Talk:Interwiki map

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=== EXAMPLE.ORG ===
* Wiki format: [[PROPOSEDSHORTCUT:]]
* Interwiki link: http://www.EXAMPLE.ORG/wiki/1ドル
* Statistics: [http://www.EXAMPLE.ORG/wiki/special:statistics]
* Cross-wiki Link search: [http://tools.wikimedia.de/~eagle/linksearch?search=EXAMPLE.ORG&totalwikis=20]
* Reasons: 

Note: It's likely that this will come up again. Left this at the top of the page instead of archiving for now

I'd suggest following shortcuts:

• [[spec:]] for wikispecies Done by Lar
• [[wmf:]] for foundation pages Done by Lar
• [[c:]] for commons Not done (potential conflicts)
• [[i:]] for incubator Not done (potential conflicts)
• [[t:]] for test wikipedia Not done (potential conflicts)

Danny B. 14:56, 28 February 2007 (UTC) Reply

• Seconding. I'd proposed the [[c:]] shortcut previously. [1] [2] and think this proposal is more complete. ~Kylu (u|t) 04:51, 11 August 2007 (UTC) Reply

Seems good, but I'm afraid proposed c is conflicted with existing convention. In Wikia wikis c has another meaning. I'm not sure if it is their local convention or not, and also if it causes a problem (meta refers to Meta-Wiki on Wikimedia Wiki, but globally it isn't, but I heard no complaint ...). --Aphaia 07:05, 17 August 2007 (UTC) Reply

c stands for Central Wikia. For example, if you were on a Wikia wiki, if you wanted to link to the YouTube wikia, you would have to use c:youtube:1ドル. Thunderhead 07:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC) Reply

C actually stands for city. As in "Wikicities" which Wikia used to be called. On Wikia, [[w:]] links to the Central Wikia and [[w:c:]] links to a specific "city" (now called a wiki or a Wikia). We added the c redirect so that we don't have to add interwiki links to all of our wikis. Instead of listing dogs.wikia.com, the shortcut wikia.com/wiki/c:dogs can always be used. Angela 08:28, 22 August 2007 (UTC) Reply

I'm going to add the wmf: link. Thunderhead 11:56, 30 August 2007 (UTC) Reply

We still need comment from others on some of the rest I think. ++Lar: t/c 01:27, 20 September 2007 (UTC) Reply

I have no objection to this prefix and do not see any conflicts. Cbrown1023 talk 15:57, 14 October 2007 (UTC) Reply

No for i:, it would conflict with the local-shortct pages used on incubator (like incubator:I:A). Cbrown1023 talk 15:57, 14 October 2007 (UTC) Reply

To recap then? i: and c: seem to have issues? wmf: and spec: are apparently OK and t: is unknown? Is that where we stand? Or is it that c: is ok per Angela's explanation? ++Lar: t/c 21:21, 14 October 2007 (UTC) Reply

I STILL have no idea what we should do here. Anyone? ++Lar: t/c 02:42, 11 December 2007 (UTC) Reply

I don't think the c: will break the wikia links, but it ought to be avoided for other reasons. It would break many articles and redirects on Wikipedia: w:Special:Prefixindex/c:. Generally, very short interwikis are likely to cause clashes with existing pages. c: is used a shortcut to mean category on the English Wikipedia. Similarly, t: is a shortcut for template there and would clash with the proposed shortcut to the test wiki and there are some articles starting with I:. See w:Special:Prefixindex/t: and w:Special:Prefixindex/i:. Angela 03:07, 11 December 2007 (UTC) Reply

OK, I'm going to do spec: and wmf: but not c:, i:, or t: (which is too bad, I would have liked to have c: for commons the same way that m: works to get you to meta) unless someone says why that particular combination is not the right thing to do, and soon. I'm trying to see if we can't get some of these loose ends driven to conclusion. ++Lar: t/c 17:08, 11 December 2007 (UTC) Reply

Slight modifications to the head of the section, so people know why we're doing and not doing these. I suspect c: will come up again soon, for instance. ~Kylu (u|t) 20:14, 16 January 2008 (UTC) Reply

See also Talk:Interwiki_map/Archives/2007-12#Commons (which crosslinks back to a prev version of here as well for completeness) ++Lar: t/c 21:31, 16 January 2008 (UTC) Reply

• Wiki format: [[tv.com:]]
• Interwiki link: http://www.tv.com/show/1ドル/summary.html
• Reason: A large project that is linked to other 2,000 times on en.wikipedia, the project holds television related content and is written by its users. Matthew 17:00, 3 October 2007 (UTC) Reply

Done Majorly (talk ) 17:36, 3 October 2007 (UTC) Reply

I think rushing this, as I have said on Majorly's talk page, was a bad idea. This site does not hit all of our inclusion criteria and we need discussion. More than 40 minmutes worth, I think. I will be reverting this ad unless there is a large and clear consensus that this is a needful change and that it HAS to be done RIGHT AWAY. ++Lar: t/c 21:57, 3 October 2007 (UTC) Reply

Not done I've reverted this change pending discussion and a clear consensus. The more I review this site the more concern I have about whether it is appropriate or not. It may be, but it needs discussion. There is plenty of time. ++Lar: t/c 22:15, 3 October 2007 (UTC) Reply

This is a page that I normally watch but do not contribute to as it is well looked after (& my time tends to be occupied with the spam blacklist). However, because the spam blacklist deals with similarly cross wiki issues, I do watch this one. The idea that a link can be made in 40 minutes to a commercial site without any discussion of the criteria at the top - appropriateness, copyright content & the like - seems more than a little odd to me. The site specifically states Copyright - CNET Networks, Inc. All Rights Reserved for example and equally seeks advertisers - to me this makes it different from many of the other interwiki links approved?

I would really like to see some discussion on this one (& the one below)? --Herby ^{talk thyme} 09:41, 4 October 2007 (UTC) Reply

No one else has commented which is disappointing. I think there are clear pros and cons and would like to see a reasoned discussion of them. ++Lar: t/c 21:18, 14 October 2007 (UTC) Reply

I too find this one strange, if it is a "good idea" I would have expected others to have some input? If there are no other comments I feel this one could be closed in a week or so? Cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 07:59, 15 October 2007 (UTC) Reply

Another plea to figure out what to do here, perhaps archive both as not done and be done with it? But that seems wrong somehow. ++Lar: t/c 22:27, 16 January 2008 (UTC) Reply

I would go with not done. Nakon 21:12, 27 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

• Wiki format: [[tv.com-episode:]]
• Interwiki link: http://www.tv.com/episode/1ドル/summary.html
• Reason: See above. Matthew 17:00, 3 October 2007 (UTC) Reply

Done

See above. This should NOT have been rushed, in my view. Same as above, I will be reverting this change to allow for more discussion unless there is a LARGE consensus that this has to be done IMMEDIATELY. We have been discussing Wikinvest for months... it is less commercial than this site and more of a wiki than this site. ++Lar: t/c 21:59, 3 October 2007 (UTC) Reply

Not done As above... I've reverted this change pending discussion and a clear consensus. There is plenty of time. ++Lar: t/c 22:16, 3 October 2007 (UTC) Reply

This is both an interwiki correction & adding that I'm asking for. First, the link to Scoutpedia ([3]) doesn't seem to work, so I suppose it's the old url for one of the ScoutWiki Network wikis. So would it be possible to delete that old interwiki, and replace it by interwikis to the different wikis of the ScoutWiki Network (there are currently 12 of them) ? These free-licensed scouting wikis currently totalize about 10,000 articles, although they are not all the same quality (you probably don't need to link the English one, mostly copy-pasted from Wikipedia, nor the smallest ones ; but French, Finnish, Dutch, German, Spanish, etc. are good ones). Maybe the prefixes could be sw-fr, sw-fi, etc., or 'scoutwiki-fr, scoutwiki-fi, etc. Thanks ! Benjism89 21:43, 9 November 2007 (UTC) Reply

Sorry I forgot to tell you the common domain name (scoutwiki.org) is quite new for these wikis, so they are still some links to scoutopedia.net, scoutopedia.nl, wiki.partio.net, etc. on Wikimedia projects. (These links still works, they are just not the main url for these wikis). Benjism89 21:53, 9 November 2007 (UTC) Reply

Please specify exactly what you want changed, or added, in the format that other entries use... thanks. I confess I'm not completely clear on what is wanted. ++Lar: t/c 02:43, 11 December 2007 (UTC) Reply

In a few words, I would like :

• scoutpedia: interwiki deleted (doesn't exist anymore)
• scoutwiki: link created, to [4]. So that scoutwiki:fr: e.g. would link to fr.scoutwiki.org, scoutwiki:fi: to fi.scoutwiki.org, etc (using ScoutWiki Network internal interwikis fr:, fi:, etc).

