Talk:Transnistria/Archive 7

message: Sheriff is a company with many stockholders - how do you know that Smirnov's son is not between them?--MariusM 09:18, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The burden of evidence lies with the editors who have made an edit or wish an edit to remain, so if you want to say that Smirnov owns Sheriff, you just have to prove it. However, having said that, there is currently a trend to still try to smuggle misleading or just plain wrong information into the article by not claiming direct responsibility but by attributing them to a third party source. Example: If you say that Sheriff is owned by the Smirnov family, then someone will ask for verification and the claim (which is wrong) can therefore not be included. But if you say "BBC says that Sheriff is owned by Smirnov", then technically the claim is correct and could stay, which means that you succeeded in falsifying the article. You yourself, MariusM, have used this technique to great success and I will be happy to cite half a dozen examples, with logs, if you deny this. But since you ask about Sheriff, I will stay on topic. The most important principle is to remember that we have no obligation to include information that is factually wrong not even as a minority view or third party quote. This is called perpetuating a falsehood and this is contrary to the most basic Wikipedia policy. If BBC said it, or someone else said it, they now stand corrected by us. More often than not, the collaborative power of the Internet is better at correcting details and fact finding than a journalist working for the established mass media (as even such venerable sources as The New York Times have found out many times, to its chagrin). In the case of Sheriff, this was dealt with before you came here. I believe it is in Archive 4. One of the sources was Moldpres, the stateowned news agency of Moldova. There is also background information in the Talk page for Sheriff, regarding this same subject. - Mauco 14:22, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sheriff not owned by Smirnov 

message: The flag shown at the Transnistria page is not the current one, just have a look at Transnistria's homepage:
http://www.president-pmr.org/english/index_e.htm
:See Flag of Transnistria. `'mikka (t)
::In fact, that is the correct flag (see the talk page of that article). The discrepancy between descriptions meant for a foreign, English-speaking, audience and the flag's specs as provided for in PMR law are, I have no doubt, intentional. (The legislation--sorry, only in Russian--is available here: http://president-pmr.org/symbol/flag.htm) Jamason 01:19, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Alan, assume good faith. ;-) 99% of all the flags they use don't have the embarrassing "hot symbols" and the flag law is OK with that except for official use. But what really surprised me, though, was that on this particular 2nd of September you didn't have a single hammer and sickle in sight on any of the photos, and I am not just talking about the photos that were released to the West, but everywhere, even private snapshots. In fact, even the huge flag that the folklore dancers carried and then hoisted, it also didn't have it. No red star either. All the official flags, used by state that day, were the civil flags. I thought: "Hmm, these guys surely need to change their flag law now". However: this changed two weeks later, on referendum Sunday. CEC provided flags for all polling stations and some of them (not all) had the hammer and sickly symbols on them... - Mauco 04:12, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

text: From what I have seen, most people drop the hammer and sickle. That even includes the government itself, in four out of five cases. Check out all the photos from the September 2, 2006, independence day celebrations for proof of how the communist symbols are finally on their way out, and good riddance. - Mauco 05:52, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flag 

message: This part needs an update from someone. I looked at the main article Ukraine-Transnistria border customs conflict and it has no news since March. It is now October. I can not update it: I do not know enough about this subject. I have started to do research but it is complex. (+don't speak Russian). I am trying to learn so I can edit here in the future. But not yet ready now. Can someone else update this part? - Pernambuco 13:13, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Still deadlocked. The latest is a series of tries by Transnistria in various Ukrainian courts of law (first Odessa, then Kiev) to overturn the measures. They have all been turned down. - Mauco 16:51, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ukraine-Transnistria border customs conflict 

message: That is POV. A Moldovan policeman was caught having drugs. Claiming that the whole institution of Moldovan Police is involved is a bit presumptuous, isn't it? bogdan 22:18, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it is. The proof was his police ID and his arrest, but there is no indication in the sources that he acted on behalf of the Moldovan government. - Mauco 04:44, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "given proof of involvement by Moldovan police" 

