Mailing List Archive

On 5/26/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Just so everyone's up to date, Brion has set up, on my request, the
> Catalan edition of Wikinews, which has been in the works for some time
> and meets all the conditions (18 editors expressed interest, all
> relevant pages were translated).
>
> http://ca.wikinews.org/


That's good news for all Catalans, quite literally.

I was just wondering were exactly they requested the creation of this new
wiki. I can tell it was _not_ on the "Requests for new languages" page on
Meta. For there are 18 new wikis which have been approved by the community,
some of them many months ago (cf.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Approved_requests_for_new_languages) and
nobody cares about setting _them_ up.

Of course, I'm all in favor of a Catalan Wikinews edition and I'm glad Brion
has found the time to set it up. But what I find kinda sad (especially since
we're supposed to be an "open" project) is when you're trying to establish a
transparent, fair and open procedure with respect to new language subdomains
where every user can have their say and that is just ignored and our fellow
editors who request a wiki by means of the "official" procedure have to wait
forever. And then there's editors that happen to "know the right people" and
they are clearly privileged.

Now, the logical conclusion of this would actually be to shut down the
"Requests for new languages" page in order not to create a false impression
of openness and transparency anymore, not welcome and help newcomers whose
language so far doesn't have a wiki anymore and instead fully rely on
backyard agreements and darwinistic selection (the "fittest" in this case
being those who spend most time on the Internet). However, that wouldn't be
the awesome project I once joined anymore and I surely would no longer feel
like dedicating precious time and money to it.

Thank you for reading this and please bear with me for being more outspoken
than usual today!

Arbeo


Approved new wikis:

Wikipedia
* Wu: zh-wuu.wikipedia.org
* Mazandarani: mzn.wikipedia.org
* Nepal Bhasa (Newar): new.wikipedia.org
* Lak: lbe.wikipedia.org
* Emilian-Romagnol: eml.wikipedia.org
* Buryat: bxr.wikipedia.org
* Upper Sorbian: hsb.wikipedia.org
* Novial: nov.wikipedia.org
* Pangasinan: pag.wikipedia.org

Wikisource
* Bosnian: bs.wikisource.org
* Malayalam: ml.wikisource.org
* Slovak: sk.wikisource.org
* Slovenian: sl.wikisource.org
* Min Nan (Taiwanese): zh-min-man.wikisource.org

Wikiquote
* Ido: io.wikiquote.org

Wiktionary
* Cebuano: ceb.wiktionary.org
* Pangasinan: pag.wiktionary.org

Wikibooks
* Cebuano: ceb.wikibooks.org
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Hi Arbeo,

Wikinews has a bit of an unusual process. Individual Wikinews language
editions have to meet much higher standards than, for example,
Wikipedias to be launched. Currently, there are, by my count:

234 Wikipedias
173 Wiktionaries
121 Wikibooks
87 Wikiquotes
31 Wikisources
21 Wikinews

The procedure for creating a new Wikinews edition is at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Start_a_new_edition

As you can see from this page, there needs to be a minimum number of
supporters, rather than just a consensus, to start a new edition. In
addition, a new Wikinews edition has to translate certain documents
before it is set up:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_language_pre-launch

This is because a dead Wikinews is pretty useless, whereas a dead
Wikiquote can still be useful if it contains at least a few pages.

Catalan meets these strict requirements. As for the open requests for
other projects, when a consensus is clearly visible, talk to Brion,
Tim or another developer on #wikimedia-tech, and ask them to set it
up.

Erik
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On 5/26/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence@gmail.com> wrote:

Wikinews has a bit of an unusual process. Individual Wikinews language
editions have to meet much higher standards than, for example,
Wikipedias to be launched.
...
The procedure for creating a new Wikinews edition is at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Start_a_new_edition

Thanks for the info. Didn't know about this special procedure wrt Wikinews.

A.
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