Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia 2

This is a proposal for closing and/or deleting a wiki hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. It is subject to the current closing projects policy.

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The proposal for closing arz: is rejected and the project will be kept open.

• A Language Committee member provided the following comment:
  I consider this discussion "harmful, with no reasonable possibility of a decision to close the wiki". It seems to be a retaliatory effort by the proposer for being blocked on arzwiki. --MF-W 13:17, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

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• Type: 1 (routine proposal)
• Proposed outcome: closure
• Proposed action regarding the content: should be moved to Incubator
• Notice on the project: arz:ويكيبيديا:صالون المناقشه#Notification of proposed closure
• Informed Group(s): Egypt Wikimedians User Group

Proposal

As a past editor (auto patroller) of Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia I propose the closure of Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia due to several structural, linguistic, and governance concerns regarding the project’s long-term viability as a separate encyclopedic project.

1. Lack of a stable written standard A core problem is that Egyptian Arabic does not have a widely accepted, standardized orthography for encyclopedic writing. Different contributors write the same words in different ways, and there is no single binding spelling system comparable to the standard used in Modern Standard Arabic. This creates inconsistency, confusion, and difficulty in maintaining article quality.

2. Lack of a consistent and recognized orthographic and grammatical system In practice, contributors to Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia have had to create their own informal guidelines for spelling and grammar. These conventions are not widely recognized outside the project and are effectively invented within the community itself. This leads to inconsistent writing styles and makes it difficult to maintain a stable encyclopedic standard.

3. Lack of a broadly accepted formal register for encyclopedic use Egyptian Arabic is widely used in speech and informal contexts, but it does not have the same established role as Modern Standard Arabic in formal, academic, governmental, or encyclopedic writing. In practice, serious written reference works, textbooks, official publications, and scientific materials in Egypt are overwhelmingly produced in Modern Standard Arabic rather than Egyptian Arabic.

4. Very limited article depth A large number of articles in the project are extremely short and contain minimal information, in some cases fewer than 100 characters. This raises concerns about whether the project is developing into a comprehensive encyclopedia or whether it remains a collection of extremely small entries without substantial content.

5. Neutrality and administrative governance concerns There are serious concerns regarding neutrality and editorial governance within the project. Some articles dealing with sensitive social or regional topics are not written in a neutral manner and appear to promote particular viewpoints rather than present balanced, sourced information. Examples include articles such as "اصل سكان الصعيد", "البحاروه", and "صعايده".

Furthermore, these articles have been created or maintained by accounts that appear to be related (sockpuppets), and they have been protected or defended by administrators rather than corrected or improved. When administrators protect such content instead of enforcing neutrality and reliable sourcing, it raises serious concerns about the project's governance and editorial oversight.

Administrative responsibility should include maintaining neutrality, preventing abuse of multiple accounts, and ensuring that articles meet basic encyclopedic standards. When these responsibilities are not consistently upheld, the credibility of the project is undermined.

6. Duplication of the role already served by Arabic Wikipedia Arabic Wikipedia already serves Arabic-speaking readers across the region using the standardized written form of the language used in education, media, and formal communication. A separate Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia risks duplicating content rather than expanding knowledge efficiently. Instead of building one strong Arabic-language encyclopedia, contributors and content may become divided across multiple overlapping projects.

7. Fragmentation without clear encyclopedic benefit If a separate project is justified primarily on the basis of colloquial usage, the same reasoning could easily extend to many other Arabic vernaculars. This could lead to fragmentation of contributors and resources across numerous similar projects without clear evidence that this improves access to reliable knowledge.

8. Accessibility concerns are not clearly solved by this project One argument sometimes made in favor of Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia is that it increases accessibility. However, readers who are literate enough to use a written online encyclopedia are generally also able to read Modern Standard Arabic, which is already the language used in education, media, and formal writing throughout Egypt. At the same time, the absence of a standardized written form in Egyptian Arabic may reduce readability rather than improve it.

