Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Skolt Sami 2

submitted	verification	final decision

	This language has been verified as eligible. The language is eligible for a project, which means that the subdomain can be created once there is an active community and a localized interface, as described in the language proposal policy. You can discuss the creation of this language project on this page. Once the criteria are met, the language committee can proceed with the approval. If you think the criteria are met, but the project is still waiting for approval, feel free to notify the committee and ask them to consider its approval. A committee member provided the following comment: There seem to be no problems with eligibility. --MF-W 08:44, 24 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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	sms (SIL, Glottolog)	A valid ISO 639-1 or 639-3 language code, like "fr", "de", "nso", ...
Language name	Skolt Sami	Language name in English
Language name	nuõrttsääʹmǩiõll, sääʹmǩiõll	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	Q13271 - item has currently the following values: English label: Skolt Sami native label (P1705): nuõʹrttsääʹmǩiõll, sääʹmǩiõll instance of (P31)/subclass of (P279): natural language, modern language / Eastern Sami Wikimedia language code (P424): sms writing system (P282): Latin script number of speakers, writers, or signers (P1098): 420	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	LTR	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.
Site URL	sms.wikipedia.org	langcode.wikiproject.org

Settings
Project name	Wikipedia	"Wikipedia" in your language
Project namespace	Wikipedia	usually the same as the project name
Project talk namespace	Saǥstõõllâm	"Wikipedia 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	Europe/Sevettijärvi (Europe/Helsinki)	"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.

Proposal

While the number of speakers of Skolt Sámi is only 320–400, the Inari Sámi have taken their project from incubator to full-blown Wikipedia with the same amount of speakers, so I would like to re-request that a Skolt Sámi Wikipedia be officially opened in the incubator.
Currently there is not a great deal of traffic there, but there are 3 of us editing it and I am hoping to convince previous editors, some of whom are native speakers, to start editing again now that there is a bigger community of editors.
Since fall 2020 students have been able to major in Skolt Sámi at the University of Oulu. Prior to that, we had the possibility of taking 25 credit hours of basic-level courses and 25 credit hours of intermediate-level courses. The course topics range from linguistics to translation and we write a lot of text in those classes that could easily be included in a Skolt Sámi Wikipedia.
There are also schoolchildren who would benefit from encyclopedic material in Skolt Sámi as few schoolbooks are actually produced in the language. They are also potential editors. Any material produced would also be useful to Skolt Sámi living on the Norwegian and Russian sides of the border, where even less material is produced.
The localization of Mediawiki core is 17% done and the most important messages is at 53%. In addition, it has been possible to use Skolt Sámi in Wikidata since 2019 and it has been added as much as possible. -Yupik (talk) 03:31, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As of April 24, 2022, this now stands at localization of Mediawiki core is 19% done and the most important messages is at 57%. -Yupik (talk) 22:55, 23 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As of the beginning of 2023, localization of Mediawiki core is 32% done and the most important messages is at 76%. (Just putting this here so these statistics are somewhere :)) -Yupik (talk) 12:42, 13 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Strong support: Once the language is verified as eligible, the community is able to work to make the language approved. iyumu 03:47, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Yupik, it looks good that the most used messages in Skolt Sami (sms) are translated. Later, if the language is verified, it is better to gather at least 3 active editors, continuing editing for more than 3 months (based on our experience of the incubation of Paiwan Wikipedia). You can check the analysis of activities here. iyumu

06:41, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Strong support Although new languages can be used in Wikidata and Structured Data on Commons also without a dedicated Wikipedia, a Wikipedia project still constitutes a major leap in the adoption of Wikimedia projects in those language communities and the opportunities for language revitalization. Writing articles is a natural and self-explanatory way to familiarize with Wikimedia projects over tagging media, for example. – Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) 🦜 12:37, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support Every nation should have a Wiki. Event if it becomes dead.Пан Хаунд (talk) 17:19, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support No problems on eligibility as it has enough speakers support the project, even though it's currently inactive for half years which indeed blocks a potential approval. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 02:15, 24 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Agusbou2015 (talk) 16:45, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I want to draw the attention of the community that the test Wikipedia project in a language spoken by near 400 native speakers, was probably never been edited by any of them, contrary to what the requesting user says. The vast majority of edits were made by Muotâ (native Italian speaker) and Yupik (native English speaker) whose skills in Skolt Sámi are not probably advanced enough to write big articles like this one. I am not going to judge if two these users are able to speak Inari Sámi (~500 native speakers) -- since they are the principal editors of the smnWP which is approved by the LangCom they probably are. Since we are all need to assume a good-faith, I can assume that they are maybe fluent in two (Skolt Sámi, Inari Sámi) or more moribund and poorly-documented Sámi languages and so they are real polyglots (I am impressed!), but what if the language of the test Skolt Sámi Wiki is far from what the last speakers use? We have to contact an expert to confirm it. Remember the case of the Northern Luri Wikipedia (although, to be fair, experts in that situation were not initially able to determine the fake language, and it led to consequences because the wiki was open).
On the things that author of the request expressed here.
I am hoping to convince previous editors, some of whom are native speakers, to start editing again -- Are you familiar with those native speakers? Are they from the material world?
Since fall 2020 students have been able to major in Skolt Sámi at the University of Oulu. -- WMF has nothing to do with it.
We had the possibility of taking 25 credit hours of basic-level courses and 25 credit hours of intermediate-level courses -- maybe you (or your students) would try to learn the language first before initiating the project? If this is a sort of a game, kind of "Let's imagine we are the native speakers", the creation of the Skolt Sámi edition in the Beta Wikiversity may be a better idea.
There are also schoolchildren who would benefit from encyclopedic material in Skolt Sámi as few schoolbooks are actually produced in the language -- Schoolbooks are not encyclopedias, and these are not interchangeable. Do you have data on how effectively the ethnic children are using Wikipedia in studying the native language at school? Although Finland, where Skolt Sámi is mostly spoken, is widely known for its success in the field of creating the effective educational programs, I doubt that there are monolingual Skolt Sámi schools with no Finnish in education. It means, that such a list will be useless for the school students in History or Geography classes.
Any material produced would also be useful to Skolt Sámi living on the Norwegian and Russian sides of the border. -- I guarantee that would not. Skolt Sámi is not spoken in Norway anymore. What is for Russia, it is spoken by less than 20 very old people in some village who are most probably illiterate in the Latin-based alphabet used by the language. They are also not using the Internet actively and do not teach the language to the descendants, at least, because it is not prestigious. In Norway and Russia, Skolt Sámi might be interesting for the enjoyers of the smaller languages (language activists, roughly speaking), but regarding (and respecting) your personal attitudes towards the test wikiprojects created and edited by the non-speakers, and your support of deletions of the Finno-Ugric test projects in the WM-Incubator, it would be strange for you to invite such people to edit the Skolt Sámi Wikipedia... Also, they will not really read and use the encyclopedia.
Thanks for attention! --Wolverène (talk) 12:22, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]