This is an archive of past discussions about Template:Sister project links. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Some of these may currently only have one box, but there is a lot of information on other projects which would be of potential interest. -- Netoholic@19:28, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
TFD
This template was nominated for deletion, but got no consensus either way so it is kept. See Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/Not deleted/July 2005 for details. It was suggested in the discussion to modify this template to resemble the Babel-templates, and to provide a way to not link to sisterprojects if they don't have relevant information for a particular article. Radiant_>|< 09:47, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
New Template:Sisterlinks
Latest comment: 19 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I am currently starting a sisterlinks project of my own. It happens to use the Template:Sisterlinks as well. See my template on for instance Wikiquote category:Science. The aim is more or less the same:
reducing the number of templates on a page (only one common one)
add links to sister projects
I could pick an other name for my template (which I will do if needed), but I noticed there is some discussion on the template on wikipedia. My proposal is to fully replace this template by mine. What is the comunities thoughts on this matter? HenkvD17:57, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
Revert War
Latest comment: 18 years ago8 comments4 people in discussion
Why do we have to put up with this distasteful sexism appearing on (potentially) thousands of pages? Please come up with some more sensible terminology - it isn't difficult. - MPF20:47, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Because it means female. Not everyone wants everything to be associated with femaleness. How about making half of them brotherlinks? But far better, use a gender-neutral term. There are plenty to choose from. That way, you won't be offending anyone. - MPF08:48, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
"Sister project" is the term used on the Main_Page, so that is what is used here. I suggest you bring your suggestion to a wider audience on the Village pump and gain support for a project-wide change. I will say that I hate the term "sibling", in this context, to no end. -- Netoholic@09:51, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Surely this is the relevant project page for discussing this? How about 'other projects' or 'related projects' then? The trouble with the village pump is that discussions there disappear into the archives so quickly it is hard to achieve anything useful - MPF10:54, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
The word "sister" isn't sexist: sexism is "discrimination against people based on their sex", and this has absolutely nothing to do with that. Second, one of the meanings of "sister" is "closely associated; seeming to be related. (Example: sister city)" This is precisely the sense used by "sister projects". For once, I agree with Netoholic: "sibling" is ugly. dbenbenn | talk21:58, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
The images
Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Nothing I can do about this but gripe, since determined by the stylesheet, but this is very ugly. The icons are not the same height, so the lines are unevenly spaced. The box width is perversely set to vary along with the length of the lines, in such a way that some of the line items take 2 lines, and others just one. The spacing between the lines (leading) is such that the icons feel cluttered. The general effect is klutzy and disagreeable.
Since this box is now a large item that is being added to everything these days, it is becoming very prominent. One suggestion to whoever can tinker with the stylesheet, is to turn it into a longer, (i.e., wider) box, that would be placed at the foot of the entries. That would (a) give it a more streamlined, less obtrusive look; (b) solve the unequal-lines problem, at least until someone starts to expand the text in some line. . . .Bill18:12, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Equalized to Commons Template
Latest comment: 18 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Surveying the articles this has been applied to, most every use makes zero sense over the standard {{Commonscat}} template. All this does is clutter articles with extra non-operational links. It should be modified with switches so that only the given pertinent operable links are included. // FrankB03:38, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
You've got the wrong idea completely. This template is to consolidate several Wikipedia:Sister projects links where necessary. If too many of the links don't work, then it should not be used on that particular article. This template is also used on hundreds of pages, so please don't go changing anything so dramatically next time. -- Netoholic@05:00, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Any objection to adding an optional parameter? Eg #if CommonsLink then Commonscat ((CommonsLink)) else (Search)? If commonscat does not format properly, I will be happy to create some code that does.
Really as pointed out above, on Commons we have some very good centralized collections on these subjects, and presenting the user with a search hit list is extremely suboptimal in that . There needs to be a way to opt out. -Mak Thorpe16:54, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
wikitravel
Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I've removed it from the template. It's not a wikimedia foundation project so it can't really be described as a sister project. YDAM TALK21:33, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Looks a bit ugly due to line heights
Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
This template looks a bit ugly due to the addition of Wikiversity which shows up Wikinews's small logo, perhaps all the line heights should be the same? Lcarsdata18:16, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Latest comment: 16 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Someone please change redirect wikilink from [[Wikipedia:Sister projects|sister projects]] to [[Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects|sister projects]] in the template. Thanks. -- ALLSTARecho16:32, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I think we should apply the same standard for this template as for disambiguation pages: Only one link per entry is enough. I don't see a compelling reason to link to the main page of each of these projects. That name can be seen from the mouseover texts ("tool tips") anyway. Also, the bold link to "sister projects" is really distracting. I propose therefore to change the template to the one to the right, which also will simplify the template overall. — Sebastian23:17, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Linking problems
Latest comment: 16 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Resolved
The fundamental problem with this template is that it requires either (a) all other projects to use the same name as the Wikipedia article, or (b) requires all other projects to use some other uniform identifier. This is often not the case. Consider Parrot, for instance. The relevant link for Wikispecies and Commons is Psittaciformes, not "Parrot". For the English Wiktionary, it is parrot with a lower-casep (Wiktionary is case-sensitive, since the capital form might be a German noun, or a word in some other language). As a result, this template is not as useful as it could be. It needs to be rewritten to allow project-specific arguments for linking. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:57, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't quite see what you mean. When a reader hovers over the name, it displays the link to "Template:Sisterlinks/doc", so anybody who cares about this can find out right away. Conversely, I only see disadvantages for {{Documentation}}: two additional lines on top that contribute nothing to the understanding of the template is a waste of real estate; a lot of text to be transcluded; two edit links, which only add to the confusion. However, you seem to be an experienced user, so I feel users like you should be able to edit this template. If we semiprotected it, you could edit it if you created an account. Would that work for you? — Sebastian07:00, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
