Talk:Language committee/2026

Request for Approval for Cebuano Wikisource, Hiligaynon Wikisource, Kapampangan Wikisource and Waray Wikisource

On behalf of the Wikisource Loves Manuscripts Philippines, kindly review our the following projects: Cebuano Wikisource, Hiligaynon Wikisource, Kapampangan Wikisource and Waray Wikisource projects. Thanks. --Filipinayzd (talk) 05:58, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

Looking at requests for closing projects...

There appears to be overwhelming consensus to close Bosnian Wiktionary. Another Wiki User the 3rd (talk) 19:06, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Urdu Wikisource

Hello all!

The language committee intends to approve the Urdu Wikisource (request). If you have any objections to that based on the language proposal policy, please tell us here on this page in the next 7 days. Meanwhile, the community is asked to check (and if necessary, complete) the wiki settings as indicated on the request page.

Thanks! Jon Harald Søby (talk) 17:02, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

Sasak Wikipedia

Hello Everyone. After looking, this wikipedia is active. Is there anything to hinder this processs? Agus Damanik (talk) 02:35, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

Looking at a random selection of incubator:Wp/sas pages, most of them are very short and about half of the articles are standard-stubs about Indonesian regencies. While the interface translation requirements and the activity numbers are there, the content does not make the wiki look approvable to me. --MF-W 00:33, 11 February 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for the comment. From this, we finally can understand what should we improve.

Is it possible to also check the Wiktionary project (Wt/sas)? What should we improve to the project, etc?

Thank you.

—NikolasKHF (talk) 00:46, 11 February 2026 (UTC)

Again I looked at a random selection of pages. All of them only gave a word in one language, and most of them only one definition/translation. In this way it does not look very useful. Would it not be better if incubator:Wt/sas/abot looked more like en:wikt:abot or at least id:wikt:abot; or incubator:Wt/sas/jajal more like id:wikt:jajal? --MF-W 00:08, 12 February 2026 (UTC)

I understand. At the time of editing, we were only inputting the languages that we know to the entries and translating them to Sasak. Thank you for your comment, we will try to improve the entries. —NikolasKHF (talk) 00:33, 12 February 2026 (UTC)

Everything is clear... One project has been active for over a year, and already submitted requests four times, but they're constantly ignored, but other projects, however, receive immediate responses. ~2026-10442-05 (talk) 17:53, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the support! Hopefully they can approve the projects soon —NikolasKHF (talk) 14:55, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

Proposal: Wikipedia in "Simple French"

This proposal aims to create a version of Wikipedia in Simple French, modeled after Simple English Wikipedia. The goal is to provide accessible, clear content that is age-appropriate for young readers, while remaining accurate and informative. This project would be especially useful for middle and high school students, but also for anyone learning French or seeking easily understandable information.

Many students find that standard French Wikipedia articles are too long or detailed, which can discourage them from using them for school projects. For example, the article on France, while comprehensive, may seem too complex for a class report. A Simple French version would provide articles focusing on the essential information, written in short sentences and with vocabulary adapted to their reading level, making reading more engaging and encouraging.

Another advantage is that it can help young learners develop autonomy. With simpler and more readable articles, they would be less tempted to rely on AI tools like ChatGPT to do their homework. This helps to foster critical thinking and research skills, while making information more accessible.

This project could also benefit a broader audience: French learners, immigrants, or adults with reading difficulties could find it easier to access knowledge in Simple French. Simple English Wikipedia shows that a simplified version of an existing language can be extremely useful, particularly for education and self-directed learning.

Finally, a Wikipedia in Simple French could serve as a bridge to standard French Wikipedia. Young readers could start with these accessible articles and gradually move on to more complex texts. Teachers and educators could also find it a practical resource for preparing lessons or projects.

