Talk:Proposals for closing projects/Archive 1

Removing Images

I added a couple of images that have since been removed by User:Zanimum. If you don't get the context of blowing something up or looking at a train wreck, I don't know what else I can use here to describe what goes on with this page. I added these images mainly to add some color and splash to the page, and these were images on Commons already, not something I uploaded specifically for this page. Please, have a sense of humor. --Roberth 01:19, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

It's not that I don't have a sense of humour, it just got in the way. It was also a little tacky to have a vehicle destruction on the page, whilst the Sept 11 Wiki was being discussed. -- Zanimum 16:05, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Closing the vote

What is the closing date for this vote? It's been going over a week now and judging by the state of the voting at this stage (48-2) the result is not in question. 86.136.92.231 01:34, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Just checking

Does anyone besides me think that simple: should be closed down? —Nightstallion (?) 07:11, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

If you think it should be, put it on this page and put a notice on the Goings-on page as well. I think the Simple English projects are valid and useful, but that is only an opinion. --Roberth 05:58, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I wanted to get some input first on whether I'm one of a rather limited number of people who have this opinion or whether that's an issue that should be voted on. ;) —Nightstallion (?) 10:58, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I think the allocation of "simple:" to apply to English only is wrong. I'm not sure how it qualified as a "language" in the first place. --Connel MacKenzie 16:04, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

There you have it... an idea supported by at least two people. Just put it on this page if you really think it shouldn't be a Wikimedia project with justification, etc. I guarentee that you will get a lively debate over the issue. --Roberth 16:10, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

w:Basic English. In my opinion, simple: should be moved to en-simple:. Jon Harald Søby 16:13, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it doesn't need to be closed, only to be renamed. Vildricianus 20:56, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

As an editor on simple, I'm fine with that, but I think it would take a huge amount of work. Archer7 20:30, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually, moving to en-simple wouldn't be a great idea. Say we did simple Japanese at ja-simple. The word 'simple' wouldn't make sense to a Japanese speaker. Perhaps we could just use the word for simple in each langauge as the subdomain. Archer7 13:49, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

please don't close the aramaic wikipedia

please don't close the aramaic wikipedia, i have been deleting and adding to the webpage and i would not like it to be deleted.

Procedure / policy for closing a Wikipedia project?

Who decides the closure of a Wikipedia project in a given language, and on what grounds is such a decision made? As far as I can see, there is no policy or guideline specifying what Wikipedia projects are worth opening or keeping.

A Wikipedia project needs to have both editors and readers. As such, criteria for having a Wikipedia should include reference to potential readers and potential contributors.

Also, Wikimedia is not a democracy, and it is obvious that the decision on keeping or deleting a project should rely on arguments, not on votes. AdiJapan 10:06, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Correct on both accounts, yes... I've wondered, too. I guess the Foundation Board would make the decision in cases like the 9/11 wiki, and in single language cases, I suspect some bureaucrat or developer would decide on a case-by-case basis. —Nightstallion (?) 18:44, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

But how do you contact a bureaucrat? Dpotop 14:15, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

It is not a bureaucrat, but rather one of the members of the developer team. And they only act according to what the WMF board has asked. The actual closure is more of a software procedure where developer-only access is required. Local bureaucrats won't have any impact on a decision of this nature. I would presume, however, if this becomes an ongoing issue that takes up considerable time with the WMF board that they will appoint a special committee to deal with project closures instead of taking up board time. That committee does not exist yet, however. --Roberth 18:44, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Zhuang Wikipedia

Could someone who is actually able to load the page check that there's a proposal for closure of Zhuang Wikipedia, as indicated on za:? Thanks. Aliter 22:48, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Not that I agree: We are not the ultimate source of knowledge, just people doing our best, and there's nothing that demonstrates this better than the small struggling or sleeping wikis. Also, the fact that you can enter a sleeping wiki of your language and just start trying to make it grow, is a much better incentive, even for a damaged wiki, than having an application procedure. So much so that I would rather strive for a system where the entire start-up wiki can be default text, so a wiki would be available for any language provided the language code was accepted by the server (iso 639-1/2/3/6). Aliter 22:48, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Is Dzongkha still proposed for closure?

The main page for the Dzongkha language wiki implies there is still an active proposal to close the project. 66.167.137.70 08:31, 26 June 2006 (UTC).

When voting ends?