message: Wikipedia is not supposed to write the truth. We're just writing just major opinions on what the truth might be. That's the policy. If there were a consensus on what the truth is, then we might write it as if it were the truth. When the BBC, Washington Post and the like are saying something on an issue, you can't just discard because "western press are biased", "they know nothing on this", the POV they present is a notable POV and should be mentioned. bogdan 08:33, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Come on now, these are not the arguments. However, there is such a thing as notability, too, and this applies even more so to cases of presenting fallacies. We are dealing with very specific things here, both of which have been discussed in the past (see archives) and discarded for valid Wikipedia reasons. If we are re-including these two fallacies now - again, after already having been over this ground - we are merely going in circles. In the specific case of Sheriff, there is already a separate page Sheriff (company). This would be the appropriate place to introduce additional context, to avoid text forking. The summary included here (in main Transnistria) should then include a synopsis of the most the pertinent points from that article. You know that this is how it is done. I will assume good faith, as always, so let us hammer this out on this particular Talk page and decide on how we can present, to the readers, an accurate view of the situation. The BBC's statement is not a "point of view" but just a plain journalistic error and we are making an even bigger error if we give it the same time and space as what is now, later, known to be factually true. This does not make Wikipedia better as a resource for its readers; it makes it worse. - Mauco 12:54, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Moreover, it is incorrect to describe BBC's claim that Smirnov owns Sheriff as the "point of view" (POV) of the BBC. This is not BBC's opinion, but just a journalistic screwup and, as we know now, wrong. However, even if it was a "view", then recall that according to WP:NPOV,  Wikipedia still aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties. Here, the concerned parties are Moldova and Transnistria. The available evidence which superceedes that of the BBC article is from official sources on both sides, and they both agree that Sheriff is not owned by Smirnov. - Mauco 13:37, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Let me remind you Mauco that in Sheriff article talk page we agreed that we don't know exactly who the stockholders of Sheriff are. It seems that nobody checked if somebody from Smirnov family is or was in the past stockholder at Sheriff. Until we have clear data we can not conclude that it was a journalistic screwup.--MariusM 14:03, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  This dispute has been amply covered elsewhere (and settled, as any neutral Wikipedian would probably concede after studying the content of that page). Short of changing a couple of the five pillars, I don't see what else we can do at this stage, but anyone is of course welcome to join the discussion here: Talk:Sheriff (company). Let me also remind you, MariusM, that there is such a thing as majority viewpoints, minority viewpoints and plain fallacies. The latter should not be perpetuated if we are all aiming to make Wikipedia a useful research resource rather than a vehicle for personal bias. - Mauco 14:11, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Can we call it sloppy journalism, then? The article did not make a guess but stated it categorically, as fact. In reality, it is hearsay (and a wrong one, at that). Now, with the current level of infighting between Sheriff and Smirnov, is there anyone anywhere who still believes the old saw that Sheriff is owned by the Smirnovs? Please name one respected analyst or Moldova-watcher who is willing to go on the record at the current point in time and claim so. - Mauco 23:51, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Verifiability|Verifiability, not truth]] 

message: Two days ago, British journalist Shaun Walker just published a report where he points out the danger of relying on sensationalist media reports as the main source of Transnistria info. See http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/10/05/009.html and note that Shaun Walker has actually visited Transnistria (which is more than can be said for 95%+ of the editors of Wikipedia Transnistria-related articles). He wrote:
With my information about the places filtered through the occasional sensationalist Western media report, I turned up in both cases excitedly expecting to find the final frontier; a gangster-ridden epicenter of weapons and human smuggling; a dark and wild version of the Soviet Union. Instead, what I got in both wannabe capitals was a sleepy provincial town, with tree-lined streets and ordinary people going about their business trying to make ends meet.
His onsite research match other recent reports from organizations who have taken the trouble to go there and spend time on doing the needed research, including the British government funded Saferworld in their newly published United Nations study on weapons. - Mauco 13:05, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The two day old report was published in the Moscow Times. Those familiar with The Moscow Times know that is not considered a Putin mouthpiece. If anything, many in Russia see it as the informal voice of the US State Department. It is often a training ground for Western diplomats and high officials in Western governmental organizations. The current OSCE Ambassador to Moldova, Louis O'Neill, worked at Moscow Times before moving to the State Department. - Mauco 13:09, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm not sure what he expected to see. Weapons smuggling and money laundering are not the kind of crimes that can be seen on the street in broad daylight. bogdan 13:49, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I concur. Mauco, the fragment you cited is pure propaganda. It contains exactly 0 information, because being a crime hub does not imply that you have to live in some Metropolis-like city with obvious bad guys patrolling the streets and shooting innocent people or creating infernal devices to destroy the world. Dpotop 17:37, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

