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???

Sorry for having to be away for a while, but since when is the PMR a "republic" and an "independent country?" Those descriptions in the introduction are frankly as POV as you can get and border on (if not step into) plain and simple lies. Sorry, not a republic. And sorry, not sovereign, not a country. If this sort of stuff persists, I see more tagging in our future. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 22:10, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

i agree it is as much POV as it can get. Complete disrespect towards WP:NPOV. EvilAlex 22:16, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the person who is introduced this phrasing has already explained himself here, and in Archive 13 as well. There's no need to take his words out of context. The intro he has states that "is a de facto independent republic within the internationally recognized borders of Moldova" and this is currently being debated, as you can see on this page. I would urge anyone who disagree to state so here, and wait for him to answer you. We try to edit through consensus. The same is true for the "country" bit. It does not say that Transnistria is a good, but merely that it "It functions as a sovereign country" in a limited context, which is given in the same sentence. We don't gain anything by taking words out of context and misrepresenting them. - Mauco 22:17, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I think you are just happy you could take a vacation from making the same outrageous POV contentions. "Republic" and "country" imply attributes which the PMR does not posess. There's no such thing as de facto sovereign, which is what is being represented here. It's not about good or evil, the Soviet Union as evil as it was, was sovereign (though not over all its incorporated territory.) Saying the PMR, South Osettia, or any other of the breakaway regions are countries except the uninformed aren't calling them that yet is not appropriate for an encyclopedia which is required to be based on reputable sources, not on conjecture based on supposition with a topping of massive pro-PMR spin-doctoring.

     By the way, what ever happened to your strident "no, they're not original research, really" assurances (wasn't it more than a year ago now?) that the PMR was changing, that Smirnov was on the ropes and on his way out? Same folks who record who votes for whom and are supported by Alksnis' henchmen are all still in power. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 02:47, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and Transnistrian militant activists raiding Russian arms stores and having Russian troops openly support them is not a "war for independence." Since everyone is using American parallels here, why not just go all the way POV over-the-top and call Igor Smirnov the George Washington of Transnistria? —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 02:51, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

The discussions about various parts of the first sentence should be held in the appropriate sections. There was no reply to Illythr's and my last posts in them with the exception of EvilAlex' eyewitness accounts. Alaexis 06:05, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I have to make the observation, you're sounding SO like Mauco. Are you sure you're not his Abkhazi persona transplanted to Transistria by force of necessity? —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 00:57, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Dikarka 12:47, 2 April 2007 (UTC) don't agree that Russia has troops illegally in Pridnestrovie. The troops are there with a mandate, and their presence was approved in a referendum by Pridnestrovie's people in 1995.

Names section

proposed version:

The name Transnistria is most commonly used, and does not imply the status of Transnistria: region of Moldova or independent state.

The name used in the Constitution of Transnistria is Pridnestróvskaia Moldávskaia Respública (Moldovan: Republica Moldovenească Nistreană, Russian: Приднестровская Молдавская Республика, Ukrainian: Придністровська Молдавська Республіка, ПМР). This is abbreviated PMR.A short form of this name is Pridnestrovie (transliteration of the Russian "Приднестровье").

older version:

Most commonly known in English as Transnistria (as it is also called in Romanian, the language of Moldova), its constitutional long name is Pridnestróvskaia Moldávskaia Respública (Moldovan: Република Молдовеняскэ Нистрянэ, Russian: Приднестровская Молдавская Республика, Ukrainian: Придністровська Молдавська Республіка, ПМР). This is abbreviated PMR.

The short form of this name is Pridnestrovie (transliteration of the Russian "Приднестровье").

Several other names are also in common use. Etymologically, they all come down to similar spelling variants of Transnistria, meaning "beyond the river Dniester", or Pridnestrovie, meaning "by the river Dniester".

The second variant is more informative and should be preferred imo. Alaexis 11:53, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

The first sentence of second variant may be simplified into "Most commonly known in English by its Romanian name Transnistria,..."--Illythr 12:09, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

We already have a link to Names of Transnistria. Dl.goe 12:14, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

The second link can be removed. --Illythr 12:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I can but agree with Illythr. Alaexis 19:46, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Internal Politics (about elections)

Imahina that now is tha version of socks of Mauco actibe. Tis is not good, as is not agaread by tha majority of beople.

Kanuni Sultan Suleyman 19:42, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Proposed version

According to official PMR data, only 15 members of the parliament out of 43 were born on the territory of Transnistria (12 in Transnistria proper, 3 in Bessarabian area of Bender-Chiţcani which is controlled by Transnistria), 4 were born in Bessarabia, part never claimed by Transnistria, 9 were born in the Russian Federation, 8 in Ukraine, 2 in Kazakhstan, 1 in Germany, 1 in Belarus, and 3 did not declare it.

Transnistrian sources

- No opposition parties or publications are banned. Political candidates in favor of unification with Moldova are allowed to stand in elections, although they rarely achieve more than 5% of the votes from the electorate. Likewise, unionist political parties and newspapers are legally registered and operating freely.

Moldovan sources

- The Power to the People Party, led by Supreme Soviet member Alexander Radchenko, was banned in May 2001; after an appeal the ban was lifted but was reintroduced in December 2001, again the ban was lifted to be reintroduced in August 2002 and confirmed by the "Supreme Court" in December 2002. "Power to the People" Party led by Nicolae Butchatsky was banned in February 2002. On November 14, 2001, the Transnistrian customs service banned the distribution or the publication "Glas Naroda", as it contained Radchenko's electoral platform. Radchenko said in a press conference that "Glas Naroda" has been published outside Transnistria because all the printing houses had refused to print it after having discussed the issue with representatives of the Ministry of State Security. -

|}

- In 2001 in one region it was reported that Igor Smirnov collected 103.6% of the votes. Nevertheless, some organizations, such as CIS-EMO, have participated and have called them democratic.

Older version

No opposition parties or publications are banned currently. Political candidates in favor of unification with Moldova are allowed to stand in elections, although they rarely achieve more than 5% of the votes from the electorate. Likewise, unionist political parties and newspapers are legally registered and operating freely. Despite some efforts to enhance the democratic process in recent years election results in the past were considered suspicious, as in 2001 in one region it was reported that Igor Smirnov collected 103.6% of the votes. Nevertheless, some organizations, such as CIS-EMO, have participated and have called them democratic.

The fact that some party was banned should be mentioned (if it's true) but not given the undue weight. After all it happened quite a long time ago and only with one party. The Moldovan sources section should be replaced with a single paragraph imo and inserted into the text of the 'older version'.

Myself I don't think the information about the birthplaces of Transnitrian mps is notable enough to be included in the main aricle. What are your opinions? Alaexis 20:07, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Alaexis, birthplaces are not important.Catarcostica 00:19, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Disagree. Where MPs and other Transnistrian authority members come from is extremely important considering how many are Russian citizens and the personal support they receive from Russian politicians. You cannot white-wash the origins of nor the governing of the PMR. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 01:00, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, you see, the OSTK (what later became the govt of Transnistria) has been formed spontaneously as a responce to the motion to adopt the new language law in 1989. I sort of doubt that Transnistrian politicians who had arrived in the region before that date were planted by KGB seers. Those who came later might've been, but I understand that you're counting even those MPs who moved to Transnistria as kids... So, I agree with Alaexis. What they do is important. Whether they're Russian, Jewish, black or gay is not. Such things are only important to Russo-, Jew-, Negro-, or gay-sceptics respectively, I think. --Illythr 01:29, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

The OSTK has been made into a president for life so far Igor Smirnov family run affair, with OMON henchmen still around. Whatever legitimate basis the OSTK had has long since been utterly erased. There are two points: (1) is the Russian dominated PMR leadership (the parliament is for show), and (2) the parliament and its teenagers when the PMR was formed "opposition" is not a true opposition, but a choreographed ballet for Western consumption for the PMR to paint the trappings of looking legitimate.

     The only sign I've seen that Smirnov might be wearing out his welcome is the assassination of his mafia-style-family cohort. Perhaps he's not privatizing Moldovan assets into the hands of Russian oligarchs at a fast enough pace. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 01:42, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Surely, you realize that a birthplace in the RSFSR together with an MP mandate don't automatically grant connections to the Russian mafia? --Illythr 12:44, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Btw, it's not mentioned in the article about California that its governor was born in Austria. Alaexis 14:12, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Alaexis,btw, it's mentioned that if you aren't born in USA you can't be the president. For Transnistria I don't see why birthplaces are that important. IMHO is more important to tell that some memeber of gov is wanted by Interpol.Catarcostica 17:02, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

- The Power to the People Party, led by Supreme Soviet member Alexander Radchenko, was banned in May 2001; after an appeal the ban was lifted but was reintroduced in December 2001, again the ban was lifted to be reintroduced in August 2002 and confirmed by the "Supreme Court" in December 2002. "Power to the People" Party led by Nicolae Butchatsky was banned in February 2002. On November 14, 2001, the Transnistrian customs service banned the distribution or the publication "Glas Naroda", as it contained Radchenko's electoral platform. Radchenko said in a press conference that "Glas Naroda" has been published outside Transnistria because all the printing houses had refused to print it after having discussed the issue with representatives of the Ministry of State Security.

This is what I propose. Further details about the closing of the PtP party should be in the appropriate article.

New version

No opposition parties or publications are banned currently. Political candidates in favor of unification with Moldova are allowed to stand in elections, although they rarely achieve more than 5% of the votes from the electorate. Likewise, unionist political parties and newspapers are legally registered and operating freely. However, the Power to the People Party faced numerous problems in 2001-2002 and was eventually closed. The election results in the past were considered suspicious, as in 2001 in one region it was reported that Igor Smirnov collected 103.6% of the votes. Nevertheless, some organizations, such as CIS-EMO, have participated and have called them democratic. Alaexis 05:15, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Need to return to a more neutral point?

Since there appears to be another moderator-intervened impasse, might I suggest "Transnistria (officially Pridnestrovie, per the PMR constitution) is a territory within the internationally recognized boundaries of the Republic of Moldova in eastern Europe. Transnistria declared its independence as a separate republic of the U.S.S.R. on September 2, 1990. Subsequent to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Pridnestrovian Moldovan Republic (PMR) has exercised de facto control over most of Transnistria. Its independence has not been recognized, and sovereignty over Transnistria continues to be an issue of contention." as we had it, with some additional NPOV clarifications adopted from the current versions (rough location of the PMR, etc.)--without the inventories of things which one uses to WP:OR contend the PMR is a country. I'll post a suggested NPOV meld after giving it some more consideration. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 01:31, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

No objection, as long the the "inventory" is moved somewhere else in the article, like the Political status section. --Illythr 01:36, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I consider that fair, and as long as the inventory is stated without WP:OR ascribing country-hood. The inventory is what it is, interpretation left to the reader. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 01:51, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Your version is technically true (more or less), however I don't see why it's better than the version I've proposed. Alaexis 05:22, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

It also inserts the word territory and removes the word republic thereby demoting Transnistria to a provincial territory of Moldova. it could open another edit war. I am against changing it, but I want a section to highlight Moldova's position. Buffadren 08:13, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, the word "republic" is mentioned twice. Sort of. --Illythr 12:31, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I can see what's wrong with it now. This debate it going to last forever. Also, are we really going to dig up the old "Officially" conrtoversy yet again? Jonathanpops 08:50, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree,there is no perfect intro, but the current version is very accurate but we do need a section for Moldovan political position later. This is more important than all the human rights reports. Buffadren 09:14, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

The current version is not very accurate at all. Not digging up the "officially" controversy, I merely had to go back that far to find an intro not pro-PMR-tilting. I think the following is fair.

Transnistria (also Pridnestrovie) is a territory within the internationally recognized boundaries of the Republic of Moldova in eastern Europe. It is situated between the left bank of the Dniester and the Ukraine to the east.

Transnistria declared its independence as a separate republic of the U.S.S.R. on September 2, 1990. Subsequent to the collapse of the Soviet Union, following armed conflict between Moldova and Transnistrian separatists supported by Russian military, the Pridnestrovian Moldovan Republic (PMR) has exercised de facto control over most of Transnistria. Its independence has not been recognized, and sovereignty over Transnistria continues to be an issue of contention. Igor Smirnov has been president of the PMR for its entire existence.

The article body would include the "inventory" of country-like items, as well as specify that the PMR refers to the armed conflict which gave rise to its existence as its "war of independence" which could continue to point to that article. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 16:05, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Dikarka 16:44, 4 April 2007 (UTC)Absolutely not, we are a “ is a de facto independent republic” and this is sourced. Don't remove sourced information. Facts are facts. You can also come here so you can see for yourself how we live. The full text is "a de facto independent republic within the internationally recognized borders of Moldova in Eastern Europe" and you can't change the facts

And why do you care, I’d like to know. You should mind your own business and everyone should better live their own lives and not interfere. You’d better come here and see before saying smth. I can't stand people who speak without knowing facts.

