Requests for new languages/Wikinews Amharic

Amharic Wikinews

submitted	verification	final decision

	This language has been verified as eligible. The language is eligible for a project, which means that the subdomain can be created once there is an active community and a localized interface, as described in the language proposal policy. You can discuss the creation of this language project on this page. Once the criteria are met, the language committee can proceed with the approval. If you think the criteria are met, but the project is still waiting for approval, feel free to notify the committee and ask them to consider its approval.

The community needs to develop an active test project; it must remain active until approval (automated statistics, recent changes). It is generally considered active if the analysis lists at least three active, not-grayed-out editors listed in the sections for the previous few months.
The community needs to complete required MediaWiki interface translations in that language (about localization, translatewiki, check completion).
The community needs to discuss and complete the settings table below:

What	Value	Example / Explanation

Proposal
Language code	am (SIL, Glottolog)	A valid ISO 639-1 or 639-3 language code, like "fr", "de", "nso", ...
Language name	Amharic	Language name in English
Language name	አማርኛ	Language name in your language. This will appear in the language list on Special:Preferences, in the interwiki sidebar on other wikis, ...
Language Wikidata item	Q28244 - item has currently the following values: English label: Amharic native label (P1705): አማርኛ instance of (P31)/subclass of (P279): natural language, modern language / Ethiopian Semitic, Semitic Wikimedia language code (P424): am writing system (P282): Geʽez script number of speakers, writers, or signers (P1098): 21,900,000	Item about the language at Wikidata. It would normally include the Wikimedia language code, name of the language, etc. Please complete at Wikidata if needed.
Directionality	LTR	Is the language written from left to right (LTR) or from right to left (RTL)?
Links		Links to previous requests, or references to external websites or documents.
Site URL	am.wikinews.org	langcode.wikiproject.org

Settings
Project name		"Wikinews" in your language
Project namespace		usually the same as the project name
Project talk namespace		"Wikinews talk" (the discussion namespace of the project namespace)
Enable uploads	no	Default is "no". Preferably, files should be uploaded to Commons. If you want, you can enable local file uploading, either by any user ("yes") or by administrators only ("admin"). Notes: (1) This setting can be changed afterwards. The setting can only be "yes" or "admin" at approval if the test creates an Exemption Doctrine Policy (EDP) first. (2) Files on Commons can be used on all Wikis. (3) Uploading fair-use images is not allowed on Commons (more info). (4) Localisation to your language may be insufficient on Commons.
Optional settings
Project logo		This needs to be an SVG image (instructions for logo creation).
Default project timezone	Africa/Addis Ababa	"Continent/City", e.g. "Europe/Brussels" or "America/Mexico City" (see list of valid timezones)
Additional namespaces		For example, a Wikisource would need "Page", "Page talk", "Index", "Index talk", "Author", "Author talk".
Additional settings		Anything else that should be set
Once settings are finalized, a committee member will submit a Phabricator task requesting creation of the wiki. (This will include everything automatically, except the additional namespaces/settings.) After the task is created, it should be linked to in a comment under "final decision" above.

Proposal

Replace this line with your opening argument in favor of the new project.

Discussion

Arguments in favor

Support Support Official Language of Ethiopia, nation of over 80 million population
With the only native African script
With a need for a more open and democratically created news outlet
Due to prosecution in the country most of the free press media is closed and journalists are in jail or in exile. This journalists could have a stable medium to practice their trade in a free environment.
thriving wikipedia and wiktionary community (the wiktionary though shows only few hundred entries the group has concentrated mainly in developing a working computer glossary to help with localization of computer related translations. In that regard there are more than 3000 entries already translated. see [1].)--Teferra 22:54, 16 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Support It looks like I never voted here, although I did provide a banner for this project (below).... I think there is nothing wrong with starting small and working towards greatness. Hopefully this site can have some quality news for the Amharic speaking communities of the world. Nesnad 13:59, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arguments against

Oppose Oppose Please make first the Amharic Wikipedia much larger before starting a News Spin-off. --Jeroen 02:06, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Oppose Mikhailov Kusserow (talk) 04:07, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This request is already eligible.. There are no valid reasons to deny this project once its requirements are met. Thanks, GerardM 21:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose--Reality006 23:02, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Other discussion

Localisation update

Currently the status for Amharic is "am አማርኛ 100.00% 83.17% 3.80%". This is an EXCELLENT starting point. We are also quite happy to pay for the completion of the localisation of the extensions used by the Wikimedia Foundation. Please check Betawiki for details. Thanks GerardM 13:24, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Currently 80.58% of the MediaWiki messages and 4.65% of the messages of the extensions used by the Wikimedia Foundation projects have been localised. Please help us help your language by localising at Betawiki. This is the recent localisation activity for your language. Thanks, GerardM 10:29, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't sure how to say anything, but I provided a localized version of the WikiNews logo. It's not perfect maybe, but it's more language specific. (It uses the Amharic ዊ (wi) in the logo etc) I didn't know how to replace it in the incubator, so I just provided a link on the test page. I think I did that in the wrong way? Anyway, the image is ... Welcome Ethiopia Wikinews! If there are any comments, direct them to my username on English Wikipedia. Cheers, Nesnad 15:09, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Currently 69.45% of the MediaWiki messages and 3.10% of the messages of the extensions used by the Wikimedia Foundation projects have been localised. Localisation of these messages is a requirement before your request is finally assessed. This is the recent localisation activity for your language. Thanks, GerardM 11:06, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Currently 77.72% of the MediaWiki messages and 4.43% of the messages of the extensions used by the Wikimedia Foundation projects have been localised. Localisation of these messages is a requirement before your request is finally assessed. This is the recent localisation activity for your language. Thanks, GerardM 22:04, 17 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]