In summary, creating a Wikipedia in Simple French could make knowledge more accessible, engaging, and educational, while encouraging autonomy and reading among young learners. The project aligns with the spirit of Wikimedia's mission to freely share knowledge with everyone, and could complement existing content by adapting it to different reading levels.
WikiGenesis (talk) 09:05, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

See Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_French_Simple_3#Closing_comment. I don't know what became of it, though. --MF-W 15:24, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

Requests for new languages/Wikivoyage Arabic

Hi. Can we get some comments from the Language committee members about the status of the Wikivoyage Arabic request? The test project has been in Incubator since November 2012 and the required localization is at 100% for MediaWiki core and Extensions used by Wikimedia. (Check localization statistics.) The test wiki currently has 1,048 articles. Almajidy (talk) 13:59, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

It does not fulfill the activity requirements. Also I looked at a random selection of articles: The vast majority only contained standard section headings, but without any content. --MF-W 22:19, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

Ulster Scots Wikipedia

I was thinking about a Ulster Scots (language in Norther Ireland) version of Wikipedia Ludo Games-T (talk) 00:59, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

It doesn't have its own ISO 693-3 code, and is considered a dialect of Scots.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:19, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

Oh Ludo Games-T (talk) 11:10, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

Well, how about Luxembourgian (Luxembourg) Wikipedia? Or it does have? Ludo Games-T (talk) 11:12, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

@Ludo Games-T It's already existing for several years: lb:. ~2026-14754-33 (talk) 03:06, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

Bole Wikipedia Approval Request

Bole Wikipedia have been up and doing to ensure open knowledge is achieved in the Bole language. Attached herewith are links showcasing the need for your attention and concerns below to get the language approved:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Bole

https://meta.toolforge.org/catanalysis/index.php?cat=0&title=Wp/bol&wiki=incubatorwiki

https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:PrefixIndex/Wp/bol/

El-hussain14 (talk) 20:46, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Approval of Berom Wikipedia

Greetings Langcom! I am here to make a proposal for the approval of the Berom Wikipedia, which had been in the Incubator since July 2025. A community of translators had been assembled and work on the project had been on since the start of the project. In addition, the Berom Educational and Cultural Organization (BECO) had taken the project as its own and is doing its best in supporting the continuous editing of the project monthly and will continue to do so even after it gets out of the Incubator. Thanks and warm regards, Kambai Akau (talk) 10:22, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi! One requirement for approval that is still missing is the translation of the most-used MediaWiki messages. Also, I just had a look at a random selection of articles and the vast majority of them are very short and do not have any internal links (so they would not be counted by the automatic article counter on a separate wiki). In this form, I don't think the wiki can be approved yet. --MF-W 15:23, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

Oh, hi @MF-Warburg. We will work towards the meeting of those two requirements soon. Thanks! Kambai Akau (talk) 00:44, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Appropriate language code for Lorrain?

Hey there. In T420823: Add Lorrain (mis; no ISO-code) to languages on WF/Abstract WP we've been asked to add support for Lorrain to Abstract Wikipedia. There's already some content under the misc. language code (mis) on Wikidata, but for it to work with us we need an actual code. roa-lor was proposed, and I countered with roa-x-lor; I would appreciate the Committee's thoughts on what counts as appropriate here. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 14:10, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

@Evertype: is the person who actually approves w:IETF BCP 47 language tags. roa-x-lor would be syntactically correct, where roa-lor would refer to an unregistered lor tag. If it's not urgent, given a good proposal, it should only take a few weeks to get a tag for Lorrain, unless the argument was it needed to be considered language tag, and then it would have to go through SIL first (see https://iso639-3.sil.org/code_changes/submitting_change_requests ). Instead of Wikimedia just creating a code, I'd suggest actually trying to get an official one.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:10, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

"Going through SIL" is a bit of a mis-characterization. SIL International is the registrar for ISO 639-3, but around January of 2026 the Registrars of ISO 639-2, 639-3, and 639-5 were merged into a single registration authority. But https://iso639-3.sil.org/code_changes/submitting_change_requests is the right URL. ~2026-18807-52 (talk) 04:44, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

