Language committee

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This page provides information about the committee on languages.

Language committee

For requesting users

For members

The Wikimedia Foundation language committee is in charge of developing a clear policy and documentation for new language projects and their proposal, processing those requests, and supporting and coordinating new projects to optimize their success.

Historically, it was founded as a subcommittee of the Special Projects Committee. With that committee now defunct, it reports directly to the Board of Trustees.

Contents

[edit] Committee

[edit] charter

This is a proofread version of the original charter with a later amendment authorizing request approval.

[edit] Scope

The committee is tasked as follows.

  1. The development and maintenance of:
    1. a clear step-by-step policy (based on quantitative indicators) for evaluating the feasibility of new language wikis, with an automated procedure for project development;
    2. support and policy development for script and localization related problems;
    3. documentation to support new language communities towards a stable growth rate;
    4. support and coordination for cross-language projects, helping smaller communities share resources and maximize their results;
    5. support and coordination to maintain compatibility among the different MediaWiki installations, in order to reduce the amount of development needed to upgrade the program base as far as localization is concerned.
  2. The processing of requests for new language subdomains of existing Wikimedia projects, providing it give the Board of Trustees four days advance notice before approving a request.

[edit] Goals

The goals of the committee are to:

  1. minimize the political aspects connected to the release of new projects, moving the focus towards purely quantitative decision criteria;
  2. minimize the need of localization-related funding and development by providing a common shared policy (in this field the Special Projects Committee acts in conjunction with…from which it receives detailed technical targets);
  3. maximize the reuse of proven marketing techniques among different editions;
  4. maximize the co-operation level among different language communities by providing common fields of activity;
  5. achieve the widest possible localization level for MediaWiki at the lowest cost, in order to maintain and improve its leading role as an open-source content management system.

[edit] Transparency

  • The whole set of activities of the language committee is public, and any advice from the community is welcome.
  • The committee values the fact that projects are a property of the single editors who make it and considers users' necessities as the primary source for policy.
  • The committee is especially interested in hearing those who proposed a new wiki in the past and got either refused or approved.

[edit] Members

[edit] Timeline

This is an unofficial log of the committee's progress. For a log of requests and closures, see requests for new languages.

development
Date Event Update
2006-06-06 policy SabineCretella draft proposed.
2006-07-03 subcom Subcommittee initially proposed, but the proposal is never received.
2006-09-16 subcom Subcommittee is proposed again, and accepted.
2006-11-11 policy Pathoschild draft unofficially proposed.
2006-11-21 policy Pathoschild draft implemented through the community without subcommittee approval.
2007-01-02 policy GerardM draft proposed.
2007-01-14 policy GerardM-Pathoschild policy draft proposed.
2007-02-06 policy GerardM-Pathoschild policy draft selected; discussion begins on adjustments needed before the final version.
2007-02-20 policy GerardM-Pathoschild policy draft finalized and forwarded to the Special projects committee for comment.
2007-02-26 policy GerardM-Pathoschild draft implemented.
2007-04-28 policy subcommittee authorized to approve without board approval, given the board receives five days advance notice.
membership

[edit] See also

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