Incubator:Strategy

Wikimedia has always had a strong focus on multilingualism. There are now Wikipedias in over 280 languages, including many of the most widely spoken ones. However, as we get into smaller languages, we face two problems: POV pushing (on existing small wikis and also with requests for new languages) and missing language support (orthographies, input methods, fonts). We here at Wikimedia Incubator envision a world in which everyone can easily share in the sum of all knowledge in the right language: their own language.

1. Improve access to test wikis / info pages on Incubator (= how do they get here)
   • Done Redirects implemented for languages known to Wikimedia (http://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/langlist)
   • [TODO] Improve searching for wikis/languages, perhaps also by country or language family
   • [TODO] Improve knowledge and awareness about the possibility to start a new wiki
   •  partially  make use of www.wikipedia.org portal & friends (change "other languages" link to Incubator? add input form "search language")
2. Improve the usability of the landing page (= once they are here, how good is the information)
   • Done Automatic creation of these info pages (Wx/xyz pages)
   • Done Translatable
   • [TODO] Language names in MediaWiki (instead of "unknown code")
3. Improve support for those who can/want to start a new wiki
   • [TODO] Improve communication between Langcom and contributors about problems, like ISO codes
   • [TODO] Improve "complain access" for language support needs (input methods, fonts, scripts, ...), maybe via those language support teams
   • [TODO] Improve communication to developers who can/need to implement data (plural rules, ...) maybe via those language support teams
   • [TODO] Improve and centralise the documentation and help pages about starting a new wiki scattered over Incubator and Meta
   • [TODO] Improve support for those who can/want to organize e.g. workshops, like chapters
4. Improve request, approval, creation process
   • [TODO] Get some more activity in that LangCom! -> update policy, relation with Board's approval, ...
   • [TODO] Improve test contributors' understanding of the requirements and the approval process (e.g. status pages)
   • [TODO] Quick automatic process to technically create a wiki
5. Improve fate of existing wikis
   • Done Implement closing projects policy; continuously done actually enforce it
   • [TODO] Make an authoritative list of what language each wiki is intended to be (extreme example, English-language projects should be written in Latin script not in Arabic or Hindi script or whatever)