From suggestions from IETF languages, x-lorrain or roa-FR-x-lorrain may be better. Some would argue for fr-x-lorrain, as a dialect of French. There should be an official code at some point, but bureaucracy is going to require someone to fill out the paper work and argue it as a dialect or language.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:15, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Lorrain is not a dialect of French (there is no inter-intelligibility between the two). I would be okay with it falling under the roa umbrella for the meantime tho. Poslovitch (talk) 17:48, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

@Prosfilaes: Thanks; waiting a bit is fine, though I'm keen to unblock @Poslovitch. Apparently Wikidata has some issues with foo-x-bar language codes, but I don't think this should stop us from picking the right one and fixing the software. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 15:34, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

If @Poslovitch wants a language code, that's going to take at least a year. It's clear there's going to be pushback against the idea it's not a dialect, too.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:29, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, I've discovered it's going to be a long task. I've been sent to a discussion on IETF mailing lists. I'm not sure how it works, but it looks like they could point towards a "temporary" language code while I gather scientific works/actually do the research work to investigate if Lorrain can be considered a separate language - which is going to take a few years at the very least. Poslovitch (talk) 10:31, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

I started that discussion. I don't think ietf-languages is going to give you a code if you're going to propose it as a language at ISO 639-3. So x-lorrain or roa-x-lorrain are probably the best for now.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:13, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

Wikisource Uzbek

Dear Language Committee, the Uzbek Wikisource project has been active for many years. We would like to request to review the project for its final approval. The local edition was proposed in 2017 and there has been a revitalization efforts to build it become the newest Wikimedia project. Thanks. -- Umarxon III (talk) 10:27, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

Notify editors of a new-language proposal in languages which they speak

Discussion at Wikimedia Forum#Notify editors of a new-language proposal in languages which they speak, thanks Kowal2701 (talk) 16:55, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

Approval request for Bole Wikipedia

Dear Language Committee, The Bole Wikipedia has been consecutively active for 12 months and a total of 15 months. There are also 5 active editors who have made >10 edits. We would like to request the project for final approval. The request has already been made here. Thank you! RAPTOR7762 (talk) 23:17, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

Notification about proposed approval of Magahi Wikipedia

Hi, all. The language committee intends to approve Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Magahi. If you have any objections to that based on the language proposal policy, please tell us here on this page in the next 7 days. Meanwhile, the community is asked to check (and if necessary, complete) the wiki settings as indicated on the request page. Thank you. Jon Harald Søby (talk) 14:19, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Jon Harald Søby (talk) 14:34, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Notification about proposed approval of Runyakore Wikipedia

The language committee intends to approve Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Runyankore. For objections, as usual, there is room here. The community is asked to check and complete the wiki settings indicated on the request page in the next 7 days. --MF-W 09:45, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Jon Harald Søby (talk) 14:34, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Approval request for Minangkabau Wikiquote

Dear Language Committee, The Minangkabau Wikiquote project has been active for 6 months and the community would like the project to be approved. The request for the approval has been made here. Thank you Zhilal Darma (talk) 05:18, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

@Zhilal Darma: Hi! I just proposed its approval to the Language committee mailing list. Thanks for the request! Jon Harald Søby (talk) 14:36, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

Approval request for Malayalam Wikivoyage

Dear Language Committee,

The Malayalam Wikivoyage has been consecutively active for last 3 months with 10 active editors. We started our journey on Novermber 2012. Now Wikimedians of Kerala User Group is actively organizing regular workshops and meetings to keep the project active. Our active community has worked to build a repository of travel guides in the incubator. You can find our request here. Kindly consider it and take necessary action. On behalf of Wikimedians of Kerala and Malayalam Wikivoyage Community --Ranjithsiji (talk) 14:21, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

@Ranjithsiji: Hi, and thanks for the request! The activity is looking really good, but 3 months of consecutive activity is on the lower end, so I would like to wait another few weeks to see if the activity level continues in June. If it does, I will then propose its approval to the committee. Jon Harald Søby (talk) 14:40, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

