Help talk:Interwiki linking on Wikimedia wikis

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Festipedia

Can a mediawiki.org admin make a "festipedia:" interwiki prefix that looks like this:

Web address: http://www.frheritage.org.uk/wiki/

Long form: festipedia:

shortcuts: fest:, fr:

It will be appreciated. --Dagoth Ur, Mad God 02:52, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

WikiHow.org names

Why does WikiHow.org use dashes instead of underscores in a page URL? Also, why does WikiHow use only part of the page name in the URL?

Here is a link to a Wikihow page:

How to Use the MediaWiki ImageMap Extension

Here is the wikicode used for the above link.

[[wikihow:Use-the-MediaWiki-ImageMap-Extension|How to Use the MediaWiki ImageMap Extension]]

One can't link by adding double brackets around the page name. The link does not work. Try it and see. --Timeshifter 14:31, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I see that WikiHow.org redirects to WikiHow.com

http://www.wikihow.org

It is not affiliated with Wikimedia. --Timeshifter 04:38, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

How to link to the multilingual Wikisource?

I want to link to a page in the multilingual Wikisource (www.wikisource.org), but the :s: trick is not working because it automatically appends the language from the origin wiki. So, if I'm in the English Wikipedia and write :s:Main Page, it directs to the en.wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page instead of to the desired www.wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page. Also tried with :wikisource: and had no success either. Is there a way to do it? Capmo 11:57, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I found it: we have to append :oldwikisource: to the page name. What an ugly patch. Capmo 12:28, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Nofollow and interwiki linking

Could someone who knows please establish the facts surrounding the "dofollow" or "nofollow" status of Interwiki links that point to Wikia.com? I am particularly trying to address the concerns that would have been address in this and this bug report. If links to Wikia are afforded the "dofollow" bonus, then I will be submitting a request to add MyWikiBiz to the Interwiki list. -- Thekohser 18:10, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Interwiki-styled links, including those to Wikia, do not have the "nofollow" attribute applied to them. However, external links to Wikia do. Most links to Wikia appear to be of the latter variety, including all of the ones on the Wikipedia article about them. The use of external rather than interwiki links for the Wikia template there was recently endorsed; I suspect users would feel the same for MyWikiBiz as both are for-profit sites that show adverts. Congratulations on reaching 50,000 articles, by the way. GreenReaper 01:31, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. We at MyWikiBiz are very proud of our various milestones over the past year, including a half-million page loads, assessment as a 5/10 Google PageRank site, and the 50,000th article that you mentioned. I'm really not as interested in including MyWikiBiz on the interwiki list; my concern is primarily to stamp out the hypocrisy that surrounds this fabricated notion that Wikia is a "completely separate" entity from the Wikimedia projects. It's not. It's a self-dealing recipient of Wikimedia-community-generated content, Wikimedia Foundation funding, and staffing/governance overlaps. Always has been. I wish it weren't. -- Thekohser 15:19, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Interwiki links formatted like "normal" links

Hello ! Is there any possibility that interwiki links would look like external links ? I mean i have declared that prefix w: directs us to pl.wikipedia.org. But it looks like internal links inside my wiki.

I dont want they to looks like Antoniego Kaliny:

[[w:Antoni Kalina|Antoniego Kaliny]]

but I want it to looks like Antoniego Kaliny using the same code:

[[w:Antoni Kalina|Antoniego Kaliny]]

I want my user to know that it is link to "other" wiki but I want to have opportunity tu use simple links coding. I am not sure if I am clear. In short I want to use interwiki links functionality but I want them to looks like normal external links... But mabye there is a way to add any simple icon that will mark every interwiki link to make them different than internal ?— The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.168.82.227 (talk) 15:58, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Ehm, interwiki links are different from internal wikilinks. The blue is lighter. Yes, you can add icons by editing the css (for instance); don't ask me precisely how. --Nemo 18:06, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks it was helpfull

List of site Interwiki entries (feature request)

Could we have a Mediawiki wiki markup keyword that displayed the list of Interwiki mappings on the current site ?