Dikarka/Mark or whoever, what do you mean "the full text is"? There's no such thing as "the full text", that's just another phrase someone made up on wikipedia in the past, it's not chiseled into the walls of the Tiraspol government buildings or anything. Jonathanpops 23:15, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

My dear Дикарка. I am quite well acquainted with Transnistrian circumstances, thank you, through correspondence with those as intimately familiar with circumstances as you yourself claim to be, and a whole lot of reading of analysis and books on the region and on Transnistria in particular. Unlike some of those who just like to listen to the sound of their blunderbuss going off, I've spent a significant amount of time and money tracking down, buying, and reading the latest references on Transnistria and the other "frozen-zone" conflicts. And I've had plenty of practice debating the propagandists like Mark Street, countering their fabrications and catching them in their lies with facts.
     My interest is that the freedom-demonstrator murdering Baltic OMON forces all transplanted to Transnistria by Mr. Alksnis' arrangement. They are all still there, Antyufeyev and company, who even by Russian accounts killed Transnistrians and then blamed the murders on Moldovan extremists. Transnistria, that bastion of democracy where votes are recorded and reams of transcripts are produced showing who voted for whom to prove it is a democracy. OOPS!
    You sound like Mark Street reborn. He could never type quite right when he worked himself into a self-righteous tither either. Save your indignation for after you've spent a few months contributing facts here. Two days on Wikipedia, no user or user talk page, and spouting canned pro-PMR indignation like an old pro all sounds like sock-puppet to me. Then again, perhaps I've just gotten old and cynical. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 02:36, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Firing their own blunderbuss, eh? I think you are way too easily provoked. Say, this is about the third time you mentioned Russian OMON killing Transnistrians, but I think this is the first time you mentioned Russian accounts of the deed. Last time I asked, you presented a Latvian source in Latvian. Perhaps now you can direct me to those Russian accounts instead? --Illythr 12:31, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Dikarka 16:46, 5 April 2007 (UTC)My dear Pēters J. Vecrumba! Although i'm only two days in Wikipedia, i've lived in Pridnestrovie for the whole of my life and i can't stand seeing all these lies about my country, ok? and i think i have a right to express my opinion here.I have never heard about Russians, Antiufeev and "company" (as you call them) killing people and making the Moldovans guilty . When we have elections noone makes you vote for this or that person. Nobody shows who voted for whom to prove it is a democracy. How can you write such things when you know nothing about us and just listen to some false facts and anti-Pridnestrovian propaganda. I would advise you to come here and see and only after that to write about us

To Illythr, I have some additional followup buried in my Email which I will try and find where I had contacted the source I had translated and quoted. I do have the original (non-Latvian) source.
To Dikarka:

1. Antyufeyev aka Shevtsov had a couple of his OMON guys shoot up an ambulance carrying a pregnant woman to the hospital, killing and wounding occupants of the ambulance and then blamed it on Moldovans.
2. The PMR authorities showed election results (every last person and who they voted for) to Pål Kolstø, Professor of Russian and Central European and Balkan Area Studies at the University of Oslo (whose writings Mauco has interpreted and cited as supporting the pro-PMR position), who was horrified.

I fervently hope that someday Transnistria will be the place its "supporters" paint it to be, but that is not today. You would appear to be poorly informed about the place you live in. Consider educating yourself before accusing others of lying. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 17:28, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

We are waiting for references )) Alaexis 17:51, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Kolstø's is easily found: The Dniester Conflict: Between Irredentism and Separatism, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 45, No. 6, Kolstø reports he was shown the lists recording the votes of residents next to their names, concluding "the anonymity of the voters had been compromised." —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 18:55, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean the following? (It's taken from here) Note the years.

On the other bank, on 1 December 1991, the Dniester declaration of independence was followed up and confirmed by an area-wide referendum. According to the official report 97.7% supported the creation of the PMR. Voter turnout was 78%. There is somewhat more reason to be skeptical about the accuracy of this information than of the results of the referendum in Tiraspol the year before. No international observers were present (as no state wanted to lend the new state with any legitimacy), and charges of fraud and intimidation have been put forth from the Moldovan side. Little concrete documentation of this has been offered, but there can be no question that the referendum was conducted in a very primitive fashion. During a visit to Tiraspol in September 1992 the present authors were shown voting lists were the "aye"s and "nay"s of the residents had been recorded. Hence, the anonymity of the voters had been compromised. There were hardly any "nay"s on the lists, but all blanks had been counted as "nay"s, we were told. The actual aye-vote, then, amounted to 76% of the electorate. While that, too, may be considered suspiciously high, reminiscent of rigged Soviet elections, it should be contrasted with the Ukrainian referendum on independence arranged on the very same day. The results here were strikingly similar: With a voter turnout of 84%, the 90.3% yes vote amounted to 75.8% of the entire electorate.

quote: Transnistria, that bastion of democracy where votes are recorded and reams of transcripts are produced showing who voted for whom to prove it is a democracy. OOPS!

Do you consider pre-1884 US, pre-1874 Canada or pre-1901 Denmark democratic countries? I do, at least partially, even though the elections in those countries were held without the secret ballots. Alaexis 19:29, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Alaexis - As has done here many times before, you take one coincidental fact and would make the WP:OR case that America, Canada, Denmark, and the PMR are sister democracies separated only by time. Your implication that the PMR is truly democratic is totally baseless. There are plenty of accounts of Transnistrians given time off from work to exercise their "patriotic" vote "appropriately." (Sorry, no bookmarks, lost with old computer, as were additional Kolstø refs. That is the article.)

     Your emphasis on years is to imply something has changed since then? Frankly, I would be embarrassed to emphasize something which verifies that Transnistrians have been trapped under the same regime for 15 years.

Illythr - Had to backtrack through chains of Emails (another case of lost bookmarks), however, I did finally find your reference for you. Smirnov used the incident to declare a state of emergency, it was denounced it as "Black Friday," etc. Perhaps someone would be so kind as to provide a proper translation for inclusion in the article (and in the Antyufeyev article), my Russian is limited to knowing how to politely apologize in Russian that I don't speak Russian--a necessity when I shop at the local Russian delicatessens:

Вернемся, например, к событиям первых чисел марта, которые послужили толчком к началу весеннего противостояния под Дубос-сарами. В ночь на 3 марта в районе Григориополя произошла трагедия. Бандиты расстреляли машину скорой помощи, которая везла в больницу роженицу. В результате погибла акушерка, были ранены водитель, роженица и другие пассажиры.

    На следующий день И. Смирнов обвинил в случившемся молдавских волонтеров и ввел чрезвычайное положение в Дубоссарском районе. 6 марта 1992 года в Тирасполе была объявлена «черная пятница», и на центральной площади города состоялась панихида по погибшим. Смирнов либо лукавил, либо сам не знал всей правды. Машину с роженицей расстреляли приднестровские чекисты (бывшие рижские омоновцы): В. Никитенко, С. Бубнов. Задачу расстрельщикам ставил лично их командир Вадим Шевцов. Об этой операции в 1993 году рассказал А.И. Лебедю, а затем озвучил на ТВ «АСКЕТ» свидетель злодеяния - Р. Сабиров.

As this is rather unflattering to the current regime, let's see how quickly the pro-PMR camp finds a reason to relegate this talk page to the archive. Out of sight, out of mind. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 00:29, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Let's recount, for example, the events of the first days of March, that had catalyzed the spring confrontation at Dubossary. In the night of the 3rd of March a tragedy occured in the Grigoriopol region. Bandits gunned down an ambulance car that carried a pregnant woman to a hospital. A midwife was killed and the driver, the woman and other passengers were wounded as a result.

Smirnov blamed the deed on Moldovan volunteers and declared the state of emergency in the Dubossary region (district?). The 6th of March 1992 was declared a "black friday", and on the central street of the city a (public) funeral was held for the dead. Smirnov had either insincere, or didn't know the whole truth himself. The car with the pregnant woman was gunned by Pridnestrovian chekists (security officers) (former members of the Riga OMON): V. Nikitenko, S. Bubnov. The task was given to the shooting team by their commander, Vadim Shevtsov, personally. R Sabirov, a witness to this heinous crime, told A.I. Lebed of it in 1993, and later recounted it on TV "ASKET".

Vecrumba, I am getting mildly annoyed with your constant bad faith rhetorics. How am I supposed to reply to this? That I believe this piece of info (along with more excerpts from the book, which I now intend to read entirely) needs to be inserted into the War of Transnistria article? To which you will promptly respond that "the pro-PMR camp" is trying to save face in a bad situation. Bah.

I personally like what I've read so far, as the author holds the Moldovan nationalists and Smirnov&Co responsible for the whole mess - a POV I share (he talks about acts of terror and provocations from both sides, aiming to demoralize the opposition, actions of Russian generals that prove beyond doubt that the 14th army did not "invade" its own home base and was at a loss about what to do in all the chaos (early on, at least, gotta read more)...and lots more). The book provides for an excellent revamping potential of the war article, which is currently not in the best of shapes, too. Too bad no English translation is available. --Illythr 02:56, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

My rhetoric is not in bad faith. I just have an issue that people contend the PMR only yearns to be free, disregarding the role of regime-sponsored terrorism against its own people by people who are still in authority there.

     Romanian ultra-nationalists seeking union with Moldova certainly ignited the spark of panic over assimilation, but...

• the historical population distribution of Transnistria is no different than that of the right bank; there's no special claim based on ethnicity for Transnistria to be separate;
• the PMR is Smirnov & Co., propped up by Russian troops and, to-date, over a billion dollars in energy subsidies;
• this could have been resolved a long time ago, it's not like there's isn't already an area in Moldova that is de jure autonomous. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 16:20, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps in taking issue with said people, though, you place to hard an emphasis on only one aspect of a complex phenomenon. Since you like Kolsto, it might be interesting for you to take a look at some of his other work in which he argues that Transnistrian “resistance to Chisinau domination is a vague, but nevertheless tangible common identity of most of its population." (See Pal Kolsto and Andrei Malgin "The Transnistrian Republic: A Case of Politicized Regionalism” in Nationalities Papers 28, no. 1 (March 1998):104.) Another recent book might also be of interest, this one has a very similar argument (which is not an endorsement on my part for the thesis of either work), namely that a distinct "regional political culture, which has emerged as a result of different historical experiences, accounts for a significant part of the variation in support for nationalist/pro-Western and Communist/pro-Russian parties and politicians" across regions of Moldova. (See: Ivan Katchanovskii, Cleft Countries: Regional Political Divisions and Cultures in Post-Soviet Ukraine and Moldova (Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag, 2006), 22.). The latter is a US-trained comparativist currently working in Canada (U of Toronto). jamason 19:52, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Dealing with contentious subjects

Some of the editing on this page has been fully unacceptable. It is important to establish some rules to ensure all opinions are taken into the project. Changes should be done one by one and by consensus. If someone is in a hurry, they have no place in Wiki or dealing with this subject.. It is important to establish ground rules, one being that changes done "en masse", in a block, will not be accepted and WILL be reverted at sight (regardless of their merit). Simply because it contradicts the principle of collaboration. Is there some agreement on this ? Buffadren 14:08, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I thought that was how Wikipedia worked in the first place. You're stating the obvious. These rules are already in place. Just follow them. ALEX —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Halfsense (talk • contribs) 16:43, 4 April 2007 (UTC).

Glad to see Mr Buffadren decides who should be rejected the right to edit Wikipedia

I am shure you like only Mauco, who had plenty of time... so much time he even devided it with many accounts...

I decided nothing. I am trying to edit the page with you.Buffadren 12:43, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

To Alaexis: I am shure you will agree we don't use de facto independent repubilc... because Barry Bartmann used it; and we don't reference to his book because he is more renowned than others, but we reference to his book because he used this special phrasing you like so much...Dl.goe 20:42, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I have to take a Wikibreak; a long one, if I have the will ! I've put a template in the article. Please remove it only if you find my concernes absurd, or after a third oppinionDl.goe 20:42, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Moldovan Interests

The article does not deal with Moldova's position. It nneds a section to outline and detail Molodva's position and perhaps Russian invovement. It is not enoght to state that Transnistria is within its borders. Buffadren 15:37, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Human Rights and Crime

These sections are damaging because they are so farfetched. The levels of crime and human rights abuses are no higher or lower than any other european country and I say the motive for their inclusion here is more political than out of a desire to establish a page to fully explain the Transnistrian region. It may be in everyones interest to swap these sections with a proper political report on Moldova's efforts to united the regions. Buffadren 15:46, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

"Transnistria Arms Trafficking" by Channel 4

It ends in mid-dialogue... Where is the rest? Part 4?