9. Encyclopedic quality requires stability and consistency An encyclopedia depends on clear standards for spelling, terminology, grammar, and article development. When these standards are unsettled or invented internally without wider recognition, long-term quality control becomes difficult. In this case, the linguistic and editorial instability of the project appears to weaken rather than strengthen the goal of providing reliable knowledge.

For these reasons, the long-term viability and usefulness of Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia as a separate encyclopedia should be reconsidered.Almajidy (talk) 09:51, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Discussion

• Comment: Not the first proposal. At its early days, even before its migration from Incubator, non-natives believing in conspiracy theories fiercely fought an Egyptian Arabic version for similar claims.

I can inform others who might see this that the user proposing this closure is non-native and makes many mistakes, some which I have corrected or noted to him. Example: ويكي‌پروچكت written in Persian-like spelling connecting ending ى with a zero-width space instead of spelling it with a space in between or a dash (ويكى مشروع or ويكى-پروچكت), as any Egyptian-Arabic speaker would.

I suggest closing this proposal as unfounded. Thanks. --Esperfulmo (talk) 13:06, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello @Esperfulmo,

I wrote «ويكي‌پروچكت» with a zero-width space because it was in the title for the WikiProject guide page. Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia grammar rules aren’t that clear, since they’re an invention of a random Egyptian user who made this Wikipedia mostly to bypass his grammar mistakes in Arabic Wikipedia. Almajidy (talk) 14:06, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

• Comment: Once again, the same hateful approach and the same conspiracy theories, from non-Egyptian speakers, towards a project that has been stable since 2008, even though Almajidy had begun actively participating in the project after several warnings and instructions on how to write in Egyptian Arabic, as explained in the guidelines.

I suggest closing this proposal. HitomiAkane (talk) 13:42, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello @HitomiAkane,

Your response focuses on labeling the criticism as “hateful” or “conspiracy theories,” but it does not address the actual concerns that were raised. the lack of a widely accepted written standard, the internally invented spelling and grammar conventions, the extremely limited article depth in many pages, and governance concerns related to neutrality and administrative oversight.

The fact that the project has existed since 2008 does not automatically mean that these issues should not be examined or reconsidered. Almajidy (talk) 15:56, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

We don't invent, we collected guidelines based on how the language is mostly written by natives. Modern standardized languages like English and literary Arabic had a phase when words had variant spellings. --Esperfulmo (talk) 16:19, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

The user Almajidy does not know how to speak the Egyptian language at all. One of the users asked him to speak in the Egyptian language, and he said that he is Emirati and speaks the Emirati dialect, which is one of the Bedouin dialects in the Gulf region.

https://arz.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%D9%86%D9%82%D8%A7%D8%B4_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%AE%D8%AF%D9%85:Almajidy&diff=prev&oldid=12932822

I suggest closing this discussion because it is initiated by a person who does not speak Egyptian language at all and has made this request for unrealistic reasons. ~2026-16082-96 (talk) 16:30, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Egyptians do not speak Modern Standard Arabic in their daily lives at all; they speak the Egyptian language.

This request is completely unrealistic.

Are we supposed to shut down the Scottish Wikipedia just because many of them speak English? What are these unrealistic opinions?

There is also the Moroccan Wikipedia—should we close it too?

This request is unrealistic and comes from a person who does not even know the Egyptian language. ~2026-16082-96 (talk) 16:35, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

• @Almajidy Do you mean the same spelling and grammar rules that we all pointed out to you more than once, and which you created more than 140 pages on, and more than 1150 edits, including the last edit that you made after submitting this proposal to see if we had blocked you from the project (as you summarize it)? I still have the opinion that your actions are hostile and racist towards a language that exists, is internationally recognized and stable. This absurd discussion is over for me. HitomiAkane (talk) 17:43, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello @HitomiAkane,

Can you explain your actions on the article "عرب" (English: Arabs)? There was a lot of racial discrimination. When I deleted the racial slurs, you actually reverted my edits. I discovered that the Egyptian Wikipedia has many of these racist articles, and this racist content was also present in the official Wikipedia pages!!!