please add interwiki
Latest comment: 16 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 16 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion
Given that requests are heaping up here, and nobody seems to have the time to reply to any of them, and given that this page has apparently been protected when it was transcluded in a featured article, which is not the case anymore, I will unprotect this page. — Sebastian01:59, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Never mind: This is actually transcluded in Wikipedia:Today's featured article/Protection, which is the featured article of a week ago. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to investigate why that is the case now, and apparently nobody is asking for unprotection, so let's just forget about it. — Sebastian02:32, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Whitespace now in template
Latest comment: 16 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion
{{editprotected}}
I've noticed this template seems to leave a lot of empty space on its righthand side; perhaps this could be resolved by placing the links on the lefthand side, the project icons down the middle and the names of each project (for folk who aren't already familiar with him and/or don't recognize the icons) on the righthand side? Sardanaphalus (talk) 12:17, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Not done. Not really a good idea, in my opinion. Probably should bring this to the village pump if you'd like to discuss it. --- RockMFR19:35, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't think this is such a big deal, but if space is a concern, reducing the default width seems like a good idea. The current width isn't needed, and reducing it a little won't affect any of the contents. Equazcion•✗/C •05:45, 24 Mar 2008 (UTC)
For some history, here. The original version of the template used 22em as a width; this was later removed by someone who mentions standardizing with other sister link templates. The current 235px width comes into play later, when the template is revamped to use a different layout. The whitespace is more recent, arising when some text was removed in the interest of simplifying display. As far as I can tell, the 235px width was primarily chosen to fit the then-present text; since it's been removed, it's probably appropriate to fiddle with the width accordingly. If there's some other reason for the current width, I didn't find it. – Luna Santin (talk)09:11, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm disabling the editprotected tag. Once a decision on the width is made let me know and I'll implement it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:29, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Wiktionary SVG logo
Latest comment: 16 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion
Latest comment: 16 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
At enwikt we seem have a lot of spurious hits from this template which cannot be remedied by changing the search term for wiktionary. The logical choices sometimes do not generate anything useful for the user. Would it be possible to add an "opt-out" parameter for an individual project? DCDuring (talk) 01:40, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that's roughly what I came here to ask - can you leave projects out that don't have anything relevant (and perhaps are unlikely to have anything relevant even in the future). Richard001 (talk) 04:47, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
I've added the ability for this into the template. Just include the sister project's shortcode as a parameter and have it equal "no". That will suppress that sister project's link form appearing on the template.
Wikisource: link to index page instead of search page
Latest comment: 16 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 16 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
{{editprotected}}
Please make it so when the images are clicked, instead of going to the image description page, you go to the corresponding page. You can do this by copy/pasting this:
Latest comment: 15 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
It's neat in the current form BUT many projects may be irrelevant to a particular article. Instead of the current all inclusive form, I suggest it be modified like the babel template which allows a neat rendering of multiple language links. =Nichalp«Talk»= 04:44, July 14, 2005 (UTC)
If too few sister projects have information on a topic, just use the individual boxes. This is intended to replace 4-7 of those in an effort to reduce box clutter. The babel template fails to avoid using meta-templates, and in this templates case, we have a good alternative. -- Netoholic@06:15, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
I've updated the template to allow this. To skip sister projects just include the project's shortcode parameter as "no". ~ PaulT+/C00:23, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
WikiSource
Latest comment: 15 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
Ydone.
i noticed the Wikisource link does not direct to the "Wikisource author" page if this sisterlink template is used to search for a person. Is there anyway we can modify this tempalate so when dealing with people, we can have the option to link directly to their Author:Personname article in Wikisource? For example, using th current design, if you searched for Mohandas K. Gandhi using this template in Wikisource, you get this Special:Search/Mahatma_Gandhi, but I would like to be able to force it to Author:Mohandas_K._Gandhi his actual wikisource page! (:O) -Nima Baghaeitalk · cont · email07:08, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
The new specific parameters for each sisterlink should negate any need for this new template. Just make the s parameter equal "{{PAGENAME}}_author". ~ PaulT+/C00:25, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
Wikispecies
Latest comment: 15 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I just placed {{sisterlinks}} on the article Maize and noticed that there is no link to Wikispecies on this template, so I had to leave the {{Wikispecies}} on the article. I was going to suggest adding it to sisterlinks then I realized that probably would not be helpfull as the Wikipedia article usually uses the common name and Wikispecies usually uses the scientific name, and sisterlinks searches by the Wikipedia article name so... Jeepday (talk) 14:39, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Latest comment: 16 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Would it be possible to add a parameter that just changes the text in the box? I'm asking because at Bear#Further reading the box says "Find more about bear", which sounds weird. I know that the page in every case is "bear", not "bears", but it seems to me it should read "Find more about bears".—Chowbok☠ 16:39, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Done There is now a "display" parameter. ~ PaulT+/C00:23, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
Typos and minor cleanup, wish I could do this myself
Latest comment: 15 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
{{editprotected}}
Can the following code replace the current code?
