[Foundation-l] WMF Approval of New Languages/Projects

[timichal]

>>
>>
>> In the past we have accepted codes to be used as "language" codes which 
>> were non-existent and have had as a result that we are not in compliance 
>> with the rules of accepted use for the ISO-639 codes. When codes for new 
>> languages are used that are not consistent with the existing ISO-639 
>> codes (all two and three character codes) a language should not be 
>> accepted at all.
>>

We can handle ISO-639 codes, it's no problem to assign the correct code if it
exist. In my opinion, even languages without an ISO-639 code should be
accepted; however, this shouldn't be controlled by us, but the decision should
be made in the New language requests vote.

>
> According to your rules, anyone (with help of 
> a few friends or of a few sockpuppets) can re-open the Zorglub language 
> (oldbies will understand which language is concerned).
> So, your proposal needs to mention the issue of constructed languages.

The policy is just a proposal at the moment; however, we'll take this into
account. There is a Quenya language test in Incubator; I suppose we should
delete it?

> Besides, I see you wrote "The Foundation will also have to approve the 
> domain". Errrrrrrr. I'd prefer we avoid such bottleneck. How about 
> something like "if at least 20 votes with a very large majority", no 
> approval needed. If less votes or less obvious support, then, the 
> Foundation or the spc must approve before creation ?

I removed the approval part, I think it remained there from the time when it
was imported on Meta and reworded by Daniel. As for your 20 votes suggestion -
unfortunately there are often cases of flash voting, where 20-30 voters can
easily appear out of nowhere and declare their support. We can counter this
somewhat by forcing all voters to have accounts, but there are still problems
with that. I think this has yet to be decided somehow. We should make a
percent range of approval, like with RfAs on English Wikipedia; e.g. more than
75% support gets approved automatically, between 50% and 75% needs approval by
Foundation/SPcom and less then 50% fails to get a wiki estalished.

Michal Zlatkovsky ([[incubator:User:Timichal]])