Hm, an interesting documentary. Not nice, like the BBC one, but still interesting. Ilascu's looking pretty good for someone who's been sentenced to death and kept in prison for some 10 years. He actually spoke Russian to the reporters, something he absolutely refused to do during his trial!

Anyways, an fairly good propaganda piece with numerous claims presented as facts, a few accidental mistranslations and very little in the way of proof. "The school that was forbidden to teach in Moldovian" mistake is getting mildly annoying already. PS: The filming of Antjufeev was really cool! The villain smokes. :-D --Illythr 16:12, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

+1. Alaexis 17:23, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

The Evel Antjufeev smoke. I like it too. As you can see part 3 have been uploaded just recently. I am waiting for continuation too ... I dont see any propaganda or errors in this documentary - everything is so true. Scary faces, frighten people, welcome to Transnistria. My full respect to the creators. EvilAlex 16:55, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Exactly - scary faces. About the only nice faces you see are those of children in that Moldovan school. In fact, the whole entourage (music, the stuff the guy speaks etc) is set up as sinister as possible. "A holdup in plain day", eh? Those guys are pros, but I think they still lack a certain... finesse. --Illythr 17:47, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

If you expected to see a happy face in Transnistria then you well be greatly disappointed. Why should they smile? People have been brutally ruled by a iron regime. EvilAlex 19:04, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

About a third of my former USM co-eds are from Transnistria. Never heard of a brutal regime, they did. Crime, yes; corruption, sure, lots of; but brutal regime? About the same as in Chisinau, they say. --Illythr 20:17, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Of course the government in Chişinău has many problems regarding human rights. Political opponents are arrested in Chişinău as well as in Tiraspol arrest of 8 members of Hyde park organisation, arrest of member of Liberal Party and PROTV team. This is not a reason to pretend that in Transnistria opposition is operating freely, as "Tiraspol Times" is saying.--MariusM 20:45, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Certainly, but if you look at the article about Moldova, you will note, that it's human rights section is small and tidy (although most of those US reports are about Moldova in general) and its crime section is nonexistent, even though Chisinau (dunno about other areas) has had its share of killings (don't think there was any terrorism, though) and anti-semitic incidents. --Illythr 21:31, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Be bold and add source information about arrest of political opponents in Chişinău, in Moldova article as well. Nobody will revert you as long as you add correct information.--MariusM 21:42, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

USM Аааааа... какой факультет?
Re:"Never heard of a brutal regime" - well if you live in Transnistria and never criticizes the regime, goes to demonstration, blindly fallows orders - then you will never have the problem. The regime will protects the slaves. And in contradiction if in a phone conversation you will say something that displeases the government then in a mild case wait for a call back (my personal experience) and in a hard case you will have to leave the country. EvilAlex 20:47, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

"Matematica şi Informatica." Actually, they were quite critical of Smirnov and his clique (well, those that I had actually talked to about this) - like in Moldova, crime there is mostly concentrated around families of political leaders. But they were not aware of oppression, that was not connected to criminal interests (like forcibly nationalizing a private business just to sell it to some shady characters, again, same as in Moldova). Their general position was "Yeah, Smirnov sucks, but there is no realistic alternative, and being annexed to Moldova sucks even more." Hm, your experience refers to the early '90s, right? I think things have calmed down a bit. In fact, I've discussed some of these things via ICQ recently, and they all seem to be okay. Well that, or the MGB doesn't have access to the ICQ traffic yet. --Illythr 21:31, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

The Chanell 4 documentarry part 2 presented a taxi driver telling that if you criticise Smirnov regime you can have troubles. It seems that the taxi driver has a different perception of reality than Illythr's former colleagues. Do you think that this French Television chanell is controlled by Moldovan propaganda machine?--MariusM 21:42, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Nope, but they do pursue the goal to paint the place black, for some reason. They overdid the theatrics, IMHO. Still, what the driver said, although qualifies as hearsay, was most likely correct, too, more or less. Transnistria ain't a paradise. My point is that it isn't Auschwitz, either. --Illythr 21:57, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Re:"annexed to Moldova sucks even more" - never heard that. In fact many people compare live now and live before 90 and they see that before (when Transnistria was part of Moldova) was much better. Have you ask yourself a question: Why population decreases in Transnistria. Where all young people? If is so nice and so cool why do they leave? EvilAlex 22:12, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I found that somewhat surprising myself. I guess all the mutual propaganda is having an effect. You are quite a bit off with your comparison, though. The "life then" has nothing to do with Transnistria being part of the MSSR, but everything to do with MSSR itself being part of the USSR. That's why the Communists had won so decisively in Moldova back in 2001. As for population - the same sad thing is happening in Moldova... --Illythr 22:32, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Not quite the same. Between censuses, Moldova's population decrease with 6,6%, Transnistria's population decreased with 18%. Same with Human rights, problems on both sides of Dniester, but in Transnistria situation is worse.--MariusM 22:47, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Can anyone pinpoint the actual name of the TV channel? There's apparently no "Channel 4" in France and France 4 symbol looks different. --Illythr 17:58, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

at the beginning it says:

Une production CAPA
avec la participation de CANAL+
et de Planete 

Un film de
Xavier Deleu

Transnistria:
Trafficking arms 
on Europe's Doorstep

EvilAlex 18:51, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Hm, missed the intro. So, what should we write in the attribution part? --Illythr 20:17, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

When was this documentary made? Alaexis 04:32, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

No political party is banned, opposition newspaper operates freely?

This is the text readded by Alaexis, I have doubt on it. Is based on "Tiraspol Times" propaganda website. We have other sources about real degree of political freedom in Transnistria, like the french documentary discussed above, where a taxi driver is telling that you can have troubles if you criticise the Smirnov regime. Let's not hide reality in Wikipedia.--MariusM 21:49, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Regarding unionist political party, in 2007 was registed the Social Democratic party led by Andrey Safonov, however its "unionist" political agenda still need to be proved, as Safonov was one of the supporters of separatism in early 1990 (he created the Olvia Press PMR press agency), also need to be proved that this party is operating freely, as Safonov faced obstacles in last presidential elections, and he accused ellection frauds.--MariusM 21:49, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

If Alaexis could provide the independent sources i mean not government supported like Tiraspol Times. Then he could prove his position. Tiraspol Times is good only to show the official Transnistrian position. EvilAlex 21:55, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

As long as you give refs to the Moldovan and Romanian sites you cannot possibly demand from me not to use PMR and Russian ones. Of course I'll search for independent sources supporting my position. Could you also find some independent sources proving that, for example, unionist parties are NOT operating freely or that Social-Democratic party is NOT really unionist. Regarding the French documentary nothing is said there about any political parties. Or have I missed anything? Alaexis 04:29, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

You present an exceptional clime that is not backed by independent sources. The only source that you presented was Tiraspol Times. As I said before Tiraspol Time has damaged reputation[1]. We can't rely on TT. EvilAlex 14:33, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Is wrong that you label a site like conflict.md as a "Moldovan" one, while it was made with the support of OSCE mission in Moldova. Regarding "Tiraspol Times", we know that one of their main journalists is Karen Ryan, who seems to had in the past other problems with journalism ethic: ""Karen Ryan, you're a phony," said a Cleveland Plain Dealer editorial. She's a confused phony, however, unable to comprehend why faking the role of reporter, on behalf of a government "news release," should be questioned at all. But there's something bizarre here too. Call it her state of mind." [2]--MariusM 12:52, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Also should be mentioned that problems in registering candidature of Safonov (showing not so free operating opposition) were recognized even by Tiraspol Times. So, pretending that opposition is operating freely is a falacy. French documentary is showing an ordinary man fearing to openly express opposition against Smirnov, we will make shame of Wikipedia if we write that opposition is operating freely.--MariusM 12:58, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

conflict.md does claim some affiliation with OSCE but it has to be proven by some reference to OSCE itself. Until it's proven it's just a Moldovan site and the info taken from it cannot be put into the article in a same manner as the info from genuinely independent sources. Alaexis 15:25, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

But OSCE never denied affiliation with conflict.md. And conflict.md does not have any black spots (like TT[3]) EvilAlex 15:32, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I've sent a letter to OSCE enquiring about their relationship with conflict.org.md. I'll write what they'll answer (if they will, that is). Alaexis 15:59, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Is conflict.md, not conflict.org. Anyhow, we are not obliged to wait the following 3 years until you will receive an answer from OSCE, to include refferences from this source in Wikipedia. If you find somewhere a source questioning the credibility of conflict.md you can show it in this talk page.--MariusM 19:46, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Killings

If there is no objection I will remove the 'Killings' section. Buffadren 12:45, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

There are objections, this section is relevant and it was part of the article for long time.--MariusM 13:29, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Killings happen in every country but only Transnistria has its own special 'Killings' section. The political motive behind this may take away from the rest of the article. Buffadren 13:58, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Not in every country bombs explodes in troleybuses or minibuses or political leaders are shot dead. Is relevant for the article.--MariusM 14:14, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Most countries have had political leaders shot. Would you like a list? Even your own country's execution of Nicolae Ceauşescu following a farce show trial does not get a mention on the Romania page nor do the other incidents. Do you have another reason for keeping this in because I need something stronger than your position as it stands. Buffadren 14:55, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Ceauşescu's death happened 17 years ago, Neumoin death this year and bus explosions half year ago. It was a consensus to include those facts in the article.--MariusM 15:07, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Even so, it is not in keeping with wiki norms. If nobody else objects I will remove it or move it somewhere more suited. Buffadren 15:26, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

No other editor aproved your move, while this section was previously approved by anybody else.--MariusM 15:35, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Keep this section, this section is relevant. EvilAlex 15:50, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Move the section to Crime in Transnistria. And some relevant stuff into the Tiraspol article. It might be prudent to leave some kind of summary here, though. Not even Iraq and Israel (where much greater acts of terror and killings occur on a regular basis have such a section). --Illythr 22:42, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Dikarka 18:01, 10 April 2007 (UTC)Pridnestrovie is most of the times very peaceful. If you include killings here but not in other countries, it is undue weight. It doesn't need to be deleted, but put it only on the Crime in Transnistria page for those people who are interested in these things. BUT..I'm shocked..you write about us and forget about numerous terracts and murders in the countries all over the world..it's not objective

You are free to add whatever relevant edits you believe in other countries articles.--MariusM 18:10, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

You seem to have misunderstood what undue weight is; undue weight becomes an issue when there is doubt it actually happened.--Domitius 18:10, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. From WP:NPOV#Undue_weight. Just compare the sizes of the various sections to see the trend. If not for the history section, this article may be safely renamed to "List of crimes and human rights violations in Transnistria".