Thanks ! Benji 17:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC) Reply

I support this proposal, as I believe these wikis will have material that could be referenced from wikipedias in several languages. --Bduke 07:08, 29 December 2007 (UTC) Reply

Barring any objection I will do this on my next pass unless someone beats me to it. ++Lar: t/c 22:26, 16 January 2008 (UTC) Reply

*scoutpedia: interwiki deleted

*scoutwiki: links to http://en.scoutwiki.org/1ドル ... that part is no problem and is done.

However... I am not sure about the lang prefixes working. I tried for example, this link: http://en.scoutwiki.org/fr:Accueil ... if I understand things correctly, that should have went to the front page of the french scoutwiki (i.e. this addy: http://fr.scoutwiki.org/Accueil )... it does not, it errors out. Please advise. Keeping open for now. ++Lar: t/c 03:16, 30 January 2008 (UTC) Reply

OK, this does not seem to be working. I will ask on the ScoutWiki forum. --Bduke 09:58, 1 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

• Any further progress? If not, perhaps archive? ++Lar: t/c 09:59, 27 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

Not done no further progress after 6 weeks ++Lar: t/c 04:07, 15 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

These interwikis should be set together at once.

Commenting on them as a whole, I think the names should be chosen to be as self explanatory and easy to infer as possible. Do we expect to ever change away from freenode? If not, then we ought to use freenode: rather than irc: for the main one. The other two I'm less sussed about as they seem less frequently referenced from wiki pages. I'm not sure I see a great deal of need to have direct user links though, can't users just give that as a URL? I agree with grouping these and trying to get to a consensus for all of them, and then doing all of them (that we decide need doing) ++Lar: t/c 16:35, 15 November 2007 (UTC) Reply

Again commenting as a whole, we have some done, and some not. The initial request was to add all at once. One was. One sort of was? (I can't quite tell about Freenode:) Is that sufficient? Should the other one be "not done" or what? Thanks for any clarity!++Lar: t/c 22:26, 16 January 2008 (UTC) Reply

• Wiki format: [[irc:]]
• Interwiki link: irc://irc.wikimedia.org/1ドル
• Reason: Pretty selfexplanatory... (RC channels)

— Danny B. 01:05, 15 November 2007 (UTC) Reply

I have no problems with this. Cbrown1023 talk 01:15, 15 November 2007 (UTC) Reply

Since most Wikimedia channels are on freenode, I don't think using irc: to mean Wikimedia's IRC server makes much sense. Perhaps use irc: to mean freenode and ircrc: to mean the recent changes channels. I imagine this will cause people to get confused and try joining irc.wikimedia.org/wikipedia when they wanted the #Wikipedia freenode channel. Angela 03:41, 15 November 2007 (UTC) Reply

Well, I actually agree with Angela, that was my first idea, but I thought giving of nicer name to Wikimedia's stuff with priority is a must. However, I'd suggest [[rcirc:]] instead of Angela's [[ircrc:]].
— Danny B. 12:42, 15 November 2007 (UTC) Reply

Why not add them both? :-D Cbrown1023 talk 03:05, 16 November 2007 (UTC) Reply

Done, added [[ircrc:]] and [[rcirc:]], best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 16:26, 28 December 2007 (UTC) Reply

• Wiki format: [[freenode:]]
• Interwiki link: irc://irc.freenode.net/1ドル
• Reason: Pretty selfexplanatory... (Wikimedia related channels)

— Danny B. 01:05, 15 November 2007 (UTC) Reply

I have no problems with this. Cbrown1023 talk 01:15, 15 November 2007 (UTC) Reply

Due to Angela's suggestion above, I agree this should rather be [[irc:]].
— Danny B. 12:42, 15 November 2007 (UTC) Reply

Why not both? (again) Cbrown1023 talk 03:06, 16 November 2007 (UTC) Reply

Done, or rather doing now. Thunderhead 04:20, 17 November 2007 (UTC) Reply

Note - It sort of doesn't really work for channels with double # in them and neither does [[irc:]].. :( ..--Comet styles 14:36, 13 December 2007 (UTC) Reply

• Wiki format: [[freenodenick:]]
• Interwiki link: irc://irc.freenode.net/1,ドルisnick
• Reason: Pretty selfexplanatory... (Users' nicks)

— Danny B. 01:05, 15 November 2007 (UTC) Reply

I have no problems with this. Cbrown1023 talk 01:15, 15 November 2007 (UTC) Reply

I don't understand what this one does. Why would you want to join a channel named after someone's nick? Angela 03:41, 15 November 2007 (UTC) Reply

Due to Angela's suggestion on RC channels, this should be shortened to [[freenode:]] then.
@ Angela 03:41, 15 November 2007 (UTC): This is direct link to start the query with such user. Eg. clicking on [5] you'll open the query window with me ;-) (Of course, only if your browser is set to handle irc links, but that's same with both links above.)
— Danny B. 12:42, 15 November 2007 (UTC) Reply

I think this should remain as freenodenick or ircnick, somehow mentioning that there is a nickname involved and not an actual channel. Cbrown1023 talk 03:05, 16 November 2007 (UTC) Reply

This doesn't work for me for some reason. Maybe because I'm using mIRC. It just opens the channel #Danny_B, not a PM with Danny_B. Angela 03:03, 17 November 2007 (UTC) Reply

Same with KVirc for me. Snowolf 14:10, 13 December 2007 (UTC) Reply

• Wiki format: [[CE:]], [[CGE:]], [[CGEncik:]] or [[Montenegrowiki:]]
• Interwiki link: http://wikii.itam.ws/index.php/1ドル
• Reason: The Crnogorska Enciklopedija (Montenegrin Encyclopedia) is a well-developed wiki that deserves its own interwiki link with Wikimedia. It has ~1,300 articles, of which ~1000 are fully developed. The wiki has about 75 users with eight sysops and four bureaucrats. --Montenegro 23:12, 25 January 2008 (UTC) Reply

This one is not completely clear cut to me yet. 3473 total pages, 1259 articles 25.43 pages/editor, 2.58 edits per page 76 users, 8 admins, including 4 bureaucrats and one checkuser... fairly healthy, could be a bit bigger... but very respectable. Inclined to add it but would welcome additional views. ++Lar: t/c 03:49, 30 January 2008 (UTC) Reply

any other views? ++Lar: t/c 10:02, 27 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

Where are you planning on using these links? Nakon 19:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

• Wiki format: ratwiki:
• Interwiki link: http://www.rationalwiki.com/wiki/1ドル
• Reason: RationalWiki is one of the largest skeptic/evolutionist Wikis. It has 9,973 pages and 1,950 "articles", the wiki is currently growing by more than 500 edits a day. Some of their better articles are Non-materialist neuroscience and Evidence against a recent creation. Dechtlen 20:43, 2 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

Yeah, but its Main Page isn't even protected from editing by unregistered users! Silliness! Other than that I cannot see why not. --Svip 23:38, 3 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

Rather not link. The site is just like Conservapedia, but on the opposite end of the political spectrum. Since NPOV is a key foundation issue, I don't think linking to a non NPOV site would be a good idea. Mønobi 03:08, 16 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

Given the above comments I think this one is questionable? --Herby ^{talk thyme} 16:58, 23 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

I'm not sure that NPOV is a requirement for linking to a wiki. I can name many current links that do not have an NPOV policy. In fact I'm not sure it's appropriate to make value judgements on content as long as it's not clearly hate speech or the like. What matters is whether it's likely that other wikis (WMF wikis AND others) would want to link to this one. 2M page views, 2000 articles, and 1000 users suggest this is big enough. I'd be inclined to link this. (I would be inclined to link conservopedia as well even though I abhor most of the views professed there) I will not do so, pending more comments though. ++Lar: t/c 09:58, 27 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

NPOV is not a requirement and I see interwiki links up there are much less likely to be linked to than RW (eg. uncyclopedia). Icewedge 03:52, 18 March 2008 (UTC) Reply

Please add sil: as an alias for the current ISO639-3: (http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=1ドル). [sil:] is a lot easier than [ISO639-3]. Thanks, SPQRobin 22:15, 8 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

This not being a wiki, exactly, how much is the current prefix used? It seems a reasonable request... more input from others? ++Lar: t/c 10:05, 27 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

We on incubator: (and also at Meta) use it a lot and a prefix is much easier than always copy the url or use the currect usless prefix. SPQRobin 19:32, 29 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

One solution is to put the code [[ISO639-3:nld|ISO639-3:]](or whatever) in your customised edittool. Hillgentleman 02:00, 13 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

• Wiki format: [[ChinaTravelGuide:]]
• Interwiki link: www.chinatravelguide.com/ctgwiki/1ドル
• Reason: ChinaTravelGuide is a wiki featuring China travel guides, reviews, and opinions from real travelers. It covers guides and reviews of hotels, restaurants, and attractions in China, as well as China-related travel news, deals, tips, etc. The site is traveler-powered and the contents on this website are contributed collaboratively by real travelers. There are many articles and edits on the site. A Chinese version of the site is also in the works. The site is commercial-free.

