Tell us about Romanian Wikipedia

This page belongs to the project Tell us about your Wikipedia.

Name of the Wikipedia

Wikipedia în limba română

Questionnaire

Contributors

Wikimedia Statistics can be difficult to interpret. What is your impression, how many steady contributors do you have?

Off the top of my head, I'd say we've had somewhat less than 100 steady contributors at any one time. Of course, this depends on what one defines as "steady" -- if you mean "daily", then I'd estimate 20 or less; if you mean "at least one contribution per month" I'd probably say 200 or more. My definition of "steady" is "at least one contribution per week", hence my estimate above. --Gutza 00:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hah, the lack of constant editors is sometimes very painful. Even though Romanian has cca 30 millions of native speakers, we have only around 20-30 contributors that I'd consider "steady". This amount is rising slowly. Remigiu 23:06, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are 30 steady contributors who write and talk and some contributors (do not know how many) write but never or rarely talk (to avoid conflicts and wars).Vladimir-Adrian (talk) 15:04, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Are your contributors mostly native speakers?

By all means, yes. --Gutza 00:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but there are also some Romanians who live abroad and thus cannot speak the language well. On the other side, I'm an example of a non-native user. Remigiu 23:06, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but there are some contributors mostly from the Republic of Moldavia (Romanian territory but was a long time in USSR, they do not know the language very well, still learning).Vladimir-Adrian (talk) 15:25, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Where do your contributors live (regions/country)?

See above. --Gutza 00:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Most of them in Romania. The Republic of Moldova, the second Romanian-speaking country has by far much less active contributors, and Voivodina and Timoc, where many Romanians live, are unrepresented. There are Wikipedians from many other countries, including France and the United States. Remigiu 23:06, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Besides Romania, there are some Romanian contributors living outside Romania, working abroad (Italy, Spain, United States, Canada, etc) or are from Republic of Moldova. There are three million Romanian people living and working abroad.Vladimir-Adrian (talk) 15:20, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How common is it that your contributors meet in real life?

Typically less than twice a year, probably more than once a couple of years. --Gutza 00:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Such reunions are organised but they're quite rare, as the small amout of users makes fixing dates somehow more difficult than for example at pl or en.wiki. Remigiu 23:07, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Other Wikipedias

Do you have special contacts with another Wikipedias (maybe in related languages)?

Not really, no. If anything, we have a lax relationship with the English Wikipedia, in that we default policies to theirs, whenever that makes sense; also, we have a significant number of local contributors who are also active on en.wiki (and, as such, familiar with en.wiki policies). Apart from that we don't have significant contact with other local Wikipedias. --Gutza 00:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is said that Romanian Wikipedia supported the opening of Aromanian and Romani Wikipedias, but since then, there weren't any special attempts to at least create trans-wiki projects. There's an unilateral relation to en.wiki – when a policy of the given matter doesn't exist at our project, we generally consider English Wikipedia rules as valid if they don't contradict other existing policies. Remigiu 23:06, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Do you translate a lot from other Wikipedias? Which ones?

Yes, we do translate much from other Wikipedias. Typically from en.wiki, fr.wiki, de.wiki, hu.wiki and it.wiki. English is definitely first, the rest I personally don't know much about. --Gutza 00:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, there are many translated articles, mostly from English Wikipedia, but translations from Romance languages other than Romanian, German, Russian and Hungarian aren't uncommon. Remigiu 23:06, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Organization and support

Is there a Wikimedia chapter in your country? How does your language relate to it?

There is none. --Gutza 00:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's Wikimedia Foundation Chapter in Poland, but it doesn't take care of the Romanian Wikipedia, as Romanian is neither a minority language nor a popular foreign language there. Remigiu 23:06, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are there work groups in other organizations about Wikipedia?

Not that I know of. --Gutza 00:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't heard about any, but it would be appreciated. Remigiu 23:06, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your Wikipedia and the linguistic community

Is there a language institution for your language, like an Academy, or a club of people interested in your language? Do you have contact with them?

Depending on who you ask, there is one or there are two of them. For Romanian proper there is the Romanian Academy which regulates the language in a rather authoritarian manner. Most speakers of Romanian and Moldovan would probably agree the Academy of Sciences of Moldova is (still) regulating the Romanian language spoken in the Republic of Moldova. To the best of my knowledge, no Wikipedia project has been able to keep in contact with either of the Academies, although I have had reports of erratic interactions with the Romanian Academy. --Gutza 00:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are two standarising bodies for Romanian, these being the Romanian Academy and the Moldovan Academy of Sciences. However, they don't have such a strong position as, for example, Real Academia Española has in Spain. We don't have any contact with them, although it would be welcomed, as there are some cases when the help of professionalists would be really useful. Remigiu 23:06, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Who (else) supports you?

The Romanian Wikipedia has no formal support from any organisation (nor informal, to my knowledge). --Gutza 00:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We don't have any official supporters and most of advertising work etc. is taken directly by our users. ~~

What does the public outreach for your edition look like? Do you have flyers, give lectures, trainings etc.?

We have made some timid public outreach efforts, but nothing to write home about. By my estimation the most effective channels for new contributors are firstly the exposure of the English Wikipedia and secondly the reasonable (but not impressive) media coverage we have managed to build. --Gutza 00:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know anything about such actions, apart from some appearances in press. Remigiu 23:06, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Do you get feedback from readers?

Yes, we actually get so much feedback that we have ended up limiting it. I estimate that more that 90% of the direct feedback we get is positive, and it's directed specifically at the Romanian edition (I suppose feedback relevant to the English language version is directed to the English language version, even by Romanians). --Gutza 00:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, many people appreciate our work. However, they are not used to mechanisms which Wikipedia is based on and their feedback sometimes might be considered vandalism. Remigiu 23:06, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia has a bad reputation in academic world. In important mass-media, too. Mass-media is pretty ironical and critical. Vladimir-Adrian (talk) 15:36, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What other encyclopedias exist in your language?

