Language committee/Charter

The Charter dates from 2006/7. It might be prudent to update some of its provisions, cf. maybe work on improvements of your Charter suggested by the Board in April 2017.

Language committee
Language committee
Language committee
For requesting users
For members
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Closing projects (voluntarily)
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Charter edit

This is a proofread version of the original charter with a later amendment authorizing request approval.

Scope edit

The committee is tasked as follows.

current remarks/proposed changes
# The development and maintenance of:
## a clear step-by-step policy (based on quantitative indicators) for evaluating the feasibility of new language wikis, with an automated procedure for project development; The policy was developed. Of course, it is still maintained. Is it necessary to update the wording accordingly? Probably not.
What does "automated procedure for project development" mean at all?
## support and policy development for script and localization related problems;
## documentation to support new language communities towards a stable growth rate;
## support and coordination for cross-language projects, helping smaller communities share resources and maximize their results;
## support and coordination to maintain compatibility among the different MediaWiki installations, in order to reduce the amount of development needed to upgrade the program base as far as localization is concerned. Remove this? Sounds like a task for the WMF's relevant team, not for the language committee, especially because we don't have to do anything with maintaining MW installations
# The processing of requests for new language subdomains of existing Wikimedia projects, providing it gives the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees four days advance notice before approving a request. outdated, now the community should be notified (via Talk:Langcom) and given 7 days. Maybe remove the whole "providing" part (should be: provided?) and just make a reference to the Language proposal policy (into which that has been added).

Goals edit

The goals of the committee are to:

  1. minimize the political aspects connected to the release of new projects, moving the focus towards purely quantitative decision criteria;
  2. minimize the need of localization-related funding and development by providing a common shared policy;
  3. maximize the reuse of proven marketing techniques among different editions;
  4. maximize the co-operation level among different language communities by providing common fields of activity;
  5. achieve the widest possible localization level for MediaWiki at the lowest cost, in order to maintain and improve its leading role as an open-source content management system.

Transparency edit

  • The whole set of activities of the language committee is public, and any advice from the community is welcome.
  • The committee values the fact that projects are a property of the single editors who make it and considers users' necessities as the primary source for policy.
  • The committee is especially interested in hearing those who proposed a new wiki in the past and got either refused or approved.

new sections (proposal) edit

Membership
  • Members who don't write anything on the list(s) for 2 years are removed. They will first be contacted to see if they wish to continue participating. [per Langcom decision from 2017-07-28]