But make no mistake, crime, especially state-level crime must remain an important part of the article, just not as a "directory of things done or supposedly done". --Illythr 22:42, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Political climate

From the french documentary discussed above, a quote about the political climate, as described by a Russian taxi driver to the french journalists team: "There are no journalists who have freedom of speech. Nobody can speak out. I can't. If I said something they could come for me tommorow and take me where no one would find me. And no one would complain. No one has any rights here" [4]. We should include also this quote from the french documentarry. We can add also a quote from a teacher from the Moldavian school in Tiraspol: "Moldavian here means something humiliating. It's as we are an inferior race. You can tell imediatelly. It's the way they say it: You, Moldavian. It immediatelly tells you, you're the lowest of the low in the region". Also some quote from the school principal can improve the article: "I'm afraid. People are afraid. It's a dictatorship. You know why I compared North Korea with Transnistria? Because the power is passed from father to son. Isn't the same with us? Smirnov and his sons and his whole family. (...) Our republic is Smirnov republic". French documentary is a better source than Tiraspol Times.--MariusM 15:07, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Full support plus i could add some citations from Transnistrian online newspaper "ЧЕЛОВЕК И ЕГО ПРАВА" - "Man and his rights": "Сейчас в государственных СМИ обществу навязывается только одна точка зрения, исходящая от исполнительной власти", "Другим общественно - политическим организациям, которые имеют свои взгляды, отличающиеся от взглядов исполнительной власти, доступа в государственные СМИ не предоставляют."[5]
Translation: Now in the state media is only one point of view controlled by the state. All others political organizations whose opinion differs does not have the access to the state media. EvilAlex 16:17, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

You two guys are not from Transnistria, nor am I but I can confirm that that's completely untrue. The page will lose all reason if you insert that type of edit. . Buffadren 16:28, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

How can you confirm it? The "Man and his rights" thing looks credible to me. The sources in the documentary, on the other hand, are unreliable. --Illythr 23:07, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

You said that what the driver told in the documentary is correct [6]. I added it. I refrained from adding other quotes from the documentary as I don't want to offend the NPOV sensor of Illythr. I see also that you refrain to comment the accusations of wrong translation raised against EvilAlex. May I know why? We (non-Russian speakers) should know who is of bad faith on this talk page.--MariusM 11:06, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Marius, my personal opinion is not a "reliable source". Neither is yours, or that of the nameless and faceless man in the documentary. --Illythr 18:16, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Your translation is also incorrect, that is not what it says in Russian. Buffadren 16:36, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

The translation is indeed off, and the overall quality is rather poor (bad choice of words and syntax). But the general idea is conveyed, IMHO - The POV of the stateowned media is determined only by the POV of the state. --Illythr 18:32, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I am from Transnistria, I am from Bendery. If you disagree with translation then please provide alternative. I only want to write the true. The truth will set you free. EvilAlex 16:41, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

As usual your translation is not only inaccurate (I don't know purposefully or not) but also contains 3(!) mistakes in 3 lines. Alaexis 16:47, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

stop criticizing! Provide your translation. EvilAlex 16:50, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

The current rate here is 300 r./1800 symbols (including spaces). Alaexis 17:00, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Dikarka 18:18, 10 April 2007 (UTC)This movie is not around reality. It is fiction. Did they pay these actors to say these things? It is not a reliable source and has nothing to do with my country

posting a film made by Canal+ on YouTube is a copyright violation or quite likely to be so. I think that this reference has to be removed for this particular reason. Alaexis 11:23, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Your real reason is that you don't like what the film is saying about Transnistria. If it is a copyright violation this is a problem of youtube not of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is only giving refferences to the film, as it gives refferences to many other copyrighted sources. Wikipedia server don't host the movie.--MariusM 11:44, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I suppose you can't read my thoughts so please refrain from stating what are my real intentions in future.

Obviously Wikipedia must not give references to material that is illegal. For example there are no links to torrents in the articles about movies, there are no links to the copyright-protected songs in the music-related articles. Alaexis 11:53, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Please provide proves that youtube material is illegal. BTW, your mind is an open book for me.--MariusM 11:57, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Isn't the burden of proving on the person who brought the ref?

For one thing there is no statement where canal+ agrees its movie to be posted on youtube. Alaexis 12:05, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

The burden of prove is on the person who claim the material is illegal. We assume good faith and can not accuse somebody of illegal conduct without proves - there is the assumption of inocence. As I say, we are linking to a lot of newspapers and news organisations which have obviously copyrighted materials, but, as long as Wikipedia server don't host the materials is not against Wikipedia policies. Giving links and refferences to copyright material is O.K.--MariusM 12:10, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Sites that violate the copyrights of others per contributors' rights and obligations should not be linked. See WP:EL#Restrictions_on_linking - youtube is specifically mentioned there btw. Alaexis 12:27, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

We don't know if in this particular case youtube violated copyright laws.--MariusM 12:32, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Don't say 'we'. I do.

For one thing there is no statement where canal+ agrees its movie to be posted on youtube.

Someone holds the copyright unless they have been explicitly placed in the public domain.Wikipedia:Copyrights#Image_guidelines. The same is for videos. Alaexis 12:44, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Canal+ can sue youtube if copyright was violated. Until a court decision will not prove youtube is guilty we can not assume that.--MariusM 12:55, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Do you know what 'explicitly' means? Alaexis 13:15, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

There is no official Wikipedian polices that ban linking to youtube site. And also you dont know for sure if youtube breached any copyright laws. EvilAlex 15:35, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

EvilAlex, do you know what does the word 'explicitly' mean? Alaexis 16:05, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

yes i know, and also i know what "no official Wikipedian polices" mean too. EvilAlex 16:26, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

This part was removed by Alaexis: "A Tiraspol resident explained to a french journalist team: "There are no journalists who have freedom of speech. Nobody can speak out. I can't. If I said something they could come for me tommorow and take me where no one would find me. And no one would complain. No one has any rights here"French Chanel 4 documentary about Transnistria. Even if we are not allowed to put a link at youtube, we are allowed to make refference at the French documentary. Alaexis protested against the link at youtube but deleted the entire paragraph. May I know why?--MariusM 17:28, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

According to Illythr's comment in this talk page, what the Tiraspol taxi driver told is true. I refrained adding other comments from the documentarry which were not considered valid by Illythr, even while I believe that the Moldovans from Transnistria should have a voice in this article.--MariusM 17:33, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, so if I say that something is true, it automatically qualifies for inclusion into mainspace? Marius, I'm almost flattered. :-D. Ok, how about this, I think that the following is also true: With his decisive actions, General Lebed had stopped the war and later stemmed the wave of lawlessness that followed the creation of PMR. Source - Bergman, the commandant of the Tiraspol garrison in his book, provided by Vecrumba somewhere around here... --Illythr 18:16, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Well you are pretty neutral, but some time you just pushing... EvilAlex 18:32, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

See also WP:EL where is a box telling: "Notice on linking to YouTube, Google Video, and other similar sites: There is no ban on linking to these sites as long as the links abide by these guidelines". --MariusM 17:36, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

It's already written in the article that: According to OSCE, the media climate in Transnistria is restrictive and the authorities continue a long-standing campaign to silence independent opposition voices and groups.[58]. That's it. What's the point of adding anything else about it? The details should be in the appropriate articles. Alaexis 14:22, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Archiving

Okay, I've brought some live sections out of the new archive. Whoever thinks I've missed something, feel free to add more stuff back. --Illythr 23:07, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Power to the People and People's Power Parties

In my understanding, based on the source, those were two different political parties, one led by Radtchenko and one by Butchastky. Alaexis deleted one mention, claiming it was already mentioned. I believe is wrong.--MariusM 12:06, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I think so too. EvilAlex 12:13, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd be surprised if your views differed, guys :).

You are partially right here, though:

Блок левых патриотических сил Приднестровья в лице своих лидеров Александра Радченко, Николая Бучацкого, Александра Яворского, Олега Хоржана, Аллы Мишиной и других в связи с предстоящими парламентскими выборами в соседней Молдове активно проводят агитацию среди населения ПМР, призывая граждан отдать свои голоса за Коммунистическую партию Молдовы.

Министерство юстиции Приднестровской Молдавской Республики считает такую деятельность республиканского народно-патриотического общественного движения "Власть народу! За социальную справедливость!" и "Партии народовластия" незаконной и вынесло им предупреждение. http://www.olvia.idknet.com/ol27-02-01.htm

По надуманным мотивам, по иску министра юстиции ПМР В. Балала через подконтрольные ему и Президенту суды в 2003 году закрывают политическую партию «Партия народовластия», республиканское общественное движение «Власть народу!» и тем самым ликвидируют его печатный орган - газету «Глас народа». http://www.cip.nm.ru/2006/html/40/40_4.htm Alaexis 12:24, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Evil will understand (he is a native Russian speaker), but I don't.--MariusM 12:28, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I saw Alaexis accepted some mention about Ptp party, however he deleted the ban of "Glas naroda" publication, with Radcenko electoral platform. I don't understand the reason.--MariusM 12:45, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

The reason is that it's already described as numerous problems. The details should be in the appropriate article, not in the main one. Alaexis 12:48, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I would agree with it if in this article will not be included fallacies from Tiraspol Times about opposition newspapers operating freely. BTW, Moldovan newspapers in latin script are not allowed to be printed. So, we can not say that newspapers are operating freely. CHeck also the position of OSCE ("media climate is restrictive") and US Department of State - they have a totally different picture on press freedom in Transnistria. Wikipedia is in danger to lose its credibility.--MariusM 12:53, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

What about this: There are several opposition newspapers although they have limited circulation and impact according to the US Department of State report.http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78828.htm? Alaexis 14:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Lets use the full citation in this case:"Opposition newspapers, such as Novaia Gazeta and Chelovek i yevo Prava (Man and His Rights), had limited circulation and impact. Separatist authorities harassed independent newspapers for critical reporting of the Transnistrian regime." EvilAlex 15:47, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Consider the following: There are several opposition newspapers, such as Novaia Gazeta and Chelovek i yevo Prava (Man and His Rights). According to the US Department of State report they have limeted circulation and impact and were harassed by Transnistrian authorities. Alaexis

+ "Separatist authorities harassed independent newspapers for critical reporting of the Transnistrian regime." you intentionally didnt mention this sentence. EvilAlex 13:02, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see that you can read thoughts, just like MariusM. Consider putting the appropriate userbox to your userpage )).

This issue is quite minor. I'll append "for critical reporting of the situation in the republic" once the article is opened. Alaexis 14:49, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Kommersant: MOSCOW FED UP WITH SMIRNOV'S CONSUMER MOODS

It seems that Russians start to understand that they are putting money into a blackhole. Transnistrian people is poor, despite +billion dollars sent in the last years by Moscow (only debt for gas is 1,3 billion USD). The good part is that Smirnov family is rich. Source--MariusM 12:28, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Just a quote: "the Smolensk Square [Ministry of Foreign Affairs] and the Security Council are even beginning to ponder that, perhaps, time has come to look for a replacement to the Transnistrian president". The simple fact that Russian officials are thinking to replace a "freely ellected president" is showing how far from independence is Transnistria.--MariusM 12:42, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Tiraspol Times Risible Propaganda

Why do you have a link to such foolishness? Do many of you actually read the "news" on that site? It looks like it's written by a dull-witted marketing guru with no sense of literature and journalism who's blatantly attempting to stuff his site with key words and phrases. For instance virtually every article has the phrase, or similar, "The country, which is also known as Transnistria, Transdniester, Transdnestr, Transdniestria" stuffed into it somewhere (note: "The Country" also). And if it's now that, it's some little one liner about it being independent and has it's own money and so on etc. How many websites would stick that in every article, it's banal, and this thing claims to be some sort of news portal doesn't it?

I know I'm a new member (this is why I signed up so I could put my name to this message) and you have no reason to listen to me, but please read trough the site yourselves, every "news" item has the same laughable quality. As a site there isn't too much wrong with it if you don't plan on reading anything serious and factual but, please, for the love of journalism why do you to link to it from this page that lists this region at the top of search results? Surely there must be some ethics involved in creating an "encyclopedia"? I mean they're supposed to be serious aren't they, where people want to find facts? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by YureO (talk • contribs) 14:33, 11 April 2007 (UTC).

I think the person who wanted to link included it to show that there is two sides to every story. Not every article is like you say, YuroO. There is a front page story today http://www.tiraspoltimes.com/node/726 about Abkhazia which is interesting. Buffadren 15:29, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Well it is one of very few (and not really written by them anyways), but I do not want to get drawn into it too much. I just thought it was odd to link to such a low-quality source. It might look nice and professional, but if anyone here will take the time to read through it, anyone who is not writing for the website, I think they will see the same thing. It's your page anyways so I wont try and dictate, just that I was a little surprised is all. YureO 10:58, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

It's not Buffarden's page and not mine also :). The TT is useful for determining the official position of PMR. Alaexis 14:39, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

OK !!! It time to remove all references from the TT. Im sick of all Mauco puppets and lies. Buffarden, other puppet of Mauco!! Let us start from a clean version !! Catarcostica 22:11, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

You've just removed quite a bit more than referenced to TT, you know. Oh well, here we go again... :(

PS: About Buffadren: Eh, Catar, Marius has cleared that one up for you: [7]. --Illythr 22:42, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

And where did you revert to anyway? You've removed admin tags, the Religion section... I just can't make out the odds and ends in it... --Illythr 22:49, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

If we are to remove refs to TT we should also remove all the refs to Moldovan sites like conflict.md, just to be consistent. Alaexis 06:17, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Yep, I was so upset when I saw the puppet box on Buffadren.Catarcostica 15:45, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Calling TT propaganda is POV. The conflict.md is not labelled as such, is it? It's enough that it's in the Transnistrian sources section. Alaexis 17:20, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

It not POV...its FACT !!! Catarcostica 18:40, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Please don't SHOUT. I don't see any great difference between TT and conflict.md. Alaexis 18:51, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

It's perfectly appropriate to use partisan sources when we say something according to Transnistrian or according to Moldovan sources. Please don't remove TT-references altogether. Alaexis 05:54, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, as long as we say "according to Pro Transnistria sources based in the Republic of Ireland". Jonathanpops 08:00, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree. The Tiraspol Times is far worse than conflict.md. Conflict.md is highly point of view, but it least it's not just a load of bunk website run by some unknown guy who keeps coming to wikipedia, or getting others to do it for him, to make sure there's a link to it and his other two websites. Jonathanpops 23:15, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Why is it far worse? Just because it's run by some unknown guy who keeps coming to wikipedia? Alaexis 04:46, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

That's one reason. I couldn't really care less to be honest, but I agree that the website is a load of crap and, like I said half a dozen times before, think that pridnestrovie.net and that visitpmr thing are also run by the same person. I also think a few people, or different personas of the same person, who come to this page are involved in keeping the link there, which does to me reflect the credibility of the site/s if they feel they need to do that. But, ignoring the underhand campaigns, I do think the Tiraspol Times reads like a young person's school exam paper or book report in most places, always repeating the same old rubbish like Yure0 said. I don't mean repeating the same old point of view, as we might expect, but literally repeating the same text (as was pasted in this very talk page en masse from TT the other day) in every article more or less. Jonathanpops 07:55, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Dikarka 15:33, 19 April 2007 (UTC)Come on guys! you all seem just to hate any link that supports Pridnestrovie, don't you...it's an absurd..why believe Moldovan sources, but not Pridnestrovian..you all want to be objective, but it's impossible if you read only one side of the story..