Just as an observation, as far as I can see this site only started 17 Nov 2007? --AndrewCates 09:56, 21 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

The site was actually started in July 2006. ChinaTravelGuide:About JayFang 19:20, 21 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

So it is just the wiki part which is newer? I was looking at the first edits on the main page etc? Was it just a forum before that? --AndrewCates 20:21, 21 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

Andrew, thanks a lot for your time looking into this. No, actually it's just the opposite. The forum was very new (I believe it was started in early Jan. this year). We spent a lot more time than we expected to integrate forum into wiki (mainly dev work to sync user logon/off). The wiki was there a lot earlier. We did republish/reload dbs and the site several times along the way though. JayFang 22:19, 21 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

Well, for what its worth it looks like a pretty good bone fide site to me, if slightly low on contributers. Other views? --AndrewCates 12:47, 22 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

• Statistics[6]: 74,322 page views, 4,341 page edits, 2.10 average edits per page, and 17.12 views per edit,90 registered users, 4 sysops, recentchanges show activity; most viewed pages: 2008 China Snowstorm, Chinese cuisine, Xi'an.
• Cross-wiki linksearch: [7] gives five results, including 2008 Chinese winter storms, Chinese cuisine, Xi'an . Hillgentleman 17:08, 27 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

I was wondering if folks here have a concensus about my application for the link. I guess I must admit that I'm not very familiar about the criteria, rules, stats here. So any input and further review of our site will be greatly appreciated. I truly believe admins here are extremely knowledgeable and have huge respect from the community (I'm one of them), so I will definitely have no problem to accept whatever the decision is here. And regardless, we will continue to work with the travelers' community on ChinaTravelGuide.com to make the site more useful. Thanks for your time. JayFang 19:05, 11 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

JayFang, I think it is useful but I am still hoping to see more comments. Hillgentleman 02:03, 13 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

The site appears to have grown substantially in 2 months. I am going to add it if nobody objects. Hillgentleman 02:09, 13 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

Add it, I'd say. ++Lar: t/c 04:08, 15 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

Done Nakon 18:45, 16 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

• Wiki format: [[exotica:]]
• Interwiki link: http://www.exotica.org.uk/wiki/1ドル
• Statistics: statistics page
• Cross-wiki Link search: [8]
• Reasons: ExoticA is a new wiki version of an old site (dating back to 1997), which originally concentrated on audio/music tracking from Amiga computer games and demos but now carries a variety of information and files. Includes downloadable game music, demo scene information for Amiga and Commodore 64, game box scans, disk magazines and other stuff. A variety of pages link to our site although some still need to be updated to point to the new page locations. Low membership (~100) currently, but we have only been live for a little over a month. Exobuzz 15:45, 2 March 2008 (UTC) Reply
  • 67 (39 on en) links on 20 wikis. Added  Added — Vasil ievVV ^Adm 16:15, 2 March 2008 (UTC) Reply

• Wiki format: [[Luxo:]]
• Interwiki link: http://tools.wikimedia.de/~luxo/contributions/contributions.php?user=1ドル
• Statistics: [none]
• Cross-wiki Link search: [none]
• Reasons: It will be easier to sue on Edit summaries since its a bit too long wneh blocking users for cross-wiki vandalism..e.g >> [[Luxo:66.41.109.159|Cross-wiki spamming]] which when clicked whill show all the edits by that IP and the will make it easily linkable on any wiki since Luxo's tool is the only tool that shows cross-wiki edits for every Ip/username and it will be easier compared to the broken link here since Edit summaries disregard wiki formats. I chose Luxo because its most commonly known by that name and I'm sure the Inventor Luxo wouldn't mind :D ..--Comet styles 23:07, 18 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

added thanks. Cary Bass ^demandez 23:14, 18 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

Wait. The proposed shortcut sounds like as if this is the only tool luxo has made or is going to make, now and ever. I suggest that we use a more descriptive name, such as cross-wiki contribution, or some short form of that. Hillgentleman 23:44, 18 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

Its most commonly known as Luxo's tool but it might be hard to remember [[Crosswikicontributions:IP]] for some ppl etc, I'll ask Luxo if he doesn't mind us using his name when he comes on IRC, and if he does, we might change the name..if needed...--Comet styles 00:01, 19 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

[[Crossluxo:]] :P Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 06:18, 20 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

Actually I already talked to Luxo about this on IRC 3 days ago and he was actually quite pleased with it, here is a bit of the logs

<Warpath> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Interwiki_map#http:.2F.2Ftools.wikimedia.de.2F.7Eluxo.2Fcontributions.2Fcontributions.php
<Luxo> o_O great! thank you!
<Warpath> so you don't mind? :D
<Warpath> it was the easiest name to remember :D
<Luxo> no, thanks a lot :) 

This was on April 19th , my time..I should have mentioned it earlier here, sorry..--Comet styles 12:01, 23 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

• Wiki format: [[mario:]] or [[mariowiki:]] or something along those lines
• Interwiki link: http://www.mariowiki.com/1ドル
• Statistics: [9]
• Cross-wiki Link search: [10]
• Reasons: An amazingly well organized independent wiki all about Mario and other related video game topics. I just came across this website tonight and am extremely impressed. The site seems to have been around since mid 2005, has lots of well formatted content, a very active user base, and the site is GFDL. -- Ned Scott 10:18, 23 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

Done - looks very impressive so I have added it as [[mariowiki:]]..--Comet styles 10:31, 23 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

WAIT. There is no reason to rush. Please give time for others to comment. Hillgentleman 11:39, 23 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

Bastique, Hello. I presume that you added these two [11] to the interwiki map as a foundation officer. Since OTRS-wiki is not useful for most people, it fails an important criterion for inclusion, and it has been rejected previously. And we have provided alternative solutions to the people who requested it. Would you please provide justification for the addition? - Hillgentleman 11:46, 23 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

---

Please provide me a link to the "alternative solutions" of which you speak. I'm not certain why "useful to most people" is a criterion, as the interwiki link will, in all likelihood, be used on some private Wikimedia wikis. I believe that useful to any substantial number of people is a worthwhile criterion; which it certainly will be. It will certainly be useful to the people who see and/or use it. Bastique ^demandez 18:03, 23 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

Discussion here (Talk:Interwiki_map/Archives/2008-04#OTRS_Wiki ) may be helpful to review. Not sure about alternatives. If WMF official policy is to have this, that's fine, but please document the request on the talk page so it can be archived (including that you just went ahead and did it despite previous rejection because you feel there's a compelling reason) for tracking. Thanks. (I do wonder what is wrong with the long form link, or with using a template, if the link won't be useful in most places.... en:wp seems to get along fine with templates near as I can tell..) ++Lar: t/c 22:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

Eh, sub-issue of this: I can't seem to make the link work. OTRSwiki:User:EVula shouldn't be coming up a red-link... EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:44, 23 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

The interwiki map hasn't been updated with the database for quite sometime, there are a couple of bugs for it... but the devs. ;-) Cbrown1023 talk 23:50, 23 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

Bastique, The previous proposal was rejected because, in brief, the proposer could cite no more reason beyond personal convenience. After we have read his proposal, we told the proposer that a simpler solution is to use the class=plainlinks, and that we would be happy to construct a very simple template for his use. However, he did not get back to us. Hillgentleman 01:17, 24 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

There's at least one thing that doesn't work for that... templates don't work cross-wiki. Cbrown1023 talk 02:01, 24 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

