Wikimedia Incubator

User:Timichal/Archives/Incubator:New test requests

< User:Timichal

This page is an archive. Please do not edit the contents of this page. Direct any additional comments to the current discussion page.

This is the page for people who want to set up a test here for a new language test of an existing Wikimedia project.

Procedure

There are several steps to follow if you would like to create a new language Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikisource, or Wikiquote. The Wikimedia Commons and Wikispecies are multi-lingual projects, meaning that there are no separate editions for individual languages. The Wikisource project has its own page to request a new language.

  1. Peruse the complete list of Wikimedia projects. If the language you are looking for is not listed there, look for very similar languages. Your proposed language must be sufficiently different, in its written form, from any other already-created language.
  2. You must have an account here on the Incubator wiki.
  3. Copy and paste the template to the end of the current requests section.
  4. Find the ISO 639-2 code for your language or propose a code for it (for future compatibility, be sure to consult the ISO 639-3 draft, which covers most of the world's languages).
  5. Fill in all fields in the template.
  6. If many potential contributors to your language's wiki are likely to speak a different language that already has a wiki, try and drum up support at a community discussion area on that wiki. Encourage anyone who wants to contribute to your proposed language to come to this page and add their support for your proposal.
  7. Once at least 5 people, with at least 2 who know the language well enough to contribute have expressed their support and indicated an interest in participating, you must list your language's details at the list of test languages; you can then begin making test pages.
  8. This page is not a place to discuss, nor to vote; it is designed solely for one preliminary step: listing interested people before creating a test wiki. Discussions about the necessity of having a Wikipedia in the new language will happen later, at New language requests, after the test wiki has become active.
  9. If you feel that the test is going well, and that it should be made into a full-fledged wiki with its own site, please follow the procedure at New language requests.

Template

English name or description The project the proposal is for

  • People interested in helping or participating (if native speaker, please mark (N)):
    • Proposer (link to an account in Incubator and, optionally, to an account in a relevant project): Name of the proposer and Wiki accounts in Incubator and in Wikipedia
    • User accounts of others who are willing to work on the proposed wiki: User accounts of others
  • Language code (ISO 639): Language code
  • Relevant infos:
    • Link to article(s) on the language in an existing Wikipedia: Wikipedia article
    • Native name(s): Native name
    • English name or description: English name or description
    • Approximate number of speakers: Number of speakers
    • Location(s) spoken: Locations spoken
    • Closely related languages, if any: Related languages
    • External links to organizations that promote the language: Promoting organizations
  • Date: The date the request was made

FAQ

  • What do I do if there is no ISO code for my language?
    • If there is no standard code (no ISO code) for your language, you will need to propose a code that is more than three letters long. The most standard way to create a code is to use a generic code for a language family (such as gem for Germanic languages) and a three letter code for the proposed language, resulting in codes like fiu-vro (from the code for other Finno-Ugric languages and the Voro language) and roa-rup (from the code for other Romance languages and the Aromanian language). This procedure may not be ideal for all circumstances, but should be followed if reasonable.
  • How do I know if my language is sufficiently different from a language that already has a wiki?
    • This is an issue that is decided by consensus.
  • Can there be wikis in ancient languages?
  • Can there be wikis in artificial languages?
    • Yes. There are already wikis available in Esperanto, Ido, Interlingua, Interlingue, Lojban , Volapük. There used to be a Toki Pona wiki, but it was decided that the Toki Pona language was not used widely enough to support a wiki.
    • However, it is quite possible that a fictional language will get little favor. Many considered the existence of the Klingon Wikipedia to be unacceptable, and a proposal to shut it down eventually succeeded.
  • How many speakers are necessary?
    • No language has ever been refused solely because of an insufficient number of speakers. For natural languages, this will probably never be an issue; for artificial languages, however, a low number of speakers may be taken as evidence that the language is not widely spoken enough to deserve a wiki.
    • The actual number of users who know the language and work on the wiki is an important issue, but it is not known how many are necessary for a wiki to gain momentum and solid growth. The dedication of the users may be more important than the number, since a few devoted users may write more, and higher quality, articles than a larger number of casual users.

Current requests

Please copy/paste the above template to the end of this section, filling in all sections. The template will automatically fill in the title.

Archived requests can be found here.

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