This is one of the big problems with Transnistrian sources: instead of countering Moldovan propaganda with facts and transparency, most of them use even more stupid propaganda, discrediting Transnistria's image even further. As a result, the best course of action with them is to look at the way they present the information and trust neither Moldovan nor Transnistrian ones anyway, unless they're admitting something umpleasant to them. --Illythr 20:29, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Dikarka (Mark Street or whoever), I don't hate websites that support Transnistria. I don't hate websites that support Moldova either. This is only one website we are talking about here, you don't always have to turn it into a competition. In fact I'm pretty tired of the way everything has to be a tit for tat competition on this page, i.e. "if we can't have tiraspoltimes.com, we can't have conflict.md... wah wah wah wah wah" ad nauseum. Tiraspol Times is a load of crap and I think anyone who argues otherwise is either totally deluded or Mark Street/Mauco etc and so on... Jonathanpops 20:39, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Unprotected

This article has one of the mot extensive protection logs I've seen. Furthermore, it seems that all of the parties edit warring here have either been blocked or warned for edit warring before. Consider this your last warning: I've unprotected the article and will meet any further edit warring on this page with blocks. Please use this page for polite discussion, and if that fails, seek dispute resolution. Dmcdevit·t 08:02, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I see that El C edits without any discussion...errr...--212.24.177.61 12:12, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Internal politics section

Currently in the internal politics section is written: According to Transnistrian sources, political candidates in favour of unification with Moldova are allowed to stand in elections,[9] although they rarely achieve more than 5% of the votes from the electorate.[10] (...) According to "Tiraspol Times", in 2007 the registration of an unionist political party was allowed [19]. Transnistria has announced that it will introduce the proportional representation vote counting system in its next elections in replacement of its current first past the post system.

We don't need to mention twice the claim of Transnistrian authorities about allowing candidates in favour of unification with Moldova. Once is enough and I will support the last sentence which is presenting exactly the source ("Tiraspol Times") and the moment when Social Democratic Party was registered (2007, AFTER last ellections). As I told previously in this talk page, in my opinion the "unionist" character of Social Democratic party is doubtfull. Its leader, Safonov, was a leader of separatist movement in early 1990 and he founded official PMR press agency Olvia Press. Safonov's newspaper is not an unionist one, as I understood, but is dealing mainly with human right abuses of Transnistrian authorities. Russian speakers, is any clear unionist article in Safonov's newspaper? If yes, please translate. In last presidential elections, Safonov told that a union with Moldova can be considered and it should be subject of a referendum held on both sides of Dniester. This is different than being clearly unionist, I don't know if Safonov told that an union with Moldova is desirable in the way the Moldovan parliament want to solve the Transnistrian problem. Considering his past, I will not bet on Safonov's unionism, while I know that political convictions of people can change in time and even in the rulling Moldovan Communist Party there are former leaders of Transnistrian separatism (one was witness at ECHR in Strassburg at Ilaşcu's trial). Anyhow, the plural ("candidates") has no factual support and what is missing in Transnistria is a "Moldovan" opposition. I will rephrase the sentence: In 2007 was allowed the registration of Social Democratic Party, who include in its program the possibility of talks with Moldova regarding unification.

Regarding the proportional representation system, I ask for sources.

Also, we should add the paragraph from french documentary which was deleted, as WP:EL tells that links to youtube are not prohibited. Even if we don't link to youtube (but we have no reason not to link), we still can consider french documentarry as a source.--MariusM 16:03, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I have been away from this page for three days while I was working on another article, but I see that you already made your changes [8]. In fact you didn't even wait for anyone to comment on them first. You just imposed them five (5h) hours and forty nine minutes (49m) after you posted in Talk and that is not a discussion.

I am the first here to give my opinion. My opinion is that I agree with some of your changes but not with all of them. I propose to move your changes here and let everyone get a chance to discuss them. You can put them back in when you can see that a broad segment of the community agrees with you. Buffadren 13:19, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

If you are missing 3 days you should not expect all articles will remain unchanged waiting for your return. When I missed from Wikipedia nobody waited for my return. You should tell exactly what you agree and what not and give arguments regarding your disagreements. Else, we can not even start a discussion as I don't know what you don't like in my edits and for which reasons.--MariusM 17:07, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

It wasn't just me, in fact you didn't wait for anyone else's opinions. 5 or 6 hours is not enough as long as there is an agreement on this talk page that we edit everything with consensus. There are only two things I disagree with: The French comment is from a faceless person with no name. If you include that, we can include every other non notable faceless person who says whatever he wants. That makes no sense. The second disagreement is that you don't wait for anyone else to give their opinions, but just edit as if you own the page, and then you complain when someone reverts you. I went through the page and removed things that you added without discussing first in talk. If you want them to stay please just let everyone discuss them first. Buffadren 14:58, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

There was already a discussion on this talk page about French documentary [9], we should not repeat it. As is clear that argument "linking to youtube is forbidden" is not valid, you are in minority here trying to censorship the refference to this documentary. Person is faceless because he fear of persecution if real identity is disclosed - this is the reality in Transnistria and Wikipedia should show it. There are however also people who assume overtly their disagreement with Smirnov's regime and are not faceless, do you want to include their statements?--MariusM 13:24, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Disagreement with EvilAlex

Our NPOV sensor, Illythr, expressed a while ago his wondering about the fact that I never disagree with pridnestrovian EvilAlex. The historical moment of a disagreement between us came, Evil did yesterday a revert [10] with which I disagree. In his revert he deleted the paragraph about french documentary at youtube. I was the person who added the paragraph to the article, I defended it in talk page, of course I disagree with Evil. Thanks Alaexis that you restored the paragraph, however I don't agree with your deletion of the youtube link. Is better for Wikipedia articles to have refferences (even better online refferences) and WP:EL states: "Notice on linking to YouTube, Google Video, and other similar sites: There is no ban on linking to these sites as long as the links abide by these guidelines". No reason in my view to avoid the youtube link, it was a misinterpretation of Wikipedia policies believeing that youtube is forbidden.--MariusM 08:59, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I've never said linking to youtube is always illegal. In this case it certainly is as Canal+ has not explicitly agreed to make their propaganda-movie available on the youtube. Alaexis 09:21, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Hate to disappoint you, Marius, but if you're referring to this edit by EvilAlex, it does not qualify as "disagreement": Catarcostica was mislead by the contents of the vandalized userpage of Buffadren and had reverted the article wholesale to some older version, where the documentary was not yet included (among other things). I then reverted him, explaining his error. Then EvilAlex promptly reverted me without even examining the contents of the version he reverted to, nor explanations given. --Illythr 21:39, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Infobox

Infobox is original research, attributing statehood is original research, this whole article is original research and minority POVs. Why not use terminology used in real encyclopedias like Britannica?--Domitius 15:08, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

All entities have infoboxes; countries, provinces, cities, etc. Your edits (inadvertantly) amount to vandalism & I am reverting them as such. El_C 15:14, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

It's not simple vandalism, so you just violated the 3RR. That anon is not me BTW.--Domitius 15:18, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I wish I could label all edits I disagree with as vandalism and be exempt from the 3RR when reverting them. It would be great. I don't see any backing in policy though...--Domitius 15:20, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

“ During edit wars, admins should not protect pages when they are involved as a party to the dispute, except in the case of simple vandalism or libel issues against living people. ”

From the Wikipedia:Protection policy. Is it just me or has this just been violated.--Domitius 15:22, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

That anon used open proxy. Alaexis 15:24, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

That's common knowledge. What warranted full protection in the version of the admin who is a party to the content dispute? I'm still assuming good faith, because the tag El C added was the semi protection tag, so it could be a mistake.--Domitius 15:26, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not party to the dispute. It sure looks like vandalism. I'm inclined to just protect the page entirely with all the defacement & edit waring. El_C 15:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Utter POV.--Domitius 15:32, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Also, it says "SIMPLE" vandalism. If I'm not much mistaken, simple is stuff like "PENIS" and "YOA MOM"; explained removals of allegedly POV text do not qualify.--Domitius 15:34, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd suggest dropping it right now. You should know better than to make major changes to an article such as this without widespread consultation and solid consensus - removing the infobox is nothing short of disruptive without solid consensus to back you up. -- Nick ^t 15:41, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Nick is also an uninvolved admin, if he feels my edits amount to a 3RR breach, I'll self-revert. El_C 15:54, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I am not —nor have I ever been— party to the content dispute. I am an uninvolved admin and I deem that the removal of the infobox is disruptive. El_C 15:40, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm likewise an uninvolved admin. I've had a look at the infobox issue for myself following an earlier request on WP:AN, and I agree with El C. We use similar infoboxes for other unrecognized entities such as Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh, for instance. -- ChrisO 23:13, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Also please note, that Gagauzia has the same infobox as well. The or part in the name is there for a reason. --Illythr 23:24, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

"Infobox Country or territory". Quite! -- ChrisO 23:55, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Introduction

We had a poll some time ago about the introduction [11]. Maybe is time to return to the results of this poll, which was changed afterwards by Mauco's sockpuppets.--MariusM 18:40, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I'll help you with the three more links to the intro discussions.

1. I've proposed the current intro
2. 'de-facto independent' discussion
3. 'republic' discussion

Please look there for the arguments supporting the current intro first.

ps. You're again making en-masse edits ([12]). And why have you removed Transnistria from the Slavic unrecognised countries category? There are no exclusively Slavic countries and Transnistria does have a Slavic majority. Alaexis 19:10, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Not en-masse edits but discussed edits - see also log. Most is moving paragraphs without changes, in order to have a more logical order of paragraphs. Officially Transnistria is a "Moldovan" country, Moldovans are the main ethnic group and even official (separatist) name is recognizing this. We should add a category as "Romanian-speaking countries" as well, if you insist in your Slavic description, but is better not to have any of those categories.--MariusM 19:18, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Regarding intro, I can see from your links that was changed without consensus. The poll provided a consensus with a large majority.--MariusM 19:20, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

You may be surprised but I have absolutely nothing against adding Transnistria to Romanian-speaking countries. Alaexis 19:39, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't find a category about Romanian speaking countries. It will be fair to have both Romanian and Russian speaking countries categories, but one of them is missing.--MariusM 20:01, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

You must know that Wikipedia is not a democracy. You are free to start a new poll though (as several involved editors did not participate in the old one). Alaexis 19:39, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Curent intro is highly POV - "de facto independent republic[1]". We should return to the previously agreed version. EvilAlex 19:28, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Well it is a de-facto independent republic that should really be part of Moldova but , It is not. Moldova has a legal claim but thats it. The only unification resoluion is by negotiation not by smear tactics. The current intro represents a close reality. But it can be made better perhaps by consensus. Buffadren 12:16, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I found report done by the Bar Association of New York by title "THAWING A FROZEN CONFLICT: LEGAL ASPECTS OF THE SEPARATIST CRISIS IN MOLDOVA". At the page 65 it says: "In summary, the TMR is an unrecognized entity that has effective control over territory but whose de jure control is not accepted by any state. The TMR is thus a de facto regime." Although this is a "lawyer language", it could be relevant for the current discussion. Beagel 16:52, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

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== Fact and fiction blend in how the world sees Pridnestrovie, also known as Transnistria. In this guide, get just the facts and none of the fiction... ==

Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublica proclaimed its independence in 1990, one year before the formation of the Republic of Moldova in 1991.