When does the voting on the closure/keeping of a certain Wikipedia become effective? Or, when can voting results be considered as valid, so as to be used as a support in a debate or for asking for a decision?

Any of these votings can take an endless amount of time as there are no deadlines specified. Landroni 14:53, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I know this may sound harsh, but the discussion ends when it has reached some sort of concensus. If a decision is controvercial, that is something that would then have to be dealt with by "the powers that be", which in this case is the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. They are intelligent people and they can make the final decision (or whom they appoint to decide this) to deal with this issue. The whole point here is to air the opinions and to make a case for or against closing a project. The WMF can close a project if there is only one support and 2500 oppose votes. The vote count doesn't matter at all, and only the strength of the arguments.

For example, 2500 votes in opposition to a project closure are listed, but the arguement in support of its closure is that the WMF is libel for the content and it will put the board members in jail if it is kept up (due to the fact it advocates the assination of the President of the USA or something similar), that argument in support of closure is going to be paid attention to very seriously and will be likly to happen. I'm using this as an extreme example, but the point is that you shouldn't worry too much about vote count. --Roberth 18:37, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Nice answer. Thank you. Then I will focus more on arguments where they are needed on this page. I had a more specific question that I posted on your user page [1]. --Landroni 13:34, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

It's been a while almost 2 months now since the vote started. Do we have to wait another year till this sharade will be closed? Let's close now and for good this so-called Moldovan Wikipedia. It's enough with these soviet communist bastards that make only KGB propaganda! --Fratele lui Bonaparte, il cunosti? 08:30, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey! Close this wikipedia now! --Fratele lui Bonaparte, il cunosti? 19:06, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Archiving pl.wikipedia discussion

I've archived this discussion simply because, IMHO, it doesn't belong and was the blatant act of a troll. If this were considered serious in any way, it would be incredibly damaging to a huge section of the Wikimedia community and does not deserve even a second mention.

Please, other people watching this page, be bold and kill similar discussions right from the beginning. This discussion went on way too long and was not warrented by any criteria that had common sense. Otherwise we might as well simply add each and every Wikimedia project here starting with en.wikipedia. --Roberth 18:29, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Discussion restored: Zhuang Wikipedia

On 26 July 2006, Node ue, after a series of personal attacks and abuse, deleted the whole discussion on the closure of the Zhuang Wikipedia.[2] There has been no decision. I've restored the discussion. —Babelfisch 06:41, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm curious as to what the personal attacks and abuse were. You should look up the "insults" in the dictionary -- words such as "lotus" and "lilypad" are hardly personal attacks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by IP 24.251.68.183, registered at Cox Communications, Atlanta, GA (talk • contribs) 08:18, 7 August 2006.

About subpages

Maybe we should move all proposals into separate subpages and create a table with current results on this page? It's really huge now, more than 300 kilobytes. Edward Chernenko 20:15, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Nobody was against - so this is done now. Edward Chernenko 11:59, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

New attempts to dictate new rules for Meta of Russian nationalists

User who voted against the siberian wiki (DmRodionov) attempted to rollback my edit where I have said the clear truth - the new procedure of authorization was invented by Moscovites in the vote itself. He tried even to hide such an edit marking it "minor". --Yaroslav Zolotaryov 23:08, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• What has Moscovites to do with it. The arguments why a project is to be deleted or not should not be political. It should be linguistic and it should be about the adherence of the values of the Wikimedia Foundation. When a project is blatantly political and produces only POV it is a prime candidate for special considerations. This may include closure of the project. GerardM 07:54, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

unlock Soviet/Transnistrian Moldavian Wikipedia!

Or make a transliteration program for Romanian as the one for Serbian exists. The orthography is still used by people, and still taught.

Or even better - lets make us.wikipedia.org for _american_ english ;)

Template Vandalsim

If you look carefully, an Anon. User vandalised the page. It is actually in the header template, and I am not that familiar with meta-wiki's header templates. I would do it, but I don't know how. Thank you!Hairchrm 00:03, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Siberian Wikipedia

I wonder if any decision will be taken. Its closing page hasn't been modified for 10 days already, despite the heated discussion in the previous year. -- Paul Pogonyshev 10:46, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think, there is a clear-cut policy on project closures. (New project policy#Closing of a project touches the issue, but not really in-depth). Neither is there a functioning structure to process such requests.

I understand the langcom is "not yet" ready. But even once it is, it will probably not process closure proposals, as it has no authority over this matter, see Talk:Special projects subcommittees/Languages#Policy for closing projects.