One of the things that got me to participate in this project was to remove nationalist views.

Also Egyptian Arabic isn’t a language. Almajidy (talk) 21:16, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Simply, because you've missed up the content of the page, and changed the Egyptian to a mix of Arabic and Gods know what!, if you can't understand the language, or don't want to accept it, it is your problem, not ours, and my job, as an admin there, is to fix those incorrect changes, and by the way Egyptian is a language and had its own ISO (ARZ), and please stop pinging me here, I've said that this absurd discussion is over for me. HitomiAkane (talk) 21:40, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello,

ARZ is not its own language. If you go to the streets of Cairo and ask ordinary people what their first language is, they will say “Arabic.” If you ask again, “What about the Egyptian language?” they will be confused and think you mean the ancient Egyptian language used before Egypt adopted Coptic. The country (its people and government) does not accept it as a separate language.

These factors help make it the most widely spoken and by far the most widely studied variety of Arabic. Almajidy (talk) 08:17, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

The Egyptian language is used in Egyptian media, both visual and audio.

Egypt’s population exceeds 100 million people, and they speak Egyptian, which differs in grammar, pronunciation, and many words from Modern Standard Arabic.

Are you joking, Almajidy ? You don’t even master speaking Egyptian, and you are a weak contributor in editing. Despite your years in Egyptian Wikipedia, you have made only about a thousand edits, most of which are trivial and useless.

[personal attack removed] ~2026-16101-50 (talk) 18:03, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Do not repeat personal attacks I just removed or you'll be blocked. Such behaviour is not tolerable.--A09|(pogovor) 18:34, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello Sock-puppet,

I will not accept any personal attacks. The times you have attacked me personally have been unbearable, to say the least. Every time you got blocked, you created a new account. I’m not here to attack anyone who works in Arz or any ethnicity or culture. I’m here to have a polite discussion. Almajidy (talk) 21:22, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

• Comment Thank you for taking the time to outline your concerns. However, none of the points listed provide sufficient grounds for closing Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia. Many of the issues described either apply to numerous existing Wikimedia projects or are matters that can be addressed through normal editorial processes rather than by closing the project entirely.

1. Lack of a “stable written standard The absence of a single standardised orthography is not a valid reason to close a Wikipedia project. Many languages and language varieties on Wikipedia do not have fully standardised spelling systems yet function successfully. Wikipedia projects often help develop practical writing conventions through usage. Egyptian Arabic already has widely understood conventions in literature, media, theatre, film, and digital communication. Within the project itself, contributors have developed consistent patterns of spelling that are easily readable for native speakers.

2. Orthographic and grammatical conventions developed within the project' It is normal for Wikimedia communities to develop their own editorial guidelines. Every Wikipedia edition has style guidelines created by its community, including the Arabic Wikipedia itself. The existence of community-developed conventions is therefore not a structural weakness but rather a normal part of how Wikimedia projects evolve.

3. Use of Egyptian Arabic in formal contexts Wikipedia does not require that a language variety be used in government or academic publishing to qualify as a project. The purpose of Wikipedia is to make knowledge accessible to readers in the languages they actually use. Egyptian Arabic is the everyday language of tens of millions of people, and it is widely used in media, literature, film, theatre, music, and digital communication. Providing encyclopedic content in that language variety increases accessibility and reader engagement.

4. Article length and stubs The presence of short articles or stubs is common across Wikipedia projects, including very large ones. Stub articles are part of Wikipedia’s normal growth model: they provide a starting point that can later be expanded. The Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia now contains over a million articles, and content continues to be improved and expanded over time. The existence of short entries is therefore not an argument for closure.

5. Neutrality and governance concerns If specific articles raise neutrality issues, the appropriate solution is to correct, improve, or discuss those articles through the normal editorial processes. Individual content disputes or administrative decisions cannot reasonably justify closing an entire project with a large body of work and an active community. All Wikipedia editions occasionally face disputes over neutrality; these are addressed through discussion, policy enforcement, and editorial improvement.

