ro.wiki which
is no longer active. But that's about all. For that
reason, we can't base ourselves here on "we do what
the Moldovans think, because they're the ones who
should have the most say." If we go by that principle,
then we won't get anywhere, because there isn't yet,
unfortunately, a Moldovan Wikipedia community.

So, as you keep on blaming the ro.wiki community for,
there's nothing wrong with us getting involved. The
same goes in your case - there's nothing wrong about
you getting involved, as a non-Moldovan, in this
issue. We *all*, as Wikimedia contributors, have a
right to involve ourselves in *all* Wikimedia issues
as long as we are adequately informed. And I think
both of us, and many other people who have given an
opinion, have done so in an informed, comprehensive
manner.

>There have been
>no complaints from actual Moldovans, only from
>Romanians, and they are
>all politically motivated.

I don't think you can actually say that all the
comments are politically motivated. If you read the
discussion page at ro.wiki, you will see that many
Romanians actually enforce the idea of having a
Moldovan Wikipedia, and recognise the need for one. I
don't think you can blame most of the community for
being either superficial or politically-motivated.
Most of us have said that - yes, having a mo.wiki is
OK, even in Cyrillic script, but it needs to be at a
separate subdomain, due to all the reasons that I've
mentioned in my numerous past messages.

>My solution is practical, and currently it is working
>fine.

True. By the way, don't think I'm trying to argue with
you just for the sake of it. Your POV is actually a
very legitimate one on this issue and it is the most
practical. I "admit" that as you said. And it's
working fine. At the moment. What I mean by at the
moment is that 1) it will get more problematic in the
future and it's better to solve the problems now and
2) you can't really call it working, because the is 1
contributor! There is basically no community yet.

I see there have been people (it may be the same user
as the Cyrillic one, actually I think it is) who have
already made Latin script contributions. Already it's
starting to become problematic. What happens if a user
comes and makes Latin script contributions? Should we
simply move them to ro.wiki? Or should we keep the
mo.wiki a biscriptal confusion?

There have been many cases where a single contributor
has started something, which is not technically right,
and then when a larger community came, the project had
to be moved somewhere. You must realise that by
putting only Cyrillic content at mo.wiki, we become
terribly biased towards that script? Why should
Wikipedia, the free, NPOV encyclopedia, be like that?
And why should we then have to change everything when
Moldovan Latin users come over and start adding
content to the mo.wiki?

>the only people who have a problem with it are
>Romanians who are trying to meddle in the affairs of
>the Moldovan
>Wikipedia for political reasons and replace the
>perfectly working
>status quo with some sort of cumbersome change that
>they say is
>technically correct, which will make the URL longer
>and require the
>assistance of a developer.

You're saying this as if it would require registering
a new domain, setting up a new interface and writing
new software! It's really not that hard to make a new
subdomain! It's being done all the time, when new
language projects are being launched. So what if we
require the assistance of a developer? I think that
you really are too practical - just for the sake of
easiness and practicality, it doesn't matter how wrong
something is, or how biased it is, you won't support
it  just because it requires more work. I believe that
we must first be correct, then practical. Being
practical now will just cause more problems later on.

Finally, I'm not happy with the status quo. I've tried
until now numerous ways to negotiate, I started
writing on this mailing list, and yet nothing has
worked. The status quo has just been maintained, and
you haven't considered the point of view than anyone
else. Honestly, that's really frustrating. I mean,
I've written many messages that just basically say the
same thing over and over again -- we've covered no
ground here. And you can't say I haven't been
reasonable. I've proposed something that doesn't
denigrate Moldovan Cyrillic, that is perfectly fair to
it, gives it space to grow, but at the same time
doesn't put it in favour of Moldovan Latin. Yes, it's
practically harder, but I don't see anything
theoretically wrong with it. On the practical side, I
will go and contact a developer to do it if we reach
concensus. That's not that hard a move. Neither is the
whole setting up. It's not as if you now have to go
and waste a week's work on setting up a new subdomain!

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