I'd do it myself (as this is just minor maintenance and removal of old span tags and commented out portions of the removed wikispecies project), but the template is protected...
Also, would it be possible to code some of these links as optional through parameters? For example:
This would omit the wiktionary sister project from the list if the parameter wikt=no. I'd code and test this for the rest of the projects, but again, the template is protected...
Also, regarding the display name (bear vs. bears above), adding an additional "display" parameter to the top like so:
Find more about {{{display|{{{1|{{PAGENAME}}}}}}}} on Wikipedia's sister projects:
Not done for now; please past the code into a sandbox so that responding admins can verify that it works. An example page would help as well. This way you can test it thoroughly yourself without a responding admin having to worry about breaking anything.--Aervanathlivesinthe Orphanage13:43, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
Done per WP:BOLD. I saw your latter note below and review the proposed changes and agree with them. I also took things a bit further; just code nits. Please don't set the bar too high for good updates. It's a wiki. Cheers, Jack Merridew07:07, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, I've also added the remaining code that I proposed in this section. There is now a display parameter and the ability to hide specific sister project links. ~ PaulT+/C00:23, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
width="37px" is wrong
Latest comment: 15 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Yup, there are hundreds of thousands of places that mistake has been made and propagated to, on thousands of wikis; see what happens when anyone can edit: Bad Code. I'z gown bez bold 'nd; 'just teh req abov. Cheese, Jack Merridew11:24, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
semiprotect
Latest comment: 15 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
Is there any reason why this page is protected?
I'd like to be able to make edits here without waiting for an admin to find the time to implement them. (Or ignore them as User:Casliber has...)
Done I was going to deny this because it has 2500 transclusions, but I realized that's only 0.1% of wikipedia's total article count (and falling), so to heck with it. Semi-protected.--Aervanathlivesinthe Orphanage13:50, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
It seems that this template has been fully protected again. Has there been some change from the above rationale? ~ PaulT+/C06:45, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Latest comment: 15 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
there needs to be an EASY way to adjust between linking to a commons page & linking to a commons category. different subjects need either/or Lx 121 (talk) 00:00, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Can you give an example of what you mean? I'm not sure that I follow what kind of functionality you are looking for. ~ PaulT+/C17:26, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Whitespace when links are set to "no"
Latest comment: 15 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 15 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Currently this template is used as {{Sisterlinks|Arnold Schwarzenegger}}. This seems to default to linking to Wikitionary, despite Wikitionary having no results. This embarrassingly leads to a "No page found" error page. Could some suggest how this template should be correctly used to link to Quotes, News and Commons only? —Sladen (talk) 15:08, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
Wikiversity line break
Latest comment: 15 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Not done: Can you explain the change in detail? Your version seems to have a ragged left margin for the text strings and changes the Wikispecies text. What is the benefit/intent? Thanks, Celestra (talk) 14:05, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Sorry about that; all I mean is to change the 25px limitation on the images to 25x25px in order to impose consistency on the tall and wide images and to reduce the whitespace between the text lines. This is a copy of the current version of the template, and the next diff is what I would change. You can see the (entirely cosmetic) difference between my proposed version and the current version now. 86.41.80.244 (talk) 00:18, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
The new combined template is now completely coded. It is a solid bar intended for the end of the article, just after "External Links." It supports portals, books, and interWikis. I have put in the main space at {{Subject bar}} for testing and comments. I also made a post about it at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (layout). There is a sandbox version for more major edits. Everyone is encouraged to stop by there to learn more and make comments. – VisionHolder « talk »15:49, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
Commons category
Latest comment: 13 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion
Can a link to "commons category" also be added in the template to stop redirects from "Images and media from Commons" e.g. see Jesus redirecting to commons category via commons:Jesus? Or this functionality added to an alternative template? Nirvana2013 (talk) 06:33, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
Latest comment: 12 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
The template does NOT show a link to Wikisource anymore! The article about the Sun has no link to Wikisource and that is the problem in many (probably all) articles. --84.238.38.27 (talk) 03:25, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Latest comment: 12 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
For some reason this template is working on tons of pages where no parameter has been specified. Isn't it supposed to work using {{PAGENAME}}?
Liam987(talk)08:13, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
It did not work on any of the pages I checked. Maybe the cache served you an old rev? Anyways, I restored a rev from December last year. jonkerz♠talk16:26, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
Latest comment: 11 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I noted that a user removed {{Commons cat}} due the concurring presence of {{Sister project links}}. In my opinion it should not affect or discurage the use of {{Commons category}} or {{Commons}} because {{Sister project links}} simply "provides links to the 'Search' page on the various Wikimedia sister projects". It does not grant that any related content actually exist, it is just a (blind) guess. {{Commons}} and {{Commons cat}} instead state that Wikimedia Commons actually has media related to the subject and provide a link to it. This is a precious information. It is the difference between the search function and a link. -- Basilicofresco (msg) 15:23, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
I'm seeing this with {{wikivoyage}} and {{sister project links|voy...}} as well, what needs to happen (instead of having two templates for the same siblings, one of which launches a pointless search) is that this template needs to link directly to a page whenever a pagename or category name is fed as a parameter. No reason to invoke special:search at all if the target is already provided and in the crosshairs. K7L (talk) 18:54, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
Cookbook
Latest comment: 11 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 11 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
Now that Wikivoyage has launched, should the link to there be opt-out instead of opt-in? I've boldly made it so, but feel free to revert (and explain here) if you disagree. MER-C10:47, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
Latest comment: 11 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I just made a bold edit, which changed Wikidata links from Special:Search/FooBar to Special:ItemByTitle/enwiki/FooBar. This way, the template will lead directly to a relevant WD entry if possible. Admittedly, this would be worse if there is no such entry (and therefore a totally unhelpful page linked to), but the solution is just to not include any links to WD for articles without entries. I'm open for discussion. -- YPNYPN✡01:38, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
ELNO?