6. Alleged duplication with Arabic Wikipedia The existence of Arabic Wikipedia does not invalidate Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia. Many languages have multiple Wikipedia editions representing different linguistic varieties or standards (for example, different forms of Chinese, Serbian, or Norwegian). These projects coexist because they serve different readerships and writing traditions. Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia serves readers who prefer to access information in their native spoken variety.

7. Concerns about “fragmentation” Wikipedia is built on the principle that communities can create and maintain projects in the languages they use. The potential existence of other vernacular projects is not inherently negative; it reflects linguistic diversity. Closure should not be proposed simply because other communities might also wish to document knowledge in their own varieties.

8. Accessibility The argument that readers who can read Egyptian Arabic can automatically read Modern Standard Arabic overlooks real differences in comfort and accessibility. Many readers find information easier to understand when it is written in the language variety they use daily. Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia provides an additional access point to knowledge rather than replacing or competing with Arabic Wikipedia.

9. Stability and encyclopedic standards Editorial standards can and do develop over time. The project already has active administrators, ongoing maintenance, and continuous corrections when needed. The continued activity of contributors and the growth of the article base demonstrate that the project is functioning and improving.

In summary, the issues raised are either normal challenges faced by many Wikimedia projects or matters that can be addressed through community discussion and editorial improvement. They do not justify the closure of an active project with over one million articles, multiple administrators, and ongoing maintenance. Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia therefore remains a valuable and viable part of the Wikimedia ecosystem.--Ghaly (talk) 06:31, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

I believe that @Almajidy, علاء, أبو هشام, فيصل, Mdktb, Osps7, براء, عمر, أحمد الياباني, and Freedom's Falcon:@أمين, أسامةالفاروسي, Manal Sh, Sarah Ab, Eman Fuad, أبو الشاي حليب, حسن, أحمد الغرباوي, Fluxqi, Ahmed M Farrag, and Mr. Ibrahem:@أحمد ناجي, Mohammed Qays, Fjmustak, and Abo Yemen: and other supporters of this wiki shall be informed. --~2026-17036-01 (talk) 10:58, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

• Comment @Almajidy: أرجو منك أعادة صياغة الترشيح فأرى أنها مفبركة من الذكاء الاصطناعي.
• I do not want to support or oppose the nomination, but it would be surprising for a wiki with over a million article get deleted. First off, I would support this since Egyptian Arabic is rather spoken only (لغة عامية) and the standard Arabic (فصحى) is readily taught in school and university and is also the written language for governmental, official, and educational context, and signs written in the colloquial Arabic is very rare in Egypt and online (apart from social media and blogs of course), also taking the fact that while online platforms support Arabic (Egypt) language, it is really standard Arabic with letter changes (most notably غ >>> ج) and so I do not see the reason why this project exists. On the other hand, I oppose the nomination in part because projects are closed first, then get moved to the Incubator, but even after the move there would undeniably be moved back as an independent Wikipedia. And secondly, as what most users have expressed, the project has been in existence for a long time and has way many articles (most are stubs unfortunately) but there is a quite small community of anon and named users contributing to the wiki, so I do not see a reason to shut down a somewhat active wiki with bots and users alike. Finally, I do not see the user's violation as a reason to oppose, especially given the credible warnings about grammatical errors, since that can be taken care of locally, not being discussed here. ToadetteEdit (talk) 13:16, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

  Also @Ghaly I advise you against using some form of AI to fabricate comments. ToadetteEdit (talk) 13:59, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

  I also realize that the majority of articles created on the arzwiki was created entirely using scripts by one editor; that script have produced stubs that often lacked extra information. As a result, the real count of human articles is way less than the true count, leading us to the conclusion where arzwiki is very similar to cebwiki where many articles got created by a single entity and are often not checked or expanded, although the cebwiki has a much better quality than arzwiki. ToadetteEdit (talk) 22:29, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

  Comment @ToadetteEdit I used AI in this proposal to improve and translate my grammar. I provided the AI with my own arguments, so it did not fully write this proposal. Almajidy (talk) 05:17, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• Comment I support the closure of Egyptian Wikipedia for the following reasons:

