For quick background, it's pretty painful to rename a database in our system, and we currently have a lot of bits in our configuration that make automatic relationships between the database name and the domain name, so this has delayed renaming of some language subdomains for a while. It's not impossible to have them be different, just fairly awkward. :) I'd like to get these done soon, but before we get started, I want to make sure the queue is complete and ready to go. I've currently got four language code renames that I see being requested... == Aromanian == roa-rup.wikipedia.org -> rup.wikipedia.org roa-rup.wiktionary.org -> rup.wiktionary.org https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15988 ISO-639-2 code 'rup' was added in September 2005, and can supersede the generic 'roa' code with 'rup' subtag. This seems pretty uncontroversial. Existing domains and interwikis would be redirected. == Low German == nds.wikipedia.org -> nds-de.wikipedia.org nds.wikibooks.org -> nds-de.wikibooks.org nds.wikiquote.org -> nds-de.wikiquote.org nds.wiktionary.org -> nds-de.wiktionary.org https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8540 Reasoning: Disambiguation of country variants to create a portal site (nds-nl.wikipedia.org exists as well). The original request is almost 2 years old and didn't seem to have any clear consensus; is this still desired? Creating a portal site could cause difficulties with URL compatibility, and I don't really recommend making this change without clear consensus from the community there. Note that nds.wikipedia.org includes a link on the front page to nds-nl.wikipedia.org. == Moldovan == mo.wikipedia.org -> mo-cyrl.wikipedia.org mo.wiktionary.org -> mo-cyrl.wiktionary.org The official Moldovan language is the same as Romanian, using Latin script and same orthography as on ro.wikipedia.org. Latin script was officially adopted in 1989, replacing Soviet-era Cyrillic script; use of Cyrillic script is still "official" in an unrecognized, lightly-populated breakaway region but if people there use it, they don't seem to edit Wikipedia... The 'mo' language code has been officially deprecated from ISO 639-1/2 as of November 3, 2008; "Moldovan" in general use is just Romanian, and is covered by ro.wikipedia.org. mo.wikipedia.org has not actually been edited since December 2006. mo.wiktionary.org seems to have.... 4 definition pages, which only contain translations (no definitions!) Being inactive, these projects could be closed in addition to / instead of the rename. Use of tag 'mo-cyrl' would follow existing IANA-registered language subtags such as 'bs-Cyrl' and 'bs-Latn' for Cyrillic and Latin script variants. Most likely, for compatibility we would redirect the existing 'mo' URLs to the new 'mo-cyrl' ones, but they would now be visibly marked by the subtag as being "yes we know, it's Cyrillic here". If we're going to lock the site as well, adding a sitenotice pointing to the Romanian wiki is probably wise. == Belorusian "old orthography" == be-x-old.wikipedia.org -> be-tarask.wikipedia.org https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9823 Some time ago we swapped around the Belorusian Wikipedia, moving the previous version which was primarily using a non-official orthography, from 'be' to 'be-x-old', and re-establishing be.wikipedia.org using the official state orthography. There was later a request to rename 'be-x-old' (using a non-standard code) to 'be-tarask', a IANA-registered subtag which is rather more descriptive. IMHO this change should not be terribly controversial -- if we're not closing it, we may as well give it its official RFC 4646-registered code. Old domain and interwikis would be redirected. -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)