The fourth proposal on this list (Wikipedia Pinyin) has some serious policy-related questions. If you respond on nothing else, please provide an opinion on that one.
Wikipedia Simple Chinese (zh-simple): I have a query out
(in two places) to the original requestor, as well as to the Meta community, as to whether a true "simple" version really exists. However, no one has cited one on the request page over the last six years, and in any case per current policy this would incubate
within Chinese Wikipedia. I'm going to give two more weeks to hear a response to that query. If the answer is "no", I will reject. If the answer is "yes", I think I would put on hold, pending some evidence that "simple" content is starting to be added to zhwiki.
(And if zhwiki has a community discussion and decides it doesn't want to do this, then I will reject.) If this ends in rejection, I will encourage anyone truly interested to start at Incubator Plus.
Wikipedia Southern Ndebele (nr): An official language of the Republic of South Africa, spoken by
over 2 million speakers (L1 + L2). Test has about 20 pages, but was periodically active as late as 2016. Marking as eligible.
Wikipedia Kari Seediq (trv): Aboriginal language of Taiwan with about 20,000 speakers. Test has well
over 1,200 pages, and had a stretch of four months in late 2016–early 2017 when it had sufficient activity to be approvable. (There is no localization yet, however.) Marking as eligible.
Wikipedia Pinyin Chinese (coded for now as cmn, Mandarin Chinese): Here's a proposal that I
think needs some serious discussion. Please read the discussion on the linked Meta page.
Arguments against:
- No separate ISO 639-3 language code
- It is proposed that this can be handled with a script converter, per (for example)
T193366.
- One respondent objected to such a project taking manpower away from other Chinese-language projects.
Arguments supporting:
- Extremely widely used, and much on-line work in Chinese happens in Pinyin, not in ideographic characters.
- Proponents state (I cannot confirm) that there are many people who are "illiterate" in Chinese, not having mastered 3000 characters, who can potentially contribute to such a project. If so, that is closer to the ideal of creating projects that "anyone can
edit".
I would also note that several other Chinese projects use Romanized Chinese. (All the min-nan projects are exclusively in Romanized language—see Wikipedia
here;
Min Dong Wikipedia has pages in both scripts.)
If this project is deemed eligible, I'm pretty sure that it should not be coded with "cmn". (I can let it stay that way in Incubator for now, or give it a q-code.) Test has 250 mainspace pages, and has been active periodically. Last period of substantial
activity was during summer 2017.
I am going to hold back my opinion on this just yet.
Wikipedia Mesopotamian Arabic (acm): In principle, as eligible as any other variety of Arabic.
Test has only two pages, both created in 2016. Placing on hold pending additional contributions.
Steven