[Foundation-l] Requests for new languages streamlined

[Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)]

Hello,

There is periodic interest on this mailing list about requests for new
languages and the doings of the language subcommittee, so I thought I
would provide a (relatively) quick update. I've been busy over the
last several weeks on some sweeping technical reforms aimed at
drastically improving processing times and effectiveness. If you're
interested, following is a description of the most important changes.

(As usual, note that the subcommittee never makes any public
announcements. This is a personal comment only.)


==Localization requirements==
The first change can actually be credited to GerardM.

After extensive internal discussion, we have overhauled the
localization requirements for all new wikis. This is very good news
for most requests, since first wikis in a language now only need to
translate the 496 most important interface messages, instead of all
1736 MediaWiki messages. Subsequent wikis in that language will need
to translate all MediaWiki messages as well as extensions used by the
Wikimedia Foundation, in order to provide a fully accessible editing
environment for editors. Fortunately, we expect many of these messages
to be translated over time by the first community, so that the second
wiki's community will not actually have much left to translate.

The result overall is that localization is of much higher quality, yet
the localization requirements are still generally much easier to
achieve.


==Test project analysis==
I've recoded the test project analysis script at <
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~pathoschild/ls-testanalysis/ > from the
ground up. The new script accesses the replicated database directly to
obtain every bit of information stored by MediaWiki. Analysis is now
performed in a single step (previously we had to generate a list of
pages, paste it to the relevant wiki, then process the
relatedchanges), is vastly more efficient, and is now open to public
usage (previously only I could run it, for performance reasons).

With the replicated database, the analysis script provides information
on the test project's entire history since the very first edit
(previously only the last 30 days were available for technical
reasons). In addition, the script newly provides:
* lists of editors and redirects;
* edit distribution by user per month;
* number of edits and minor edits per month;
* number of new pages per month;
* amount of content added or removed in bytes per month;
* number of editors per month;
* and overall statistics, including total number of non-redirect
pages, redirects, editors, and edits.


==Status pages==
"Status pages" are semi-official pages that display the precise
progression of a request towards approval, listing the exact
requirements they still need to meet and including links to relevant
information and tools. These pages are critical information both for
requesters (to direct their efforts) and subcommittee members (to make
a decision).

I've moved these status pages from the Incubator to Meta and almost
entirely automated them. They've been completely redesigned to provide
users with every documentation page and tool needed to track their own
progress, and integrated with the automated analysis tool above. These
changes were also intended to minimize the work required for
investigation, so that a thorough investigation of a project can now
be done in a matter of seconds instead of taking ten minutes or more.

You can see the difference yourself by comparing these two links:
* old format (manual):
http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pathoschild/Status/wp-bcl?oldid=131393
* new format (semi-automatic): http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language
subcommittee/Status/wp/bcl


==Verification for eligibility==
In the approval process, "conditional approval" has been renamed to
"verified as eligible", to reflect the current practice of giving it
automatically to languages that meet the requirements for eligibility.
Conditional approval has been a source of confusion for a long time,
particularly given that our criteria can change over time.

There is no practical difference, since they mean exactly the same
thing, but this is much less confusing for requesters. It also
clarifies the distinction between criteria for eligibility and for
final approval in the policy.


==Pages renamed==
The language subcommittee pages have been renamed from "Special
projects committee/Languages" to "Language subcommittee", in order to
make subpage naming less awkward. This was already a problem with the
number of subpages we had, but made status pages very messy. (See a
list of subpages at <
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Prefixindex/Language_subcommittee
>.)


==Internal changes==
The archival script at < http://pathos.ca/tools/ls-archival > has been
greatly improved, which makes archival easier. I'll still be the only
archivist, but I thought I'd mention it anyway. :)

The documentation for subcommittee members at <
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language
subcommittee/Handbook_%28subcommittee%29 > has been completely
rewritten, expanded, and updated. It now covers the primary
subcommittee tasks in detail, from creating status pages to approving
a wiki. Combined with upcoming internal measures, I hope this will
encourage less active subcommittee members to participate more,
providing a moderating effect on the more active elements in the
subcommittee, reducing the workload per member, and decreasing
processing times.


If you have any suggestions or questions, feel free to respond in this
thread, leave a message on the official subcommittee discussion page
at < http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Language_subcommittee >, or
leave a message on my talk page at <
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Pathoschild >.

-- 
Yours cordially,
Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)