Right, you'd need to make the template on the wiki you wanted to use it. This discussion should be happening on the Talk:Interwiki_map page, so that it is documented and that we don't have to have it over and over again, rather than here on someone's user page. Even if the user has, by fiat, as is Bastique's power, decided to do something that consensus was not to do, it still should be recorded there... ++Lar: t/c 13:14, 24 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

As far as I can see, the discussion didn't contain a substantial enough amount of people to constitute a consensus. But I don't have time to debate the merits or failures of it with you. It's certainly worth inclusion to no small number of people (over 200 active users of OTRS). It will certainly be used and save a lot of people a lot of time. But do as you will. Bastique ^demandez 16:39, 24 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

My major concern is that we document the additions so that we can see why things are done. It's rather typical that the discussions get only a small number of participants, so the evaluation tends to be on "does this make sense". The first time this was added it was done without any prior discussion at all. That tends to rub some of us the wrong way. Really, if something is at all useful, proposing it here is not that big a deal, the people that do participate here aren't ogres. At this point, since it's been brought here and documented, that seems sufficient to me. That I personally don't agree with the argument for it is less relevant, really. ++Lar: t/c 19:19, 24 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

Also, the otrswiki: prefix will be just as useful to the same number of people as the otrs: prefix (which has turned out to be quite useful) over the Wikimedia sites. Bastique ^demandez 16:51, 24 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

I previously supported the proposal and I strongly support this move - standardisation and simplicity across projects are essential for the rare cases where an OTRS volunteer needs to do something on a foreign language project but where they are unable to find the correct template, or indeed, where their browser or client won't support the necessary encoding to use a template. A local template would make something nice and pretty, but this interwiki link would make something functional, which I would say is much more important. Nick 17:28, 24 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

I'm just not seeing how it's at all likely that the OTRSWiki link will be useful on a lot of wikis. The OTRS link leads to a ticket. That's a fairly common thing to want to lead to. But leading to an internal discussion wiki? not seeing it. But no matter. If people say it's useful, that's fine, let it stand. ++Lar: t/c 19:19, 24 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

It could come in handy to link to suitable notes on a particular ticket, when referencing the relevant ticket, indeed, if it was easier to link to, there's more chance this would happen. I can certainly foresee at set of circumstances where it would be desirable to have a link to some detailed notes on the OTRSwiki, together with a link to the actual ticket, or set of tickets. Nick 21:58, 24 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

Nick, even in that rare (by your own estimate) chance that you end up in an obscure wiki needing that external/internal link, that link is only useful to another OTRS-worker, and so we have a dichotomy: either 1. if there is no one with OTRS access on that particular langauge project, the link would be as good as useless; or 2. there is somebody with OTRS access there, and then that person could easily have imported the link-template <span class="plainlinks">http://otrs-wiki.wikimedia.org/wiki/{{{1|}}} </span> for her own use. Still, in the future, you point may become valid, but from the evidence of a cross-wiki link search (see below), its use is very limited. The wiki has yet to prove itself useful enough to be included. Hillgentleman 00:53, 25 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

• Note also that external links can be superior to internal-type links, as they can be located conveniently with special:linksearch. Hillgentleman 01:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

• That can also be a disadvantage, allowing users to find all the links to OTRS-wiki on a project is potentially problematic, we try to be discreet in dealing with problems, but allowing links to OTRS-wiki to be found through a normal linksearch could, just could lead to someone harassing OTRS volunteers by following them around, weighing into debates that don't concern them, or indeed, making educated guesses about the nature of the ticket and content on OTRS-wiki just from where each link is on the project. Nick 13:56, 28 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

• It appears to me a far-fetched fear. If I want to follow otrs volunteers around, I would use the page OTRS instead. Since nobody but otrs volunteers can actually open the linked pages, it convey far less information than OTRS and user contributions. Hillgentleman 01:09, 29 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

• I think we need a developer's opinion on whether otrs wiki merits inclusion, for whatever burden or instability we would put on the system if we allow such sites. It is nearly certain that every proposed interwiki link would be used and would also be strongly supported by whoever is going to it. This doesn't make the otrs-wiki more useful than other sites which have been rejected. I would be surprised if anybody who is experienced and trusted enough to become an otrs volunteer would find it difficult to type the extra few characters for an external link or constructing the new templates if that ever happens. And if you really want, I would volunteer the service of my bot to do that job for you - with my unified account. In the end, if the developers are happy and it would make a lot of people who find it very useful happy, I wouldn't want to spoil their fun.
• P.S. Cross-wiki Link search gives, over 50 sites: [12] gives: en:1, de:6, fr:3, it:2, ru:1, ko:2. The majority are in the user: namespace, a few in the project: namespace but most tellingly none in any of the talk: namespaces. - so may we presume that most people want it simply to link to their own otrs userpages (and perhaps a few userful resources)? If that is the case, why would the user need this link beyond a few "home" wikis? All in all, I cannot see it as very useful. --Hillgentleman 20:31, 24 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

  This link search does not include various private wikis that would be able to use the cross-wiki link; for instance arbcom-wiki, board, internal, office--to name a few. The participants of those projects generally have access to the OTRS wiki as well. Cary Bass ^demandez 19:00, 25 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

  If the prefix O: was being asked for, I'd not be keen on that, but this prefix is not likely to pollute the namespace, and a case has been made for its usefulness so I've come around to not seeing the harm and favour its retention. ++Lar: t/c 01:33, 26 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

  Bastique, In that case can you provide some numbers from these private wikis? Hillgentleman 23:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

  er.... isn't that a little overkill? Cbrown1023 talk 00:17, 29 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

  Er... no. If it is useful, prove it. Hillgentleman 00:23, 29 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

As far as I'm aware, there's no significant additional load beyond that if the link were a simple external link instead. From my (admittedly shallow) understanding, pagelinks, external links, etc... are simply sorted into the appropriate tables and linked to the page table in the database, Potentially, using a interwiki-map link instead of a external link would save a few bytes of traffic by shortening the amount of data sent, though this one comment certainly outweighs the entire lifetime of the otrs: link's savings. :) ~Kylu (u|t) 02:12, 26 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

I'm actually in favour of adding this interwiki just like I'm in favour of the [[OTRS:]] interwiki being used and actually the same amount of people will use both links, so I don't see why it is a problem, if we allow [[OTRS:]], then why not [[OTRSwiki:]] ?...--Comet styles 00:46, 29 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

We are discussing otrs-wiki, not otrs:. The otrs-wiki has not proved itself useful to the pan-wikimedia community. Hillgentleman 01:00, 29 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

We have had several people now saying that they would find it useful, and giving an example of why. Since these people are among our hardest working volunteers, I'm now inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, even if the link is not likely to be useful to the pan-wikimedia community. Essentially the same set of people that can usefully follow an "otrs:" link can also follow "otrswiki:"... those that can't follow one cannot follow the other either, for the most part, so the arguments for having OTRS apply to both, I think. As I said, I've come around to this thinking, sorry it took me a while :) We're now arguing this point far more than we should, I think. ++Lar: t/c 18:00, 29 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

I am happy also to give them the benefit of doubt, but they could more easily and more efficiently have dispelled the doubt by being a little more specific. Now I am not asking them to tell us secrets, but simply some numbers. Hillgentleman 00:17, 30 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

Lar, One may argue that, in the same way as public servants and lawmakers should the the first ones to (try their best to) follow the law, except in exceptional circumstances, so should the otrs volunteers, as foundation servants, try their best to follow the rules set up for everyone. We had better be explicit whether this one fulfills or fails the usual criteria for inclusion, and whether this is an exceptional case. All I have seen so far are people claiming that it is useful without proof. For hard working and experienced wikimedians, this should pose little difficulty. Hillgentleman 10:04, 1 May 2008 (UTC) Reply

I've provided numerous and compelling statements above. It seems to me to be you who is assuming bad faith on my part. Cary Bass ^demandez 23:12, 1 May 2008 (UTC) Reply

Bastique, You are way over the top and even illogical in accusing me of assuming bad faith. I have no interest in an opinion on your own self. I am simply asking for experienced wikimedians to give simple justifications: existence of current links to justify the inclusion to the map. Not some people giving vague pledge that it is a useful thing. I mean real actual existing links to the site. Hillgentleman 23:34, 1 May 2008 (UTC) Reply

I believe you are assuming bad faith as well. Can you just give it a rest like a few other "experienced wikimedians" noted you should (whether indirectly or directly)? Cbrown1023 talk 23:36, 1 May 2008 (UTC) Reply

