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Requests for new languages/Wikinews Low Saxon

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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 nds (SIL, Glottolog) A valid ISO 639-1 or 639-3 language code, like "fr", "de", "nso", ...
Language name Low German Language name in English
Language name plattdüütsch 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 Q25433 - item has currently the following values:
 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 nds.wikinews.org langcode.wikiproject.org

Settings
Project name Wikinews "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 yes 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 "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.

Low Saxon is a language without own vital media. There are no daily newspapers, no TV program, no radio station fully dedicated to the language. And no press agencies of course. Where Wikinews in other languages has massive competion by other media, Low Saxon Wikinews could be a real useful news source and bridge a market gap. Especially dedicated to news about the language, which are sparse in other non-Low Saxon media. --::Slomox:: >< 18:04, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Arguments in favour

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Arguments against

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There is no agreed upon distinction in linguistics between 'dialects' and 'languages'. Any variety of speech is just about as complex and complete as any other. And until fairly recently, most speakers of Low Saxon could only speak (their variety of) Low Saxon - not the national standard language. Would you have it that they were speaking 'a dialect' whereas people whose speech happened to coincide (more or less) with what was to become the standard language were speaking 'a language' all along?
Ni'jluuseger 19:40, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So you have opinions on the worthiness and unworthiness of some languages. Fine. But how is this an argument for anything? --::Slomox:: >< 14:02, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose If the language receives no other media, then how will the wiki be able to support itself? From experience on enwikinews, they source their information from different news websites and keep up-to-date with the most recent events around the world; how is the Low Saxon Wikinews with its few native speakers going to attempt the same if all they do is translate news? As of this post, the ndswiki has 16,618 content pages; let's concentrate our resources on building that wiki first. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 06:49, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You don't need to vote "oppose" if your argument is "not enough activity so far". That's a prerequisite for approval anyway. The "oppose" section is for general arguments against the project. --::Slomox:: >< 14:02, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is not just low activity; the problem is also the lack of other Low Saxon news sources. You say that "Low Saxon is a language without own vital media. There are no daily newspapers, no TV program, no radio station fully dedicated to the language. And no press agencies of course." Well, how is the Wikinews going to sustain itself if it receives no other news than its own? The English Wikinews, for example, borrows content from Reuters, The New York Times and other up-to-date media; but the Low Saxon Wikinews will receive none of the same for its content, which is all left to unencyclopedic original research. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 02:30, 12 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's a really weird argument. First, there's nothing that stops us from sourcing news articles from news outlets in other languages.
But the more important thing is: What's the point of Wikinews if you don't create genuine information? You spoke about unencyclopedic original research. Wikipedia is the encyclopedia. Wikipedia needs to be encyclopedic. The other Wikimedia projects do not need to be encyclopedic. Wikinews was created as a wiki-style news outlet. If some Wikinews editions have chosen to be a kind of summary or resume service that aggregates information from other sources, then that's the decision of the projects. But it's not the way Wikinews needs to go under every condition. It's perfectly acceptable to create original news content as long as the news are factual and sourced and NPOV.
I want to remind of one more thing. Wikimedia's mission is to bring information to those people who otherwise may have no access to information. That means, that news outlets in languages lacking commercial media is exactly where Wikimedia can reach people otherwise unreached. English Wikinews, and other big language Wikinews projects, on the other hand operate in a market with masses of professional commercial media. They have low informational impact on their respective societies. In smaller language societies Wikinews can have a much bigger informational impact.
(Disclaimer: Low Saxon Wikinews is still far from the point where it is a sustainable project. I would not support the creation of the project at this moment. But if it gathers a sustainable community and produces a sustainable stream of output, it should be created without any hesitance.) --::Slomox:: >< 14:09, 12 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

General discussion

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Localisation update

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