Wikivoyage:Romanian Wikivoyage Expedition

The Romanian Wikivoyage version is online at ro.wikivoyage.org.

The text below is obsolete, as the Romanian language version of Wikivoyage has been launched. It is, however, an archive of how the Romanian Wikivoyage Expedition progressed, and a good example for other language versions of WIkitravel.

The Romanian Wikivoyage Expedition is an expedition to create a Romanian language version of Wikivoyage which would effectively be the first multilingual version of Wikivoyage. Another multilingual version in development is the French Wikivoyage. The Romanian Wikivoyage will also be a trial into seeing how multilingual versions of Wikivoyage develop, and how they ultimately work.

For more information on Multilingual Wikivoyage Policy, see Project:Language version policy. For past information about the Romanian Wikivoyage, see Project:Romanian Wikivoyage

Rationale

Wikivoyage can better meet its goals by providing travel information in more languages than English. This will not only create a better, more comprehensive travel guide, it will attract and encourage more and more contributors. Information contributed in one language will, we hope, eventually filter into all language versions.

The Romanian Internet community, and especially the Romanian Wiki-community are getting increasingly larger. As Romanian Wikipedia and other sites grow, the need grows for more Romanian versions of websites. By addressing this need, we can increase goodwill in the Internet and wiki communities.

Goals

The Romanian Wikivoyage has the following goals:

• To collect a good base of Romanian users willing to take this project further
• To translate and localize the English Wikivoyage into Romanian.
• To create quality articles that will appeal to Romanian travellers.
• To link these articles to English versions and create an integrated multilingual Wikivoyage.
• To empower other language groups to form their own Wikivoyage.
• To contribute to English Wikivoyage with quality articles about Romania.

Goals update

As you probably know, there is currently a French Wikivoyage Expedition, which was formed after (and probably inspired from) the Romanian Wikivoyage. As good Wikivoyagers, it is the goal of the Romanian Wikivoyage to:

• Support the French Wikivoyage, co-operate with them and integrate them into our and English Wikipedia's structure through interlanguage links.

IMPORTANT: Wikivoyage ready to be launched

The Romanian Wikivoyage is ready to be launched. Here are some start details:

• Go-between: (WT-en) Ronline
• Other users willing to contribute: (WT-en) Danutz, (WT-en) Jmabel, (WT-en) Snitz, (WT-en) Maero

Timing and deadlines

The following are guides to completing certain tasks of Wikipedia. They are not deadlines in the strict sense, but we should abide by them to get Romanian Wikivoyage going as fast as possible.

Update: Thanks to all Romanian Wikivoyage contributors for voting so quickly for a go-between. We achieved this task quicker than the deadline, meaning we will now be doing everything one day before the former time guide. The new timeframes are:

23 December 2003: Go-between was voted in.

24-25 December 2003: Period of proofreading the LanguageRo.php file.

26-27 December 2003: Hopefully, by this time, www.wikivoyage.org/ro can be online, with localization and everything.

28-30 December 2003: Translation of necessary files - we need to translate files such as FAQ, About, Help, Welcome, etc in Romanian.

31 December 2003: Write a few important articles so that they're there for the official launch the next day.

1 January 2004: The official launch!!! From now onwards, we can start creating articles and promoting Romanian Wikivoyage.

January 2004: (WT-en) Ronline, the go-between, will make frequent reports in the logbooks of both RO and EN Wikivoyage, we'll make a new Romanian logo, we will make the Project:Multilingual statistics page and also Expediţia Promovării Wikivoyage în limba română - the expedition to promote the Romanian Wikivoyage.

1 February 2004: I know it's setting things a bit too early, but let's try to get 200 articles by February 2004!

Completed progress

We've already done the following:

• Localized the interface - see file at LanguageRo.php
• Chosen a team of five users.
• Voted in a go-between. The go-between is (WT-en) Ronline, with 3 votes for, and none against. All users have voted.
• Proofread the interface localization - completed file is at LanguageRo.php

Completed: Gathering a team

See also Project:Language version policy for more information about the procedure of forming a Romanian Wikivoyage.

To get this project started, we need at least 5 Romanian-speaking users willing to contribute to Romanian Wikivoyage.

Please add your name below, by editing this page, if you support this project. You must have a valid user account with Wikivoyage.