For more than 2,500 years the Dniester River marked the border between the two countries. The territory which today is home to Pridnestrovie (commonly known in English as Transnistria) has never at any time in history been part of an independent Moldova.

Caught between two dictators who were hellbent on domination, Moldova and Pridnestrovie were forced together in World War II. Despite Moldova later renouncing this act as "null and void ab initio" it still pursues a 16 year old territorial claim on Pridnestrovie. The international community does not recognise its self-declared statehood, and the country has wrongly been smeared as a hotbed of crime.

Pridnestrovie - also known by the unofficial name, Transnistria - is a new and emerging country in South Eastern Europe, sandwiched between Moldova and Ukraine. Although widely seen as part of Moldova, historically, Pridnestrovie and Moldova were always separate. Throughout 2500 years of history, the Dniester River forming the current border has been a traditional border between Slav lands (Scythia, 450 B.C.) to the East and Romanian lands (Dacia) to the West.

At no time in history was Pridnestrovie ever part of Romania or Moldova. Pridnestrovie (then an independent Soviet Autonomous republic; M.A.S.S.R.) and Moldova (at the time a part of Romania) were forced into a joint Soviet republic in World War II when Hitler and Stalin redrew the borders of Europe. In the breakup of the Soviet Union, Moldova denounced this forced and unnatural union and Pridnestrovie declared its independence; reverting to the historical Dniester River border and not wanting to be part of an independent Moldova and possible merger with Romania. By the time the Republic of Moldova was proclaimed in 1991, Pridnestrovie had already declared independence a year before and declined to enter into the composition of the new republic. A referendum among the voters confirmed their desire for independence and their rejection of a union with Moldova. The inhabitants of Pridnestrovie are for the most part Slavic. This is in stark contrast to Moldova, on the other side of the Dniester River, where 4/5ths of the population are of Romanian descent and where ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians only make up 6 to 8 percent, respectively.

Pridnestrovie meets the requirements for sovereign statehood under international law, as it has a defined territory, a population, effective elected authority, and the capability to enter into international relations. It is currently seeking international recognition of its de facto independence and statehood.

The country has to contend with a barrage of smears which tries to demonize it by linking it to corruption, organized crime and smuggling. It has been falsely accused of conducting illegal arms sales and of money laundering, but Moldova - seen as the main opponent of the independent government in Tiraspol, PMR - has been unable to support these unsubstantiated accusations with any hard proof or evidence. Poverty is widespread although not more than elsewhere in the region.

In March 2006, the government of Pridnestrovie lodged a formal protest against the surprise introduction of new regulations requiring goods entering Ukraine from Pridnestrovie to carry a Moldovan customs stamp. Moldovan officials insisted that the new rules, unexplicably backed by the OSCE, were designed to stop smuggling. Objectively, they amounted to giving wide control of Pridnestrovie's export economy to Moldova and were targeted primarily at goods which were already being processed normally by Ukraine's customs service (thus not targeted at smuggling).

This was a political move, and rightly seen as an affront to Pridnestrovie in the context of settlement negotiations with Moldova where it is known that the two governments are at loggerheads with each other. Pridnestrovie contended that such wideranging customs changes should be worked out by mutual agreement, after dialogue and negotiations, especially given the history of animosity in the region and the potential for conflict escalation. <small>—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.42.223.160

---

---

(talk) 07:09, 17 April 2007 (UTC).

Catarcostica 21:44, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

== Compared to Moldova, this is "like the Riviera" ==

In the words of 2005 international election observers from The British Helsinki Human Rights Group, Pridnestrovie —

"...is more socially cohesive and economically vibrant than its larger neighbour [Moldova] – a failed state if ever there was one. Much of the reason for the divergence in living standards is that the Pridnestrovians have followed a more cautious approach to economic liberalization keeping many of the social benefits that existed under Communism. Compared with its neighbor, Pridnestrovie is like the Riviera. In fact, in the past three years the capital, Tiraspol, has been spruced up — even its infamous pavements are in the process of being re-laid; new shops and restaurants have opened. And, unlike most other post-Soviet societies, local restaurants and bars are affordable to locals."

— 'Transnistria 2006: Is Regime Change Underway?', British Helsinki Human Rights Group —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.42.223.160 (talk) 07:18, 17 April 2007 (UTC).

"Kids are playing computer games" (The Guardian)

British newspaper The Guardian visited Pridnestrovie in 2005 to report on the country's recent progress. What they found was a very European country not unlike many others. As the newspaper reported, Pridnestrovie today has "its own flag, crest, anthem, president, parliament, uniformed border guards, security service, police, courts, schools, university, constitution" and:

"...the kids are playing western computer games: Tomb Raider, Tank Racer. The shops on 25 October Street include Adidas and a fast-food restaurant decorated with giant, blown-up photos of American skyscrapers. Up the road, there is a vast new sports complex built by the biggest local company, which is called Sheriff, a tribute to the wild west frontier marshals of the US. At the Hotel Timoty, the receptionist, Tania, is dressed in a stretchy white tracksuit, emblazoned Dolce e Gabbana."

— The Guardian, 2005 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.42.223.160 (talk) 07:19, 17 April 2007 (UTC).

Standard of living: "Visibly higher"

== Thas the reason for them to request desperate Russian help == ( Catarcostica 21:48, 17 April 2007 (UTC) ) Journalist Shaun Walker, writing for the British government-funded Russia Profile, visited Pridnestrovie in late 2005 and reported that the pro-Moldovan hate rhetoric is "absurd", that the monthly salaries in Pridnestrovie are higher than in Moldova, that the average standard of living "seems to be visibly higher" than in Moldova, and that "life is fairly normal":

"Boys and girls plaster their walls not with portraits of the president, but pictures of Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, and the theaters show the latest Western films. The large number of cars with Transdnestrian plates on the streets of Odessa is testament to the fact that people are able to come and go freely. The independence celebrations featured singing, dancing and general good humour across several generations."

— Shaun Walker, Russia Profile

I believe the anonimous user just copied some ideas from my article "Heaven of Transnistria". Maybe is time to ask for a deletion review for that article? :-)--MariusM 09:16, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Thas the reason for them to request desperate Russian help. ( Catarcostica 21:48, 17 April 2007 (UTC) )

Category proposed for deletion

Following my discussion with Alaexis, I think we can add Transnistria in both categories "Romanian" and "Russian" speaking territories, but we don't need in Wikipedia a category of "unrecognized Slavic countries" only for Transnistria. Please join discussion at apropiate place (NOT this talk page) --MariusM 09:16, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

The thief is crying most harder: "catch the thief"

I already explained this Romanian saying when was discovered that Kertu3 is sockpuppet of Pernambuco, and in that moment the real sockpuppeteer Mauco starting to defend his sock Penrambuco.

Today Buffadren reverted me (and Kernow as weel) accusing me that I blanked a lot of information. In fact I didn't blanked anything, I've just moved some paragraphs with small rephrasings and added sourced information, which was already discussed long time ago. The only person who blanked information is Buffadren.--MariusM 09:34, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

See my edit: Paragraph "There is disagreement as to whether elections in Transnistria are free and fair" was moved upper (NOT blanked), same with the banning in 2001-2002 of 2 political parties, same with paragraph "Election results in the past were considered suspicious..." (rephrased in "are considered suspicious" as even current election are considered so, right or wrong this is an other discussion) and with the registration of Social Democratic Party (also rephrased "is allegedly accepting actually a union with Moldova" as I already explained in this talk page that I have doubts about unionist caracther of this party). Nothing was blanked by me, only by Buffadren.--MariusM 09:42, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

That is not a fact anyone can check the log, what you imposed was a en-masse edit. I do not object to what you are trying to insert only the manner in which you blanket edit. It is better to work with everyone else here. I understand you are frustrated but this solves nothing. please take your time and I will support your genuine edits. Buffadren 09:51, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Verry difficult when you only revert without explaining exactly what you don't like in other edits and why. My additions were: youtube documentarry, already discussed, statistic with Transnistrian MPs (where they are from) which was added in the article some months ago, after long disscussions and deleted without consensus and Safonov's problems with candidature registration at last elections, also discussed. This is not "en-masse edits", everything was in a single section, you should do the effort to read the section and explain what you don't agree (if your purpose is to improve the article not to disrupt). Also, you should keep in mind that you don't have veto rights on this article.--MariusM 13:07, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Marius, there was no consensus either on the canal+ movie (NOT only about the youtube link) or on the relevance of the birthplaces of the Transnistrian officials. Alaexis 13:51, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

You are a newcomer on this page (BTW, everything is O.K. in Abkhazia now?), you should check also archives. See October 2006 discussions [13], [14], [15], I don't want to repeat. Data are taken from OFFICIAL site of Transnistrian separatist Supreme Soviet. Paragraph was part of the article for long time, you can not remove it unilaterraly.--MariusM 14:22, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not going to remove it unilaterally and I didn't do it (maybe except as a part of a greater revert during the 28-30 March events). I'm just saying there's no consensus on this issue NOW. Alaexis 14:40, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Everything is ok in Abkhazia now. I'd say it's an example of the NPOV approach to the controversial issues. Alaexis 14:42, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

After October 2006 debate was a cosensus to include the info about birthplaces of Transnistrian MPs, as an accurate and sourced info, and relevant as well. If each time a newcomer appear on this page we should rediscuss from the begining everything we will never stop edit-wars. Newcomers should read previously the archives.--MariusM 14:49, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for trying to appreciate my editing position. I would like to understand what is your goal here. For now let me explain mine, I believe in improving relations between Transnistria and Moldova. I also believe that a negotiated outcome agreeable to all sides can be achieved and will be achieved within a very short timeframe. Edits that are designed to weaken Transnistria's image disrupt that process and deepen problems. Many of the edits are severe and are having a reverse result. Mauco's edits depicting the place as a model state were equally unhelpful. I am not tryng to veto you, I am trying to work things out without the need for attacks Buffadren 13:59, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Improving relations between Moldova and Transnistria isn't exactly Wikipedia's goal )). Alaexis 14:07, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Full agreement with Alaexis. Wikipedia is not the place where future of Transnistria should be establish. Wikipedia is an enciclopedia, we should present a TRUE picture of Transnistria, not a propagandistic one, regardless how noble goals the propaganda could have. Remember also that Transnistria is PART of Moldova, we can not talk about improving relation between Moldova and Transnistria as we can not talk about improving relations between Russia ans Smolensk region.--MariusM 14:14, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

of course by ensuring a truthful projection of the Transnistrian situation is Wiki's objective too, that goes without saying, I just think that some are using this page to cause trouble between Moldova and Transnistria by writing all types of negative images here. That's not wiki's objective either.Buffadren 15:22, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

BTW, the president of Moldova, Vladimir Voronin, is a transnistrian himself and historically transnistrians held high position in Moldova's leadership, even in Soviet times.--MariusM 14:24, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Let's not veer to offtopic. Alaexis 14:40, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Buffadren, and anyone else, I think that if anyone here thinks they can affect the workings of an entire country by editing something as nerdy and famously innacurrate as Wikipedia they must surely be retarded. It's just a website that anyone can edit. It is not an official voice, it has no sway with ANY authorities and, because of pages like this one and others where people can't agree on the truth, is losing credibility every day. I'm not trying to rubbish Wikipedia, but just pointing out what a total bafoon I think anyone would be for wasting time editing this site if they think it's going to make a political difference to any part of the world.Jonathanpops 08:33, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

This is so true, Jonathanpops ! But,unfortunately, this is the first link that appear if you write Transnistria on google and the page is full of Mauco ( transnistrian) propaganda.Catarcostica 20:30, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Catarcostica, I realise that. It's the reason why the fools are here in the first place, but they don't realise they're just preaching to other nerds, and possibly influencing the thoughts of some not so clever members of the general public. But it isn't going to make a blind bit of difference to the UN, the EU, NATO or any other political body who do NOT use Wikipedia as a source of information. It is funny to read sometimes though. I'm particulary fond of the way Mark Street keeps coming back under different names and guises, but patently writes in the same style as always... starting off sounding fairly reasonable, as if he's trying to be one of us, then becoming madder by the day as more of his points of view are edited out of the article. A favourite phrase of their's to start a discussion is "MariusM wants to...(as if speaking to us all as equals)" (you can sometimes replace MariusM with EvilAlex), most amusing I assure you. Jonathanpops 20:51, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Dikarka 16:26, 18 April 2007 (UTC)MariusM wants to put controversial material into the article and not discuss it first. He says it was discussed in the past. I was not part of that discussion, so I request two things now, please: 1. Do each change one by one, on its own, one at a time. 2. Discuss it first here so everyone can participate, including me. Thank you

If something was agreed after long discussions in the past, new users who want to removed the info should first obtain consensus for removal, is not the old users who need to obtain consensus for keeping the info. For example you can have a valid point for removal of info if you can prove that info is incorrect. (I hope that after this remark we will not see an article in "Tiraspol Times" claiming that official data from Transnistrian Supreme Soviet website regarding the birthplaces of Transnistrian MPs are wrong).--MariusM 08:45, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Sock puppet of Russia Federation

Due to many evidence referenced on page talk and main page my conclusion is stated in the sockpuppet template on this page. Unfortunately, I'm not the master of edit on wiki. If somebody know how to change the "user" word with "page" and "state" please made the writhe changes. Catarcostica 04:31, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Sockpuppet templates are exclusively for the userpages of the users who are sockpuppets. If you believe some other entity is a sockpuppet bring some evidence and include it in the article itself. Alaexis 04:41, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

En masse editing?

