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Requests for new languages/Wikinews Sinhala

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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.

  • 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 si (SIL, Glottolog) A valid ISO 639-1 or 639-3 language code, like "fr", "de", "nso", ...
Language name Sinhala Language name in English
Language name සිංහල 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 Q13267 - 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.
Site URL si.wikinews.org langcode.wikiproject.org

Settings
Project name Wikinews "Wikinews" in your language
Project namespace විකිපුවත් usually the same as the project name
Project talk namespace විකිපුවත් සාකච්ඡාව "Wikinews talk" (the discussion namespace of the project namespace)
Enable uploads yes 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 [[:Wikinews Sinhala]] This needs to be an SVG image (instructions for logo creation).
Default project timezone SLT (UTC+5:30) "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.


Arguments in favour

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  • Support Strongly Support: Following Wikimedia projects already have Sinhala language editions.
Wikipedia - Wikipedia Sinhala (විකිපිඩියා)
Wiktionary - Wiktionary Sinhala (වික්‍ෂනරි)
Wikibooks - Wikibooks Sinhala (විකිපොත්)
wikinews - Wikinews Sinhala (විකිපුවත්)

Those projects reflects that the Sinhala language is already recognized by Wikimedia, and, many Wikimedia projects are popular among Sinhala reading people. So, Wikinews is much needed project that should be supporting Sinhala language. -- Budhajeewa 06:45, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

yes --Rohana manjulawm (talk) 18:21, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Arguments against

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  •   Oppose -- SEVERAL REASONS
  1. Community not large enough to have updated news
  2. News culture in the country (Sri Lanka) is not well accepted by mass. Negative view on si.wikinews might harm reputation of other wiki projects.
  3. As community is not large enough, emphasis on this will cause reduced contribution for other projects.
  4. When Sri Lanka and Sinhala is considered wikinews is having less priority.
Simply, this is not the correct timing for this.
Still, if this project is approved I wish all the best !Singhalawap 12:13, 25 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Singhalawap's reasons above are still valid, and would probably be so for some years to come. The Sinhala Wikipedia itself still has a long way to go in terms sustaining genuine contributors, let alone striking a balance between contributors and maintainers. Other than the same couple of contributors, I don't see anyone else with genuine interest to keep the project(s) going. IMHO, until at least siwiki gets off the ground properly (without ending up closed hopefully), no other projects should be opened. Rehman 11:10, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Further to my comment above, these are the date of the most recent siwiki edit of users mentioned in the "community" section above (in respective order): 15 August 2017, 15 November 2017, 7 November 2015, 26 September 2019, None, 17 June 2015, 2 November 2015, 26 December 2011, None, 9 October 2012, None, 3 August 2013, None, 19 April 2020, None, None, None, None, None, None, 7 February 2019, 19 March 2020, 11 June 2016, 14 February 2019. The last thing we need is to open another project for the sake of opening, only to end up worse than siwiki. Based on this, I believe this request can be closed due to a lack of a driving community. Rehman 11:48, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Other discussion

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