Latest comment: 11 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
Can someone explain to my why this whole template doesn't run afoul of WP:ELNO #9? The entries in the box created by this template consist only of search engine links, and ELNO#9 disallows "links to any search results pages, such as links to individual website searches, search engines, search aggregators, or RSS feeds." —David Eppstein (talk) 18:21, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
I also dislike Special:Search’es as a permanent solution – EL or ELNO, but it is just a silly complication in the worst tradition of 21th-century technology. Replace all of these to direct links, yeah. Resulting dead links, IMHO, can be reduced with bots. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 19:12, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
If the user explicitly specified a target, such as {{sister project links|voy=Europe}}, the template needs to send them directly to that page... launching a search is superfluous. The same applies if the user specifies a Commons category or anything else specified right in a parameter. I could explicitly set every parameter to a specific page or category and still have them all become search links... why? Perhaps fr:modèle:autres projets (where the links go to only the projects listed, and the target pages are specified by name) would be a proper example of what needs to happen in any case other than this being arbitrarily dropped on the page with no parameters at all. K7L (talk) 18:47, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
Create a new template?
It looks like other-language versions of this template, like fr:modèle:autres projets, default to all-links-off and most do *not* use blind links to Special:Search on other projects. If a destination page is explicitly specified, the template links there; if not, the template does nothing. This is an important distinction as fr: has already scrapped {{commons category}} and the like to put everything in "autres projects" while pt: has deprecated the individual templates (and will remove them from pages with the same link in the "correlatos" box, which looks like this one but with all links off until a destination is explicity specified). We can't do that because the presence of a project in this box tells the user nothing as to whether the destination page exists. The link to Special:Search is also an SEO blunder as special: pages are flagged in robots.txt as something spiders should not index, making these hard to follow for search engines. I'm thinking there should be a version of "correlatos"/"autres projets" in en: which is not a look-alike of this template and does not link to Special:Search (but only to actual extant, usable destination pages).
I don't believe this template *can* be salvaged as it has already been randomly dumped on too many pages with no parameters at all. There should be two versions of the template; one should have "Search for {PAGENAME} in other Wikimedia projects" and do what this one is currently doing, the other should have "These wikis have more info on {PAGENAME}" and link directly to only destination pages which were explicitly specified (much like dropping {{commons category}} on a page links directly to a named category, not a search page). Get rid of Special:Search for all instances where the destination page is already indicated (and not merely defaulted to {PAGENAME}). We already have the manually-specified name, link there.
The only place where any template should blindly link Special:Search/{PAGENAME} is if that template is called with no parameters at all.
The problem with templates which blindly invoke a search is that they're being proposed as replacements for individual links directly to projects like {{wiktionary}} or {{wikivoyage}}. If they neither indicate to the reader whether the destination page exists nor provide a direct link (without going through Special:Search) to get to that page, they are no substitute for the individual templates currently in use and any replacement of individual link templates with {{sister project links}} in its current form is very inadvisable. K7L (talk) 18:05, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Related bot request for approval
Latest comment: 11 years ago5 comments2 people in discussion
I see one potentially-major problem... while the {{wikivoyage}} and {{wikivoyage-inline}} templates point directly to the specified article on the destination wiki, this kludge of a "sister project links" template instead blindly and arbitrarily links to Special:Search on each targeted project. This is ugly.
It might be a bit late for that. This template was designed with the theory that it could be randomly and indiscriminately dumped on pages without parameters and used to blindly launch Special:Search on a long list of random projects with {PAGENAME} as an implicit target. That's not the same as the individual {{commons category}}, {{wikivoyage}} or other individual-sibling links where the target is named explicitly, is a mainspace page instead of Special:Search, has actually been verified to exist and to contain usable content (and not a stub, outline, empty category or page nominated for deletion). I realise that fr: scrapped and deleted all of their individual-sibling templates in favour of {{fr:modèle:autres projets}} a few months ago, but that template was a direct link to manually-selected interwiki targets only... no projects inserted by default, no interwiki calls to Special:Search. This template is clearly not a drop-in replacement for "autres projets" nor for the individual sibling templates. Fixing it now could be awkward as something would need to be done with all the pages already calling it with missing parameters.
Maybe creating a new template that actually is an English-language equivalent to "autres projets" is a viable option. This template, however, is not an "modèle:autres projets" but a series of blind calls to Special:Search. Until that is resolved, a 'bot run would be premature. K7L (talk) 17:25, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
Latest comment: 11 years ago23 comments13 people in discussion
I think the way Wikivoyage is handled in this template is inappropriate. Only 3 sister sites are automatically omitted unless manually added: Wikidata, Wikispecies and Wikivoyage.