Again Buffadren reverted my edits pretending that I did "en-masse editing", while I explained in 17 April the changes I want to make in the Politics section. Today I made only the moves and small rephrasing of paragraphs, without the aditions I was reffering, however Buffadren still reverted me. He didn't explained in Talk what he don't like, his only position is to revert everything I make. "En masse editing" is just a pretext, I made changes only at one section exactly to avoid being acused of "en masse editing", but there are people who will accuse me whatever I want, they simply don't like the fact that I am editing this article.--MariusM 21:16, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

The more general information should come first so I also don't agree with your paragraph moving. And I still think that at least the links to the Canal+ propaganda movie should be removed as we shouldn't give links to illegal (or very likely to be illegal) content. Alaexis 07:41, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

YouTube links

I've removed the external links to the TV feature on YouTube. We generally do not link to YouTube because it hosts copyvios, and these items most certainly were. Apart from that I really don't see why that report should be relevant for this article (it's not a general introduction about Transnistria but something about one particular allegation, and obviously inserted here only for purposes of POV-pushing). But that's really neither here nor there: YouTube is out, period. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:50, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

what do you know about really? EvilAlex 00:51, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

It was uploaded to youtube by some guy from Romania. There is no evidence this guy is a representative of the TV channel that presumably produced the video and hence owns the copyright. Well, that is, if that video was in fact produced by some reputable TV channel. Because the claim that it was made by "French Channel 4" seems to be false too. So, either that guy from Romania made it himself, in which case it's not a reliable source, or some TV channel made it, in which case the guy stole it. What other "proof" do you need? Fut.Perf. ☼ 04:50, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

It is very interesting theory, but can you prove anything? EvilAlex 15:47, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't need to prove anything. The uploader at youtube needs to prove they have the copyright. As of now they haven't even claimed so, let alone proved it. And you need to find the information who made the video. It's your homework to do, not mine. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:14, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

dear Fut.Perf. the basis of the fundamental right is innocent until proven guilty. For now we assume good faith ( until you have proofs of copyvio). EvilAlex 17:56, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Try it out and you're blocked. End of discussion. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:01, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

you are harsh! You can't maintain civil discussion - shame on you. To be an administrator is to have a duty towards ordinary wikipedian contributors. You don't deserve to be an administrator. EvilAlex 18:14, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

That's what I've been trying to prove for quite a long time... Talk:Transnistria#.22Transnistria_Arms_Trafficking.22_by_Channel_4 Alaexis 14:55, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

It's way too specific to be in the external links section; that is something that needs mention in the body, with the link/s (hopefuly, something other than YouTube) used as a citation. El_C 01:02, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Human rights details

Dikarka 22:24, 23 April 2007 (UTC) There is a detailed article just for Human rights in Transnistria and that is where you can put all your human rights texts. This main article is just for Transnistria and it has to be only a general overview of everything.

No agreement. The paragraphs that you want to remove contain valuable data. EvilAlex 22:34, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

How was that "vandalism"? The edit was entirely conventional. Answer on your talk page as you have been blocked for disruption. El_C 04:23, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

El_C, you are a newcomer of this article, please read archived discussions [16], [17]. The info Dikarka removed were discussed long time ago, those are true and relevant info, also are informations about recent events (this year). Dikarka attempts to remove them is provocative.--MariusM 09:23, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Er, note that Dikarka had moved the details, not deleted them. I incidentally agree with her(?) that the section is currently bloated and should contain a general summary instead of a list of every single known violation of human rights in the region. --Illythr 13:02, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Look at North Korea's human rights section. I think nobody would argue that the situation with human rights is somewhat worse there than in Transnistria. Alaexis 13:20, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I am reporting to the Arbitration Committee that this article has become unmanagable due to unresponsive single purpose editors who, through revert warring, push their points of view and exert their ownership over the article at the expense of quality. El_C 16:35, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

references

I've removed several references to the Moldovan site. Either we have to write 'according to Moldovan/Romanian/Transnistrian/Russian sources' or we have to find neutral sources. The first variant should be used sparingly, for example if there are no neutral refs. Remember that we've already removed some refs to Tiraspol Times. Alaexis 17:21, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Our only concern is the reliabiity of the sources and verifiabilty of the information therein. There's nothing inherently wrong with Moldovan/Romanian/etc. sources, but we do need an uninvolved editor who is fluent in any of the given languages to tell us what's what. El_C 18:18, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Good to see Mikkalai editing the article; it may yet have a fighting chance. El_C 20:45, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Do we need the Tiraspol Times external link?

This link was removed last week and stayed removed for a while until Dikarka (AKA Mark Street, in my opinion, the owner of Tiraspol Times website) put it back again, and continues to do so whenever it's removed. Anyway, disregarding my views of Dik., do we really need two 'English language news from Transnistria' in the links section? I think the Tiras one is better and that we should keep that one instead, what do others think? Jonathanpops 21:13, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I will take it off every time. It just make Wikipedia look bad. Catarcostica 04:46, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

WikiLink inserted instead `'mikka 05:47, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Catarcostica, is this meant to be an announcement that you will be trying to push your way through by means of continued edit-warring? I thank you for your frankness. For how long do you want me to block you in advance? Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:46, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes. It exactly means this. And yes, you can block me forever, but can't change the reality. Tiraspol Times is NOT a newspaper. Bye!!Catarcostica 03:40, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

A warning I've already extended to Jonathanpops, incidentally. El_C 11:54, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

This isn't a message board El Cid, we don't need a social commentary. All you have extended to me is some trite remarks that you labelled "Warning" on my talk page. Restoring three deleted paragraphs is not vandalism by the way. Anyway, back on subject, I just want to know what people think of keeping Tiraspol Times off the page. Jonathanpops 16:09, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Fut.Perf, Catarcostica comment could be seen that way I guess, but I think you are being deliberately obtuse with your remarks. Also, by the same token, if Catarcostica was to do as she/he says then it would mean, adversy, that someone else would have to be doing the same thing, i.e. being involved in an edit war, does it not? Jonathanpops 16:14, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I may be a little bit sarcastic at times (I do take that freedom when talking to professional edit-warriors), but I don't think I misunderstood Catarcostica's remarks. He was saying he would be going on revert-warring no matter what happened. Is there any other way to understand that? Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:16, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Dikarka 20:55, 25 April 2007 (UTC) i think this link should be here..and ,Jonathanpops, please..it's an absurd(i mean you suppose that i'm someone from TiraspolTimes)..i'm just a girl from Pridnestrovie and i feel like expressing my opinion here..besides, TiraspolTimes mostly gives correct information about my country as distinguished from Moldovan sources..

Jonathanpops, if you don't tone down the rhetoric I will block you from editing as per my warning. Tread lightly. El_C 01:08, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Wow, nice picture on your page, El C, now is so clear. And you call yourself as beeing impartial? Catarcostica 03:47, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

You are taking too much liberty with sarcasm, which is disruptive. As for being partial, which side am I expected to support and why? El_C 04:18, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, if you find it disruptive. I consider myself a free man, but sometimes I'm pushing on other's liberty. About the "side". Its too clear!!!Catarcostica 04:26, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Regretfuly, I am not following that purported clarity. But, irrespetively of that, this talk page is not a free-for-all; if you cannot —or will not— conduct yourself professionally, I suggest you expend your energy elsehwere. Thanks. El_C 04:29, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Is not free-for-all? Nice again.Catarcostica 04:37, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Again, if you cannot exercize restraint then you are wasting our time here. El_C 05:04, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Is that supposed to be an explanation of why did you delete wikilink to TT? Alaexis 04:16, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

No, is not!Catarcostica 04:18, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

What is the explanation, then? Why do you argue it matters if it's local or not; it primarily focuses on Transnistria, does it not. El_C 04:25, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Editors? Adress? ISBN? From your POV, I can write myself a word doc or pdf, placed on Internet and call that a newspaper. Nice. You indeed miss some action. Go back to archive, study, turn back and made your arguments. I'm not God to know everything, maybe you know better. But what I know for FACT is Tiraspol Times = a big fake. Did I argue about other Transnistria souces? No. Catarcostica 04:33, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Except that I never advocated the inclusion of that link nor did I vouch for its authenticity. I merely asked a question. All that innunedo reflects poorly on you as have your continued assumptions of bad faith and insults. El_C 04:48, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

It's exactly this type of conduct that has exhausted the patience of any admins who might be familiar with the "archive." Do not expect those of us still willing to enforce policy is this black hole of an article to have kept or caught up. Not before you modify your behaviour, at least. If you object to my presence as sysop here, appeal directly to the committee. But stop misusing this talk page with offtopic and abusive remarks. El_C 05:01, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I've blocked Catarcostica, as per his declaration of intent of further editwarring above. Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:13, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

And perhaps, now that the worst warriors are blocked, we can finally have a constructive discussion about the pros and cons of having links to political propaganda sites such as TT. I'm by no means convinced links like that need to stay, but that's up to you guys to work out. Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:16, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Well I'm not an edit warrior of any sort, I've only made about 5 edits in the last year to this article. I reverted what I thought was vandalism a few days ago, Dikarka removing a big chunk of the page, and was called a vandal myself. How can that be true if all I did was put stuff back in that had been there for ages? I think you have been harsh in blocking Catarcostica for what's been said in the discussion page, and if he is like you say one of the many edit warers he'll just sign up again like all the others do from a different computer. Anyway I totally object to El_C's attitude towards me and others, I didn't even realise he was an admin because of the way he behaves, so can you tell me how to complain about him, I never did that before? Jonathanpops 09:49, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

You've made ~200 edits to this talk page out of your ~300 total edits. Complaints can be directed to the respective subpages of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Transnistria. Your objection has been noted, again, but your edit remains unacceptable. As has already been announced, any reverts from now on need to be accompanied by an explanation (and "Please just stop it with the silly edits, Dik" does not count as one). Any editor should expect a similar warning for unexplained reverts. El_C 16:00, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

For newbies on this article, who don't know the debates about "Tiraspol Times", please check archived discussions: Astroturfing, Congratulations for Tiraspol Times columnist William Mauco, Censorship at Tiraspol Times, Controversy about Tiraspol Times, Not journalism, New censorship at Tiraspol Times, the neverending Tiraspol Times saga..., Mauco's work on wikipedia, copied again in Tiraspol Times. But the most relevant info about Tiraspol Times is given by its editor, who registered at Wikipedia as User:MarkStreet [18] confirmation of identity at request of Jayjg, later also as User:Mark us street [19]. I am maybe a little bit not neutral on this issue, as I had some heated debates with Mark. After a friendly discussion: Marius, I enjoy your observations and you clearly have somethig to offer, his tone changed in You disgust me (accusing me also of accusing him of religious sectarianism, because of this comment, but probabily because of this) and accusations of "pure racism" [20]. One of the concerns of MarkStreet was that because of some editors from Wikipedia Moldovans and Transnistrians are suffering: Your campaign onthese pages is keeping Moldovans and Transnistrians in a economic quagmire. Quite strange this comment of Mark, who previously dismissed EvilAlex's comments about economic hardships of transnistrians: NO HOT WATER In TIRASPOL...THATS A LIE...NEXT YOU WILL CLAIM THERE IS NO BREAD. The ironic tone of Mark about so called economic problems of Transnistria changed after a while and he was talking even about "starvation" that Transnistrians are suffering, main guilt belonging to Romanian Secret Service and Wikipedia: The Transnistria page is pure Romanian/ Moldova Secret Service Propaganda (...) the Romanian Secret Service types just flaunt the rules and plough in their edits (...) The Moldovans treat the Transnistrians like animals and this Transnistrian page on Wiki is an example of the pure bombastic nature of the Moldovan/Romanian people here that refuse to allow the Transnistrians have a say on there own site. (...) The current tactic is to strangle and starve the Transnistrian people into submission. Treat them like animals like the Americans treated the indians in the west in the 1850s. I mention that I asked Mark to be more specific about who are the Romanian Secret Services guys here at Wikipedia but he didn't answered i have my sources in Romania and i have been informed and I can prove a lot more than I am committed to write for other security reasons. Regarding the question why "Tiraspol Times" is using the same software, the same server and the same IP with governmental official sites, Mark explained that everyone in Tiraspol is doing so, EVERYONE IN TRASPOL IS ON THE SAME IP ADDRESS, but after a while he deleted his comments [21]. We should add at the picture confirmed sockpuppetry MarkStreet - Henco, Mark us street-Truli-Esgert. I am convinced that Mark's socks are still editing this article, but they don't need to edit very much as some admins are helping them to remove unpleasant information for Transnistrian authorities and blocking editors who want to restore information. Actual shape of article is like in Mauco/Mark's dreams. Mauco himself, if he had plans of evading the ban, he don't need it, as admins are taking care of this article for him. I hope I will be not blocked after this comment, this will look bad at arbcom case.--MariusM 12:56, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, those TT links are no logner alive. As I commented below, it actually helps everyone to have cohesive and coherent information summarized and split; I'm still not sure why you are so much against moving anything to the subarticle/s when it clearly improves the readability of this page. El_C 16:16, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