I agree to forming the Romanian Wikivoyage and am willing to contribute:

(WT-en) Ronline 04:00, 20 Dec 2003 (PST)

(WT-en) Danutz 04:08, 20 Dec 2003 (PST)

(WT-en) Snitz 23:10, 20 Dec 2003 (PST) (I'm willing to translate articles from English to Romanian Wikivoyage, and to help with the set-up as well).

(WT-en) Jmabel 00:07, 22 Dec 2003 (PST) As a native English speaker, I'm somewhat limited in my ability to contribute to translation in that direction, but I offer my services to decipher anything in English or Spanish that may be confusing.

(WT-en) Maero 15:31, 22 Dec 2003 (PST) - As a Romanian tour guide for English and French tourists, I just heard of Wikivoyage recently - and what an amazement it's been to see there's a Romanian language Wikivoyage in development. I'd like to translate articles into Romanian, as well as offer advice and tips on travel to major European destinations.

5 users have already signed up to help Romanian Wikivoyage, thereby letting the project advance to the next step of choosing go-betweens. However, if you are still interested in helping us out, we'd really appreciate it! Either write your name and how you're willing to help here, or make a new user account on the Romanian Wikivoyage when it launches.

Completed: Choosing a go-between

Voting is closed.

In order to make a successful, integrated Romanian Wikivoyage, we need to choose one of the five users who put their names down, and make them a go-between. The role of the go-between will be to act as a liaison between English and Romanian Wikipedia, and therefore, he must be able to:

• Write English and Romanian well
• Understand Wikivoyage ideals, guidelines, goals and policies
• Make monthly reports about Romanian Wikivoyage to English Wikivoyage
• Make monthly reports about English Wikivoyage to Romanian Wikivoyage
• Contribute actively in Romanian Wikivoyage

The go-between will be chosen the democratic way: via voting

The five candidates for go-between are the users listed below. If you would like to vote one of these people, please put your username next to their name, in the Votes for section. If you would like to make a vote against someone, please write your username next to their name in the Votes against line and then a reason for this. To win, a go-between must have two votes for them, and no votes against them. Only people who nominated themselves under the "Gathering a team" section can vote. And remember, you cannot vote for yourself.

Pick a user who you would like to see as go-between:

• I vote for (WT-en) Ronline
  • Votes for: (WT-en) Snitz, (WT-en) Maero, (WT-en) Danutz
  • Votes against:
• I vote for (WT-en) Danutz
  • Votes for: (WT-en) Ronline
  • Votes against:
• I vote for (WT-en) Snitz
  • Votes for:
  • Votes against:
• I vote for (WT-en) Jmabel
  • Votes for:
  • Votes against: (WT-en) Jmabel: I disqualify myself. My Romanian is not good enough for this role.
• I vote for (WT-en) Maero
  • Votes for:
  • Votes against:

Voting will only finish once person listed above has voted - that is, Ronline, Danutz, Snitz, Jmabel and Maero. Therefore, please put in your votes as soon as possible, because the Wikivoyage in Romanian will becoming online sooner.

Completed: Proofreading the script

The text below is obsolete. The proofreading period has ended.

The proofreading and correction period for the localization file at LanguageRo.php is nearly ended. We've had feedback and correction from some users, and we encourage other Romanian speakers to look over it and contribute. Proofreading ends in 25 December 2003, near the evening. Once that's done, we're ready to launch!

Next Steps

We've completed all of the necessary start steps. Now it's time to launch Wikivoyage in Romanian and:

• Translate the "base" articles - Help, FAQ, Disclaimer, Privary Statement, License, etc.
• Make new articles

In the first month, the go-between also needs to make reports, etc.

For more information about the step process in the first month, see Project:Language version policy

Awareness Raising

We can raise awareness of the Romanian Wikivoyage (and at the same time promote Wikivoyage in general) on the Romanian Wikipedia, as well as on Meta-Wikimedia. Also, we can send the site and a description to Romanian IT/technology sites. (WT-en) Snitz 23:33, 20 Dec 2003 (PST)

Multilingual Stats

(WT-en) Ronline will co-ordinate a multilingual stats project similar to Wikipedia's, which can be found at http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Multilingual_statistics. There will be stats on how many articles the English, Romanian and French Wikipedias contain, as well as growth percentages, etc. If other languages join the Wikivoyage list, maybe we will create a Wikivoyage Embassy.