Talk:Transnistria

Adding "also called Pridnestrovie"

Even though WP:COMMONNAME doesn't allow for the title of the page to be called Pridnestrovie, I want to at least acknowledge that some people call the unrecognised state Pridnestrovie. Can I do that? Kxeon (talk) 15:44, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

This is specified at Transnistria#Names. Super Ψ Dro 16:00, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Nonsense

It appears that the editors and moderators of Wikipedia are doing everything to block this website in all countries except the EU and North America. Calling the subject of the article a directly insulting politicized term and putting it in the title for the sake of declaring one's political claims and nationalist ambitions is brilliant in its absurdity. It's funny when a propaganda mouthpiece calls itself an encyclopedia. 2A03:F680:FE04:2887:D9DB:C9D5:A139:DA0B (talk) 19:55, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

I think you should find a better thing to do. Pridnestrovie will not be used. It won't change even if you come back every few months. Super Ψ Dro 20:23, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

Bro, you don't understand. This is the English section. Wikipedia is like a brainwasher for the Western layman, not for us. They will not be affected by the loss of an audience outside the so-called "Golden Billion" and its colonies. Topics related to Moldova and Romania are supervised here by people from the same cohort that today is trying to set Moldova against Pridnestrovie and start the war again. Therefore, they will insult us with impunity and write undisguised propaganda, despite how absurd it looks from the outside. The project Wikipedia as a free encyclopedia failed a long time ago. 217.19.215.111 (talk) 10:34, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Transnistria is the overwhelmingly dominant English name for this country, even if it is locally known as Pridnestrovie. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 03:02, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Why are the edits reverted?

It’s no vandalism, but I wanted to change the infobox slightly. -184.148.109.174 (talk) 15:57, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Transnistria is not a settlement, and the current infobox already has a status field. CMD (talk) 16:06, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

I hear you. The template was used for six Ukrainian regions to denote the occupied territories controlled by Russia. -184.148.109.174 (talk) 17:16, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Those are current event articles in a lot of flux, it is best not to model anything on them. CMD (talk) 01:19, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Categorisation

Adding the category "Russian military occupation" is counter to the policy, specifically to the WP:CAT guideline which states that "Categorizations should generally be uncontroversial; if the category's topic is likely to spark controversy, then a list article (which can be annotated and referenced) is probably more appropriate." We have the article Russian-occupied territories where we can provide the necessary context.

This characterisation is controversial: while Moldova says that Transnistria is occupied by Russia, Transnistria itself, or Russia for that matter, does not agree with that. Even Encyclopedia Britannica, which is hardly sympathetic towards Russia, talks about a "substantial Russian military presence" without using the o-word [1]. Alaexis_¿question? 19:55, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

No it's not controversial, it's calling a spade a spade. Russia is obviously not going to state that they are occupying Moldova. I am not sure why does it matter. Russia keeps on with its "special military operation" lie yet the article is called 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, even if the Russian government does not like it. I am also not sure why should the word of Russia matter in the first place. It recognizes Transnistria as a part of Moldova. And the illegal occupation regime's word definitively does not matter here. There is no-one better to state whether Moldova is occupied or not than Moldova itself.

Britannica's example is quite arbitrary. Just like you sent a source not specifically calling Moldova occupied (not denying it, simply not mentioning it) I can also bring in sources stating it is. Super Ψ Dro 14:33, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Well, the fact that the sources which describe the presence of Russian army is Transnistria often do not use the word "occupation" by definition means that such a characterisation is controversial. See for example the BBC profile or this Guardian explainer. Alaexis_¿question? 19:43, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

"Russian-backed breakaway region/state" is probably how it is usually described as. Mellk (talk) 07:45, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I am not convinced a lack of mention of the word is evidence of its controversial nature. Still, as Chipmunkdavis has stated, Russian military presence in Transnistria is probably a more appropriate recipient, so I will drop this issue here. Super Ψ Dro 08:11, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