@Jon Harald Søby Thank you for your consideration. The community around Malayalam Wikivoyage is now active and we have long term plans about the project. Also Wikimedians of Kerala UG is actively taking initiatives to move the project forward. We will continue update the project. Regards Ranjithsiji (talk) 16:36, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

Approval request for Bole Wikipedia

Dear Language Committee,

The Bole Wikipedia has been consecutively active for 12 months and a total of 15 months. There are also 5 active editors who have made >10 edits. We would like to request the project for final approval. The request has already been made here. Thank you! RAPTOR7762 (talk) 23:17, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

I am reviving this topic as stale with no replies. @Jon Harald Søby: @MF-W: I hope you will consider this proposal. Thank you! RAPTOR7762 (talk) 10:41, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

@RAPTOR7762: See https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/R6QMPY6YC2CPUNKO5WFLA4IODTLLSIVD/ Jon Harald Søby (talk) 11:04, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

Thank you @Jon Harald Søby! I will track that page from now on. Thank you! RAPTOR7762 (talk) 04:45, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

Notification about proposed approval of Interslavic Wikipedia

Tracked in Phabricator:
Task T429920

Hi, all. The language committee intends to approve Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Interslavic. If you have any objections to that based on the language proposal policy, please tell us here on this page in the next 7 days. Meanwhile, the community is asked to check (and if necessary, complete) the wiki settings as indicated on the request page. Thank you. Jon Harald Søby (talk) 14:34, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Notification about proposed approval of Bole Wikipedia

Tracked in Phabricator:
Task T429921

Hi, all. The language committee intends to approve Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Bole. If you have any objections to that based on the language proposal policy, please tell us here on this page in the next 7 days. Meanwhile, the community is asked to check (and if necessary, complete) the wiki settings as indicated on the request page. Thank you. Jon Harald Søby (talk) 14:35, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Notification about proposed approval of Minangkabau Wikiquote

Tracked in Phabricator:
Task T429922

Hi, all. The language committee intends to approve Requests for new languages/Wikiquote Minangkabau. If you have any objections to that based on the language proposal policy, please tell us here on this page in the next 7 days. Meanwhile, the community is asked to check (and if necessary, complete) the wiki settings as indicated on the request page. Thank you. Jon Harald Søby (talk) 14:37, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Approval request for Wikivoyage Belarusian

There is the Requests for new languages/Wikivoyage Belarusian. Can Language Committee approve the be.wikivoyage.org? That project some years existing in the incubator. Ясамойла (talk) 14:18, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

@Ясамойла: Unfortunately, the activity levels for the Belarusian Wikivoyage are well below what is necessary to approve it at the moment. We need sustained activity from several users over several months to demonstrate that the wiki will be able to "stand on its own legs", so to speak. If you want to get it approved, you have to recruit more active contributors. Jon Harald Søby (talk) 14:51, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

Approval request for Hiligaynon Wikipedia

Dear Language Committee,

The Hiligaynon Wikipedia project is currently active for 9 months since October 2025. Multiple Wiki communities from the Philippines are actively editing in Hiligaynon Wikipedia - including the PPC through our WikiProyekto Hiligaynon initiative. Currently, the aforementioned project has 2 native Hiligaynon speakers (who are also active Wiki editors) and 3 active editors with limited proficiency in Hiligaynon (spent few years in Western Visayas region). We are also actively looking for editors in Hiligaynon Wikipedia who are both active Wiki editors and native Hiligaynon speakers. Our community would like the project to be approved. The request for the approval has been made here.

Thank you very much!