Wikidata is omitted because an automatic link would never work; the item number must be entered manually. I also believe that the Wikipedia community is as of yet unsure whether it wants to link directly to Wikidata, a computer readable database.
Wikispecies isn't auto-linked for a similar reason: because they're articles have species under their scientific names while Wikipedia articles take vernacular names. Scientific names must be entered manually.
But Wikivoyage? There's really no valid reason.
It could be said that we shouldn't add links to a travel guide from an article on say, a person. But then there's an inconsistent approach. You don't "define" people in a dictionary (Wiktionary). You can't have "quotations" by a building (Wikiquote). You can't have up-to-date "news" on an event that took place 100 years ago (Wikinews). There shouldn't be a double standard. I believe that Wikivoyage should be automatically included in the template, like most of the other fairly low-traffic projects. It's pretty clear to people when a travel guide is and isn't relevant. It will also save Wikivoyage and Wikipedia editors having to go through tens of thousands of location articles adding voy=location. Regards, JamesA>talk07:30, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
How do we determine if the topic is travel related? We have this "sister link" template on some medical topics to which Wikivoyage of course does not apply?Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 09:01, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
In response to Doc James, this change would make Wikivoyage appear on those medical topics by default. It is possible to manually exclude it using voy=no, just like you can do for any other sister project. While Wikivoyage is irrelevant to medical topics, it is the same situation with other sister sites with so many other topics. The only way this can be circumvented is addition of the "no" tag. As I said, I don't think it's far to auto-include other sites which are often irrelevant, yet exclude Wikivoyage. As a means of removing irrelevant links, we could always run a bot or use AWB to mark all "people" articles (using categories) as voy=no, therefore reducing a lot of unneeded links. This could be done with any other categories people can think of. JamesA>talk12:33, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Comment. I think a sister project link provides the search results in a sister project for the title of the Wikipedia article in question. If so, even seemingly irrelevant searches can provide useful results. Take Giordano Bruno, for example: A search of his name on Wikivoyage turns up two very relevant results—articles about the places that was the scene of parts of his life. That is something a reader clicking the link to a travel site from a biographical article would expect, I'd guess. – Vidimian (talk) 18:40, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
Support In the interest of full disclosure everyone who has commented in this discussion so far, myself included, are active Wikivoyagers and this discussion was mentioned over there. While I'm quite certain there has been any bad faith involved in this discussion (any attempt at WP:Votestacking), there should be some input from non-Wikivoyagers before any action is taken (see: Wikipedia:Canvassing). I've dropped a line at the Village Pump to solicit comments. AHeneen (talk) 19:42, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
Week support - after new information below.....Oppose - the reason its hidden (as per previous talks) is because only a very very small portion of the article were the template is used is actually a location were people can visit. The majority of articles are not places - but topics.Moxy (talk) 20:02, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
I agree with the basic idea that Wikivoyage should not be omitted, but I think I can guess the reason: articles on Wikivoyage are named differently. For example the article on my hometown here Homer, Alaska. The Wikivoyage article is just called Homer], which has basically nothing to do with the WP article by that name. So I don't think it will even work in a lot of cases but maybe I am missing something. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:58, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
If naming conventions are the issue, then redirects should be set up at Wikivoyage prior to implementing an auto unhide. It would be counter productive to the Wikivoyage project to teach everyone at Wikipedia that all those brand new links to Wikivoyage are pointless. Jeepday (talk) 00:10, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
So to be clear the change would add thousand of red links to articles that have nothing to do with places. Not sure this proposal is though-out well at all?. Have informed the template project about this.Moxy (talk) 00:55, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
Nope, this would not. It would search Wikivoyage for information. I'm sure there are tourist sites related to both Abe Lincoln and nuclear power. --Rschen775400:58, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
Support - This sounds like a good idea. I'd actually assumed this was the case anyway (I don't really look at the templates that often unless; I usually just hack the URL). With the precedent of wiktionary et al mentionad above, I can't see any other reason why this shouldn't be in place. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 01:42, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
Notice - With unanimous support and no opposes, over 2 weeks of discussion, along with engagement with the Wikivoyage community, the Wikipedia Village Pump and the Template Wikiproject, I will be making the change in the next day or so. If there is any concerns that have not yet been raised, please speak now. JamesA>talk01:39, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
Done - I've also changed the wording so that when "voy" is defined on destination articles, it will be Travel guide, and when "voy" is not defined on articles like Abraham Lincoln, it will be Travel information. Makes a bit more sense. I will also go through with AWB when I get a chance and remove instances where Wikivoyage will never be useful, and encourage others to do so using voy=noJamesA>talk07:48, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
special:search
Latest comment: 11 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Why is Special:Search being called for links where the destination has already explicitly been manually specified? One example: Adelaide#External links has {{Sister project links|voy=Adelaide|Adelaide}} pointing to voy:Special:Search/Adelaide instead of directly to voy:Adelaide. Launching this sort of unnecessary search will cause problems for Google-style spiders as they're normally told not to index links to special pages. K7L (talk) 01:47, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
In cases where the name is manually defined, it should not default to Special:Search. I don't think that's a very controversial issue, so do you know what the code would be to change that? JamesA>talk06:48, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
I'd presume that [[commons:Special:Search/{{{commons|{{{1|{{PAGENAME}}}}}}}}|Media]] from Commons should be [[commons:{{{commons|{{{1|Special:Search/{{PAGENAME}}}}}}}}|Media]] from Commons (with the same change to each of the others) so the Special:Search kludge is only used when trying to "guess" the destination by using the name of the current page. K7L (talk) 17:14, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Shouldn't it be "Find out"?