Oh, Please. I am not even opposing the inclusion of otrs-wiki into the interwiki map, provided that we make it clear it is an exceptional case, for it is not clearly useful. All I have pointed out is the simple fact, that the otrs-wiki has not been demonstrated to be useful enough to be included in usual circumstancees. All I have asked is a little evidence, a little number. Is that assuming bad faith? Hillgentleman 21:31, 3 May 2008 (UTC) Reply

I have no idea why some people opposes to add our own OTRS into our own interwikimap. While it can be and is used by the external, we use and manage the list primarily for our own use? And OTRS has volunteers members who are active on several - many wikis - over 20 or more, regarding the number of its info-xx (by lang) queues. Internal link with a four-letter head benefits those volunteers, including myself, who may be 100 people or more over and may reduce our workload. Why WMF shouldn't use its resources and facilities to benefit its own staff both volunteering and paid? The objection sounds me too rigoristic, unpractical and missing the reality how the project is managed. --Aphaia 23:20, 1 May 2008 (UTC) Reply

Aphaia, Vague pledges by some who claim that it may be useful "in rare circumstances" (in Nick's words) is not helpful. If you are only occasionally linking the site, the site does not belong to the interwiki-map. It is as simple as that. There are very few links from the top 50 wikipedias to it. And Bastique claimed that there are links from private wikis but he failed to provide numbers. The interwiki links is a mediawiki feature, with a particular purpose. The otrs-wiki is not useful even to the majority of wikimedians. If the otrs-wiki is an exception that should be included, so be it, but please make it clear that it is the case. Hillgentleman 23:34, 1 May 2008 (UTC) Reply

• Folks, I have no more time to debate the merits and failures of it with you. Do as you will. Hillgentleman 22:32, 3 May 2008 (UTC) Reply

Note for archival purposes. I added | Wm2009 || http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/1ドル per convention/history. Cbrown1023 talk 23:00, 12 May 2008 (UTC) Reply

Wait, why is this under proposed removals? Majorly (talk ) 23:11, 12 May 2008 (UTC) Reply

• stabs self* fixed. Cbrown1023 talk 23:41, 12 May 2008 (UTC) Reply

• Wiki format: stupi: or stupidedia:
• Interwiki link: http://www.stupidedia.org/stupi/1ドル
• Statistics: [13]
• Cross-wiki Link search: [14]
• Reasons: It's a free nonsense and satire wiki. Baxxter @ de.WP --88.64.218.33 10:40, 14 May 2008 (UTC) Reply

What use will this link have on Wikimedia wikis? Nakon 15:48, 14 May 2008 (UTC) Reply

I am only going to start the list in case everyone thinks I am wrong and wasting my time. The following are a selection of sites which avoid nofollow via interwiki links but do not seem to have any greater merit than many other links say at en:User:BozMo/whitelist. They mainly have wikis but no special merit and are often linked to commercial sites, including online open edit wiki manuals. They shouldn't have many links, most don't qualify as reliable sources. I personally would delete them. Views? --AndrewCates 21:11, 12 February 2007 (UTC) Reply

AboutCCC <- was removed by .anaconda(++Lar: t/c 03:54, 11 August 2007 (UTC))
Airwarfare
ALife
arXiv (no wiki AFAICT)
BattlestarWiki 
BenefitsWiki
BlackTexts (commercial consultancy)
Boxrec (moribund) 
BytesmithsReply 

You risk breaking a bunch of links on a wiki using this software, what is the advantage of removal? Eagle 101 14:51, 13 February 2007 (UTC) Reply

Sorry for late reply (been unexpectedly in hospital). I guess its an issue of principle/justice: which links should have interwiki links, as opposed to templates on the wikis which use them? Some wikis (like Centiare) are blatant SEO spam, some are softer but the vast majority are no better than discussion forums in terms of WP:EL and I don't see why a commercial consultancy should bypass "nofollow" just by having a wiki on their website, when legit academic sites which we lean on heavily don't? We may break some links but I don't think many will be good links. --AndrewCates 08:39, 21 February 2007 (UTC) Reply

I agree with AndrewCates on this, especially with regard to the latest brouhaha over Wikia. We should re-rationalize this entire list and policy. For example, why do we have interwiki links for CNDB which describes itself as "the most comprehensive reference for celebrity nudity on the Internet. This site has reviews of over 12,000 nude scenes - updated daily. All reviews of nude scenes are written by celeb skin devotees just like you." This list has gone awry. -- fuzheado 08:13, 30 April 2007 (UTC) Reply

I would say that even considering the issue is detrimental to the projects.

Our responsibility as a top-10 website is to the readers. Not to a third party (SEO spammers) trying to score points with a fourth party (Google).

People whose interest in Wikipedia is page rank are in no way, shape or form our constituency. Because their interest is, fundamentally, spamming.

The interwiki map is for the convenience of the projects. Not for the SEO spammers. I suggest that altering anything about the project for the benefit of spammers, even noisy ones, is ill-considered - David Gerard 13:59, 30 April 2007 (UTC) Reply

Actually - what would be a good reason to remove the interwikis - if they're not being used on the projects and there aren't http:// links to them on the projects either. It's most annoying we don't have all-of-Wikimedia "what links here" - David Gerard 19:43, 30 April 2007 (UTC) Reply

First off, for the curious, links to the brouhaha: [15] and [16]

Further, I propose to adapt the practice (if not the policy) for this list to the disadvantage of spammers. People should probably be more aware that

• being in the interwiki map is a valuable asset, something people would pay for.
• being in the interwiki map de-factor expresses some type of endorsement: interwiki-links are not highlighted with an extra icon, like "normal" external links are, and they are less likely to be double-checked by editors.
• an interwiki-prefix bypasses the policies on external links

So I propose to be more restrictive in who gets on, and more transparent about the process and policy. Maybe this should be made a per-wiki process - going-ons on meta are pretty obscure to people (even admins) in many projects.

Another idea would be to distinguish between "internal" (wmf projects) and "external" interwiki-links. The iw_local flag already exists, it could be (ab)used for this. "external" interwiki-links could be treated just like "normal" external links - shown the same way, and flagged with nofollow.

Oh, and if links to Wikia should be flagged with nofollow or not... I really don't care. But we should just be aware that being in added to wikipedia's interwiki-map is a massive reward given by the community to the website in question, if we like it or not. Interwiki-prefixes used to be just a convenience. Due to wikipedia's popularity (and thus google rank), it's much more now. -- Duesentrieb 19:46, 30 April 2007 (UTC) Reply

Plus points to any site that's free content - David Gerard 22:00, 30 April 2007 (UTC) Reply

I agree with a tighter and more transparent process. I confess that I myself have basically just used my own judgement about which sites to list, evaluating the arguments and making the edits, without any formal process. So what should be done? ++Lar: t/c 23:06, 1 May 2007 (UTC) Reply

Continuing discussion in a new section, below: #Inclusion criteria clarification? - David Gerard 11:33, 2 May 2007 (UTC) Reply

Note: someone needs to sort out which of the above proposed removals should be done, should not be done, was done, wasn't done, etc.!!!! ++Lar: t/c 00:44, 20 September 2007 (UTC) Reply

This prefix is redundant to s:he:1ドル. I have no idea why it was added. It is the only prefix to a non-English Wikimedia wiki. --Meno25 01:56, 13 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

The site http://www.blacktexts.com/ is not available anymore. --Pabouk 09:31, 21 March 2008 (UTC) Reply

Done, removed from the map. Nakon 19:57, 16 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

Please remove Uncyclopedia from the list, there is no reason that any pages will link to that website as it provides only misinformation. It is now hosted under Wikia, so the the Wikia interwiki can be easily used instead. The only page that uses the Uncyclopedia interwiki is the Uncyclopedia article itself.--Otterathome 16:19, 26 March 2008 (UTC) Reply

Sorry but Uncyclopedia is one of the biggest wikis and cross-wikiing it through wikia is possible too but since its not on the wikia domain, I believe it deserves it own interwiki, so not done..--Comet styles 10:37, 23 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

Ursine: and JargonFile: are unfortunately down. --217.184.142.51 11:52, 27 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

Removed. Nakon 21:11, 27 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

Thanks. --217.184.142.4 14:07, 5 May 2008 (UTC) (a former ...@ursine.ca jabber user)Reply

I plan on removing the following dead links from the map in the upcoming week. These sites are dead in the fact that they either a) do not resolve or b) return a domain parking page.

Additional discussion is requested for the following dead but alive links where the site is alive but the actual location is nonexistent (404'd) or has moved. Please note that the 1ドル variable was taken into account when testing the link.

