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Revision as of 11:21, 5 March 2008

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Hello, Xasha, and welcome to Misplaced Pages! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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If you need help, check out Misplaced Pages:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Again, welcome!

History of Moldova

Could you, please, first talk, and then edit. It is ridiculous: you add again and again 13 december. It is 13 January 1918 old style, 3 p.m. that the Romanian troups enterd Chisinau. Gregorian style would be January 26. :Dc76\ 19:58, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

• In 1994, there was the referendum for the constitution. If you interpret it as a referendum for independence, it is POV. However, is it not POV if you find someone claiming so, and you say "X, president of Y, believes..." Do you understand?
• Please don't remove red links. And please don't tell me about absence of NKVD presecutions upon intellighentsia. You discredit yourself with that. :Dc76\ 20:23, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

• • There are a lot of things in the constitution. The population voted for the constitution as a whole, not for each thing separately. lLs, say "the referendum was for constitution, whose first article says..." Otherwise it is your interpretation. Correct or wrong doen't matter. Avoid interpretation altogether.
  • well, about 90%, and that is very relevant, as the elite of the nation was killed. The opinions of some individuals can not weigh as much as killing tens and hundreds of thousand of people. think about this. I am not saying you did anything, it's the Soviets! :Dc76\ 20:48, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Bender-Tighina redirect

Xasha, i'm not taking any position in what concerns the name of that article. I would however like to point out that you're wasting your time changing the name in every single article leading to it: click Tighina, and you'll see that it leads there because of the redirect. See also: WP:REDIRECT. Dahn (talk) 21:43, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Bender-Tighina

I reverted it because it was a controversial move and I'm not sure whether is the consensus for the move, especially since the three most important English-language encyclopedias, Britannica, Encarta and Columbia use the name Tighina. If you still want to change it, try proposing the move on the talk page. See Misplaced Pages:Requested_moves#Requesting potentially controversial moves. bogdan (talk) 12:04, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Bender

I used the form Bender (city), because I thought that was the normal disambiguation for cities. However, after your comment, I brushed up on Wiki policy in this area and saw that you are also right. The guidelines are a mess, because every region has a specific convention, sometimes using "name (city)", "name, country", "name, province, country," etc; However the intro says that in general where no previous pattern exists, the form "city, country" should be used, so if we'll move the city, then it would probably be best to move it to Bender, Moldova as you did. However, since there are editors who contest this move, you should follow Bogdan's advice and list the proposal for change first so that the issue can be discussed. Please contact me if you need any help with that. TSO1D (talk) 14:42, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Feedback

Well, Xasha, my comment was mainly about the persistent failure to apply WP:MOS standards in that article and others. One of the things that jump out is the chaotic use of citations: never mind how they look or were cited (I haven't got around to verifying that), but you'll notice that notes come both after and in front of punctuation marks, that they either follow a space or are glued to the word preceding them. In places with several notes, there is a space between one note and the other. All of this is obviously wrong. What I would normally say to editors is "stick to one style". But, in this case, the guidelines say exactly which style should be used: notes should always follow punctuation, and there should be no space between them and the preceding word; also, there should be no space between notes. You are new here, and I will not hold unfamiliarity with the standards against you. My comment was not aimed at anyone in particular, but I have to say that I am perplexed by the fact that there are users here who have contributed to this project for months and years, and still don't know/don't care about the basic quality standards.

Now, concerning the article. I tried to mend some obvious mistakes over and over again in the past, and it mostly proved a sysiphic effort - every once in a while, the same old unsubstantiated POV seeped back in, the same sort of tendentious editing from both sides had a field day with the article, and was always accompanied by lack of respect for various guidelines. Users like TSO1D and Illythr have tried to apply a standard of neutrality and quality, and what they implemented was commendable. But they too have pushed the rock up the slope only to have it roll back on the ground. I would like to do more for the article, but I would like to convince myself that all the main editors involved have quality and neutrality on their minds, and are not there just to push a POV or another.

While I have to say that I find some of your recent edits controversial and, in some cases, tendentious, I also will gladly acknowledge that most of what I've seen was constructive. I can only hope this is a sign that the minority of users from both sides who want to approach such subjects rationally and calmly, and who want to add relevant content, is growing. So I will perhaps help some more in the future.

Thank you for your kind words. Best, Dahn (talk) 22:31, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Moldovan language

Hi. Reverting back is not nice and certainly is not the solution to any dispute. Talking is.