This would allow non-admins to find and use what was available, and perhaps to request additional mappings where needed. It might also help to raise the profile of the feature on a given site and let everyone benefit from the extra convenience. 212.209.45.98 10:28, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

You'll find that feature has already been implemented at: Special:Interwiki. This is through the use of an extension that can be found at MediaWikiWiki:Extension:Interwiki. -Stelio (talk) 11:24, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Interwiki links on original wiki

meta:Interwiki linking does not work on this wiki, only on other wikis. I'm trying to unify my user pages on the different wikis, but this is a slight barrier. SharkD 01:43, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Section linking bug

I just tried to link from English Wiktionary to German Wikipedia, but linking to a specific section wouldn't work. Any idea what's up with that?

It doesn't work here, either, check for yourself: w:de:Kunst#Literatur --Florian Blaschke 20:20, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Works for me, as always. Maybe a bug in your browser? Do other anchors work? For instance, #top or Help:Interwiki linking on Wikimedia wikis#footer. Nemo 17:25, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Forbid linking to other language Wikipedia within articles

Some Chinese Wikipedia says enwiki is not a place to discuss, while meta is a good place. Then, I copied from English Wikipdia discussion.

Some Chinese editors suggests that Chinese Wikipedia should not link to any pages in English and other foreign Wikipedias. Should English Wikipedia forbid acticles linking to Chinese Wikipedia?--王小朋友 (talk) 07:13, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

You forgot to mention that "the users who oppose this idea are involved in Featured/Good article nomination". Can you stop garbling and messing the issue of one Wikipedia to another? Thank you. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 07:19, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I am not garbling or messing. The suggestion is universal. They are not only suggests forbid using in GA and FA, but also in other articles.

The involvement is not related to whether we should approve the suggestion. The mention of the involvement is a kind of Ad hominem: an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it. Can you stop making Ad hominem? Thank you. --王小朋友 (talk) 07:53, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

The foreign language links themselves are just fine, links for non-controversial claims can link straight to fox news for all we care, it's when the claim being made is an offence to reason that it needs a reference that people can be comfortable with. Otherwise, it's just going to be challenged. So it's not a yes or no answer, it's a scale. Penyulap ☏ 11:57, 29 Jul 2012 (UTC)

The English Wikipedia Article is not existed yet, while the Chinese version is already existed. Then link to Chinese version. For example:

Night Market Life stars Chen Meifeng (陳美鳳), Morning Chang (張晨光), Peng Chia-chia (澎恰恰), Jimmy Ni (倪齊民), Wang Shixian (王識賢), Daisy Fong (方馨), and Chiang Tsu-ping (江祖平) among others.

In that case, is it fine?--王小朋友 (talk) 12:20, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I dont see a problem with alternate language links in the articles language section but I dont see any value in external links in the body of the article to another wikipedia. This is English wikipedia so I doesnt add any value to the article here. Not sure other than the article name the other names have to be translated and linked. If we dont have an English article then a red link is fine. MilborneOne (talk) 12:35, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Should the English Wikipedia forbid such external links to another wikipedia in articles? (Of course I don't mean interwiki links.)--王小朋友 (talk) 12:40, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

We dont normally add external links to an article body at the moment so I suspect it is already covered by WP:EL somewhere. MilborneOne (talk) 12:48, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

It's covered as above, but I'd just pass right on by without a care about it, as it's often good to have a look at the pictures :) Penyulap ☏ 12:53, 29 Jul 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Interlanguage_links#Purpose allows enwiki articles link to zhwiki in some cases, but some Chinese user made a purpose that zhwiki should forbid linking to enwiki and other language wikis. If the purpose become a zhwiki policy, should enwiki make a policy to forbid enwiki articles linking to zhwiki in return?--王小朋友 (talk) 13:05, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Obviously not. I do not see any reason why policies of English Wikipedia should in any way be influenced by policies of Chinese Wikipedia.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:26, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. Each language Wikipedia makes its own policies. The OP seems to be suggesting that we take some sort of revenge on ZhWp; no, we don't do that. LadyofShalott 14:03, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I think this may not fair.--王小朋友 (talk) 14:43, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