Thanks, Nakon 22:00, 27 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

The links in the first batch have been removed. Nakon 02:29, 6 May 2008 (UTC) Reply

GuildWiki is now part of Wikia. 217.236.82.246 19:09, 21 May 2008 (UTC) Reply

The current [[oldwikisource:]] does not allow "classical" interwiki linking (a link in "In other languages" section in sidebar). So either allow it or - if it could cause problems - create new, eg. [[wikisources:]] or [[multiwikisource:]] which would have the intended behavior. (and move this request to proper section above then)
— Danny B. 15:52, 29 October 2007 (UTC) Reply

Could you clarify what is meant by "either allow it"? Is that a change here to some map entry? if so, what change? If not, maybe this is a bugzilla issue? I have no prob adding the new prefixes, but what would they map to? Sorry for not being clear on what is asked for by you, any clarification appreciated. ++Lar: t/c 15:23, 8 November 2007 (UTC) Reply

Isn't the "oldwikisource" site, more or less, dead? My understanding was that it was originally one multi-language site, and then split into different languages (en.ws, de.ws, etc). Adding interwikis to it seems to run contrary to this, though I will admit that I could be mistaken. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:14, 8 November 2007 (UTC) Reply

@ Lar 15:23, 8 November 2007 (UTC): currently [[oldwikisource:foo]] does not add an item in "In other languages" section in sidebar, but behaves like classical inline link inside text. If I'm not mistaken, this is caused by some flag in interwiki map which sets if ([[foo:bar]] will behave like item in sidebar section and [[:foo:bar]] will be used for inline links) OR ([[foo:bar]] will be used for inline links).
@ EVula 21:14, 8 November 2007 (UTC): It's still being used by "small" languages.
@ both: The deal is, that currently is impossible to add in pages classical interwiki to appropriate pages on multilingual Wikisource.
— Danny B. 13:37, 9 November 2007 (UTC) Reply

Danny B. as you may not have realised I'm actually not very savvy about this stuff despite being one of the folks that does a fair number of updates. What specific change are you proposing? Right now, the page has:

OldWikisource http://wikisource.org/wiki/1ドル

... what do you want it to say instead? What prefix or prefixes, and what link or links? If something else than a change to links is being asked for, as I said, it may be a thing to raise as a bug instead of a prefix/link change. Thanks, and sincere apologies for not getting what you are driving at! ++Lar: t/c 16:56, 15 November 2007 (UTC) Reply

I pinged Danny B. about this on his talk, if we don't get closure on this within a few more weeks I suggest we close this as not done. ++Lar: t/c 18:02, 28 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

Not done issues not resolved. ++Lar: t/c 04:10, 15 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

MediaWiki puts a classical "in other languages" interwiki if the prefix is a valid language code — Vasil ievVV 05:40, 29 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

A bit of research on various of the dead links gives these suggestions:

TimR 19:18, 3 May 2008 (UTC) Reply

Some entries (I note urbandict:, google:, and googlegroups:, but there are probably many more) need the argument 1ドル to be URL-encoded before being used, as otherwise they convert spaces to underscores instead of to plus signs or %22s. Can this be done?—msh210 SM 22:42, 15 January 2008 (UTC) Reply

That seems a developer question. You maybe should search bugzilla and see if this has been requested or not, and if not, maybe open a new bug. However not only MW wikis use this I think. Not sure what that means to them. I don't think we can, from any changing of the table, change the urlencoding behaviour of wikis that use this table. But I could be wrong. ++Lar: t/c 22:34, 16 January 2008 (UTC) Reply

Moinmaster...

It should be noted at the top of the Interwiki map page that there are a number of other prefixes that can be used. For instance, w: goes to Wikipedia. The reason they must be kept separate is because of language mapping. w: on fr.wiktionary.org will take you to fr.wikipedia.org, on the German Wiktionary it will take you to to the German Wikipedia etc.

As far as I know (mid-2006), there is no way for a page editor to discover these important interwiki links. The admin can check the database table, of course, but that's hardly usable. An extension exists but it needs a little more attention before it can be integrated into Mediawiki.

There's been considerable discussion of this on wikien-l just recently. (Not because wikien-l is the list for Meta, but because en:wp has stupidly high Google page rank. So third party SEO spammers want us to give them points with fourth party Google, and never mind us, our editors or our readers ...)

Jonathan Stokes came up with a good first draft of suggested criteria, which I slightly reworded as follows:

The InterWiki Map exists to allow a more efficient syntax for linking between wikis, and thus promote the cooperation and proliferation of wikis and free content. Sites considered for inclusion should probably (1) provide clear and relevant usefulness to the Wikimedia projects (2) be trusted not to encourage spam links being added to the Wikimedia projects (3) be free content (under a Commons-acceptable license) (4) be a wiki (5) be reasonably developed.

Sites included in the InterWiki Map are considered by the Wikimedia community to be trusted not to encourage spam links being added to Wikimedia projects, and thus "nofollow" is removed from InterWiki links.

Requests for removal should be submitted on the talk page and will be decided on by a Meta admin.

Note that I made the deletion procedure the absolute simplest possible: trust Meta admins' judgement.

Are these clear? Are they sensible? Do they reflect the Meta admins' conception of the job here? - David Gerard 11:33, 2 May 2007 (UTC) Reply

This is most sensible. Sj 19:45, 2 May 2007 (UTC) Reply

I support the general thrust of this, and the principles outlined seem spot on. However, did you cut his para about the consensus process? This page can have somewhat sporadic traffic, so just not having any opposition for some fixed period may not necessarily be sufficient. Perhaps just trusting judgement is sufficient. But it has been said that removal is a process that can introduce issues for wikis that used links with removed prefixes, so perhaps something more is required. I don't know for sure. ++Lar: t/c 12:28, 2 May 2007 (UTC) Reply

Yeah, I left that out to avoid a comparison to any articles-for-deletion page. The trick is that I don't know how to tell where interwiki links are being used across the various projects. I'll ask on wikitech-l - David Gerard 12:46, 2 May 2007 (UTC) Reply

Spam and link syntax shouldn't have anything to do with each other. If you want a nofollow whitelist, make a nofollow whitelist. It should be possible to link to untrusted sites using interwiki link syntax, and it shouldn't be necessary to replace all external links to a site with interwiki links in order to obtain the pagerank benefits.

For instance, any free hosting site with an advertising affiliate system will have a spam problem. Such a site may well be a wiki, they may well have a great deal of useful free content, and so we might want to support interwiki link syntax. But they may have some users who abuse the service, creating throwaway accounts and spamming Wikipedia. Nofollow would be an acceptable response to that.

On the other side of the coin, URL-style links to Wikimedia websites should clearly not have rel=nofollow. URL syntax is much more versatile than interwiki link syntax, so there are many cases where interwiki linking within the Wikimedia group of websites is not appropriate.

By linking the two essentially unrelated properties, you create pressure on meta admins to add more interwiki prefixes. Adding interwiki prefixes damages the stability of the site by making conflicting titles unreachable. The ability to create pages that start with the same prefix is lost, which may cause problems in the future for the many diverse wikis that use the interwiki map. I routinely remove potentially conflicting new prefixes from the interwiki map before I run the update script, and I don't want to be coming under fire from commercial sites trying to make a living from Wikimedia's pagerank when I do so.

-- Tim Starling 13:11, 2 May 2007 (UTC) Reply

OK, what would you accept in a patch to implement this in a manner not to make this a pain in the backside for the devs?

(And, of course, something to check if an interwiki prefix is in use would still be useful as a separate issue.) - David Gerard 13:14, 2 May 2007 (UTC) Reply

Tim, would you be willing to make available somewhere the list of conflciting new prefixes that you removed so we can know not to use them again (some prefixes may be suggested for more than one wiki...)? ++Lar: t/c 13:37, 2 May 2007 (UTC) Reply

Before devolving again into the "nofollow/patch" debate, the immediate issue here is that this page contains no clear criteria for inclusion in the InterWiki Map. This confusion allows for the much publicized conspiracy theory that Wikia receives preferential treatment from Wikipedia. Simply providing a one paragraph explanation (like David's above) at the top of this page would dispell these much-hyped internet rumors, as it would become clear why Wikia and other sites are included on this list. Jonathan Stokes 17:21, 2 May 2007 (UTC) Reply

Well, we could ignore the nofollow paragraph as that really is a separate issue. As is finding out if interwiki prefixes are actually being used ('cos we don't know now). So the only remaining question that changes anything right now is how Tim rejects prefixes - David Gerard 08:09, 3 May 2007 (UTC) Reply

[17] Well, that's one. - David Gerard 10:25, 3 May 2007 (UTC) Reply

A new suggested wording:

The InterWiki Map exists to allow a more efficient syntax for linking between wikis, and thus promote the cooperation and proliferation of wikis and free content. Sites considered for inclusion should probably (1) provide clear and relevant usefulness to the Wikimedia projects (2) be trusted not to encourage spam links being added to the Wikimedia projects (3) be free content (under a Commons-acceptable license) (4) be a wiki (5) have reasonable amounts of content.

