[Foundation-l] Intent to launch pt., pl., ro. Wikinews; further procedure

[Erik Moeller]

As per the procedure on

    http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Start_a_new_edition

I'd like to launch three new editions later today or tomorrow: 
Portuguese, Polish, and Romanian. For Portuguese, I count Carlosar as a 
valid vote, because he has made 3000+ edits on the English Wikinews, and 
he is a native speaker.

For future editions, I'd also like to suggest changing the language 
procedure in the following way:

    The "activity on existing Wikimedia projects" requirement can be
    dropped if a few support pages (FAQ, Mission Statement, etc.) are
    created on Meta for the project to be launched. These can be
    translations or original creations.

Such an effort indicates a genuine interest in working on a Wikinews 
edition in a language. It also reduces the dependency of new projects on 
existing ones -- we already know that many key people working on 
Wikinews have not done substantial work on Wikipedia or other Wikimedia 
projects. There would still be a requirement of at least 5 signatures, 
so it's not just one person playing an overarching role.

If this works out, perhaps we can substitute one procedure for another; 
I prefer the translation procedure, because it also makes sure that 
certain pages are in place before the wiki is set up (a problem on some 
new editions which were essentially blank for several days).

I'd like to credit the Memory Alpha wiki for this procedure, which has 
successfully used it for setting up new languages.

Regards,

Erik