Ronline~enwikinews

STAY STRONG LONDON!
I wish everyone who's currently in London well, and that you have the strength to get through these hard and insecure times of the July 7 bombings. You've proved to the world what a great city you are, and we wish you the strength to get through this! We're all with you!

Proud to be European!

NEWS UPDATE: Romania comes third in Eurovision Song Contest 2005!! That's the best result for us ever, a big thank you and congratulations to Luminiţa Anghel and Sistem for a great show!

I'm Ronline from Romania. The most covered non-English-speaking country on Wikinews!

I currently live in Bucharest, the world's most eclectic city, though I'm originally from Transylvania.

I, CGorman, hereby award Ronline the Wikinews Medal of Persistance for his work reverting vandalism

Where I edit

• Over here: the English Wikinews
• The Romanian Wikipedia (less now, since others have taken on the job. I'm still an admin there, though)
• The Romanian Wikinews (yes, trying to revive it, it jumped a few places last week from second-last almost to middle-rank)
• The English Wikipedia - Romanian-related edits
• Minor edits to other Wikimedia and Wikitravel projects

Quotes of the moment

• Bill Clinton on Romania: "Find Europe's future here" ([1])
• Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, said the news offerings are also dependent on the writers. "We've got five [stories], and two of them are about Romania," he told Wired News, making the point that this is not your father's news Web site. Go to WikiNews. [1]
• "Tuesday's lineup, for example, included a story about a discount retailer's plans to open stores in southern Romania along with a piece about the new pope." - from Wired News [2]
• Romania. Real people. Real passion.

Wikinews coverage stats

CGorman's coverage map (as of May 13) based on the below stats

This gives a snapshot as of 22 May 2005 as to which countries Wikinews reported most on, as judged by the number of articles in each country category. Top countries are shown.

1. United States of America: 439 - now I realise we are too US-centric
2. UK: 142
3. Romania: 105 - most covered non-English-speaking country
4. Iraq: 82 (in grey because most of the news is US-war-related)
5. Australia: 75
6. Brazil: 71
7. China: 66
8. Ireland: 51
9. Canada: 47
10. India: 30
11. Israel: 30
12. Japan: 29
13. Italy: 27
14. Vatican City: 27
15. France: 23
16. Indonesia: 22
17. New Zealand: 22
18. Russia: 21
19. Taiwan: 20
20. Lebanon: 19
21. Colombia: 17
22. Cuba: 17
23. Spain: 16
24. Netherlands: 16
25. Kyrgyzstan: 15
26. Iran: 14
27. Venezuela: 11
28. Sweden: 11
29. Syria: 10
30. North Korea: 10
31. Sudan: 10
32. Serbia and Montenegro: 9
33. Switzerland: 9
34. Ukraine: 8
35. Kenya: 8
36. Afghanistan: 8
37. Poland: 8
38. Norway: 7
39. Finland: 6
40. Bulgaria: 5
41. Portugal: 5
42. Iceland: 5
43. South Africa: 5
44. Zimbabwe: 5
45. Rwanda: 5
46. Ethiopia: 5
47. Nigeria: 3
48. Turkey: 3
49. Estonia: 3
50. Croatia: 3
51. Denmark: 3
52. Georgia: 3
53. Belgium: 3
54. Uganda: 3
55. Hungary: 2
56. Moldova: 2
57. Monaco: 2
58. Democratic Republic of the Congo: 2
59. Greece: 2
60. Mozambique: 2
61. Latvia: 1
62. Czech Republic: 1
63. Macedonia: 1
64. Albania: 1
65. Austria: 1
66. Cyprus: 1
67. Lithuania: 1
68. Malta: 1
69. Ghana: 1

(Last full update, 10th June 05') So, Romania is the most covered non-English-speaking country! And third overall! Quite an achievement ;-)

Personal viewpoints

A list of my personal beliefs or viewpoints (if you like, biases), so that you know if I'm making any POV edits and you can correct them to make Wikinews more NPOV:

• I believe strongly in civil liberties, including the right to abortion, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, divorce, etc. Therefore, I am also against government intervention in the social sphere.
• My political viewpoints are generally social liberal - while I believe in the free market, privatisation and flat tax for practical reasons, I also believe in support for universal health and education, etc.
• I am strongly against conservatism in a socio-political sense.
• I am atheist and think that the world should become much more secular and religiously-neutral.
• I believe in the advances of science, as well as its theories.
• I believe in tolerance and open-mindnedness, as well as a positive attitude about life.
• I am also a firm believer in equality and therefore support correct, non-discriminatory terminology.
• I am a strong believer in European integration, especially the European Union. That does not mean I am not patriotic, in fact quite the opposite. I think loving your own country and loving Europe go hand in hand.
• The two European countries that inspire me most are Estonia and Ireland. I have great respect for Estonia's struggle against Russian domination, as well as for its transformation into a technologically-advanced, open economy. I also admire Ireland's Celtic Tiger era and how it transformed itself into one of Europe's wealthiest countries with sound economic and political policy.
• I am very strongly anti-smoking.
• I believe in public transport over personal cars, as well as in the general environmental cause.
• I support the current governing party in Romania, the Liberal-Democrat Justice and Truth alliance. However, unlike many Liberal supporters, I am not strongly against the Social Democrat Party, which I believe did a good job in government in 2000-2004.
• In the European Parliament I am a supporter of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.