Best regards,

Ralffralff (talk) 08:32, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

Request to approve Wp/wlx Wikipedia

Hello languages committee, it has been long since we sent the Wali Language experts for the Wp/wlx approval process. We have been active since July 2024. We requested it here. Please we humbly request you to kindly consider approving our Wikipedia. Thank you. Zakaria Tunsung (talk) 08:15, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

Hello Languages Committee, the Wali Language Wikipedia has been active for so many months now with 5-6 active editors. We would like you to give us approval. Muhaideen Faiz Brichini (talk) 09:27, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

i support this appeal. The Wali Wiki and communiry has been very active for months now and needs to be looked at. ~~~± Yaw tuba (talk) 09:30, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

Notifying people via language categories

Commenting as I don't want to step on anyone's toes (bit late I guess). I've now done all the Wikipedia proposals by pinging active editors of the test wikis and letting them know of other active editors that speak the relevant language and appear unaware of the proposal. For when the test wikis were inactive, I notified active editors personally, which has been very appreciated so far, tbh I'll probably revisit this soon and do that for proposals where I didn't get a response. Will probably also do this all for Wiktionary proposals that don't have their own Wikipedia/test wiki, as well as for very small wikis, if I need more distractions from content work. If there are other ways I can help out do let me know. Thanks, Kowal2701 (talk) 19:46, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

User:Kowal2701: have you had any reactions? --MF-W 15:06, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

All positive so far! I guess people who didn't appreciate just ignored it. I made it look hand-written rather than a template, I think that probably helps a lot Kowal2701 (talk) 15:10, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

Proposed closure process being misused for speculation, personal attacks, and ethnic stereotyping

Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Navajo Wikipedia has been open for a year and four days. It should not have been open for more than a day, because as its proposer acknowledges, they have no actual evidence that anything is wrong on the wiki: They do not speak the language, they have not spoken to anyone who speaks the language, and they do not have any evidence of any errors in the wiki. On most wikis, this would be a speedy closure, the standard response to a proposal that cites no evidence. Indeed, the only evidence cited in the proposal was the nominator's disdain for the wiki's most active contributor (for, among other things, refusing to speak English on a non-English wiki) and a single Wiktionary comment where an IP said that some nvwiki article titles are novel coinages. I don't mean to accuse the nominator of bad faith. I think they may have gotten carried away after looking at some other small wikis, and I suspect they conflated coinages (which may be a mild issue with respect to No original research but are far from wiki-killing) with mistakes of language (the scowiki scenario).

What concerns me much more is how the discussion has progressed in the year since. A number of users have repeated the unsourced claims in the proposal without providing any further evidence, and indeed have compounded these claims by accusing the wiki's most active contributor of creating a scowiki scenario, of having behavioral issues (again, the only thing cited was wanting to speak his language on its own Wikipedia), or of not speaking the language. One temp account has made ludicrous claims that Unicode staff and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol know the user's true identity and can prove he is a fraud.

Beyond the personal attacks on the wiki's most active user, the discussion contains ethnic stereotyping and other hallmarks of colonialist discourse about indigenous languages. Some have claimed that Navajo speakers are opposed to using the Internet, or even find it too difficult to use. Others have insisted that they are acting in the benevolent interest of Navajo speakers, while declining to take any steps to contact Navajo speakers, and ignoring comments that cite statements from actual Navajo speakers. When a system consistently favors the opinions of outsiders over those of the people in the ethnic group affected, that is one form of systemic racism. It's an obvious thing we should be on the lookout for in wiki closure requests, and it worries me that it's not something we have any apparent safeguards against.

At a minimum, I would call upon a LangCom member to put an end to this farce, close the discussion, and issue a general warning to those who made or repeated unsubstantiated claims in the discussion. But that only addresses the current problem. In the future, I would propose two changes to the wiki closure process:

• There should be a basic "sanity check" phase from LangCom before a closure request can start. If the cited reason is the wiki misrepresenting its language, LangCom should require either an expert opinion, or evidence that many fluent speakers hold this view, except in cases where it's patently obvious (e.g. all the wiki's pages are in the wrong language).
• LangCom members, or whoever they choose to designate, should play a more active role in moderating these discussions, particularly to remove personal attacks, to be clear with commenters about what kind of evidence LangCom looks for in closing a wiki, and to point out comments that appear to rely on stereotypes of the ethnic group who speak the language.