So, someone could take an ad-hoc decision instead. But it seems almost certain that whatever the decision will be, it will cause a storm of protest from the loosing camp. So, if I was a meta admin (or someone else authorised to take such a decision), I would certainly not rush into it.--Johannes Rohr 13:15, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

And we fully supports current state. The status quo is satisfactory for the sibwiki: let our enemies have some place in Meta where they criticize us - we do not fear critics - and let ru-sib will be not closed. The current state of the problem is just satisfactory for ru-sib. --Yaroslav Zolotaryov 15:45, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

It's quite simple. I think that procedure from New project policy which says "[...] After the poll is closed, a proposal should be sent to the board, with details of the opinion poll and links to discussion on the proposal. The board shall respond within the next 15 days [...]" may be applied to project closure too. So when some discussion on project closure is inactive (all arguments presented by both supporters and opposers) for some time, we may notify the Board of Trustees, and just wait until they'll reach a final decision (or a temporary decision to continue discussion). Edward Chernenko 14:38, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

And the Siberian poll is not closed, but simply it goes to the talk page, because the main page is too big.--Yaroslav Zolotaryov 15:36, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

It is clearly the admin's role to decide, when a discussion can be closed. And it should almost certainly be taken by an admin, who has not been involved so far. However, I fully understand, if noone of them is keen to be dragged into this hoolaboo. --Johannes Rohr 16:56, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Is there a central admin noticeboard on Meta where we can solicit a closer? I haven't found one. And are admins generally entrusted with closing all manner of opinion polls on Meta? Grandmasterka 00:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

See also: Meta:Requests_for_help_from_a_sysop_or_bureaucrat/Archives/2007/02#Request_for_vote_mediation .. it seems to me that there is a bit of controversy about how best to proceed. I don't think that any one admin ought to take this decision, it ought to be bucked up to the foundation board, in this particular case (per Edward C's reading of the creation policy). If someone wanted to summarise the vote and apparent findings or consensus or lack thereof, that might be a good thing. You'll have to forgive me if I personally shy away, it doesn't seem like QUITE the right thing to be my first admin action. :) ++Lar: t/c 17:11, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

This issue drags for 4 months now. Time to put an end of this private exercize of Zolotaryov and a handful of his buddies. This siberian project is a mockery of the core issue of wikipedias: verifiability of information and neutral point of view. Mikkalai 17:34, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Automatic hiding of interwikies to ru-sib

Russian wikipedia now hides inerwikies to ru-sib automatically (by modifing the common.css file): [[3]]

Soon the Siberian one will hide Russian intwerwikies in advance. This is evident crime against wiki-ethics from Russian wikipedia and this testifies that desires of those who want to close us are very, very far from wikipedian principles. --Yaroslav Zolotaryov 07:53, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Klingon Dictionary

The Klingon Dictionary has a note at the top saying it will be closed in a few days, but I can't find a current or closed proposal relating to it. 172.202.222.184 03:11, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

See wikt:tlh:Wiktionary:Community Portal#On closing--Johannes Rohr 11:50, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Vote or discussion

The following is copied from my talk page, since I believe the discussion should take place at a central location:

(begin of quotation)

Hello. Unlike proposals for adding Wikis, closing requests are votes (although arguments can count in the case of a tie). And if you still want to change it, at least try to use terms which do not differ in British and American English. -- Prince Kassad 10:24, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

There is no comprehensive policy regarding project closures at the moment, there is only a draft. This draft suggests, that decisions should be taken on the grounds of arguments rather than vote count, to which I fully agree. The whole procedure is still largely undefined. Personally I cannot see any good reason to favour vote count over arguments. If you strongly believe, these discussions should be votes, I invite you to discuss this at a central location. I'd suggest that Talk:Closure of WMF projects is a good place, alternatively, Talk:Proposals for closing projects. --Johannes Rohr 10:39, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying I want closing discussions to be votes, I'm just saying it's currently the de facto standard for them to be votes. If you want only arguments to count, go ahead and start a discussion. -- Prince Kassad 10:44, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

(end of quotation)