We still have in the article misleading comments like "According to Transnistrian sources, political candidates in favour of unification with Moldova are allowed to stand in elections", with refferences to Tiraspol Times. In the external links section we have http://pridnestrovie.net, a site which advertise (at right column) each single article from Tiraspol Times. As a discussion about TT was opened I felt obliged to explain some facts about this website, I don't want people to accuse me of not explaining in talk page my opinions. As long as I am talking with real people, interested to show in Wikipedia the truth about this region, not with sockpuppets, it's worth discussing. I saw El_C blocking an user for usage of the word "vandalism", as being personal attack. Is good for admins like El_C to see from former debates what personal attack realy mean in this talk page. A personal attack is when somebody is telling you that you disgust him (with variant that you disgust him to his bones), that your edits are causing starvation for transnistrian people, that you are a racist, that you want to justify the killings of hundreds of thousands of people (all those are examples of personal attacks which were targeted on me). "Vandalism" is not a personal attack, is just a polite expression in our little corner of Eastern Europe, and in the case we are talking about was not unjustified (important paragraphs were removed without discussions). Anyhow, I don't like admins discretional usage of powers, especially when they are involved themselves in editing disputes (both ElC and Sunrise started to give opinions about this article). We have noticeboards and punishing users should be done in transparent ways, discussed in noticeboards.--MariusM 20:05, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

The block was for disruption. Please stop misusing this talk page with lognwinded complaints about administrative abuse. If you wish to file a complaint, do so elsewhere. Again, I am not —nor have I ever been— involved in the content dispute here. El_C 21:17, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Nice teamwork, Russian team!

Alaexis told me that he agree with conflict.md link. However, he removed this link and ten hours later admin Mikkalai removed the sentences as being without refferences [22]. Congratulations, Russian team, that's nice teamwork. I have to confess that I am again breaching the assume good faith rule, I deserve a punishment.--MariusM 13:19, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Marius, you're not entirely correct. I did agree to add conflict.md to the external refs section. I still have no objections to it. On the other hand I never liked that some facts are supported only by links to this site and (after someone had deleted refs to TiraspolTimes) replaced the refs to conflict.md with {{fact}} tags. Try to find some neutral sources that support the statements in question. Alaexis 15:00, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd appreciate it very much if you all could just stop bickering over past misbehaviour of the other side, and instead focus on what content ought or ought not to be in the article. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:38, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with not bickering, but you have to understand that the corruption involved in this article is incessant, never ending. It's hard not to get dragged into it. There are some people who are trying to include certain keywords in this article all the time, words like "Country", "Independent" and "Official" and when they can't succeed for a while they'll make another satellite article about Transnistria where they'll refer to it as a "Country", and try to put their catch phrases and keywords in there instead. Example. I've pretty much had enough of it myself, almost prepared to give up and let it rot. Jonathanpops 21:45, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Recent information about political repressions

TRANSNISTRIAN POWER WIELDING FORCES HOLD OVER TEN OPPONENTS OF BREAKAWAY REGIME (Nadezhda Bondarenko former presidential candidate on behalf of Communist party was between those arrested). Somebody with quotes from Lenin and a Che Guevara photo on his userpage want to hide this. I tremble with indignation seeing the injustice committed against Transnistrian communist comrades and I want the information back in the page.--MariusM 13:36, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

You probably want them in Human rights in Transnistria article. You cannot put each and every incident into the main page about a country. `'mikka 14:40, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Please focus your comments not on what atrocities where committed when by whom, but on what you want the relation to be between the human rights section in this article and the dedicated human rights main article, in terms of size, structure and scope. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:41, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm, once again, very much confused as to which side I'm expected to support. Clearly, however, the side that opposes the Transnistrian government does not in any way benefit from having a longwinded and uneven human rights section. El_C 16:10, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Mikka, this article never contained each and every incident regarding Human Rights. But recent events (from this year) should be included in the article, also should be included unsolved issues (right of Moldovans to use latin script, for example). Also, overviews about Human Right in Transnistria made by reliable organisations - not Moldovan or Russian government, but U.S. Department of State, for example, should be included. Human Right section is not too long, as Human Rights are an important unsolved problem for Transnistria. There are other sections which are not needed - for example all details in the referendum section are unnecesary, as referendum is not anymore a recent event. A link to main article is enough.--MariusM 19:15, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

But why the focus on recent events; should the focus not be on the magnitude of events per se., as per Wikipedia:Recentism? El_C 19:23, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Several times I was told in this talk page that some of the facts of Transnistrian government, even if true, are not anymore relevant as are old stories. Recent events are showing current situation, and Wikipedia readers maybe are interested in current situation. As we have claims about current political freedom, it's worth having some facts about it as well. If you didn't noticed, one subject of edit wars is rephrasing the sentence from Politics section "Election results are considered suspicious" in "Election results in the past were considered suspicious" [23]. Having recent facts about interdiction of opposition rallies or arrest of pollitical opponents is helping Wikipedia readers to understand current situation of political freedom in this region.--MariusM 20:24, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not disputing the specifics at this time; my point was about promoting recentism. El_C 20:39, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

The essay you reffered (not an official policy or guideline) is anyway ambigous, is not saying that recentism is always a bad thing, there are pros and cons. My opinion is that it makes sense to have in this article recent problems, and I answered also to Mikka who claimed that each single problem about human rights is in this article, which is not true.--MariusM 20:48, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay, fair enough. El_C 21:00, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

external links

After some thinking about the issue, it comes to my mind that home pages of media are rather non-encyclopedic and their selection is POV (altough AFAIK it was a kind of hard consensus). A general common sense rule is that if a website/organization is notable, then there must be an article about it, and it must be used foir linking, rather than its home page. If the website is nonnotable, then why link it at all? In this way the incude/exclude problem is easily eliminated: the notability is judged by a bdoarer and more independent during AfD and relevance must be cearly established in the corresponding article (e.g., by statement that the establishment in question significantly related to Transnistrian issues)

I suggest to remove all non-article links. Official governmental homepages must be moved where they belong, Politics of Transnistria. `'mikka 16:59, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

In Wikipedia the governmental homepages are almost always included in the external links sections of the respective countries' articles. Imho a link to the website of PMR parliament should also be in the main article. I'm also strongly for keeping links to overviews of PMR by BBC, OSCE, RFE/RL and The Economist IU. Nobody has ever wanted to remove them Alaexis 17:16, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

You didn't read carefully: I don't suggest to remove links to articles (eg overviews). It is homepages that I am strongly against. If you say that gov't homepages always included, fine with me. `'mikka 19:05, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Transnistria isn't a country, but it's true also for territories and cities (i.e. homepages of govt. links). El_C 19:26, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

The link for Tiraspol Times is repeatedly removed by political inspried vandals. I have reinserted, Buffadren 08:06, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

and I have delete it. --WMPernambuco 16:40, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

• Buffadren, have you even read any of the discussions recently, or do you just come here to make sure the link to Tiraspol Times is still visible on the page? Jonathanpops 08:20, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Statehood criteria question regarding Transnistria

I am assisting with sources and fact checking for a Wikipedia list called List of sovereign states. The list currently includes a sentence which is part of the introduction with the following phrasing:

• Five states, neither UN members nor recognized by any states that are sovereign according to some interpretations of article 1 of the Montevideo Convention, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Somaliland, South Ossetia and Transnistria.(dubious — see talk page)

Due to the fact that Transnistria is the only of these states or state-like entities which has been flagged with the "Dubious - See talk page" warning or tag, we would like to ask someone from this page to please enumerate on the size of the permanent population, on its territorial boundaries, as well as on its government or government-like authority, and comment on its competence, within its own constitutional system, to engage in relations with (other) states. Please bring sources for any statement, as sources have been requested by myself and by danielfolsom in Talk:List of sovereign states. Thank you in advance. Britlawyer 00:06, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I wish I could help, it sounds really interesting. I'm not sure you'd ever get a straight answer though; it really depends on who you ask. No one who is really impartial ever seems to visit the place, so only parties with a personal interest seem to have an opinion on this subject. I notice on your page that user Mauco had a lot to say and I would say myself that he did seem to know a lot of stuff, but if anything is "dubious" it's a lot of stuff that he had to say. Mauco has been exposed for using various accounts to strengthen his view and permanently blocked for two months from Wikipedia, so you might want to bear that in mind when reading his "evidence". So very little real facts are known about the place, everything that comes out of there, Moldova and Transnistria, seems to be propaganda (in my opinion at least), both for and against the independence of the region. As far as I know there have only been two outsider TV documentaries and they both focus on corruption in Transnistria, one more so than the other, and the only other outsider reports I've seen are from Christian missionaries, who have their own agenda also. Transnistria has been described as a black hole before, and I think regarding information and what the rest of the world knows about it, it definitely is a black hole.

Personally I think the fact that people from Transnistria and Moldova (Romania and Russia also) come to this page to try and influence views of their region, on a website, speaks volumes on how they operate and, to some extent, how primitively they think to behave in such an old fashioned way. I'm not really sure I'm making sense with this last paragraph. I don't mean using websites is primitive, but there's something about the way a lot of the people involved go about promoting or scandalising Transistria that's so 20 years ago. I think it's partly because there is no choice, they have no other media outlet to let people hear their voice, and they're just not used to how the rest of the world operates, how modern society functions. Anyway that all sounds very patronising I'm sure, if not outright insulting, but it's how I see things as an Englishman looking from the outside.

I'm sorry; it doesn't really help you answer your question. Hopefully it might highlight how difficult it will be to answer though. Jonathanpops 21:06, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I think this might make an excellent introductory statement in the ongoing Arbcom case on this article. It is succint, to the point and neutral, too. Except that Mauco's is currently serving a two month block, not a permanent one. --Illythr 19:45, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Illythr, that would be great. Ironically perhaps, I'm sure that someone will object on the grounds that it's not neutral in some way. Jonathanpops 20:59, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Dl.goe's tags

Regarding this edit adding "weasel word" and "missing facts" tags to the article ([24]): Dl.goe, there certainly is no ban in effect on making constructive new edits to this article. If you see that anything is wrong or missing, you are certainly free to go and fix it. I'm not personally seeing the weasel words right now, but any good faith attempt at making fresh improvements (rather than sterile reverts to older versions) will certainly be welcome. That's the whole point of having this article not permanently protected. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:32, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

my opinions didn't change. I would make partly reverts to old versions (the changes I've written to you about).Dl.goe 12:46, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I didn't see you complaining about "weasel words" in what you wrote on my talkpage. Where are the weasel words? As for your other proposals, I'm by no means a content arbitrator here, so don't look to me to "allow" or "disallow" your edits - I'm just saying that if you know that a specific change has been strongly contested in the past, you'd better be careful about reintroducing it without establishing some degree of consensus beforehand. You said, among other things, that you didn't like the second paragraph of the lead, and wanted to replace it with another, right? Well, if you want to hear my opinion, I don't like either version. Both are promoting an opinion (yours more obviously so than the present one), and both are instances of Lead fixation. Lead sections should be as short as possible. Just my 2c. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:37, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Semi-protected?

How come that a "newbie" (User:WMPernambuco) can edit semi-protected article? Alaexis 16:46, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

He created the accounts a couple days back and waited until they were "aged" enough. Let's see how many others there are. Yawn. Please report any further instances directly at WP:AIV if no other admin is around. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:13, 30 April 2007 (UTC)