-- Tamzin^{[​cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 15:29, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

I agree with you at some point. New wikis are created with LangCom decision, why do we close wikis with public voting? I believe wiki closures should be disccused in this page. People may bring attention to dormant wikis here, and LangCom would decide. Joseph (talk) 16:52, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing attention to it. In fact, the decision about the proposal has long been prepared, but was not posted. I agree this is bad and needs to be done quicker. I am also sympathetic to the idea of a "sanity check". The policy already has something like it with the possibility of speedy closures of proposals. --MF-W 15:08, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

Requesting update on approval request of Malayalam Wikivoyage

Hello Language committee,

We had an approval request for Malayalam Wikivoyage initiated earlier. Could you please share an update on the request. There are 16 active contributors and 2 admins in this project. Also some community pages are created. So we are looking forward to become a real project. Please guide us about further actions.

Regards,

Ranjithsiji

Wikimedians of Kerala User Group Ranjithsiji (talk) 12:12, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Rejecting Wikinews language proposals by non Lancom members

Hi, could you please clarify whether non Language Committee members may mark Wikinews language proposals as rejected? A user (User:DraconicDark) has been doing so using templates stating that the decision is made by a Language Committee member. Thank you.--ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 22:32, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

As I had previously stated: the language committee was directed by the WMF Board of Trustees to not accept any new Wikinews requests (see this email from the public Langcom mailing list). All open Wikinews requests at the time therefore had no chance of succeeding, and were in effect rejected. Therefore, marking open Wikinews requests at the time as rejected was an uncontroversial, procedural action. At the time I marked the requests as rejected, the date of the closure of Wikinews was approaching and the requests had still not been marked as rejected yet, even though they functionally were due to the closure of Wikinews. Therefore, focusing on the fact that they were marked as rejected is unnecessarily bureaucratic. If the reason you keep bringing this up is that you still want to work on Wikinews despite its abandonment by the WMF, see Migration of Wikinews and future hosts. DraconicDark (talk) 23:03, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Linking to WMF or Language Committee discussions does not make you a Language Committee member. If you believe LangCom members cannot handle these tasks, you can apply to join. Until then, please do not pretend to be a LangCom member or use templates that falsely imply a Language Committee member made the decision.-- ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 23:55, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

I never claimed to be a language committee member. The wording on the language request header template is standard and cannot be changed simply by changing parameters on the template. The complete closure of all language editions of Wikinews was an unusual situation which led to unusual action in this case. Marking the requests as rejected simply reflected the reality of the situation. Be bold applies. Unless you object to the idea of the Wikinews requests being rejected, which because of the Board of Trustees' decision would have been done anyway regardless of whether or not I did anything, I don't see why you are continuing to push this issue. DraconicDark (talk) 00:50, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

These edits created a mess across Wikinews request pages that now requires cleanup. If necessary, LangCom should comment on those requests and formally close them.--ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 01:28, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

@DraconicDark: The language committee should be expected to take responsibility for the decisions they make. If they choose to follow the directions of the Board, that is their prerogative, but those proposals deserve a response from someone actually empowered to make a decision on the proposal. Your edit adds text that is not accurate, and, whether you intended for it to do so or not, misleads those who support and those who oppose the request, into thinking that what you placed into the reasoning is the final answer from the Language Committee. As you are not a member of the Language Committee, it seems inappropriate for you to be doing this, since you would not be able to point to discussions within the committee regarding each individual project proposal to justify your denial of the proposals.

I acknowledge completely, of course, that you are doing something which, to you, is uncontroversial. But it does not appear to be as uncontroversial as you thought to others. Would you be fine with reverting, and letting a Language Committee member handle these instead? I don't think there's any need for anyone to be pointing fingers here, there's a simple way out, which is just to revert back and let LangComm take it from there. EggRoll97 (talk) 05:03, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

I am a Language committee member, and I need to take responsibility for this.