I dare to disagree. A "vote" is what currently is taking place for the Board of Trustees: There is a body in charge of the process. Voters are verified, votes are cast. After a defined period of time, an official result is established, and the result is put in place. Except for the "voting" itself, nothing of the above is taking place at WM:PCP. These discussions look like votes, but in reality they are not. There is no reliable verification, no hard criteria of who is eligible to vote. There are no schedules, when a vote is to be closed, there are no rules, what majority would be required to reject or approve a proposal. And finally, there is no-one in charge. See the endless "vote" around the Siberian Wikipedia for a vocal example. In reality, everything which is happening here is a very informal community-managed process. Calling it a vote is simply not an adequate description of reality. That is why I replace the "oppose" and "support" headings by "arguments in favour" and "arguments against". This is just a adaptation to reality. --Johannes Rohr 11:03, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

finished discussions

What do you think of moving the finsihed dicussions into an archive, eg Proposals for closing projects/Archive so the list wouldn't be so full? MF-Warburg(de) 07:34, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

If you mean moving the links to the discussions, not the contents of the actual discussion pages, I think it is a very good idea. Please go ahead! --Johannes Rohr 08:03, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Done. MF-Warburg(de) 09:04, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

maximal time for a proposal

I think we should give an "expiry time" for closing proposals, eg 2 weeks. MF-Warburg(de) 10:24, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I believe that one month should be the minimum, as suggested at Closure of WMF projects, additionally, notification at the main page of the respective project should be mandatory. I don't think that there is a need to rush things. --Johannes Rohr 16:51, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

One month is fine for projects which had some activity before and thus have contents worth keeping, to give any possible contributors a chance to revive them in time. IMHO after some waiting such projects should be set to read-only and get reactivated upon request once a new contributor wants to revive them. However the still-born projects like those I added to the list which never really got started at all (none or just once or two pages) can get deleted completely, and to restart them there should be the full way through incubator to avoid them to get into this neglected state again. But for these I don't think we need to wait a month, these wikis waited for 2 years for a contributor and only the spambots used them. Most odd for the Wiktionaries, there the spambots and interwiki bots played with each other to make sure the index.php spam pages get enough links. IMHO these stillborn wikis could be deleted at once, no need to discuss it, I just added them here to finally get something be done about it - thus sorry for "spamming" this page with them, but I don't know of any other way to get them shut down. And sadly there are still more which I haven't found by google searching the spambot garbage, seems like I have to go systematically through the Special:SiteMatrix. Ahoerstemeier 11:01, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

yes, there should be a "speedy project closing", similar to speedy deletions. MF-Warburg(de) 11:23, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I very much appreciate your "spamming" of this page. In fact I suspected that there must be literally hundreds of forgotten wikis, but I never had the motivation to research this systematically. So its fine if you continue to do so. Concerning all those empty Wikibooks, Wikiquotes and Wiktionaries, I agree that they should be summarily deleted and that no lengthy discussion is needed. The one month suggestion indeed referred to those cases, where minimal content exists. These are typically Wikipedias, not Wikiquotes, -books or Wiktionaries. Typically, the closure of a Wikipedia is more likely to be contentious than that of one of the sister projects.

On a side note, it is a complete mystery to me, what the purpose of the index.php spam it. In the cases I've seen over the last few months, there were no more \/iagra links but simple nonsense without any apparent goal. Finally, the spambot must be operated by someone. Shouldn't it be possible, to target this person by means of abuse complaints to his/her ISP? --Johannes Rohr 11:36, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Could you translate the last sentence into German (I dont understand it). MF-Warburg(de) 13:19, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

About the last part, I think the bots are normally supposed to post links, but because they can't (due to the spam blacklist) they're leaving out the links and just posting the accompanying text. -- Prince Kassad 13:47, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

In der Versionsgeschichte der Spam-Seiten sind ja die IP-Adressen aufgezeichnet, von denen der Spam gepostet wurde. Da sollte sich über eine Abfrage leicht der Provider ermitteln lassen, von dem der Spam kommt. Wenn er hauptsächlich von einer kleinen Zahl von Providern stammt, dann würde es sich lohnen, die dortigen Abuse-Abteilungen auf diesen Missbrauch ihrer Dienstleistungen hinzuweisen. Falls diese dann reagieren sollten, wäre es vielleicht möglich, den Spam zumindest einzudämmen.--Johannes Rohr 14:36, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

@Prince Kassad: Thanks for your explanation. This seems to make sense. --Johannes Rohr 14:36, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