Latest comment: 11 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 11 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Hi, after a suggestion I try to create a similar template on Wikiquote, see here. Can somebody please explain, why it doesn't work on Wikiquote like here on Wikipedia? -- Mdd (talk) 19:00, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
I'm afraid I can't answer your question directly, but I would like to suggest that you may be better off asking at WP:VPT or maybe even at mw:, since this isn't a English Wikipedia issue as such. It Is Me Heret / c23:29, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
Latest comment: 11 years ago18 comments8 people in discussion
It seems my bold edit to set the default to no was reverted, as I was unaware of earlier consensus to have it enabled. I believe it should be off, as other transclusions before this option existed did not know about this option, and having it on by default now has the link in a lot of articles where it is not applicable. Regardless of whether the other options that are enabled are worthy of their default setting, at least an editor could manually disable them when they added the template and saw the unwanted option(s). In the case of older additions of "Sister project links", is anyone signing up to fix any of the 4000+ transclusions. This breaks the concept of backwards compatability, where old settings with new template functionality is not providing same display anymore.—Bagumba (talk) 09:40, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
As discussed above, there are instances where Wikivoyage may not seem relevant in an article, but it can be useful. The Wikivoyage link at Abraham Lincoln links to search results with information about his birthplace, hometowns, where he started his political career, etc. For that reason, I modified the wording so that when voy= is not used, it says "Travel information" rather than "Travel guide". I don't see any particular harm from the current default; everything takes time and the voy=no can be done gradually. Already, I have had a go with AWB at removing some irrelevant Wikivoyage links, though I believe the task is better done by everyday users as they come across them. Is the default causing any display issues or irregularities? JamesA>talk04:05, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
I just dont see the need to force Wikivoyage upon users of this template. Some earlier options chose to (IMO wrongly) do so, but applying WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS seems like a bad precedent as a way to legitimize Wikivoyage's standing with those projects. I saw the voyage link in Andrew Bynum, which makes no sense as a reader, and makes even less sense after I click on the results. There must be 1000's others like it. It's too bad Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/The Anonybot didnt also mark all previously existing "Sister project links" with voy=no at least to keep the display of all old instances the same. It provides no benefit to the reader, and only lessens people's perception (even more) of Wikipedia content if non-sense spam-like links such as in Bynum's article exist.—Bagumba (talk) 06:45, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't even know why the Sister project links template is being used on Andrew Bynum, considering that there are only two projects being displayed. Wouldn't it have been more logical to use two of the specific templates? And there is much benefit to both readers and Wikipedia as a whole. It supplies readers with useful travel information not available on Wikipedia, while also encourages travel edits on that Wikivoyage rather than on Wikipedia where it is out of scope. I don't think the links can be called "nonsense" and "spam", and I don't see how it can be said that the links denigrate Wikipedia's image. JamesA>talk00:42, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm not especially concerned with any one article; they can be fixed individually. The worry is that 1000's of articles that did not expect a voyage link because they just didnt exist before now get them by default, and can have issues like Bynum or Sun mentioned below by Vanischenu. re: "encourages travel edits on that Wikivoyage": I don't think we need a link to every sister project merely to encourage edits.—Bagumba (talk) 03:37, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Hide it:Only 14% geographical articles. Wikivoyage's inclusion criteria makes things even worser; on the other hand, Wikipedia can have articles on almost every noteworthy thing found in an area. Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia, while Wikivoyage is a guide on a single topic. At present, the link to Wikivoyage is on articles like Sun and Pluto, Ancient Egypt, Cardiac arrest, Mathematics and Chemistry, and so on. Do they offer tour to such places? It would be cool! Whether or not Wikiquote is shown by default is out of scope here. The inclusion criteria for Wikivoyage is too tight, and tries to merge nearby places into a single one. Also, we have around 4500 articles using this template, and only a small fraction are related to geography; setting parameter to no by default would make it easier and saves a lot of edits and time.···Vanischenu「m/Talk」17:37, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
Agree with Vanischenu, after seeing this deployed I will have to agree not the best idea. Also concerned that Template:Wikivoyage and Template:Wikivoyage-inline that are much more predominate (thus seen more) are being removed. I would guess they are being removed because of this interrogation so they are not duplicated on pages. If the template goes back to hidden by default there are many many pages that will have to be fixed ...meaning Template:Wikivoyage and Template:Wikivoyage-inline have to be placed back.Moxy (talk) 19:13, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm not a Wikivoyager but from what I've seen the project is more than just geographical locations. I admit it is mostly locations but it has things like travel topics and itineraries which provide a wider range of coverage. "Ancient Egypt", to take one example, could be the basis for an itinerary linked to the Egypt page: a tour, or tours, of important sites relevant to Ancient Egypt and for making plans to see these sites. I don't think that page exists yet but perhaps someone following the link would be inspired to start it. The other examples could be relevant to itineraries based on the history of science. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 22:39, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
Take an example, a user goes to Aaron Swartz, gets surprised to see a tour guide on it, and clicks on it to get into a search for Aaron Swartz on Wikivoyage. They would see is:
This is humiliating! They clicked the link to know more about. We shouldn't offer to given anything if we have nothing on it! This is just disruptive. (I was hurt by the Wikiquote links, and felt really embarrassed. It also left me a bad impression of the site. The same would happen to that unfortunate fellow) And suppose that the user were inspired to create it. You can guess what would happen! If he keeps his inspiration up, he would soon get blocked. If we are looking to advertise the project or recruit more members, we should think of better ways, not by hurting the readers.···Vanischenu「m/Talk」19:54, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't think it's that bad (or any worse than other projects). Nevertheless, what about making a bot request to add voy=no to pages with no sister page on Wikivoyage? (The bot would have to be able to check the Wikivoyage API or something similar to do this but I think its technically possible.) That leaves Wikivoyage in a equitable position for all future uses of this template, in which cases users will know about the project and can do this manually if needs be, without having to deal with the cludge of blocking it to maintain backwards compatibility. Itineraries etc remain a possibility for the future in many of these articles, at least. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 00:53, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
Just came here because I found a link to WikiVoyage on Jane McGonigal's article, and my immediate reaction once I saw the code was "Why the hell is the default not no?" It looks pretty stupid to offer travel information for topics that will never have pages. EVula// talk // ☯ //20:05, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
I agree the default needs to be changed. I just came here because I saw that WikiVoyage had a link in Death of Osama bin Laden. I have since turned that link off, but there are literally thousands of articles that used this box prior to WikiVoyage being added, and almost none of them have a corresponding WikiVoyage page. Rreagan007 (talk) 16:34, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
So the idea is that only projects created before this template was made are eligible for automatic inclusion? That's unfair and biased. Whether a project is automatically included in this template or not should only be based on the relative merits of doing so, not on order of operations. PowersT01:07, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
I think you misunderstood. The problem is this template existed before Wikivoyage. Whoever added the template could have decided which defaults they were happy with and which they wanted to override. Then, Wikivoyage was blindly added to all old users of the template, whether it was suitable or not. This is caused pages like Sun and thousands others to have a laughable link to WikiVoyage. If this setting was worthy of being on by default, old instances of the template should have been coded to turn Wikivoyage off e.g. via a bot until someone manually decided to enable on a per-article basis. Then, WikiVoyage could have been enabled, and all new users could have made a conscious decision if the option was suitable for them. This was a complete oversight, and further lack of due diligence after the problem was identified. Good luck finding which instances didn't consciously want the default now.—Bagumba (talk) 03:59, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
But, to an extent, disabling it on existing transclusions would have defeated the point. Then we'd have articles on actual places that don't have the link to Wikivoyage until someone thinks to go in and put it there. I think that's worse than having extraneous links. PowersT13:00, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Simply time time to take it off. To many useless links and complaints. Not sure why this external link is special or how it help THIS project.Moxy (talk) 13:00, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
It's not special; that's the point. The idea was to treat Wikivoyage links just like Wikibooks or Wikiversity links. PowersT16:46, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Removing Wikiversity from the default links
Latest comment: 10 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
I've been an editor on Wikiversity since 2006 and can tell you firsthand that it has never matured into a truly useful sister project. It's never had a large community of editors and a lot of the content there is now generated by people who have been banned from other projects (e.g. fringe science POV-pushers and other crackpots). A large percentage of the pages are just unfinished stubs with no useful content[1][2] or no content at all[3][4]. Wikiversity pretty much never deletes anything, so it has gradually become filled with cruft. I don't really think we're doing our readers any favors by sending them there. At the very least it should be put at the bottom of the list. Thoughts? Kaldari (talk) 19:54, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
At en.wn, although we'd always intended to avoid sitting in judgement of our sisters (being very oriented toward avoiding subjective judgements), we realized a few years ago we were inadvertently implying such a judgement through the ordering of the sister links from our category pages. Our solution was to reorder the sister links alphabetically, excluding the "wiki-" or "wik-" prefix: Wikibooks, Commons, Wikidata, Meta, Wikipedia, Wikiquote, etc. --Pi zero (talk) 15:41, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
I believe there is growth potential for Wikiversity, and have chosen to create teaching materials on Wikiversity for a number of reasons:
Wikitext is easy to copy, revise, and print as a pdf file -- without violating copyright laws. The number and quality of free online course materials is growing, but only a wiki allows an instructor to edit the material to suit his/her teaching style.
As far as I can tell, Wikipedia now has all the content needed for a bachelor's degrees in mathematics and in physics, as well as for a one-year astronomy course (for non-majors). Although it has not yet been done, this material could be copied, edited, and assembled into usable form on Wikiversity or Wikibooks. In principle, this could reduce each student's cost of a college education by a thousand dollars in textbook costs. This advancement is recent, and possible only because Latex-like wikitext formulas have recently become prevalent on Wikipedia. We at Wikiversity are not complaining about our big sister being slow to get physics equations into wiki form, but we do ask for patience as this material makes its way into Wikiversity. The ability to copy directly from Wikipedia is an advantage Wikiversity has over university hosted wiki sites such as http://physwiki.ucdavis.edu/.
Our affiliation with Wikipedia ensures that Wikiversity will be always be a stable platform. Let me illustrate "unstable platform": (1) An effort to put a bank of physics problems on the internet by the University of Texas at El Paso died soon after 2001 when the professor left (and there was no reason for UTEP to continue hosting the site). (2) A number of free java codes to simulate ray optics have disappeared, and I strongly suspect that the motive was to sell the software.