1. Egyptian Wikipedia doesn't pursue a purely educational purpose. I believe it is a project based on a specific agenda that is hostile to a particular group.
2. Egyptian Arabic is merely a Cairo dialect (لهجة قاهرية), not a language, and is concentrated in the Greater Cairo area and the urban centers of the Delta. In contrast, the majority of the Egyptian population—Saidi people in Upper Egypt and Fellahs in the north—speak two different dialects: (Saidi: صعيدي) and (Falahi: فلاحي). Besides that, Alexandria, Sharqia, Portsaid and other governorates have their own accents. Therefore, the Egyptian Arabic dialect spoken in the Greater Cairo area doesn't represent the majority of the Egyptian people if we consider it as a language, not a dialect understood by all Arabs outside Egypt.
3. The project presents a one-sided narrative regarding historical topics related to the Islamic era in Egypt and attempts to impose a parallel history that lacks neutrality, objectivity, historical accuracy, and reliable sources.
4. It is also noticeable that the project resembles a hardline right-wing movement that seeks what can be called "Egypto-centrism."
5. Most of its articles are short and stubs, lacking in quality.
6. It doesn't adhere to using Egyptian Arabic in all its articles, and many articles are copied verbatim from the Arabic Wikipedia without any effort on its users' part.
7. There is no tangible presence of Egyptian Wikipedia members in any on-the-ground activities or participation in well-known events and activities related to the encyclopedia and Wikimedia.--Amr F.Nagy (talk) 22:40, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Comment What’s happening on Egyptian Wikipedia right now is an administrative scandal by every standard.

By what logic does a respectable project listen to a globally banned vandal who’s been kicked out from everywhere? This person is using sock puppets, and instead of being banned, we find an admin here following his words.

This vandal is playing the “Delta people, Emirati, Egyptian” card to gain sympathy from the admins and cover up his vulgarity and offensive behavior, which has even crossed into personal insults. It’s really shameful that we’ve reached this level of personal bias, discrimination, and classifying people based on their nationalities. Almajidy (talk) 05:50, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Misunderstanding

Comment The Admin who blocked me (@Maher Asaad Baker) has no right to interfere with my personal page, and the decision to block me without prior warning is unacceptable. His explanation for this action is also illogical. Moreover, if he is tolerating and defending an offensive and racist sockpuppet account, why was it not blocked under the same justification used in my case? This reflects a serious administrative failure.--Almajidy (talk) 08:08, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

@Almajidy You have been blocked (as explained in the summary) for using inappropriate language when you referred to the Egyptian Wikipedia as "testicles." If you consider this respectful language, we at the Egyptian Wikipedia do not. Your Wikipedia page is not a place to insult the project, and if you cannot accept it, that is your problem. However, I will not allow it to be used outside the bounds of common decency. It is not your place to ask me to block any user based on your whims, I've said it more than once, I'm not defending anyone here, and I won't allow anyone to accuse me of taking sides, and please stop pinging me everywhere. This harassment has gotten out of hand.

@علاء, sorry to bother you, but this has gone way beyond acceptable behavior, and I would like not hear from this user again, thank you. -- Maher Asaad Baker (talk) 11:21, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Oh, I didn’t know that. I’m sorry, I thought it said “Eggpedia” because the logo and the name made it seem like it was about eggs.

حاب اعتذر عن هذا الموضوع وأنا كنت احسبها ليها علاقة بالبيضة ما اعرف إنها كانت لها علاقة بموضوع ثاني أتمنى انك تسامحني و تمسح صفحتي بالكامل. Almajidy (talk) 11:44, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

@Maher Asaad Baker Almajidy I didnt know that it means something different (talk) 11:45, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Support