That spambot targets not only Wikis, but also forums and guestbooks. It seems to operate via open proxies, so it's impossible to catch the man behind it. And the apparent nonsense texts of the bot are actually more fitting for guestbooks, to hide the real spam messages (which it also adds, latest one was something about acne [4]) between innocent looking ones. And as the weblinks are in HTML instead of wikisyntax they simply don't work here :-) Ahoerstemeier 16:38, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Some are also BBCode. Of course, with the link removed. -- Prince Kassad 18:51, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

make closing easier

Maybe we should have a group called "projectcloser" who can lock (i.e. close) wikis, delete pages and give themselves this right. So you wouldn't need to add a bug and requesting temp sysop access to delete the spam before. What do you think? --MF-Warburg(de) 12:03, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Are you suggesting to add a new MediaWiki level user group with specific privileges? Locking databases requires shell access, resp. direct access to the underlying database. So it cannot be implemented though the addition of a new user group. Apart from that, shell access is currently limited to developers, i.e. people with certain proven technical skills. I do not believe that anyone would easily grant such privileged access to relative outsiders like us. --Johannes Rohr 12:31, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

But isn't it possible to lock the database via Special:Lockdb? MF-Warburg(de) 12:52, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

It is possible, but developers already do it their way. :-D Cbrown1023 talk 13:16, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Please don't clean up too quickly.

I would suggest to leave closed discussions linked to WM:PCP until a closure decision has been implemented, ie. i.e. the respective project has effectively been cleaned and locked (plus moved to the incubator, in those cases where legit content exists). Removing the link before any real action has been taken seems premature to me. --Johannes Rohr 12:21, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I but I added to /proposal a new variable "tobeclosed" to indicate that there are thing to be done (to differ from really closed projects). MF-Warburg(de) 12:56, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Closed project are imported to Incubator

Since today, closed projects are imported to Wikimedia Incubator. If you want to know more, go to Incubator:Coordination for importing closed projects. SPQRobin 16:49, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Resurrection/hijacking of the Herero Wikipedia as a sort of personal hosting space

FYI, this Wikipedia has now been resurrected and hijacked to support a constructed language called "Wikihero" and a number of Turkish related pages have been added; see Special:Allpages as of today. Also note this new infobox and text added today to the en:Herero language article (since reverted).

Current list of pages:

• hz:Bengü
• hz:Emre Altuğ
• hz:Fatih Erkoç
• hz:Gökçe
• hz:Hande Yene
• hz:Hepsi
• hz:Infobox National football team
• hz:Infobox musical artist
• hz:Kemal Sunal
• hz:Main Page
• hz:Murat Boz
• hz:Mustafa Sandal
• hz:Mustafa sandal
• hz:Serdar Ortaç
• hz:Tarkan
• hz:Turkcell Sueper Lugar
• hz:Turkia natio futboll rams
• hz:Özgün

See the recent changes starting 21 August 2007. --A. B. ^(talk) 14:10, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Done - deleted this and blocked the user who created this. MF-Warburg(de) 14:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Template

I've made a template, Template:Proposals for closing wikis. Maybe you can use this for new proposals. SPQRobin 12:55, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Protection

Due to recent edit warring, this page has been temporarily protected. This protection is set to expire in one fortnight. I've reverted to the last stable edit as well, which I'm also sure is The Wrong Version. Please discuss changes here on the talk page during the intermission. Thank you, xaosflux ^Talk 01:10, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. I think the discussion is closed, after seven day waiting for the objection. I talked about it with Cary and I think he agreed with me. Xaosflux, I am afraid your current version is the wrong version instead. --Aphaia 01:43, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

It always is, I just reduced the protection to 48 hours, but am open to any other admin removing the protection before then it if they feel it is appropriate. Thank you, xaosflux ^Talk 04:08, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

My point is, your edit caused inconsistency of the voting page, which states the closure of vote, and with that single sysop action you behaved as if you overrode the community consensus. Because I protected the other page (voting), I wouldn't go to lift the protection of this page, I would however like you to make it clear your revert is not in intention to override the voting page as sysop declaration of re-opening the vote which I reconfirmed its closing. --Aphaia 04:37, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Aphaia, the discussion is closed--Nick1915 - ^{all you want} 10:22, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Certainly not intending to override any matters made on other pages, just stopping the ping-pong here. I have no opinion in this matter at all, and am fine if ANY admin wants to remove the protection here. xaosflux ^Talk 00:22, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

The ping-pong was stopped at that time, since the person who requested was blocked due to 3RR. As said on the above, I prefer a third party to care for this matter, and retrieve the version Xaosflux reverted, which matches the voting page and hence should be kept as is. --Aphaia 02:40, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to User:Nick1915 for completing this. xaosflux ^Talk 12:00, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Languages with no speakers

I read in en:Volapük that there are about 25-30 active speakers of this language in the world. Yes, you read correctly. Not 25-30 million, not 25-30 thousand, but about thirty!