Requests for removal should be submitted on the talk page and will be decided on by a Meta admin.

This leaves out nofollow, which is indeed a separate problem. It doesn't address how to know if interwiki prefixes are actually in use, but that's no change. And looking at the history, the devs will change or remove any conflicting interwiki as needed, so no change there either.

Is the above suitable for the content page? Is it actually more or less how things are understood to be now?

The special mention of Wikia on the content page probably doesn't help confusion ... - David Gerard 10:09, 3 May 2007 (UTC) Reply

Thumbs up. I think these 5 criteria are enough to satisfy the Wikia conspiracy theorists, dispell allegations of favoritism, and provide a reference point for folks that don't understand why sites are/aren't included. Looks good. Jonathan Stokes 19:31, 3 May 2007 (UTC) Reply

I don't like point 4. Why should it be a wiki?

I have seen on the list Mediawiki install which are far from being good and seem like a install to have a wikipedia, see for example [18] 2/3 of its pages are years or days (ie. templates). 6 registered users. Moreover, a mediawiki doesn't mean it's freely editable.

On the other hand there're sites like digg which are not wikis but really user powered.

IMHO, the concept should be broader, like straightforward to be user contributed (like a wiki).

Platonides 11:12, 4 May 2007 (UTC) Reply

Platonides, I agree. But note this is worded as guidelines, not rules. It says, "Sites considered for inclusion should probably (1) provide clear and relevant usefulness to the Wikimedia projects (2) be trusted not to encourage spam links being added to the Wikimedia projects (3) be free content (under a Commons-acceptable license) (4) be a wiki (5) have reasonable amounts of content." Jonathan Stokes 16:16, 4 May 2007 (UTC) Reply

There probably should be a clear and compelling reason to include a non wiki (that is, make the bar somewhat but not insurmountably higher). Certainly many of the nonwiki sites on there now make a great deal of sense to have on there. And some do not. ++Lar: t/c 19:26, 4 May 2007 (UTC) Reply

While I agree with the motivation behind this move and fully support expanding 'follow' to good sites, I also strongly favor Tim's view that the interwiki map should be limited to wikis and a few highly-used free content sites because of the need to think of and create more and more interwiki prefixes. The interwiki map was also never intended to be a follow whitelist. It would be far better in my view, to simply have a 'follow' whitelist and to develop clear guidelines on listing sites there. A few suggested guidelines:

1. Automatically include all .gov, .mil and .edu sites (perhaps other restricted TLDs)
2. High content to ads/crap/list
3. If ads present, then they must be small tasteful and unobtrusive
4. Authoritative; Does the author have special training or experience in his/her field? Is the content vetted somehow? Has the site won awards for content?
5. If login required to view full content, then at least provide useful summaries and full selected content (thinking specifically of journal websites)

I'm not sure of what exactly to do with the current situation though ('follow' on for any interwiki link) and think we should set that aside until after we develop a policy for a 'follow' whitelist. Finally, let's remember the original purpose of interwiki links; easy linking between wikis. --Daniel Mayer 13:10, 5 May 2007 (UTC) Reply

Daniel, if there were to be a "follow" whitelist, I think you've laid out good ground rules. However, if word got out of a WP:Whitelist, I imagine there would be thousands - even tens of thousands - of requests for inclusion. As well as the ensuing haggling over who is included and not included. It could be a big kettle of fish. Jonathan Stokes 22:00, 5 May 2007 (UTC) Reply

We definitely don't want to automatically include all .edu sites. Many of these are being abused by spammers because of their high google rank. See this diff for example. Angela 02:44, 6 May 2007 (UTC) Reply

Action... Any objections to adding David's wording (above) to the header of this page? All in favor? If no one else responds for a few days, I'll go ahead and make the change. Jonathan Stokes 04:34, 11 May 2007 (UTC) Reply

Objection: I am not in favor of the expanded use that these guidelines might cause. I would very much like to see some note along the lines of: "It must be shown that the link could or would be widely used". If a website would not normally qualify under a local projects WP:EL then I think we do that wiki a disservice by adding it to the interwikimap. Also, if a link is only apropriate on a small set of articles (A game's wiki, for example) then we are losing the powerful external link tracking tools with hardly any benefit at all. J.smith 15:07, 13 May 2007 (UTC) Reply

J.Smith, a fair point. Is the wording under section (1) sufficient? For clarity, I assume we are proposing to place this wording at the top of this talk page under the heading "Proposed Additions." Jonathan Stokes 18:43, 15 May 2007 (UTC) Reply

The InterWiki Map exists to allow a more efficient syntax for linking between wikis, and thus promote the cooperation and proliferation of wikis and free content. Sites considered for inclusion should probably (1) provide clear and relevant usefulness to the Wikimedia projects (2) be trusted not to encourage spam links being added to the Wikimedia projects (3) be free content (under a Commons-acceptable license) (4) be a wiki (5) have reasonable amounts of content.

Requests for removal should be submitted on the talk page and will be decided on by a Meta admin.

Slight problem I'm noticing with the policy as currently proposed, specifically around items 3 and 4. A lot of existing interwiki links fit neither criteria -- for example, WikiHow (not creative commons I believe), Google (neither wiki nor GNU), Del.icio.us (neither wiki nor GNU), IMDB (neither wiki nor GNU). I would argue that:

A) There needs to be consistency for policy for existing links as well as new proposals. So, the policy as currently proposed should result in a number of interwiki links being removed -- and I imagine that would wreak havoc with those accustomed to using them....

B) These criteria are too restrictive -- there's a lot of very useful stuff on IMDB. Why wouldn't we have interwiki links to them, even if the site isn't free? The purpose of interwiki links is to ease the inclusion of links to material that may be relevant to our readers. Sometimes that content is GNUed but often it is not, and that should not be a barrier to smoothing its inclusion.

What do others think? Parkerconrad 04:09, 5 June 2007 (UTC) Reply

The proposed policy says "probably" rather than "must" so I would think a number of the existing links, besides being grandfathered (and thus being subject to a "pretty pressing need to remove" requirement before I would support them being removed), many of them qualify under more than 1 of the 5 even if not all 5 clauses. So I think it's OK. ++Lar: t/c 10:37, 5 June 2007 (UTC) Reply

Ah, I see -- so the five items are meant as more of five different axes or criteria along which inclusion is judged, rather than as a "you must have all five of these things to be included"? IE, if you're strong in four but lack a fifth, then that's ok? Parkerconrad 00:20, 6 June 2007 (UTC) Reply

Well that's certainly the way I see it! I can't speak for others but that's the reasonable interpretation, I think. I have a hard time imagining that we'd delete any of the examples you gave... they're all too important. ++Lar: t/c 02:25, 6 June 2007 (UTC) Reply

wikiHow licensing is Creative Commons, by-nc-sa --Versageek 02:57, 6 June 2007 (UTC) Reply

We have our own projects that don't seem to comply with this. I don't think Bugzilla qualifies as a wiki, for instance. Perhaps "is a wiki" in and of itself is a bad term and will attract rules-lawyers. How about "is a freely indexable or searchable site?" Has anyonne considered, also, the ramifications for sites not WMF-projects which use our map also? ~Kylu (u|t) 23:30, 14 September 2007 (UTC) Reply

I see that this discussion has kind of petered out... bummer. I think it's important we develop some clear guidelines on what to include and what not to include. To this end I make this recomendation: (Official WMF projects - automatic inclusion?)

• The site must...

1. ...have a wide enough focus as to make the interwiki link usefull
2. ...be respectable (as defined within the context of the subject matter)
3. ...have something worth linking to

• The site should...

1. ...be freely licensed (GNU, CC, etc)
2. ...be freely accessible
3. ...be non-profit

• The site must not...