In a private conversation with me, @DraconicDark asked whether he can help with cleaning up Wikinews requests, after it was already known that Wikinews is being closed. I was busy in real life and, knowing that DraconicDark, I said "Be bold" and didn't pay too much attention to it. I shouldn't have done that. While I don't think that real damage was made, it didn't entirely respect the process, and I apologize for this. It's not DraconicDark's fault.

I'll discuss it with the rest of the committee, and I'll try to clean it up properly.

@ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ, you are saying that These edits created a mess across Wikinews request pages that now requires cleanup. What are you referring to exactly? Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 06:34, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

By “mess” I mean the disruptive, inappropriate, and inaccurate edits made across multiple Wikinews request pages that now need cleanup. The user was not authorized to approve or reject those requests, and the templates falsely indicated a Language Committee decision. Some requests had even been approved by LangCom before the WMF later decided to discontinue Wikinews.--ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ ^{/hasɔn raza/} (talk) 06:55, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

As far as I can see, none of them were approved. Some of them were marked as "open", and many of them were marked as "eligible", but it's not the same thing as "approved". The "eligible" status refers only to the eligibility of the language (new project in a unique living language with an ISO 639 code), and not to the full approval of the project or to graduating from the Incubator (assessment that it has good content and activity in the Incubator). Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 07:17, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

You’re right, some of those edits, including the “eligible” projects, may not have been ones that were formally approved. My concern is that they were still marked as "rejected" by someone who was not authorized to make LangCom decisions. I appreciate that this is now being reviewed and cleaned up properly.

--ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ ^{/hasɔn raza/} (talk) 07:43, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for understanding.

(A little clarification: in an earlier message, I somehow forgot to type a few words, so I'll repeat it here: I was busy in real life and, knowing that DraconicDark understands the policies around these matters fairly well, I said "Be bold" and didn't pay too much attention to it.) Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 08:09, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Hi, just following up on this. Has there been any further discussion or decision regarding the cleanup?-- ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ ^{/hasɔn raza/} (talk) 09:40, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

All Wikinews proposals are moot, it doesn't matter who updates the pages to reflect that. --MF-W 16:49, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

For example, if you visit Requests for new languages/Wikinews Sylheti, it says: “A committee member provided the following comment: Procedurally rejected because the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees approved closure of all editions of Wikinews.” Was this actually a comment made by a LangCom member? If not, then the page contains false information by attributing a decision to the Language Committee that was not made by a committee member. A later explanation cannot retroactively make an inaccurate statement correct.--ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ ^{/hasɔn raza/} (talk) 20:44, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

I went over all the requests and confirmed them with my signature. As @MF-Warburg says, they are moot. If anyone still disagrees with the process, I'm happy to discuss it.

I again acknowledge certain irregularity in how it was done and I apologize for it. The responsibility for this is completely on me. However, there is probably nothing more that can be done.

I also want to take this opportunity to acknowledge and express respect to the work of the volunteers in all the languages who worked on the requests and on the Incubator articles. It didn't work out for Wikinews in the Wikimedia movement, but I hope that they find a good place for they future good faith contirbutions in their languages in other Wikimedia projects or elsewhere. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 15:04, 22 August 2026 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ ^{/hasɔn raza/} (talk) 12:32, 27 August 2026 (UTC)

Redirecting fil.wikipedia.org to tl.wikipedia.org

Hello, members of the Language committee.

As per Amire80's advice I was advised to let the committee know that I'm hoping to initiate a process to redirect the domain for a Filipino Wikipedia (fil.wikipedia.org) to the Tagalog Wikipedia (tl.wikipedia.org).

Since the existing consensus on the Tagalog Wikipedia is that Tagalog and Filipino are the same language, and the Language committee is unlikely to recognize a separate Filipino Wikipedia owing to the similarity between the two languages, I think this redirect is overdue and cements the existing consensus that both our community and the Language committee share.