The inclusion of the category would be appropriate if several reliable sources began describing Transnistria as a "Russian military occupation", "Russian military-occupied zone", or something along those lines. To my understanding, this is not yet the case. I do not think that neutrality is the relevant policy in this case. Yue🌙 08:04, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

The category (Category:Russian military occupations since it hasn't been linked) appears to be on Russian military presence in Transnistria. For someone navigating by category, that seems a much more informative page. CMD (talk) 08:57, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Moldovan language

Knižnik, you claim that including Romanian in the infobox as one of Transnistria's official languages is misleading. I too can argue adding Moldovan is misleading as a Moldovan language is not a real thing. By the way, I think the alphabet issue here is irrelevant. Romanian is still Romanian either written in Latin or in Cyrillic.

I propose to achieve a middle ground, taking Moldova's page as a model (see this diff [2], right before a long edit war). Before Moldova changed its official language to Romanian earlier this year, all language templates used Romanian parameters (the |ro| thing). I believe this is appropriate as with these templates we're simply showing the language the text is in to the reader and politics cannot enter this issue. As for the infobox, I propose we do the same we did for Moldova's page, add "Romanian (officially Moldovan)". This would consequently need the removal of note b in the infobox as it would be redundant.

What do you think? Participation from other users is welcome too. Super Ψ Dro 19:12, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

I didn't oppose "including", I opposed "labelling" in the most visible parts of the main infobox. The view of this entity is that it has 3 official languages: Moldovan, Russian and Ukrainian. No-one even recognizes officially this entity as a country, but de facto it exists.

Right now it reads:

Republica Moldovenească Nistreană (Romanian)
Република Молдовеняскэ Нистрянэ (Moldovan Cyrillic)

Cannot you see how weird this "combo" might seem to an average reader (most of whom cannot locate Moldova on the map)

What I suggested was explaining the consensus view on linguistics in the footnote. Wikipedia shouldn't be dumbed down nor should we have an aim to "bring education to the toiling masses" as was a Soviet slogan about forcing people to learn. Your comparison with the Moldova page is comparing apples and oranges: Moldovanism and Romanian unitarism were two competing identities there in 1990s and even well beyond that. In Transnistria, however, only the former is prevalent and as detailed articles say (I don't remember whether I read about it here or on Russian language Wikipedia): the handful of available Romanian alphabet schools face state discrimination. Also, presumably most of the Moldovan (Romanian) population of Transnistria actually do self-identify their language as "Moldovan".Knižnik (talk) 19:53, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

The issue is complicated. If it appears weird to some readers so be it. It will also be weird if they see Moldovan in the infobox and when they click on its article they find out it is basically another name for Romanian that is not even official in Moldova itself. We can simplify this issue up to a point. I also can't see why is comparing this article with the Moldova one inappropriate. It is a common thing in Wikipedia to apply a common practice throughout articles, and these two are very closely interrelated. None of this "dumbs down" Wikipedia either. As Moldovan is not a real language we should not portray and treat it as such, and we indeed don't in any Wikipedia article. Again, the templates' purpose is to show the language that is being shown to the reader. It is a fact that Republica Moldovenească Nistreană is Romanian while Република Молдовеняскэ Нистрянэ is Romanian in Moldovan Cyrillic. In the infobox we have more maneuverability as many articles take different approaches, thus my proposal for a note in parentheses. Super Ψ Dro 20:30, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Look, right now the box reads (emphasis mine): Official languages: Russian^aRomanian^bUkrainian^c

Cannot you see that it's odd because Romanian does not have any official status. Linguistic view is one thing (of course the relevant special Wikipedia entries should highlight the predominant view (even though there are nuances)), the region's de facto rulers' enforced view is another thing, and thirdly we have the speakers' own opinion, too. Knižnik (talk) 20:55, 27 April 2023 (UTC)