1. ...have a history of spamming on our projects
2. ...contain content which may be illegal. (copyvio, etc)

Just my two cents... The should, to me, are negotiable and leave us the wiggleroom for worthy sites like google, IMDB, etc. J.smith 18:18, 14 October 2007 (UTC) Reply

I'm glad that you've tried to restart this, J.smith. I think your guidelines have merit. But I also think David Gerard's ones, above, in italics, are reasonable as well, especially since they include "is a wiki" (as one but not the only criteria). I'd also prefer some acknowledgement that not all sites we add fit every criteria (and that's ok!) One thing that I think is vital, which neither guideline addresses, is the process for addition here. I think it is very important that the addition or removal decision, no matter how well a site fits the guidelines, be a consensus driven process. To that end I think any addition needs to be proposed, and then sit for some reasonable number of days, to see if it elicits comment, approval or objections. Granted, some of the sites proposed here have sat for far too long but I also think that we should not have a proposal of a site, and then an addition of the site, within the same day, as happened recently with TV.com. Things should sit for at least 4 to 5 days I think. ++Lar: t/c 21:13, 14 October 2007 (UTC) Reply

Please propose changes here first, before making them, as there may be reasons not to make the change. We have had an increasing number of changes just made unilaterally, and I'm not sure that's a good approach. The Pennsylvania chapter of WMF wiki for example, may be handled a different way, we tend to handle official wikimedia sites differently if I recall. Also Shizao made a change without explaining what it is or why, again. I will be reverting these changes pending discussion. ++Lar: t/c 12:09, 23 July 2007 (UTC) Reply

Are there any charts which show the proportion of wiki articles/editing/traffic and how they are linked to each other? Would this be too dominated by Wikipedia to be at all useful? With the number of articles being transwikied (well, at least in talk if not in practice) off of Wikipedia, this number should at least grow. 76.252.32.110 07:08, 13 December 2007 (UTC) Reply

Such a chart would be very interesting, but I suspect would require a lot of data collection to create. I'm not aware of one but would love to see it if it exists. ++Lar: t/c 11:34, 14 December 2007 (UTC) Reply

See Help:Interwiki linking#Interwiki links versus external links.--Patrick (talk) 12:09, 13 December 2007 (UTC) Reply

Seeing that we had an interwiki link for IMDb, I proposed a change to a template on en.wiki at wikipedia:Template talk:Infobox Film#IMDb interwiki link. It was denied by an admin, citing concerns about using such links in the article namespace because of mirrors and forks. I'm a bit new to this whole interwiki map thing, so I thought I would ask if this had been considered before. -- Ned Scott 00:23, 14 December 2007 (UTC) Reply

Funny you should mention that. I happened to be completely independently nosing around an actor article, noticed that the IMDb link was still external, said hm... didn't I add IMDbName: ??? tested it, it worked, and found there is a template there for it... went there and left a message about it ... apparently there was resistance to the change 2 years ago. See w:Template_talk:Imdb_name specifically this version: [19] I sort of think what is the point of people asking to have links added here if they don't plan to use them. But maybe that's just an en:wp thing? Or old news? Thanks for bringing this up. ++Lar: t/c 11:32, 14 December 2007 (UTC) Reply

I'd say it's a wikipedia thing (especially en.wiki). There interwiki links are useful for other projects. --Steinn inn 04:58, 1 January 2008 (UTC) Reply

Could someone please update the MoinMoin entry to point at http://moinmo.in/ ? Thanks.

Done. (c.f.[20])Hillgentleman 02:54, 9 January 2008 (UTC) Reply

The database hasn't been updated in four months now. Anyone know what the planned date is for the next database update or who goes about doing the update?

I think Brion drives when... maybe open a bug? ++Lar: t/c 01:50, 17 January 2008 (UTC) Reply

Needs updating again for the broken dmoz link I think. Broken external links are not good. --AndrewCates 10:33, 5 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

Agreed. maybe open a bug? ++Lar: t/c 13:09, 5 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

There's an open bug request here. It's been open for a while, so maybe it will get more attention if more people comment on it or vote on it. If the broken dmoz link is affecting a large portion of Wikipedia then it might be possible to bump up the priority on the bug, too. --69.90.216.70 22:17, 6 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

Done, VVV has updated the page so that now it states "Last known interwiki database update: February 10, 2008". Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 03:13, 17 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

True but 9 weeks and another 17 changes have passed since... — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.157.182.155 (talk) 17:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

I did commented on the bug that we should put up a regular system for it. Now it's up to the devs. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 06:21, 20 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

Very lazy of me but I don't really know what the policy is here since there seem to be a lot of inclusions which did not make the old policy. There are a few talk pages linking to http://schools-wikipedia.org articles now (mainly users saying "hey look I started a page which got selected" etc.) does this qualify it for an interwiki link? I am on the en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia_CD_Selection project so am slightly conflicted on the request. I don't think in general main space articles should ever link to it. --AndrewCates 13:22, 31 January 2008 (UTC) Reply

This very much qualifies as a good candidate for interwiki linking regardless of whether en:wp ever links to it, these links are a service to the broader wiki community. Please submit it as a normal request if you would be so kind but I see no reason not to do this. (note there may be a technical reason that I am not aware of... does schools work as a language prefix?) ++Lar: t/c 15:40, 6 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

There is a technical problem, the link to a Schools Wikipedia Selection's page is in the following format: http://schools-wikipedia.org/wp/2ドル/1ドル.htm where 2ドル is the starting letter of 1,ドル even 2 letters in some cases (I'm not sure of the latter, Andrew, can you confirm?). With this format is impossible to make an interwiki. However, if the Schools Wikipedia Selection's webmasters wouldn't mind setting up a .htaccess rewrite for us (to remove the 2ドル part), it would be easily resolved. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 18:31, 6 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

This has been fixed so that http://schools-wikipedia.org/wiki/1ドル works as an alternative URL for the articles. That good enough? If so I will put above as a formal request. --AndrewCates 17:27, 9 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

Lar, Note that wikiversity: has a school: namespace, the pages in which serve to coordinate content development, very much like the WikiProjects in wikipedia:; see, for example, v:school:mathematics. Hillgentleman 18:46, 23 February 2008 (UTC) Reply

How's the status on this? Would something like the full format schoolwikipedia ok? Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 03:21, 17 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

Been sorted and added and waiting for the dbase update. You could archive this section. --AndrewCates 20:48, 23 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

1. Is there already a YouTube wiki?
2. Do you have do pay web-hosting fees or does Wikia cover that? --— The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.111.54.202 (talk) on 8 March 2008 (UTC)

There isn't a YouTube wiki hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. Our hosting costs are covered through grants and other donations. More information is available at wmf:Fundraising_FAQ Nakon 20:04, 16 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

You may be thinking about Wikia, which does have a YouTube wiki, located here. --Philosopher  ^{Let us reason together.} 19:14, 7 May 2008 (UTC) Reply

Is possible to add two new interwiki:

• http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ as Mathworld
• http://faculty.evansville.edu/ck6/encyclopedia/ETC.html (Encyclopedia of Triangle Centers) as ETC

-- PersOnLine

MathWorld is not free content and not a wiki. Its accuracy is also sometimes questionable. On the other hand, it is widely linked to; on the English Wikipedia, the template en:Template:MathWorld is used more than 1000 times. -- Jitse Niesen 18:10, 21 March 2008 (UTC) Reply

What content will the interwiki provide that isn't already in the relevant articles? Nakon 20:01, 16 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

http://www.rosettacode.org (GFDL Wiki for code snippets) is used to link / outsource code examples from Wikipedia. --Matthias 16:46, 27 March 2008 (UTC) Reply

Doesn't seem to contain enough content for inclusion. Nakon 20:06, 16 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

Worth being aware of [21] where Brion makes a good humored complaint about the hassle of doing updates. I wonder whether we could make life easier for him by doing whatever security checks he refers to here and making it less frequent? Perhaps we should try to minimise edits to the list? Thoughts anyone? --AndrewCates 09:16, 23 April 2008 (UTC) Reply

Just to add despite the comment there appears to have been an update in the last few days for which we should thank Brion. --AndrewCates 17:47, 16 May 2008 (UTC) Reply

http://drupedia.celticdruid.net is a noncommercial free wiki for polytheism and paganism religious articels and groups in german language only. The wiki contained detailled and added informations about such parts in this segment, added from well known pagan/polythism authors, editors and groups. --de:Benutzer:Lugsciath / --[at Drupedia] 89.54.102.88 09:05, 8 May 2008 (UTC) Reply

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