Incredibly, there is a Volapük wikipedia with 112.000 entries in it. It is certainly the only language with more Wiki entries than speakers :-)

Obviously, the contributors are very few (if you exclude vandals such as vo:Geban:Wikifuckers who add significant entries such as vo:Wikifucker), and entries appear to be mostly automatically-generated about geographical places.

Is this something which is really furthering the aims of Wikipedia?

I have nothing against constructed languages... indeed, I am registered in the esperanto wiki, too... but this seems a bit too extreme :-)

--Lou Crazy 02:59, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

This whole thing has become a manhunt only [5]. --birdy geimfyglið _{(:> )=|} 08:06, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Can you explain?

--Lou Crazy 05:13, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Appeal concerning proposals to close African language editions

I just recently found out that kr.wikipedia.org had been closed, but somehow missed the entire discussion and decision until too late. I'm now checking other proposals, but wanted to appeal to the community on this site to make sure that word on these proposals also goes to the Afrophonewikis list. For my part, I and hopefully others too will also attempt to keep better tabs on what is going on here to pass word on. I think there are interest groups, either active on the general issue of African languages and Wikipedia, or active on various languages but not aware of Wikipedia editions in those languages, as well as individuals who might quickly active to save a Wikipedia - all of which could contribute to saving Wikipedia editions if the word gets to them. The discussion at Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Venda Wikipedia - which was ultimately saved - seems illustrative. As the discussion progressed, at least one person found out about it who then went on to contribute significantly to ve.wikipedia.org. That is the kind of ending I hope we would all prefer to see come from any proposal to close African language Wikipedias. Please let's collaborate to that end. --A12n 20:53, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi there, and thanks for your message. I feel that closures of inactive Wikis are not a drama. If a wiki gets closed because it has no content and no community, this does by no means rule out that it will be re-opened in the future. Interested contributors can at any moment launch a proposal at Requests for new languages and start developing their project in the incubator:. All they have to do is to create a reasonable set of articles and translate the interface.

Concerning the Venda Wikipedia edition, I don't feel that it has been "saved". There has been a short-lived surge in activity during the closure debate (by ve:User:Ralinala), but since then it has died down and as you can see at ve:Special:Listusers/sysop, at the time of writing the project does not even have a single admin. Spam goes mostly unchecked. And it looks like the project doesn't even use proper Venda orthography, as the Venda diacritics ḓḽṋṱṅ are not used anywhere. Therefore it is very hard to see any benefit derived from keeping it open, instead of sending it to the incubator.

Having said that, I of course agree that every effort to revitalise dead Wikipedia editions is a good thing. --Johannes Rohr 22:07, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Broader questions raised by the proposed closure of Simple English Wikiquote‎

I believe the recent aborted closure of this project by a non-admin and the subsequent controversy that provoked raised questions with broader process-related implications beyond this one. Please see the questions I left on the talk page at Talk:Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Simple English Wikiquote#What's our process.
--A. B. ^(talk) 16:43, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

New policy

Hi! I have made a new policy for closure of projects:

The project must meet some of this criteria, if the no doing that but you though think that should be closed so write that on the talk page:

• It's have no activity.

  It's have no ISO 639 code.

  It's a dialect.

  It's a extinct language.

Example of usage of {{PCP-header}} on Herero Wikipedia

Create a proposal Read this page. Create a account or log in on this wiki. Go to a page with the name "Proposals for closing projects/English language namn Project name", see this example "Proposals for closing projects/Herero Wikipedia". Create the page with this template: == Herero Wikipedia == {{PCP-header|open|A description for why you want to close the project. ~~~~}} === Support === == Oppose == Example: Herero Wikipedia ←main page Proposals for closing projects Discussion final decision Discuss the closing of this language project on this page. Support Oppose M.M.S. 18:16, 12 February 2008 (UTC) Just reversing the requirements for new languages to suddenly have a new policy for closing projects won't work, sorry. -- Prince Kassad 19:57, 12 February 2008 (UTC) New header Because of ye don't like my first idea so have I made a new header for all proposals, and all proposals should be categorized: Herero Wikipedia {{PCP-header|discussion}} gives: The following proposal for closing a WMF project is under discussion. Support (xx) Oppose (xx) General discussion Herero Wikipedia {{PCP-header|rejected}} gives: The result of the following proposal for closing a WMF project is to KEEP the project. Please, do not modify this page. Support (xx) Oppose (xx) General discussion Herero Wikipedia {{PCP-header|approved}} gives: The result of the following proposal for closing a WMF project is to CLOSE the project. Please, do not modify this page. Support (xx) Oppose (xx) General discussion

