Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Malagasy Wikibooks

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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.


The proposal is rejected and the project will be kept open.


The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Lack of content and activity is obvious in this project. No. of all pages is lees than 50. Doostdar (talk) 13:32, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Malagasy Wikibooks has less than 15 content pages. Considering the structure of WB that doesn't seem to be enough even for 1 book. Some short pages are created by IP's like this. It's not clear if the content is useful for the project or not. The project doesn't have any admins and in the last month less than 5 users have had edits, each of them less than 5 edits. --Doostdar (talk) 13:43, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
User:Jagwar is the one person who seems to have been at least a little active on this project over time. Even if it has been about 1.5 years since Jagwar has made an edit on the Wikibooks project, s/he remains active on Malagasy Wikipedia. So I think I'd rather ask that user to clean up anything that really doesn't belong. Now that SWMT and edit filters minimize real spam on sparsely edited projects, LangCom tends to prefer to leave things open, in case people wish to become more active in the future.
In any case, let's see how this discussion plays out. StevenJ81 (talk) 19:48, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I confirm to have been the only person on that wiki to have made a significant contribution in ten years. It is a really sad thing to write, but yeah, the wiki is pretty much dormant. That being written, vandalism on the wiki is also non-existent and leaving it open won't do any harm to global admins. As of content, I think prayers can have their right to be written in there too the same way recipes do. Jagwar grrr... 21:59, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Jagwar: In general, the policy of Wikibooks is that contents must be instructional/​pedagogical. See b:Wikibooks:What is Wikibooks?#What Wikibooks includes and b:fr:Wikilivres:Présentation#● Wikilivres accueille les travaux originaux seulement s'ils font partie d'un livre pédagogique, for example. Certainly the English Wikibooks even contains things that are arguably educational texts that come from a specific religious point of view—for example, b:Passover Haggadah is an Haggadah. The boundary is not sharp. Still, recipes are (of course) instructional, while an outright prayer (of the type you wrote) is not, in my opinion. So you should remove it.
I'd also request that you pay a visit to the Wikibooks project at least once a month and make sure that it stays vandalism-free. I can't require that, I'm just asking as a favor to the project.
That said, if there is no evidence of vandalism on the project, then there is no policy reason to close it. Again, let's see how this discussion plays out. StevenJ81 (talk) 22:59, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You have a point. I am not a local admin though so I will just blank the page. Jagwar grrr... 18:49, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I will put a request at SRM. StevenJ81 (talk) 18:52, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Deleted. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 19:03, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to support the closure of this project. While StevenJ81 is right that filters prevent most vandalism, you still have to keep an eye or two at things, and we have lots of other stuff to do. Nothing prevents IMHO importing further content from the Incubator to the Wikibooks project should in the future be any content. At this moment, I'm afraid, the project does not have content and it is therefore closeable per policy. If in the interim there are further contributions I'd say to keep it open, but if the situation is not going to change, I'd say close it, resume work on the Incubator and then export/import. Thanks. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 19:03, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Wikibooks projects have common problems. There are some disorders in choosing which content is suitable for the project, how long each page should be, who can and who should edit the content on professional books, etc. In some cases you see a book with a good contents outline but full of red links without any content. These makes Wikibooks a complicated project which is not good for languages which lack a massive online population. That's why I have requested for deletion of several Wikibooks projects by now. --Doostdar (talk) 22:19, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support While in general inactive should not be the only reason to close a project, it gives me a little trouble on Wikidata maintaining too, as by typing "ma" the interface gives me Malagasy first and blue shown (i.e. by clicking Enter button, I will enter a link entry for Malagasy wiki), but I should be expected to type Malay instead. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 15:07, 23 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
How would you expect language names to be sorted? Jagwar grrr... 19:01, 23 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Comment Anyway, @Alno: (another mgwiki sysop) what's your opinion on this proposal? --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 13:57, 6 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there, well, if a migration to the incubator of mg:wikibooks is straightforward and allows current contributors to continue to add content to it, I won't oppose to the proposal. I am technically an admin on mg:wiki as I am a potential task force to help them in case of emergency. I know Jagwar from a long time now and he does an incredible work to develop mg:wiki since he has arrived on the project; he can be trusted about his will to handle vandalism and while the pressure is low he certainly can do that, but more eyes and hands at work would be something good for all... I know that's not really a strong Support but at least I've expressed my advice and I hope that Jagwar won't be angry after me for my position :) -- AlNo (talk) 09:14, 7 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Alno: No worries, I'm not angry. I have to confess that I can't be everywhere at once; and while I can react swiftly to vandalism I also have other commitments in life. Anyway, it's good to see you still around as well after all those years :) Jagwar grrr... 22:44, 8 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support Strong support Just it is no changes in one day seldom. So, this will be delete. @Alno: comment it for this. --Cyrus noto3at bulaga (Talk to me) 02:00, 6 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose While I agree that absence of content since wiki creation would be a reason for closure, I don't see absence of content. Those seven sections on Python (I've counted the four pages of Python/Teny as one section) are content enough for me to oppose their transfer to the incubator. While seven sections may not make a complete book, they are an excellent example of how to go about WikiBooks in a language of wider communication. Imho, such an example should not be buried in the incubator but should be easy to find on its own project site. --Baba Tabita (talk) 11:13, 15 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.