• Very Weak Support. I don't know what to vote here, but I'm leaning toward support. I'm not trying to offend anyone, but Masri is more of a dialect then a separate language. I'm from Egypt myself, but I feel like more Egyptians would use the Arabic Wikipedia overall rather than the Masri Wikipedia, as the articles in Masri are generally bot translated and weak in quality. Then again, I think that there would be some Egyptians that would like the wiki to stay, and I'm fine with that, but for myself, I lean support.--هادية أنسو (talk) 03:45, 20 March 2026 (UTC)
• Very Support. For reasons mentioned in the discussion section.--Amr F.Nagy (talk) 22:47, 24 March 2026 (UTC)
• Support Arabic should be re-unifyed, @Prosfilaes: Please, Please and Please, NO MORE ARABIC-SPLITTISM. --~2026-18426-26 (talk) 05:16, 25 March 2026 (UTC)
  • You're right, Arabic should be reunified with the other Central Semitic languages, and formed into something like the old-school Aramaic that was its ancestor. But seriously, Arabic should play by the same rules every other language does. We have dozens and dozens of Romance--aka split Latin--Wikipedias, and even the modern standard languages, like Italian, have to accept Wikipedias for various languages normally swept under their title. We provide Wikipedias for languages people speak and want to build Wikipedias in; we should not get into the politics of whether these languages, as recognized by linguists, should be crushed under the heel of the standard language.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:28, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

    In your context we should have American English Wikipedia, British English Wikipedia, South African English Wikipedia, Australian English Wikipedia, New Zealand English Wikipedia... or better Franglais Wikipedia (like writing: Ze Bird is on ze tree for the bird in on the tree, like how it is pronounced in France), Also Egyptians don’t recognize Masri as its own language. If you go to the streets of Cairo and ask ordinary people what their first language is, they will say “Arabic.” If you ask again, “What about the Egyptian language?” they will be confused and think you mean the ancient Egyptian language used before Egypt adopted Coptic. The country (its people and government) does not accept it as a separate language. Almajidy (talk) 11:37, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

    • Huh? I said nothing about the definition of languages, which in this case I defer to the Summer Institute of Linguistics, the group charged by the International Organization for Standardization in making the list of all languages. As I said, "as recognized by linguists."--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:08, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

• Very Very Support --05:51, 25 March 2026 (UTC)Almajidy (talk)

Oppose

• Oppose . The Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia should not be closed because it is an established and active project that has demonstrated sustained contribution and community engagement.

Since 2008, the project has remained active and has grown to include over one million articles, reflecting a substantial body of work created by its contributors. This level of content development indicates a functioning and productive platform rather than an inactive or experimental project.

In addition, the project is supported by multiple active system administrators, which ensures that editorial standards, moderation, and maintenance tasks are properly managed. The presence of active sysops demonstrates that there is a functioning governance structure capable of addressing issues when they arise.

The style of writing is clear and accessible to native speakers of Egyptian Arabic, making the content usable and meaningful to a large audience. Egyptian Arabic is widely spoken by tens of millions of people, and providing knowledge in a language variety that readers naturally use can improve accessibility and comprehension.

Furthermore, corrections and improvements are actively made when necessary, showing that the community continues to monitor and refine the content. This ongoing editorial activity is a key feature of successful Wikimedia projects.

For these reasons—its sustained activity, large body of content, active administrative oversight, accessibility for native speakers, and ongoing maintenance—the Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia represents a valuable knowledge resource and should continue to operate rather than be closed. --Ghaly (talk) 03:45, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• You often highlight that the wiki has been open since 2008 and now contains over one million articles. However, if we look at a random example such as the article "ثيريسا پوه لين تشان" we see that the introduction (excluding the title) consists of only four words!

This is not an isolated case; many articles on the wiki are similarly short and underdeveloped. Because of this, the average Egyptian reader is more likely to turn to the Arabic or English Wikipedia, where articles typically provide more complete and detailed information. Almajidy (talk) 08:42, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• Thank you for bringing this article to my attention. The page you mentioned was what is known on Wikipedia as a تقاوى literally meaning seed (usually called a stub in many Wikimedia projects). I have now expanded the article to provide more information.

Seeds or stubs play an important role in Wikipedia projects. They are intentionally short starter articles that establish the existence of a topic in the encyclopedia, even if only minimal information is available at first. Their purpose is not to be final or complete, but to act as an invitation for other editors to improve and expand the content over time.

