InterWikiIcons

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

Filed as bugzilla:1254.

Screenshot of InterSiteIcons (mock-up)

I propose to enhance the Interwiki concept by an additional feature, which allows to show a small icon in front of the interwiki target, which also gives an information about the interwiki site where the following target is looked up.

When you type

  [[InterWikiPrefix::InterWikiTarget]]

this is displayed as

  (InterWikiIcon, a small image) InterWikiTarget


Example:

  [[Metawiki::Enotif]]

will be then displayed as

  Enotif

The two colons '::' are chosen at the moment to force the display of the interwiki icon without influencing the current behaviour.


I propose in addition, that the number of colons ':' determines different views:

  1. one colon: [[Prefix:Target]] rendered as the wiki site default determined by the wiki sysop, for example Prefix:Target
  2. two colons: [[Prefix::Target]] rendered as Icon Target
  3. three colons: [[Prefix:::Target]] rendered as Prefix:Target
  4. four colons: [[Prefix::::Target]] rendered as Icon Prefix:Target

A new user option is proposed to determine the behaviour of the interwiki icon display (opt-in / opt-out ).


Implementation details:

The interwiki table needs to be amended:

  • one new column to hold a link to the small icon, which is preferably local on the wiki server
  • one new column (binary 0/1) to enable/disable the view of the stored icon.

If no icon is available or if the icon is disabled, then the intersite prefix is shown.