Help talk:Interwiki linking/Archive/2006

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Clarity

I recently used the prefixes section of the page. It was helpful, but not 100% clear. Could someone with more experience/knowledge maybe make a tutorial type page that shows exactly how to make the link? or better yet, you give the wiki you're putting the link into and the destination article, and it gives you the proper syntax of the link? Thanks, Reuvenk 04:29, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Edit history

For some time the parts about Interwiki linking minus language links were imported from template:H:Interwiki linking (edit•talk•links•history) - you'll find the relevant edit history at this template, incl. my trials and errors until I understood its template:H:1 (edit•talk•links•history) magic and substituted it. -- Omniplex (w:t) 12:46, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Interwiki templates

Could this Help page include the Interwiki templates and instructions on how to use them (esp complex stuff like {{Commonspar}} or how to display a title different from the link name). Failing that, could we have a prominent lk to a page where this is explained? For all the templates, not per project? Many thanks, w:User:JackyR

I've almost no clue about this stuff, but maybe w:en:Wikipedia:Sister projects is related to your question. You could copy templates you like not available here. -- Omniplex (w:t) 18:26, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Aha. Thank you very much: that was exactly what I was looking for. It would be jolly useful to have a line like "Templates for various interwiki boxes and messages can be found at w:en:Wikipedia:Sister projects" somewhere after "Project titles and shortcuts" (rather than un-annotated at the bottom of the page). I daren't do this myself, as I've had bad experiences with Metawiki editors (WP:BITE doesn't seem to apply here...), and am bound to get something wrong. Would you be very, very kind and add the link where you judge correct? Cheers, w:User:JackyR

Sounds like something that may very well have been considered, but opens a whole new can of worms if it were to be supported. Just imagine how many webhosts get hot about "hotlinking". -MrBucket 198.102.213.253 01:02, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Linking to a page on www.wikia.com

Linking to pages on wikia is very confusing - this section needs more explanation, laying out when wikia: is used, and when wikia:c: is used. (When I realized how complex it is, I also suggested changing the interwiki map).

For a start:

Use:	From:	To:	Examples:
wikia: or wikiasite:	Wikimedia projects	A Wikia community site	wikia:permaculture and wikiasite:permaculture link to the permaculture wikia main page; wikia:permaculture:Arrowroot links to http://permaculture.wikia.com/wiki/Arrowroot
wikia:c: or w:c:	Within Wikia community sites but NOT the Wikia main site	Wikia community site	[[wikia:c:permaculture]] and [[w:c:permaculture]] link to http://permaculture.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page wikia:c:permaculture:Arrowroot links to http://permaculture.wikia.com/wiki/Arrowroot
c:	Within the Wikia main site but NOT Wikia community sites	Wikia community main pages only	[[c:permaculture]] links to http://permaculture.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
projectname:pagename	Anywhere in Wikia, but only works for certain older wikia projects	Other Wikia projects	[[ecovillage:YES Strategies]] links to http://ecovillage.wikia.com/wiki/YES_Strategies
???	Within the Wikia main site	pages in a Wikia community	??? links to http://permaculture.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page http://permaculture.wikia.com/wiki/Arrowroot
???	Wikia projects	pages in the http://wikia.com domain	??? links to http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Featured_Wikia
???	Wikimedia	pages in the http://wikia.com domain	??? links to http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Featured_Wikia

This table obviously needs more work (formatting & error correction). However, a better option is to change the interwiki map, here and at Wikia.

Linking to Wikias, especially from within Wikia.com & its communities, is too complex with too many special cases. One or more of the methods should be deprecated, and the functionality of others enhanced, to avoid confusion. I suggest that the wikiasite method used from Wikimedia sites (wikiasite:permaculture:arrowroot, wikiasite:permaculture:Category:Agriculture & wikiasite:scratchpad:User:Singkong2005) should be used within the whole wikia site as well as in wikimedia projects.

A single method should also be found for linking to pages on the Wikia main site (e.g. http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Featured_Wikia), whether from Wikia community sites, or from Wikimedia. We could use wikia: for this purpose, but the changeover would be too painful. How about wikiacom:?

I realize this belongs at Wikia, but I started out just making a suggestion for this help page, so I'll get comments here first. --Singkong2005 05:09, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't care much about inter-Wikia formats, but one format working "everywhere", Wikia to Wikia and Wikimedia to Wikia, would be nice. When I experimented with it my vague impression was that wikia:c: should do the trick, it only has to be supported by the Wikia server. At the moment it somehow manages to resolve this to wikia:c:c:, a dead end. Nothing to do on the Wikimedia side of this issue for this idea. -- Omniplex (w:t) 07:30, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, i totally agree that this page needs 'explicitifying' for novice wikia users (or even more experienced ones, it seems like). There's not much info & it's hard to follow. Thanks! --24.203.42.178 05:18, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

What is existence detection?