text:  I agree the snippet is a little over the top nicey-nicey. Still, going by the reports one hear's of Transnistria you would expect guns and smuggling out in the open. We are often given the image that they do little in attempting to hide their actions, so it might be a little suprising to some to find a fairly ordinary-looking city with people acting like they do anywhere else. --Jonathanpops 11:23, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Jonathanpops, what happened to being my meatpuppet? I remember that MariusM was all over you when you agreed with me on something, and wanted to check you as sockpuppet as well, insinuating that you and me were both part of a huge KGB conspiracy? After all that, I would have thought that you'd agree with me and not with Dpotop. Seriously, though, to all: The key message of the Moscow Times article wasn't money laundering or smuggling but a need to be skeptical of "the occasional sensationalist Western media report". Walker, the journalist, actually took the trip and spent time in the place, which is something that most journalist never do. They write about Transnistria as if they are writing a B-movie Hollywood screenplay. I would go as far as to say that the collective efforts of Wikipedia editors provide a better source of combined research than much of what passes for journalism on Transnistria. Remember that we have already, through the efforts of many of us here on these pages, found serious errors in mainstream media reports, have sourced them, and have corrected them, right here. - Mauco 15:08, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, I think you confused MariusM with Greier, Mauco.  --Illythr 21:21, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I hope Mauco will apologize.--MariusM 22:28, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't think I like your tone here either, Marius. It's also impolite to comment in a language the target of the comment isn't supposed to understand. --Illythr 22:20, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Mauco understand Romanian . Anyway the comment was in the talk page of User:TSO1D and I wrote in that user's language (a polite behaviour, I think). My assumption, that Mauco works for both Wikipedia and Tiraspol TImes, was confirmed few days after. As usual, I am right.--MariusM 07:05, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It is nice to see that you can pat your own back and tell yourself that you are right (as usual). But come on, a mere GUEST column would not qualify as "working for Tiraspol Times", or you would be able to say the same about former U.S. presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, U.S. navy officer Eddie Beaver, or renowned Moldova historian Charles King, all of whom have also had their opinion columns published next to mine in Tiraspol Times, along with many others. What is your point? - Mauco 18:22, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yes, but ... 

message: For Bogdan and others, a source of numbers can be found here: http://www.cbpmr.net/?id=10&lang=ru (for instance No.6-7, 2006). Detailed. Personally, I would not rely on the Finance Ministry numbers, but the ones from the Republican Bank look OK. Also keep an eye on the press service of the Supreme Soviet. So far, they are off to a good start, at http://www.vspmr.org - Mauco 03:41, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, not a good start - a GREAT start is more like it. See http://www.vspmr.org/News/?ID=125 wow. - Mauco 01:42, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Numbers

message: I understand that Tyras is the first recorded settlement in the area. Where does the information on prior inhabitants come from? --Illythr 19:06, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There are archeological sites and one can identify which culture inhabited them. Ancient Greeks believed that Scythia region started at the Dniester, but Ptolemy names a few Dacian placenames (with the characteristic "-dava" ending) which were beyond the Dnister. The Dacian town of "Clepidava" was on the right bank and "Setidava" and "Susudava" between Dniester and Dnieper. bogdan 19:38, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Tyras]] 

message: Let's make sure that the interpretations of words match the realities of maps. Confusing the territory of the ruler Besaraba with the later territory of Bessarabia is quite understandable if you don't have a map showing Besaraba ruled Walachia (some place completely different) in 1308. I sectioned this off so it can be edited/commented without needing to sift through endless screens of text. I invite Mauco (or anyone else, obviously!) to post another source for discussion. (One source at a time, please!) —Pēters J. Vecrumba 13:15, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reputable sources point/counter-point #2 

message: It seems that Transnistria was indeed nominally part of Lithuania and later Poland, but nobody actually enforced the rule over the region, presumably because it was underpopulated and not valuable enough to worth it. bogdan 22:52, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Râşcov in the north of Transnistria had a little bit of Polish rule. As the name shows, however, it was not founded by the Polish. - Mauco 01:06, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lithuania and Poland 

message: I don't know if this is worth including in the article anywhere or not, but I for one have wondered about all the different spelling variations of Transnistria. I must have seen at least half a dozen. Would it be useful to list them all and their origins, or isn't that possible because they are often made up willy nilly? Does the spelling give any indication of the writer's origins? Is the spelling sometimes used to make a point? —Preceding unsigned comment added by jonathanpops (talk • contribs) 
: We covered this earlier this year. I believe it was in April. There is some of this in the archives. It was mostly myself and TSO1D who worked on it, although if memory serves me well, Bogdan also helped. It is similar to the whole Burma/Myanmar situation, with the added conundrum that there are a bunch of other names, too. We decided to stick with Transnistria, mention Pridnestrovie prominently, and have redirects for all the rest. In the infobox and in the intro, only Transnistria and Pridnestrovie are to be used (in that order of importance). Early in the article, we then have the subsection called "Names" where we focus on explaining this some more. Then, for even deeper detail, we have a whole article just devoted to this subject. It is called Names for Transnistria which I made. This approach is very good for other subjects, like internal politics, history, the referendum, the disputed status, and so. Quick overview first, then a bit more detail in a paragraph of the key points, and finally a whole separate article where it is fleshed out in detail. - Mauco 23:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, I never saw that before. I'm still none the wiser as to the whys and wherefors of the names though. Is it that there really is no reasoning behind it, that just different people decide to spell it or say it differently as they feel like it? I should probably put this in the discussion for the names page really I guess. --Jonathanpops 11:45, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  All the different spelling variations