— The preceding unsigned comment was added by M.M.S. (talk)

Moldovan language project

Please reopen the Moldovan projectthat has been blocked for political reasons. It is very inconsiderate and premature to close the section in the Moldovan language (Cyrillic alphabet). It is still official in the republic of Transnistria. Whether or not the republic itself is reconized politically is a matter of a political debate. It has still existed for 17 years and is unlikely to vanish in the near future. Also, most Moldovans in the neighboring Ukraine (a 300,000 strong minority) use the cyrillic script. Besdies, literacy in Eastern Romance language was started and later existed for 500 years in a cyrillic script. Other examples: Tatar Wiki exists in the Latin script even though Cyrillic is the only official alphabet in Tatarstan, we also have a Serb-Croation project in additian to Serbian and Croation. Low levels of activity that the project had earlier is explained by low levels of internet usage in the rural regions of Eastern Europe but this is likely to change in the near future. 68.157.65.137 14:17, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Closing incubator and beta

If you are going to close the discussion of incubator, please either also close the discussion of beta, or reopen the discussion about incubator. --Emesee 21:42, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Why? Those two proposals are independent. The one of Incubator has already been closed because it was a reaction on the closure proposal of Beta Wikiversity, while the one of BetaWV is a serious proposal. SPQRobin ^(inc!) 10:39, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

It was closed because it lacked support. Period. Hillgentleman 05:56, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

"Latina Wikipedia"

The proposal was dated 20 March 2008. Perhaps someone who understands how the table works could insert the result? According to the sub-page, "The result was N/A", whatever that means. So far as we know at the Latin Wikipedia, the practical result was KEEP. Andrew Dalby 14:42, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

It would be a travesty if it was anything else. N/A typically means Not Applicable GerardM 20:22, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Moldovan Wikipedia

I keep receiving e-mails through the Wikimedia OTRS asking us to completely shut down the Moldovan Wikipedia. Currently the project is frozen, but still accessible, and this seems to be frustrating for quite a few people, especially residents of the Republic of Moldova, as "Moldovan" is just another name, politically motivated, for the Romanian language.

If this is not the right place for an inquiry on the subject, please tell me where I should go. Thanks. — AdiJapan 08:30, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Whoever is in charge of these things - move it to the incubator already.

We already have four separate wikipedias in one language with different written standards - sr:, hr:, bs: and sh: and two in another one - be: and be-x-old:. All of them appear to have serious contributors. If there are serious contributors who want to write a Cyrillic Moldovan Wikipedia, let them prove their seriousness in the incubator. --Amir E. Aharoni 12:56, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. What happens if there are no serious contributors? It is very likely that this will be the case, while the simple existence of the project (in the incubator or anywhere else) will keep upsetting a lot of people. — AdiJapan 14:14, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

There are incubators with almost zero content, because there are few people online that speak these languages. mo is a rather eligible language and many educated people are literate in it, so an incubator can stay alive quietly without a deadline until serious contributors come. If this incubator becomes a vandal magnet and takes too much resources to maintain, well, then i guess it should be archived and taken offline.

By the way, my biggest personal concern with this Wikipedia is not linguistic and certainly not political, but perfectly technical: My favorite Wikipedia job is manually maintaining interwiki links and it is a pain to maintain interwiki links to a half-dead wiki. --Amir E. Aharoni 19:37, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Responsibility

Who is actually responsible for processing the proposals on this page? I don't think it is sound, when proposals are still undecided after more than a year (even undisputed ones). Closure of WMF projects proposes the language subcommittee being responsible, but obviously this is a proposal only. So who does it? --::Slomox:: >< 18:02, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

What does "closing" mean?

