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Requests for new languages/Wikibooks Simple English

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submitted verification final decision

This proposal has been rejected.
This decision was taken by the language committee in accordance with the Language proposal policy based on the discussion on this page.

A committee member provided the following comment:

  • The community needs to develop an active test project; it must remain active until approval (automated statistics, recent changes). It is generally considered active if the analysis lists at least three active, not-grayed-out editors listed in the sections for the previous few months.
  • The community needs to complete required MediaWiki interface translations in that language (about localization, translatewiki, check completion).
  • The community needs to discuss and complete the settings table below:
What Value Example / Explanation
Proposal
Language code en-simple (SILGlottolog) A valid ISO 639-1 or 639-3 language code, like "fr", "de", "nso", ...
Language name Simple English Language name in English
Language name Simple English Language name in your language. This will appear in the language list on Special:Preferences, in the interwiki sidebar on other wikis, ...
Language Wikidata item Q21480034 - item has currently the following values:
Item about the language at Wikidata. It would normally include the Wikimedia language code, name of the language, etc. Please complete at Wikidata if needed.
Directionality no indication Is the language written from left to right (LTR) or from right to left (RTL)?
Links Links to previous requests, or references to external websites or documents.

Settings
Project name Wikibooks "Wikibooks" in your language
Project namespace Wikibooks usually the same as the project name
Project talk namespace Wikibooks talk "Wikibooks talk" (the discussion namespace of the project namespace)
Enable uploads no Default is "no". Preferably, files should be uploaded to Commons.
If you want, you can enable local file uploading, either by any user ("yes") or by administrators only ("admin").
Notes: (1) This setting can be changed afterwards. The setting can only be "yes" or "admin" at approval if the test creates an Exemption Doctrine Policy (EDP) first. (2) Files on Commons can be used on all Wikis. (3) Uploading fair-use images is not allowed on Commons (more info). (4) Localisation to your language may be insufficient on Commons.
Optional settings
Project logo This needs to be an SVG image (instructions for logo creation).
Default project timezone Continent/City "Continent/City", e.g. "Europe/Brussels" or "America/Mexico City" (see list of valid timezones)
Additional namespaces For example, a Wikisource would need "Page", "Page talk", "Index", "Index talk", "Author", "Author talk".
Additional settings Anything else that should be set
Once settings are finalized, a committee member will submit a Phabricator task requesting creation of the wiki. (This will include everything automatically, except the additional namespaces/settings.) After the task is created, it should be linked to in a comment under "final decision" above.

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

The proposal is to reopen(unclose) the Simple English Wikibooks.

Arguments in favor

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b:simple: was closed due to being inactive, which is no longer a valid reason to close a project Rowan03 (talk) 21:27, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Argument against

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* Strong oppose --Assoc (talk) 03:35, 21 January 2018 (UTC)revoked as vandal-only account. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 03:46, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose. Reasons (1) This thing called "Simple English" is not a language but a subset of standard English, therefore, this proposal should not be approved, because there is already a Wikibooks for English: Rule 2: The language must have a valid ISO 639 1–3 code (search). - it has not a own valid ISO 639 code because it is just English. Rule 3: The language must be sufficiently unique that it could not coexist on a more general wiki. In most cases, this excludes regional dialects and different written forms of the same language. - it is not unique, it is just English. (2) This could be developed inside English Wikibooks, as said by Dcljr. (3) It would divide efforts needlessly between two almost identical Wikibooks (with the same language) when there are scarce in lesser sister projects. --Zerabat (discusión) 14:03, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    Simple English is inherently exempt from the "Valid ISO 639–3 code" and "sufficiently unique" rules for a variety of reasons, including historical ones. That said, arguments (2) and (3) are incorporated into my closing comment below. StevenJ81 (talk) 16:17, 26 September 2018 (UTC) [reply]

Discussion

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Closing comment

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As pointed out above, a fair amount of content was moved from the previous version of this project into English Wikibooks, and especially its Wikijunior section. LangCom sees no reason that Simple English content would not be appropriately incorporated into English Wikibooks—and better served there, too.

Accordingly, any future request for a Wikibooks Simple English is going to be speedy-deleted as an invalid request unless the following two points are both true:

  • Substantial Simple English content has been created within English Wikibooks.
  • The English Wikibooks community agrees that it wants to spin off this content into a separate project. (To demonstrate this, you would need to provide a link to a discussion at English Wikibooks.)

I would add, though, that if substantial Simple English content (beyond Wikijunior) is created in English Wikibooks, if the community requests it, I will be happy to have the sitenotice on the closed Simple English Wikibooks modified to point to it. For LangCom: StevenJ81 (talk) 16:17, 26 September 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.