[Foundation-l] Closing projects policy now official

Sat Jun 25 09:20:24 UTC 2011

Board has decided to make Closing projects [1] official. The text of the
policy is below (as well as at the mentioned page).

Language committee members who decided to take care about this would be
listed inside of the section "Tasks" of the members list [2]. During the
next weeks present requests will be normalized after the discussion at
the LangCom list.

[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Closing_projects_policy
[2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_committee/Members

* * *

This policy proposal defines the process to close (and in some
situations delete) a wiki hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. The
proposals are handled by [[Language Committee]] members who opt-in to
take care of this, and the [[Board of Trustees]] has final authority
over the member's decision.

==Problem situation and new authority==
The current [[Proposals for closing projects]] lack a clear policy.
Several proposals have been made for a policy, but so far none has been
adopted.

Because of that, a lot of small inactive wikis are proposed to be
closed. Some people support out of principle ("wiki is inactive"), while
others oppose out of principle ("let it grow"). Often, users came by and
made a decision, which could even be the opposite of the actual consensus.

This policy tries to address this problem by:
* requiring a valid reason for closure, and defining several reasons as
either valid or invalid reasons
* putting the procedure in hands of language committee members and final
Board decision

The community has no longer authority over closing projects, but only an
advising task. This puts the procedure in line with the [[language
proposal policy]], which is also dependent on language committee and
Board approval. That means closing projects is no longer easier than
opening one.

Although the decision is made by a member of the Language Committee and
no longer through community consensus, the Board will have final
authority, and the LangCom is convinced that this procedure will improve
the decision-making and that both the LangCom and the Board are the
appropriate authority for dealing with closing Wikimedia wikis.

==Policy proposal==

===Types of proposals===
In order to distinguish routine situations from potentially more complex
or unusual ones, projects that are proposed to be deleted are classified
as one of two types:
# Regular language editions that are small/inactive but do not generally
harm to stay open (automatic spam is always blocked, contrary to the past).
#: ''For example: Afar Wiktionary, Gaeilge Wikiquote, Guarani Wikibooks,
...''
# Other (often relatively more active) wikis that may be controversial,
questionable or in another way uncommon.
#: ''For example: Quality Wikimedia, Simple English Wikiquote, ...''

===Definition of actions===
* Closing a wiki means locking the database so it cannot be edited but
all pages are still visible to public. User rights (sysop, ...) are
removed and can be restored on user request when the wiki is re-activated.
* Deleting a wiki means deleting the database so it is completely
unavailable on the web. An XML file with the wiki's content will still
be available for external use.
* Transferring or importing content means moving useful articles/pages,
along with the contribution history, to the [[Wikimedia Incubator]],
[[oldwikisource:|OldWikisource]] or [[betawikiversity:|BetaWikiversity]]
(or another site when explicitly mentioned). See
[[incubator:I:Importing]] for more info.
** Files are left on the wiki because of a lack of an export function.
When the wiki will be deleted, files could be downloaded manually if
needed. When such a software feature becomes available, files
should be exported.

===Proposing===
Anyone can propose to close a wiki. The following must be done:
* The proposal must be categorised under either type 1 or type 2 (see
above).
* If you want the wiki to be deleted as well, that must be explicitly
mentioned in the proposal.
* When the proposal is submitted, the local wiki should be informed as
soon as possible.
* A good reason should be given why it should be closed/deleted.
** Inactivity in itself is ''no'' valid reason; additional problems are.
When the Wikimedia Incubator is at a stage where it is usable to a
certain extent like a real wiki<ref>In the future, the Wikimedia
Incubator is intended to function as a place for normal wikis that are
not large enough to need an own wiki (so we don't have a large number of
small wikis but instead a normal Incubator wiki with "virtual
wikis").</ref>, inactivity will be a valid reason.
** Absence of content since the wiki's creation is a valid reason
(usually for type 1).
** Not meeting the current [[WM:LPP]] requirements is ''no'' valid reason.

===Decision===
* During a period of 30 (''can be changed'') days, the
proposal is public to the community for comments and recommendations.
* Any Language Committee member who has opted-in to take care of
handling closing projects proposals can bring up the proposal on the
mailing list. It is discussed during 15 days (or longer if needed),
without formal voting.
* Thereafter, the initial LangCom member makes a decision and sends its
recommendation to the [[Board]] which has final authority.

===Proposal approved===
* For the first type of proposal, useful content should be transferred
to the Incubator. Whether content is useful is hard to define, but
common sense can help. For the second type, a different solution for the
content is often appropriate.
* A bug should be submitted to Bugzilla to request the closure (and
deletion if applicable).
* Re-opening projects is done through [[requests for new languages]],
which uses the [[Meta:Language proposal policy]] that is much more
strict than used to be in the past (when most wikis that are now
proposed for closure, were started)

===Proposal rejected===
* The wiki remains open.
* A new proposal may be submitted if there are new conditions. A
proposal that is exactly the same, may not be made the same year to
reduce unneeded duplicate proposals.

==Retroactivity==
As has been done when the Langcom policy was introduced, all current
proposals will be made invalid. Anyone can start a new proposal under
the new policy.

==References==
<references />

==Links==
* http://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/closed.dblist – automatic list of
currently closed wikis
* [[bugzilla:28985|Bug 28985]] – Wikis ready for closing (tracking)
* Previous proposals
** [[Closure of WMF projects]] (August 2008 proposal)
** [[Closing/Deletion project policy]] (2006 proposal)
* Other
** [[Proposals for closing projects]]
** [[Proposals for closing projects/General discussion about small,
inactive wikis]]
** [[Requests for comment/Rights and closed wikis]]