I will also let the Tagalog Wikipedia know of this proposal and the relevant Phabricator ticket as a courtesy, but I'm hoping this change is uncontroversial enough that it could be implemented in short order. Thank you. --Sky Harbor ^(talk) 09:37, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the request. I notified the Language committee on the mailing list. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 14:50, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

Request for approval of Wt/pcm, Naija Pidgin Wiktionary

Hello language committee i would like to request that you approve pcm.wiktionary.org just as it sister was approved at pcm.wikipedia.org. Pcm.Wiktionary.org has been here for over 15 years Wmbata (talk) 11:27, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

It does not fulfill the activity requirements. --MF-W 20:49, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

Request to approve Tumbuka Wiktionary (tum.wiktionary.org)

Greetings Language Committee, I am requesting for the approval of Tumbuka Wiktionary. I am one of the native contributors on the project. The request was made here almost 3 years ago, with nothing happening to it. The language is spoken in three countries, used in national media such as television, e-hail websites and regular websites, radio and newspapers, etc., and it was added on Google Translate in 2024. Moreover, there is a willing community that is ready to contribute to the project. The language also has its own Wikipedia with active solid community. The other challenge is that most natives do not know how to edit the wiki while still in incubator. So, if the wiki is approved and created, it will attract more natives. It will also act as a must-go-to when one stumbles a difficult word in its sister project (Wikipedia) to look it up. In incubator, the page is here.

Again, not important to this request but worth a mention, I and other interested native speakers, including those interested in our languages, are on our way to create a recognized Wikimedia Community User Group for our Wikimedia projects, see. Currently, we are busy spreading awareness in our countries about Wikipedia in our local languages (as well as enwiki) which includes this Wiktionary that we are requesting to be approved. Once approved, we would have alot of newbies to edit there, thereby giving free knowledge.

Thanks.--- Tumbuka Arch (talk) 11:03, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

It does not fulfill the activity requirements. --MF-W 20:48, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

Requesting approval of Nias Wikibooks

Dear Language committee,

We renew our approval request for Nias Wikibooks. We first sent our request a few years back, but was deemed not enough. Considering how critical the Wikibooks as the first learning step for users before writing on Wikipedia, which is in this regard a unique context for Nias, here we submit again our request for approval.

Best regards,

Slaia (talk) 08:56, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

I had a look at 10 random pages from Nias Wikibooks, of which only 2 were not a Bible chapter. Can you explain how Nias Wikibooks is helping users to write in Wikipedia? And why doesn't Wikipedia itself host pages about how to edit it? --MF-W 14:01, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for the response. I am sorry if I am not good enough in explaining the rationale in the proposal.

First of all Nias language is mainly an oral language. There is no written text (except the bible as explained below), no magazines, no radio or tv programs in this language. To make matter worse, the country Indonesia makes it obligatory to use only the national language in education, institution, ceremonies. The result: majority of young generation don't actually know how to write (and to speak) in Nias language. Even academics have difficulty to write properly in the language. They need to exercise a lot, before writing good enough in Nias language. Writing directly on Wikipedia, with a lot of technical terms (science, biology, history, etc.) even more challenging. In Wikibooks they can write more freely and about topics that would not fit on Wikipedia (explaining the meaning of certain proverbs which are very popular among Niassan for example). And when the time comes they write on Wikipedia.

Why so many bible texts? Five years ago we started with the bible texts, because they are the only written text we have and function as the basis of vocabulary and sentence building/examples. There are 1,185+ pages of them and therefore they pop up often in the random page search. What many Niassan do when they look for a word and the example how that word is used in a sentence, is, they start with that word in Indonesian. Look up that word in a Indonesian bible text, open the corresponding Nias bible text to find what that word is in Nias language and how it is written in context. People are so educated in Indonesian that they forgot even the basic words in Nias!

Four years ago we finished with the bible text on the Wikibooks and then we continued with other topics. Recently for example we concentrated on writing stories for children, as the early gateway to Nias language. One cannot find them through random pages, because there are only around 70 pages at the moment. Last year we were writing about some historical places in Nias.

Thank you again for looking into this. I apologise if my English is not well written. Slaia (talk) 07:48, 14 August 2026 (UTC)