What has 'being fair' got to do with anything? This is an encyclopaedia. We are here to provide information to our readers, not to engage in petty squabbles with other-language Wikipedias. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:09, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

It seems that THE user who take this subject misunderstanding the real meaning of the other user said.It is not "suggests that Chinese Wikipedia should not link to any pages in English",what he mean is that "Should use temp Template:Link-en properly".--113.71.194.251 (talk) 15:17, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Their 'proper' way of using the template is to stop linking to other language wikis.--王小朋友 (talk) 15:47, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

• While I want no part in the pissing battle that takes up the first few lines of this thread, I strongly oppose interlanguage links. If I, an experianced Wikipedian, still get thrown for a loop whenever it happens to me, imagine the confusion it would cause casual readers to suddenly find themselves staring at a wall of Chinese, or Spanish, or Arabic text, just because he clicked a ling that looks identical to the ones he/she normally clicks to get to an English text article. The first response, I gaurentee, is not going to be "Oh, it must be an interlanguage link", it's going to be "What the f**k?". Sven Manguard Wha? 16:42, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Sven's argument is reasonable, certainly in cases where the link is presented in a way that is indistinguishable from normal internal links. However, there may be cases where that confusion would be minimal to non-existent, and the Chinese cases suggested by the original poster above may in fact be among them: if you have a redlink and then a bluelink in brackets and formatted in what is clearly a foreign script, as in "Peng Chia-chia (澎恰恰)", I think the implication that the blue link will lead to the corresponding foreign article is fairly obvious and shouldn't cause confusion. I don't see a strong reason why such links should be discouraged. Of course, once the corresponding English article has been created, the Chinese link should be removed; at that point we only need standard iw-links from our own Peng Chia-chia page. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:54, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
    • Which is all well and good when the link is clearly in a different typography, but when it's a link to another language that uses the same script as English, that would be problematic. At best, a warning, like "German: xxx" would give a warning that the link is in German. 69.62.243.48 (talk) 21:12, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
      • Sven says they look identical, but they don't, at least on my screen. Internal same-language (unfollowed) links are dark blue, whereas interlang links are light blue. Admittedly it's a little subtle, but I don't think it's so terrible a violation of the least surprise principle as to make a hard ban on such links in exceptional cases. I certainly agree they should not be used routinely, but that's OK because they aren't used routinely — it is quite rare to run across one in mainspace. --Trovatore (talk) 22:01, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I strongly oppose prohibiting interlanguage links within articles. They can be useful in areas where Wikipedia's coverage is still lacking. Of course their presence shows the article / topic area is not in good shape yet. But clicking on a (clearly different-looking, at least in the standard CSS files) link and ending up in a foreign language Wikipedia is often better than getting no information at all. —Kusma (t·c) 04:10, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Could anyone close this please? Idk why 王小朋友 bring the discussion to here even though it's clearly unrelated. For the people who want to know what's happening on zhwiki, here's an example. As you can see, currently users such as 王小朋友 are adding an interlanguage link after each red link (that is "used routinely"), which looks terrible.--Jsjsjs1111 (talk) 01:52, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

• Without en-links, it still looks terrible.--王小朋友 (talk) 07:49, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

The inter-language links to corresponding articles can be helpful. Occasionally I look at the French or German text to see if they have something missing from the English text. I also think that links in the "external links" section to texts in foreign languages should be allowed, but in this case there should be an indication that the text is in such-and-such a foreign language so that people can avoid clicking on it if they cannot read that language. In-line links to foreign language texts should be avoided in my opinion. 71.191.249.76 10:03, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikidata

What are the long form and shortcut for Wikidata? --Redrose64 (talk; at English Wikipedia) 12:10, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

D: and wikidata:. LtPowers (talk) 12:51, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Query regarding two websites

Hi there. Firstly, is there an interwiki link to sites like uawikimedia? Inputting [[:uawikimedia:]] didn't work, and wmf: followed by uk: just got me to the Ukrainian Wikipedia, rather than the Ukraine WMF site. Next, is there a link to [1]? A subpage of it is linked to at [2]. Thanks. It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 12:34, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

problem with or|call=If interwiki link show

{{for|call=If interwiki link show||a|b|c|d|e|f|g|h|i|j|k|l|m|n|o|p|q|r|s|t|u|v|w|x|y|z}} displays as "Template:Undefined b:Template:Undefined c:Template:Undefined d:Template:Undefined...". I'm sure this isn't what is intended. Technophant (talk) 18:36, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Interlanguage links for same content/articles with multiple items on Wikidata

Often, two "items" (in term of Wikidata) will be described on the same Wikipedia pages. This is especially common in biology articles: for a family with only one genus, chances are they will be described together (there is really no reason to separate them though).

An example is Moschus (wikidata:Q3866060) and Moschidae (wikidata:Q229084). They are two items on Wikidata, but are described on same page (Musk deer) on English Wikipedia, as well as most of other languages of Wikipedias (we do have a few languages that distinguish them). Don't get me wrong, It makes perfect sense to separate them on Wikidata and I am totally agree with that. But the problem is, where should we put the sitelinks to? The first item or the second one? Currently, the links are fairly equally separated on two different items, which makes it very hard for readers to find other language versions of the same content.

I asked this very question on Wikidata project (wikidata:Wikidata:Project_chat#Any_guideline_about_taxon_names?) but people there seem more concerned about the data items themselves, instead of the sitelinks (which is more important to Wikipedia projects). One suggests to just follow what term the title uses, which is OKish solution from the point view of Wikidata I guess but doesn't sound appropriate for Wikipedia's purpose (and it still runs into the same trouble: where should articles like "Musk Dear" go, Moschus or Moschidae?)--fireattack (talk) 07:05, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Check in on basic usage

The standard in Wikimedia projects is to mark external links to let users know they are leaving Wikimedia websites, like the mark after this link: archive.org. We have interwiki links to allow links to certain other projects without the external link tag. Mostly interwiki links go from one Wikimedia project to another. It seems that this page is the center for reviewing when a site can get an interwiki link designation. At some point, there came to be a trend of making lots of non-Wikimedia websites eligible for interwiki links, seemingly on the basis of convenience and how often links to certain projects appear. Examples of websites for which we have interwiki links are IMDb, Wikia, and arXiv.

I have some questions.

1. Is this talk page the central location to discuss interwiki links?
2. What are the basic criteria for reviewing whether a website is eligible to get an interwiki link designation?
3. Has anyone ever commented on whether interwiki links should be "interwiki to Wikimedia projects" versus "links to any sort of project"?
4. Right now, we only have two states for marking links. One is no mark, which is how wikilinks are. The other is the offsite mark designating external links. I have some doubts about whether it is good to omit marking links to external websites, and it seems that the interwiki link process here is doing that routinely. Is anyone aware of any previous discussion on this point? Where could I find it?

Thanks to anyone who can comment. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:55, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Question

Is there any tool available that is capable of taking any page on the English Wikipedia, which is full of interwiki links to other English Wikipedia articles, and in an instance convert all of the interwiki links to those whom exist in a different wikipedia edition so that the adjusted page could be used as the basis for a page at the other Wikipedia edition? (currently working on importing Wikipedia:Vital articles to Hebrew, so such a tool would be very helpful right now. WikiJunkie (talk) 09:16, 13 April 2019 (UTC)