[Foundation-l] Closing inactive Wikinewses

[dan harp]

my vote would be 12 weeks.... it just seems that
adding an extra month would be good.

--- Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net>
wrote:

> Erik Moeller wrote:
> 
> >I suggest the following policy:
> >
> >When a Wikinews edition has seen no new stories for
> 8 weeks, the wiki
> >is locked and a site notice is added: "This
> Wikinews edition is
> >currently inactive. If you are interested in
> working on it, please
> >indicate so on [[m:Wikinews/Reactivate an
> edition]]." (In the correct
> >language, of course.) Instead of just 5 votes, you
> would need 10
> >Wikimedians to sign the reactivation pledge.
> >
> >  
> >
> <*snip*>
> 
> >Does this policy proposal sound reasonable?
> >
> >  
> >
> I am curious about what the rationale is for trying
> to increase the 
> threshold for reactivating an older edition rather
> than establishing a 
> brand-new language edition.  It seems to me that it
> ought to be the 
> other way around, where if a language edition
> already exists (presumably 
> with some substantial content already) that the
> threshold for support to 
> reactive ought to be lower than creating yet another
> new language.  This 
> could even be just for maintainence of the existing
> content alone.
> 
> I would, however, also put an additional restriction
> that the 5 or 10 
> (or whatever) votes that are needed for reactivation
> should happen 
> within a specified period of time, like 2-3 months
> at most.  The purpose 
> of this is to demonstrate that there is an active
> community of people 
> who would be willing to keep a sustained effort
> going once it is 
> reactivated, which seems like the point of the whole
> exercise. 
>  Proposals to reactivate that languish longer than
> this specified period 
> of time will simply be archived although a new
> proposal can certainly be 
> made almost immediately (with new votes) if there is
> still a small group 
> willing to participate.  I have seen some of these
> proposals for things 
> like this go on and on for years at a time... just
> look at the new 
> project proposals page on Meta as an example of some
> proposals that are 
> more than 2 years old, some as old as Meta itself
> seemingly.
> 
> I'm still not exactly sure what the threshold ought
> to be in terms of 
> time to declare a Wikinews language edition
> "inactive", but the main 
> goal ought to be to give the community who speaks
> that language the 
> benefit of the doubt.  In addition, I would strongly
> recommend that if a 
> Wikinews language edition is to be closed down, then
> the related "sister 
> projects" of the same langauge ought to have a
> notification put in the 
> Village Pump pages (even if in English... with an
> appeal for 
> translation) that "their" language edition of
> Wikinews is being shut 
> down due to inactivity.  Perhaps also a notification
> of any related 
> mailing list that is specific to that language, if
> it is listed as an 
> "official" Wikimedia mailing list.  I know that this
> seems like a lot of 
> work, but the point here is to try and give a final
> effort to simply let 
> speakers of that language know that Wikinews is even
> something that they 
> could participate with.  
> 
> We might be surprised and get a few people to turn
> out without having to 
> shut the project down in the first place.
> 
> -- 
> Robert Scott Horning
> 
> 
> 
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>
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