To the best of my knowledge, there is only one active, truly significant contemporary generic encyclopedia aside from Wikipedia, Rocarta. However, there are a number of specialist encyclopedias, old generic encyclopedias, start-up current generic and specialist encyclopedias, all in Romanian, and current generic encyclopedias in other languages available in Romania and Moldova. --Gutza 00:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are many encyclopedias in printed version in both Romania and Moldova and we sometimes use them as the sources for our articles. In the internet, our competitor on a limited field is Enciclopedia României, a wiki dedicated to Romania only. Remigiu 23:06, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We have (Romanian)- Encyclopedic Dictionary (seven volumes, 5500 pages, 120 dollars but free online, partially transferred http://dexonline.ro/), Crispedia http://www.crispedia.ro/ (general, online, free. Geography, medicine, Romanian culture, history (partially) are represented. Zoology, botany, universal literature are not represented yet). Britanica (sixteen volumes, 5500 pages, 80 dollars), other traditional encyclopedias (1000-1500 pages, about 20-30$)(general works), Romanian Encyclopedia ( online, free, 4200 articles, 2000 pages, http://enciclopediaromaniei.ro/wiki/Enciclopedia_Rom%C3%A2niei), OrtodoxWiki (2000 articles, 2700 pages, free, online, http://ro.orthodoxwiki.org/Pagina_principal%C4%83), Religious Dictionary by Ioan M Stoian (partially online, free, http://dexonline.ro/), and http://www.crestinortodox.ro/ (big Christian site, free) (particular works),

We have (English)- Britannica online (partially free http://www.britannica.com/ ), Encarta (archived http://web.archive.org/web/20090411143533/http://encarta.msn.com/, free), http://www.encyclopedia.com/ (excellent encyclopedic portal of many encyclopedias, free), http://www.sciencedirect.com/ (many famous scientific magazine, free), http://scholar.google.ro/ (great portal of academic magazine)

We have (French)- Larousse http://www.larousse.fr/ and Encyclopedie Universalis http://www.universalis.fr/ (only partially free)Vladimir-Adrian (talk) 14:45, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Content

Does your edition concentrates on certain topics, like your region and language, or Latin Wikipedia on Roman history and Christianity?

By definition, we do not. By current practice, most contributors are more adept at local topics than they are on universal topics, therefore the actual content does tend to concentrate on topics close to home, especially in regard to cultural matters. --Gutza 00:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Formally not, but generally most of our articles treat subjects connected with Romanian-speaking countries, especially Romania. Remigiu 23:06, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Did your edition enjoy text donations, for example from older encyclopedias?

We have been able to use content from old encyclopedias, but only as a result of that content "naturally" becoming part of the public domain. --Gutza 00:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, we didn't. If the text from an old edition appeared in our wiki, it's due to its contents became public domain according to the law. Remigiu 23:06, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Some encyclopedias are in public domain. Romanian Wikipedia has articles taken from Romanian Encyclopedical Dictionary 1962 (101 articles, http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorie:Articole_din_D.E.R._1962) and from DEX online (6 articles http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorie:Articole_din_DEX_online), mentioning the sources.Vladimir-Adrian (talk) 14:57, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Language

Is there a generally accepted norm about your language (spelling, dictionary, pronounciation)?

Again, depending on who you're asking, Romanian has either one or two distinct norms. As shown above, Romanian proper is regulated by the Romanian Academy; the Moldovan language, typically assessed as being the same language is regulated by the Academy of Sciences of Moldova. For several years, the Romanian authority has dictated formal writing norms which differed from the ones dictated by the Moldovan authority. As far as I know, the two norms are currently in sync, but I might base my assessment on obsolete data. Also, if my data is correct, the Moldovan Academy will be soon overridden by the Communist state authorities in regards to the language regulations (if that didn't happen already). At any rate, the final result is the we have not one but two regulating bodies regarding the Romanian language, at least as far as Wikipedia is concerned (the Romanian Wikipedia openly welcomes contributors from the Republic of Moldova, so we have to acknowledge any and all language rules imposed in Chişinău). --Gutza 00:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As I've mentioned above, Romanian has two regulating bodies. However, the single difference imposed by them is using of â and î which both are used to mark the same sound. We accept both spelling norms. As most of our users are from Romania, where â spelling is more popular, most of our articles are written according to Romanian Academy's standard. Remigiu 23:06, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How do you deal with different spellings, dialects etc. (like B.E. lift and A.E. elevator)?

This has actually been a matter of bitter local dispute, one which I have been deeply involved in. As such I prefer to refrain from making any comment whatsoever. --Gutza 00:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Our ortographical policy permits both spelling norms but the one from Romania is favorised, as most of our contributors and readers are from this country. We don't have any regulation regarding synonyms, so the title of article depends on which word the writer prefers to use. Remigiu 23:06, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Compared to most languages, including English, Romanian happens to be surprisingly uniform, with only one literary form, so that we don't have any dialectal difficulties to speak about. The spelling difference mentioned by my colleagues is actually superficial and has no impact whatsoever on anyone's ability to read or write articles. I was, however, sufficient reason for a polarization within our community. Currently we have a policy (somewhat similar to this en.wp guideline) that prevents simply switching from one spelling norm to the other, so as to avoid meaningless edit wars. Both norms are verifiable and supported by dictionaries, linguists, use in current publications, etc., so that banning one spelling in favor of the other is not justified. --— AdiJapan 02:41, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Links

Main/Front page of your Wikipedia: http://ro.wikipedia.org