The infobox in Moldovan language has been the subject of repeated and sometimes heated debates, see Talk:Moldovan language/archive12 and the other archives. Also, see this poll about that infobox. There are quite strong arguments against having an infobox in that article. First off, it is not an article about a distinct language, but about a controversy, that's why the sections typical to language articles (phonology, syntax, morphology, vocabulary etc.) are not included. Linguistically, Moldovan is just another name for Romanian, and, as a consequence, most fields in that infobox contain inaccurate (or even wrong) data. For example, what source says that Moldovan is a Romance language? Sources say that Romanian is a Romance language. Also, how do you count the speakers? Census data are almost useless, because people's choice between Romanian and Moldovan was determined by political views, not linguistic facts.

I won't revert the article for now. I expect we can have a rational discussion. — AdiJapan ☎ 10:22, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

The Croatian, Bosnian, etc. languages are irrelevant here. We are talking about Moldovan. As far as I know there is NO linguist who claims that standard Moldovan is different from standard Romanian.

You mentioned James Minahan, but his book gives more detailed information than you shared with me. Here's what he says in his Miniature Empires: A Historical Dictionary of the Newly Independent States (at page 182) about the major languages in Moldova: "Romanian (Moldovan dialect), Russian, Ukrainian, Gagauz". He doesn't say "Moldovan". Actually he never mentions a separate Moldovan language. Where he talks about "the most easterly of the Romance language" he doesn't specify if it's Romanian or Moldovan, and actually in the same paragraph he's giving the Soviet position in the matter. In conclusion, Moldovan and Romanian are one language, despite many attempts to make it seem they're not.

I don't have access to Alexandru Graur's book, but I know some of his other works and I am prety sure he couldn't have stated that Moldovan is a separate language, unless he was forced to, politically. Current works, written in politically free conditions, no longer make such statements. Even Vasile Stati admits that literary Moldovan and literary Romanian are identical. It would be silly to say otherwise.

I didn't say that the census data were manipulated. The problem is with the census forms, which required people to choose between Romanian and Moldovan as their native language. Since the two languages are one, obviously the respondents chose a name for the language they spoke, not a language. As I said, it was not a lingustic choice, but a political or maybe random one.

I am Romanian, and I can tell you that Romanians are not "educated to contest the Moldovan language" (your accusation only shows that your approach in this discussion is political, not linguistic). I have nothing to contest. I have Moldovan friends (on both sides of the Prut), we perfectly understand each other when we speak, I watch Moldovan TV stations (NIT) and I can see we all use the same language. It's a fact. What you do is contesting this fact.

Now, do you have any other arguments to keep the infobox? — AdiJapan ☎ 15:20, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I reported you for WP:3RR

http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR#User:Xasha_reported_by_User:Dpotop_.28Result:_.29

Dpotop (talk) 13:03, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Because you had not been warned of the policy beforehand, I have not blocked you. Please read and be familiar with Misplaced Pages's policy on edit warring and on the three-revert rule. The short version is that repeatedly undoing edits rather than discussing it on the talk page is bad and if you revert an excessive number of times, you can be blocked. --B (talk) 23:18, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Mutually intelligible?!

I won't comment on your other statements, because there is this one which warrants a categorical rejection: "Moldovan and Romanian are mutually inteligible to a large degree". Mutually intelligible?! To a large degree?! Do you realize the enormity of this? It's like saying that French and French are mutually intelligible to a large degree... You're still talking about two languages, when there's only one. Remember, exceptional claims require exceptional sources. — AdiJapan ☎ 10:02, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Please stop talking in terms of "mutually intelligible" about Romanian and... Romanian. There is no place for comparison with Metropolitan vs Canadian varieties of French. (Read those articles. Actually, you chose a particularly ill-suited example; if I may quote a Romanian&Moldovan saying, you're trying to sell cucumbers to the gardner: I speak French fairly well, I lived in France, I traveled to Canada, so I know the situation personally.) — AdiJapan ☎ 11:21, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi

Hi Xasha, I was the user who first welcomed you last month, and so had this page watched as default. I've noticed that you've really got into the project and have made many great edits. Obviously you come from or have a strong interest in Moldova. I have also noticed that at times that your edits have been causing some stir and feelings may have run high. Can I just advise you to keep a cool head while editing and to seek consensus before rushing into things. Anyway if I could ever do anything to help, let me know. Best wishes, MSGJ (talk) 14:31, 4 March 2008 (UTC)