#General mentions "existence detection". What does that mean? --J. J. 18:51, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

In short: it means red links in case a page does not exist. Help:Link states: MediaWiki automatically checks if the target of a wikilink exists. If the page doesn't exist, the link leads to the editing screen, and it is assigned the class "new". Such wikilinks are nicknamed "red links" because they are colored red in the default stylesheet on a default installation of MediaWiki. Red links are useful in determining the current status of the page (created or not created), create incoming links to a future page, facilitates and incites page creation. HenkvD 12:44, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! I've corrected the "existence detection" link.[1] Now who's got an answer to the question below? --J. J. 18:33, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, #Project titles and shortcuts says, "The long form doesn't work within the same project. The shortcut works everywhere." How can we enable "shortcuts" on our own MediaWiki projects? mw:Help:Interwiki linking doesn't provide any answers to this question, either. --J. J. 18:51, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I figured it out! Added description to the iw_local documentation. Still not sure what the iw_trans field does, though. --J. J. 01:01, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Picture links to another Wikipedia

Can somebody tell me how to link (with a thumbnail) to a picture on another Wikipedia (specifically on the English Wikipedia linking a German picture)?

Off-site link icon

A link from one wiki to another wiki should always display the off-site link icon. Having a different shade of blue does not communicate clearly enough and is an unnecessary extra level of navigational idiom complexity. Subtle color change already indicates whether a link has been visited or not. It is not wise to complicate this idiom with further meaning. Keep it simple please to communicate effectively with the world. I strongly advocate changing Medaiwiki's CSS so that all off-site links, interwiki or not, display the off-site link icon. Complex navigational idiom is not as good as simple clear and accurate navigational idiom that fits what users are already used to from the Web at large. When a link goes off-site, lets be clear about it with users and consistently display the off-site link icon on all such links, interwiki or otherwise. Please comment. Thanks :-) Rogerhc 05:43, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Good idea, I agree that it should be clear. Here's an idea to possibly go one better. Use the current [2] icon for "regular" offwiki links but use some other icon for "official wikimedia foundation interwiki links" from the list Wikimedia Foundation. — MrDolomite | Talk 14:11, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. The reason that I use interwiki links is because I want links to Wikipedia, in particular, to look like the internal links in my wiki--if I wanted the off-site link icon, I'd go ahead and use a standard external link format.

That said, I do think the interwiki map could be trimmed down--maybe links to Meta-Wiki and Wikipedia could display as internal links, but as MrDolomite suggested, use a different icon for Wikimedia Foundation links. Nmw 20:33, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikiversity

This page needs to be updated for the Wikiversity. Long name:Wikiversity:, Shortcut:v:. User:BlankVerse 07:00, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

use template from one wiki on an other (wikimedia-family)

I whould like to show a template or an article from one wikimedia wiki and display it on an other wiki. Is there a way to do this? Walter 13:13, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

See: Interwiki linking - Interwiki templates (below) -MrBucket 198.102.213.253 01:05, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Interwiki links on edit this page

I request that the interwikis should not be displayed when is on the "Edit this page" sections on every article and entries on Wikipedia, and do not add them pretty please until they are linked with languages named abbreviated into ISO-632 codes in which will be easier since some Language names as well as lettering problems especially on uncommon languages having difficulties with letters and rarely some names and the title name of another language will be displayed on a screen at the bottom, even symbolically. Pumpie 00:30, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

One of the reasons that it will introduce with ISO 632 letters meaning language names indicated with two or three letter abbreviations and will be in one line and not taking up the whole "Edit this page" sections on all Wikipedia projects Pumpie 23:12, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles should not link to other wikis ?

Clarification of wikipedia interwiki policy needed at wikipedia:Talk:List of furry comics. (Miltopia deleted all 22 of the interwiki links from wikipedia:List of furry comics ) --EarthFurst 04:47, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I think part of the problem in that case is major linking to other sites without specific notification that this is being done (apparently people can't figure out that because there is a different logo at the top left, and a different URL in the titlebar, it's a different site :-). Therefore, it may be a good idea to specify where you are linking. I'm designing a Wikipedia page that will be linking quite a lot to WikiFur on the specific advice of other members of Wikipedia (they don't want twenty five articles on various minor furry conventions, but are fine with there being one article that links to their websites and to WikiFur's articles for people who want more information). It will have a specific note about the WikiFur links. GreenReaper 07:41, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Spaces are converted

Does anyone have a way to prevent spaces in interwiki links from being converted to underscores? On my site, I'd like to set up an interwiki link to easily create links to Google Maps for addresses, using in the format [[map:123 Main St, Chicago, IL]], but I can't figure out how to keep it from going to http://maps.google.com/maps?q=123_Main_St,_Chicago,_IL, which obviously doesn't work. I tried making a template called {{map}}, so I could pass the address through as a parameter, but it then my link shows up as Main St, Chicago, IL because the space after the 123 is assumed to indicate the link's label. Any help would be appreciated! --Jonathan Kovaciny 23:04, 11 December 2006 (UTC)