And perhaps we should clarify a bit what "closing" actually means. What happens to a "closed" project? Some projects end up with locked databases while other projects will be deleted completely. There are four possible states of a project: open (e.g. en.wp), locked (e.g. nds.wq), non-existant but with another project in that language (e.g. nds.wv) and completely non-existant (e.g. pdt.wp). The latter three all could be the outcome of "closing" a project. It should be possible to request a specific state for a project. Locking would make sense for projects with some legitimate content, but lacking a backing community or which are closed cause of a unification with another project (e.g. Moldovan Wikipedia which was unified with Romanian Wikipedia). For most projects a deletion would be better. Cause it makes no sense to lock a database without content and it does not make sense to "close" projects in non-languages (like Siberian or Toki Pona) and still make the content available (Toki Pona for example is in the special state of a existing, but locked database, but all content was deleted. It should be in the fourth state of complete non-existance and a "page loading error" would be the most logical output of tokipona.wikipedia.org) --::Slomox:: >< 23:33, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Good topic. Actually, the Moldovan Wikipedia was basically opened just to prove a point, it has never been a serious project with a community supporting it and it has certainly never merged with anything. And, as explained above, its continued existence (even as a locked project) is an inconvenience and doesn't serve any purpose. Finally, with the recent decision by the Library of Congress to effectively remove the Moldovan language from ISO 639, there's really no excuse for that project to stay there. The correct final state for that project should be "deleted", not "locked" -- I just don't know where I should open a discussion on that topic. --Gutza 17:08, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, the communities of ro and mo were merged. (In the same manner as the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic merged 1990: GDR was "closed" and became a part of FRG.) I had a deeper look into the affair after my above comment and you are right, that mo should be deleted altogether.

I just don't know where I should open a discussion on that topic. There was a recent discussion on the mailing list which had no outcome. The truth is: The intersection of the set of users who care and the set of users who have the rights to do it is empty. The internal working processes of Wikimedia are largely broken.

The only way is: be insisting and don't give up (but don't be annoying, cause then they will ignore you). And do not hope to have success, it can be a long walk. --::Slomox:: >< 01:14, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to look into this. But really, there was no community merging or anything, I know the whole story, I've been involved in all of its phases. Anyway, that's beyond the point -- the question is not whether I should insist or not, and neither whether I should be polite or not; the question is where to do that. I can't make proposal for closing the project, since the project is already closed. So I should make some sort of a request for deletion, but I have no idea who I should talk to or where I should list it. And since I don't want to be a pain I won't start plastering this question all over the talk pages. Catch-22, really. --Gutza 16:51, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorting

I noticed that it is now not possible to sort the table by the date. Can this be fixed? Ruslik 09:03, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Fixed my self. Ruslik 10:20, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Template

The template does not seem to be able to handle requests that are the 2nd or higher attempt. I've just tried to fix the Simple English Wikiquote one, but failed majorly. Majorly ^talk 16:03, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Repeated Closure Attempts (e.g., Simple English)

It seems that once a project has survived one closure attempt it should be protected from further such attempts (at least for a reasonable amount of time). Otherwise, repeated attempts to close the same project become a pure nuisance rather than a useful discussion process. Project should be open for review, but not perpetual harassment -- that is an abuse of the whole process. (Also, this confirmation system my have some bugs as my votes won't seem to confirm.) --BlackJar72 14:32, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Template to hide

I propose the creation of a template to temporally hide the proposals that do not comply with the fact of having left a clear announcement in the projects proposed for closing. In that way things like this can be easily avoided and commitment in the proponents would be encouraged. The template could show a link to the main page of the project discussed, explain that the proposal will be ignored until the project is properly warned and then the whole text of the proposal and votes would be hidden. Once the requisite had been done, restoring the proposal would be as easy as removing the template. Thanks. --81.38.38.128 12:05, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I am not technically sure about how to do such a template. Could anybody help or give more ideas? Thanks. --81.38.38.128 18:04, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

What is the benefit of doing this? Why wouldn't just archiving the discussion work, or adding a note to the top that the discussion is not open? J.delanoy^gabs_adds 18:13, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Archiving and unarchiving the discussion may be a bit complex and something expected only from admins, not anybody. I am not sure that a mere note on top would do unless it were very conspicuous and/or accompained by the hiding of the proposal, which would made it more efficient because it would be readily available at any time so people could go on voting even but, at the same time it would make the point clearer. Anyway your comment has made me see that probably a much simpler template like a banner would probably be enough. I'll try to create something when I can. Thanks. Regards. --79.109.10.102 21:40, 30 June 2009 (UTC)