In collaborative projects like Wikipedia, many articles begin as seeds. By creating a basic entry, the topic becomes visible to readers and editors who may have additional knowledge or sources. This visibility often encourages further contributions, leading to gradual expansion and improvement of the article.

In other words, seeds help bring certain topics to the attention of the community. Without them, many subjects might never be noticed or developed at all. Over time, a large number of Wikipedia’s most comprehensive articles originally started as very short seeds before being expanded by multiple contributors.

I appreciate you highlighting the example, and it has now been improved accordingly.--Ghaly (talk) 06:05, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose For all the reasons explained above, the Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia should not be closed, as it is a well-established and active project since 2008, has a clear language guide, an active and effective community capable of providing assistance to non-native speakers, and is developing daily.--HitomiAkane (talk) 18:27, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose: "I oppose closing the Egyptian Wikipedia. It serves millions of users who speak Egyptian Arabic—the true language of daily life in Egypt—whereas Classical Arabic is rarely used in everyday conversation." Raafat (talk) 20:44, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose Is the Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia perfect? No. But look at List of Wikipedias. Yes, the fact that it's the 11th largest by number of articles highlights a problematic number of stubs it has. But sort by the number of edits, it comes out above Greek and Danish and Thai. By number of users, it's up there with Tamil, Slovenian and Uzbek. By number of active users, it's up there with Burmese, Bosnian and Hausa. The only metric that's really low is depth, which apparently means it doesn't have many discussion pages. But by pretty much any other count, it's clearly a top 100 Wikipedia. Closing a working Wikipedia is not something that's worth considering.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:27, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

  Cebuano Wikipedia is having multiple-time larger number of times of your provided examples, is that worth considering for keeping instead of closing? Absolutely and damely NO. That should be considered for closure again since it only maintained by bots instead of humanic users. ~2026-17581-89 (talk) 02:52, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

  Yelling does not in fact make your case stronger. In reality, the Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia has more users, more active users, and more admins. And frankly, the Cebuano Wikipedia has been kept. Bringing it up here doesn't help anything.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:42, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

  @Prosfilaes "More users", from how many count of clients? If just one or two, then that's rather a republic of nogo, "more active users" Human-controlled? Or algorithm-controlled? Did you ever investigated em? "more admins" see OA2021 and OA2022, there were several cases where more admins are just invited by troll teams. And eventually, I WILL RE-START A DISCUSSION OF CLOSING CEBUANO WIKIPEDIA, Believe That! ~2026-17662-92 (talk) 07:47, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

  @~2026-17662-92 please take care of what you are writing, since writing in all caps is often seen as shouting, often suggesting a somewhat aggressive mood.

  I strongly advise you against initiating a closure discussion regarding cebwiki, with the rationale of "having a high number of articles" in retaliation to the arzwiki situation. As with arzwiki, cebwiki has an active community and an active recentchanges log. As said, doing so won't do anything except attracting a large amount of opposes and eventually lead to closure of the discussion as a WP:snow rejection. ToadetteEdit (talk) 12:26, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

  In my opinion, Arzwiki is a bit unencyclopedic—it feels like a 'filler' Wikipedia. If you know Arabic, you already understand other dialects; for example, as an Emirati, I understand Egyptian Arabic without any formal schooling. I don't claim to know every detail of Arz, but I get the gist, so what’s the point? Additionally, the project pushes nationalistic views that are protected by the admins, who also seem to tolerate sockpuppets. Almajidy (talk) 05:11, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose The Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia is among the versions that contain the most articles across all Wikipedia editions, and it is a project that continues to develop constantly. Moreover, the person who submitted the request does not speak Egyptian language fluently. ~2026-16550-28 (talk) 02:50, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

  @Almajidy@Ghaly@HitomiAkane@Prosfilaes@Raafat@ToadetteEdit@~2026-16550-28@~2026-17581-89This comment is not directed against speakers of Egyptian Arabic or its everyday colloquial use, but rather concerns the structural and editorial viability of the project as an encyclopedia.

