[Wikipedia-l] Moldovan Wikipedia (sry)

Tue Nov 28 04:56:19 UTC 2006

Apparently you've not been keeping up here. Nobody wants to hear about
it anymore. The issue has been hashed and rehashed dozens of times.
Any new messages on the topic are  ignored by most people now.

Nevertheless, I've formulated a short response to each of your points
below, for the sake of balance for what few users actually do read
this thread.

On 27/11/06, TSO1D From Wikpedia <tso1d at yahoo.com> wrote:
> First of all let me say that I appologize for mentioning this contoversial subject again, however I simply wanted to state my view on recent developments there.

Your view is predictable :-) You don't need to note anything unless
your opinions have changed, and they don't appear to have done so

>   I have been opposed to the existence of this encyclopedia from its inception, as I felt that it would never garner sufficient support in order to become a valuable resource, and that it would only serve as a battleground for trolls and vandals. What I have seen in recent months has only strengthened my conviction of this. It is important to note, that since the opening of the encyclopedia, not one single native speaker of Moldovan has come forward to either work on the encyclopedia or express approval for its continuation. Although some users have made sporadic edits during some odd days, for a long period, there were about 10 edits per week with Escarbot (a bot adding interwikis) being the most active contributor. Nevertheless, whenever a vote on the encyclopedia's future opens a new barrage of vandalism and edits of low quality hit Mo as new users wish to become eligible to vote and others wish to create complete chaos.

Native speaker participation has been deficient but not entirely
non-existant. Also, lack of participation can be blamed on the fact
that Bonaparte was allowed to continue his reign of terror and
constant vandalism for months, and the huge "GO AWAY" notice that was
on the front page for so long probably scared away any other potential
contributors.

>   The recent vote there for an administrator has been a good indicator of how things are progressing. For a year now, not one single vote for an admin has succeeded either due to insufficient interest from qualitative users (which as I have said before are virtually non-existent) or too much activity from vandals and trolls. The last vote had to be closed by the steward Yann and the provisional administrator Pill is overwhelmed by an immense volley of vandalism (see for yourselves at http://mo.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges&limit=500&namespace=0). Yann himself said: " If you asked me, I would close this wiki altogether, because it's just a big mess."  It is simply impossible to stabilize the situation at present and allow a continuation of constructive edits, but the prospect for either of those two things in the future is low in any case due to a lack of interested and knowledgeable users.

Well, technically Epure's first vote passed. If you look at who voted,
it's obvious that everybody who actually voted against him before the
establishment of a second vote was not elligible to vote. Also,
Bogdan's vote passed (although his performance as an admin has been
mostly one of total absence), and my first vote passed (Anittas' was
the only oppose vote, and he hadn't registered yet). However, the
situation of the site is certainly improving because there is a
provisional admin now who has put an end to the total chaos imposed by
Bonaparte and his cadre.

>   Also I would like to note the vote on Meta where a majority of users have voted to shut down the encyclopedia. Although the vote is not officially closed (even though it passed its intially mandated duration of 2 weeks), I believe its results are an accurate display of the community's view on the subject. Of course the majority of the votes come from users on Ro or Ru as many users voted strictly for political considerations. Nevertheless, most non-partisan users voted against Mo and all Moldovan users voted against it.

"most non-partisan users"? What's that supposed to mean? The ones you
consider to be non-partisan, because they voted a certain way?

Also, the results from that vote are wholly irrelevant because
Wikimedia is not a democracy. The powers that be have decided to
maintain the status quo.

>   Lastly I would like to remind the community of Anthere's statement from the beginning of the year. He presented the view that most board members including Jimbo accepted the necessity to freeze the Moldovan Wikipedia and that only the technical details remained to be implemented. I do not truly know what caused this declaration to remain unfulfilled by I suggest that it be now, especially in the chaotic circumstances surrounding that encyclopedia now. If interest will rise, it will be possible to re-open Mo, and ideally at a new domain such as Mo-cyr and let work there continue. Nevertheless, in its current state, that resource cannot have any positive role as it is incapacitated by a lack of constructive users and an excess of destructive ones.

1) Anthere is a woman. 2) That was quite some time ago, opinion since
then has been almost exactly the opposite. See the e-mails from
GerardM. 3) Circumstances are no longer chaotic. When the 2nd round of
voting got out of control (thanks in no small part to Bonaparte's
sockpuppet, User:Smirnov), they were closed, and Smirnov was
temporarily blocked. Mo.wp is no longer a black hole with vandals and
trolls. Destructive users are quickly banned now. New pages are still
created, and our standard of page quality is still better than
ro.wiki's, whose pages are mostly stubs, POV, or otherwise requiring
fixing of some sort. Myself, Epure, and AdiJapan have been fixing
orthography, terminology, and grammar in articles. Quality is on the
rise.

In essence, what you are doing now amounts to little more than FUD.
The project is clearly on a good path and is under control.

Mark