Arabic Wikitravel Expedition

The Arabic Wikitravel Expedition is an expedition to create an Arabic-language version of Wikitravel. For more information on multilingual Wikitravel policy, please see Wikitravel:Language version policy. Rationale Arabic is a language spoken in almost all Middle East and North Africa countries. There are 422 million native speakers worldwide. These travelers would be well-served by a Wikitravel travel guide in their language. In addition, contributions in Arabic would help the other Wikitravel language versions. Many Arabic-speaking areas are major travel destinations; having locals update information in their native tongue (which could then be translated to other languages) would make for better information in all the Wikitravel guides. Arabic-speakers are also frequent travelers and would have a lot to contribute on other destinations and topics. Goals This Expedition has the following goals: To collect a good base of Arabic-speaking users willing to take this project further. To choose a go-between who can keep users on the English-language site up-to-date on developments on Arabic Wikitravel, and vice-versa To translate the interface files for Wikitravel into Arabic To launch the new Arabic-language Wikitravel. To translate the pages and create the infrastructure necessary to make Arabic Wikitravel useful and friendly for new Arabic-speaking contributors. To make Arabic Wikitravel an integrated part of the Wikitravel family. Progress Mumtaz! Let's try to get this set up before Wikimania 2008 in July. Jpatokal 10:01, 23 June 2008 (EDT) Procedure See also Wikitravel:Language version policy for more information about the procedure of forming a French Wikitravel. Completed: Gathering a team of users To get this project started, we need at least 3 Arabic-speaking users willing to contribute to Arabic Wikitravel. Please add your name below, by editing this page, if you support this project. please log in (see How to create a user account -- it's really quick) and then add your name below, by choosing edit this page. and sign the list below. To sign, type four tildes (~~~~) I agree to forming the Arabic Wikitravel and am willing to contribute: Ahmed Elmorsy Ahmedelmorsy 09:32, 23 June 2008 (EDT) Mohamed Yasser Mohamed nour 09:25, 23 June 2008 (EDT) Doaa Ashour Doaa Ashour 09:27, 23 June 2008 (EDT) Kareem El-SayedKimo 09:29, 23 June 2008 (EDT) The tech team would like an email address of the go-between for specific language issue questions. If Mohamed nour is available, can you contact me? Thank you!JuCo 18:53, 8 July 2008 (EDT) Go-between If there are no objections, Mohamed Nour, the person who started this Expedition, has volunteered to act as go-between for this new language. Kareem El Sayed Kimo 09:19, 23 June 2008 (EDT) Language interface file MediaWiki, the software that runs Wikitravel, uses a language interface file to make the links and names and prompts and stuff readable in other languages. We need to customize a new version to work for Arabic Wikitravel. We can collaboratively do this at LanguageAr.php. It's started off with the Wikipedia language file, and we can use the English en:Wikitravel:Language.php file as a reference for things that need to be changed. It's mostly just changing the name of the site (Wikipedia -> Wikitravel), the name of the license, and the names of some important pages. Issues The framework is up! There is a problem with the homepage that the tech team is working on. In the meantime, you can use the right navigation to move around. If you have feedback, please report it here or on my userpage so that I can easily get it to the tech team. Thank you and away we go! JuCo 19:04, 8 July 2008 (EDT) The problems with the homepage have been resolved! We are very interested in Arabic speakers taking a look around, reporting errors or bugs and otherwise plunging forward.JuCo 17:12, 9 July 2008 (EDT) Looks like we're having some trouble getting an Admin and may be getting spam, so we're disabling anon edits. We'll be happy to open it back up when people are interested in being Admins. JuCo 15:18, 23 July 2008 (EDT) Admin User:Aude has volunteered to watch over AR as an admin, this user is also an admin on the English Wikipedia, and I'm quite sure will be helpful – cacahuate talk 12:32, 26 September 2008 (EDT)