  From a linguistic standpoint, Egyptian Arabic is widely classified as a dialect of Arabic rather than a standardized language with a recognized, unified orthography suitable for formal encyclopedic writing. Modern Standard Arabic remains the primary language used in education, administration, official media, and academic contexts in Egypt.

  The assertion of a distinct “modern Egyptian language” separate from Arabic raises both linguistic and historical concerns. Since the 7th century, Egypt has undergone a gradual process of Arabization shaped by religious, cultural, and administrative factors, leading to the establishment of Arabic as the common written and formal language.

  Accordingly, claims that frame Arabic as an “imposed language” in contrast to an “original Egyptian language” do not reflect the prevailing academic consensus and require careful scholarly evaluation.

  Furthermore, the absence of a stable and widely accepted orthographic and grammatical standard presents practical challenges for maintaining consistency, readability, and long-term quality in an encyclopedic project.

  For these reasons, any discussion regarding the continuation or structure of such a project should be based on clear linguistic criteria and the fundamental requirements of stability and consistency that define a functional encyclopedia. ~2026-18404-57 (talk) 22:21, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

  SIL has classified Egyptian Arabic as a separate language from Modern Standard Arabic. So have other linguists. Your contrast of "a dialect" from "a standardized language with a recognized, unified orthography" is something that would have any linguist rolling their eyes. Languages exist without writing. The distinction between a dialect and a language is complex, but a language doesn't have to be standardized or have a unified orthography to exist as a separate language. Claims that frame Arabic as an "imposed language" or not are strictly irrelevant here; take those battles elsewhere.

  We have clear linguistic criteria; has SIL recognized it as a language and given it an ISO 639-3 code? SIL has, and it's labeled as and clearly is a living language, so that's not a problem. It'd be nice if all the languages supported had unified orthographies, but we will continue to have fuss on the English Wikipedia over what spellings to use. We take languages as they are.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:18, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

  I fail to understand why, and others, are accusing the filer for not understanding the dialect fluently? From the times this wiki was up for closure, none of the original proposer spoke Egyptian fluently. Thus I see this as unnecessary.

  I do agree with the rest of your points though. But the arguments based on «clear linguistic criteria and the fundamental requirements of stability and consistency» have already been touched on regarding arzwiki for years, with supporters for closure arguing "Egyptian is an informal language" or similar, while opposers argue "Egyptian is very unique, has over 100M native speakers, arzwiki has over a million articles,..." ToadetteEdit (talk) 22:36, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose — There is no point on closing Wikipedias with millions of articles or otherwise it would be way too controversial. Zarceational (talk) 01:31, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

  You mean one million sentences rather than articles. These articles are even smaller than stub articles, like 'Monrovia is a town in the US.' They don’t deserve to be called articles Arzwiki prioritizes the number of articles over content quality. Almajidy (talk) 05:30, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

  Yeah, sure, but look at something like List of Wikipedias by sample of articles. They score a 17.31 out of a hundred, and only have what's being counted as articles or long articles for about 100 subjects out of the 1000. That's not great, but they score above average for a Wikipedia, and many national languages don't come near that.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:18, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

•  Strong oppose after re-reading this proposal multiple times I still cannot relieve myself of a feeling this proposal was AI written. Multiple bullet points do not make any sense. Points 1 and 2 are same, and probably the harshest to be currently present, but apparently the language has enough official bodies supporting it – otherwise it would not have a ISO code at all. 3 is irrelevant, 4 and 5 are content issues which are also invalid arguments on project closure proposal (bar lack of new content creation), 6 is irrelevant (if that were the case we ought to write only in English, Chinese and Spanish). 7 makes no sense whatsoever and assumes homogenous Arabic, which is clearly not the case, 8 is similar to 7 while 9 makes no sense. I cannot conclude differently than this proposal being another unitary Arabic POV pushing proposal.--A09|(pogovor) 12:57, 7 April 2026 (UTC)