Language committee

Language:	English

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Language committee

This page provides information about the committee on languages.

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• Language committee
• Globalization subcommittee

• For requesting users
  • Requests
  • Proposal policy
  • Incubator manual & Handbook
• For members
  • Handbook (committee)
• Information
  • Common answers
  • Discussion archives
  • Monthly reports
• Closing projects (voluntarily)
  • Closing projects policy
  • Proposals

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 Wikimedia Board of Trustees.

Latest activities report

←previous report This is the language committee report for April and May 2012.

• 15 April: Tuvan Wikipedia has been verified as eligible.
• 25 April: A proposal for closing Buryat Wikipedia has been rejected.
• 27 April: Talysh Wikipedia has been verified as eligible.

Charter

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

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 Wikimedia Board of Trustees four days advance notice before approving a request.

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.

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.

Members

Current

edit

Member	Languages	Region	Special tasks
Amir E. Aharoni (Amire80)	he, ru, en-4, ca-3, eo-2, es-2, fr-2, it-2, ar-1	Middle East, Israel, Jerusalem Europe, Russia, Moscow (until 1991)
Antony D. Green	en, de-4, fr-2, ga-1, cy-1	Europe, Germany, Berlin North America, United States, Texas (formerly)
Bèrto 'd Sèra	pms, it-3, ru-3, en-2, ca-1, es-1, fr-1, oc-1, ro-1, sr-1, uk-1	Europe, Ukraine, Kiev
Carlos Manuel Colina (Jewbask)	es, en-4, lad-4, pt-4, de-3, he-3, ca-4, af-2, guc-1	South America, Venezuela, Caracas
Gerard Meijssen (GerardM)	nl, en-3, de-1	Europe, Netherlands, Flevoland
Huib Laurens (Abigor)	nl, en-3, de-2, nds-1	Europe, Netherlands	Archiving - Closing Projects
Jon Harald Søby	nb, en-3, nn-3, sv-3, da-2, de-2, eo-1, es-1, ro-1, sw-1	Africa, Tanzania, Dar es Salaam from Europe, Norway, Trondheim
Maria Fanucchi (Arria Belli)	en, es, fr-4, ca-2, it-2, pt-1, ru-1	Europe, France, Burgundy South America, French Guiana, Cayenne (formerly)
— (MF-Warburg)	de, en-3, , fr-1, tet-1, la-1	Europe, Germany, North Rhine-Westphalia	Closing projects
Michael Everson (Evertype)	en, da-3, de-3, es-3, ga-3, fr-2, et-1, it-1, nl-1, nn-1, no-1, pt-1, ro-1, ru-1, sv-1, tlh-1, yi-1	Europe, Ireland, County Mayo North America, United States, Pennsylvania (formerly)
Milos Rancic (Millosh)	bs, hr, sh, sr, en-3, bg-2, cu-2, mk-2, ru-2, sl-2, be-1, cs-1, dsb-1, grc-1, hsb-1, la-1, pl-1, ry-1, sk-1, uk-1	Europe, Serbia, Belgrade	Closing projects
Oliver Stegen (Baba Tabita)	de, en-4, sw-3 nl-1, fr-1	Africa, Kenya, Nairobi from Europe, Germany
Robin Pepermans (SPQRobin)	nl, en-3, fr-2, af-1, de-1	Europe, Belgium, Flemish Brabant	Closing projects
Santhosh Thottingal (santhosh.thottingal)	ml, hi-3, en-3, ta-2,	Asia, India, Chennai (Madras)
Shanel Kalicharan (Shanel)	en, fr-2	North America, Canada, Ontario
Zacharias Diakonikolaou (ZaDiak)	el, en-4, de-2, grc-2	Europe, Greece, Rhodes	Wikiversity advice
— (Karen)		North America, United States, California

Former

Member	Period
Akash Shah (Aksi great)	2007–2008
Ascánder	2006–2008
Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)	2006–2011
Sabine Cretella (SabineCretella)	2006–2009
Tangotango	2007–2008
Michal Zlatkovský (Timichal)	2006–2008

Timeline

Observers

Observers are Wikimedians who receive copies of e-mails sent to the internal language committee mailing list, but who cannot browse the archives or reply to the e-mails directly. If you want to become an observer, you should ask one of the committee members. If there are no objections within the committee after seven days, you will be subscribed as an observer.

Observers should generally not participate in discussions. When it is necessary however, please reply to the langcom list instead of the langcom-observers list. A list administrator would need to accept the e-mail manually (you could ask one of them to do so).

Observer	Since	Until
Alolita Sharma (Alolitas)	2012-02-17	-
Avicennasis	2011-06-18	-
Casey Brown (Cbrown1023)	2011-06-26	-
Étienne Beaulé (Ebe123, Ebe123(b))	2011-08-14	-
Fajro	2011-06-10	-
Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)	2011-07-03	-
Nickanc	2012-02-12	-
Mark Williamson (Node ue)	2011-06-02	-
Keegan Peterzell (Keegan)	2011-09-06	-
MF-Warburg	2011-06-15	2012-03-07
Samuel Klein (Sj)	2011-06-02	-
Thehelpfulone	2012-04-05	-
とある白い猫 (ToAruShiroiNeko)	2011-09-06	-

Timeline

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

Date	Event	Update
2006-06-06	policy	SabineCretella draft proposed.
2006-07-03	langcom	Subcommittee initially proposed, but the proposal is never received.
2006-09-16	langcom	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.
2009-01-20	langcom	The Wikimedia Foundation board decided that the Subcommittee becomes a Committee.
2011-05-13	langcom	The committee holds its first-ever real-life meeting in Berlin.

See also

• Wikimedia committees
• foundation:Resolution:Wikimedia Committees