Another reason to keep Wikiversity healthy has nothing to do with its potential for helping to transform college education. A couple of months ago, what we suspected was a pair of well-intentioned juveniles began to make destructive edits on Wikipedia pages about electronics. We "tamed" them as their edits both improved and also tapered off. But had they continued to edit, I would have invited them onto Wikiversity...where they could learn. --guyvan52 (talk) 03:38, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
Wikivoyage
Latest comment: 10 years ago11 comments6 people in discussion
I changed the template so that if voy= is unspecified, the default depends on Wikidata. If Property:P107 is "geographical feature", Wikivoyage is shown by default. Otherwise, it isn't.
This still makes some mistakes (for example, buildings would receive a Wikivoyage link), but it should clear up almost everything. The link is gone from Hamlet. :-) Ypnypn (talk) 19:35, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
It does not seem to work properly - see: Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park. It seems your edit has blocked the possibility to manually link to WV, and it will be needed for "non-geographic features", e.g. topics like air travel or hotels. I would simply disable default linking to WV, as there is a bot in development to take care of interwikilinks. PrinceGloria (talk) 21:39, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
Yes, looking at the code, it's checking Wikidata whenever the voy= parameter is anything other than "no". What it should be doing is checking Wikidata only when the voy= parameter is blank. PowersT17:33, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
Hm. I was afraid that fixing this would require duplication of code. That'll make it hard to maintain. Maybe it's time to rewrite this template in Lua? PowersT17:54, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
I tried using {{#ifexpr: with or to avoid the duplication, but apparently it can only deal with numbers. This can certainly be Lua-ified; if you want to, go ahead. -- Ypnypn (talk) 17:58, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Now that it's only displaying WikiVoyage links for actual places, can we move it up a bit in the list? For most geographical locations, the WikiVoyage article is going to be more useful than the Wikiquote or Wikiversity results. Kaldari (talk) 19:54, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
++. Also, Ypnypn, it doesn't seem to be displaying properly for a number of geographical articles; i.e. [5] (before I added it by hand). Is this because of an issue with Wikidata coding? -- phoebe / (talk to me) 06:14, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
There they suggest following the Russian Wikipedia's method of using a template which in turn calls a Scribuntu module to check directly if the page exists. Unfortunately, we don't have the template on the English Wikipedia, and our equivalent module is missing the necessary functionality. -- Ypnypn (talk) 14:26, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
I see now that the template does not use Wikivoyage but it is still mentioned in the /doc. Was this the idea? I wanted to add a reference from Portofino where there are now TWO different sister links templates, one for Wikivoyage and the other for everyhing else. It is ok with me if the majority thinks it should not be done, but then the /doc must be changed to reflect the consensus.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:55, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Alt text
Latest comment: 10 years ago6 comments2 people in discussion
Images should have an alt text. According to WP:ALT, the only situation where blank alt text is acceptable is where purely decorative images are unlinked. This article displays two icons. A minimal alt text could be added; the Main Page has "Commons" and "Wikiversity" for these icons. 84.127.80.114 (talk) 19:37, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
Not done: – WP:ALT explains that for logo links, the use of the caption also serves as the alt link. The two icons in the Debian article show what happens: One yields "Search Commons" and the other "Search Wikiversity". That satisfies the accessibility requirements. – Paine EllsworthCLIMAX!12:42, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
Also, the links on the Main Page are from a different template that follows the same rule: When the image is a logo, then the function of the logo is much more important than how the logo appears, so the caption parameter is used to supply the alt text for screen readers. – Paine
When there are no images, the links disappear as well, so no "Search Commons" or "Search Wikiversity". The alt text tool does not think the accessibility requirements are met. 84.127.80.114 (talk) 04:14, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
Latest comment: 10 years ago25 comments6 people in discussion
This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
Two items:
Looking at {{Sister project links | wikt= | commons= | b= | n= | q= | s= | v= | voy= | species= | d= | | m= | mw= | display=}} we have an empty space between the two pipes following "d=" . Is this intentional? If not, the space should be removed. If so, an explanation is needed.
Can the sequence of parameters be the same between the template and parameter explanation. E.g., "wikt=" is first and "commons=" is second. But commons is last in the explanation.
I am not qualified to answer either question; if there is no reaction in a couple of days I will try to solicit users.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:16, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
Upon thinking a bit more about this, perhaps the best thing is to revise both the example and the description table so that they match the exemplar that displays to the right. I'll give a day for comments. – S. Rich (talk) 15:10, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
The example template and the documentation now match the image of the template in terms of the sequence. However, Wikivoyage is not in the image. It is included in the example template and documentation. Thus I submit the following edit request:
This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
Done with reservations – and here's why: In order to make the Wikivoyage link appear, I had to go back to just before this edit and use that code. After that edit Wikivoyage stopped appearing in this template. I shall work with the code in the sandbox to see if I can get it to work as intended. – Paine EllsworthCLIMAX!11:57, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
Hi, Mr. S – I'm sure the tags improve the function; however, after I'd completed another task I was going to come back to the sandox and reenter the code as it has been in the template since the edit I mentioned above. I supposed there was good reason to include the {{#if:... function, and I was going to see if I could use tags to make that code work so that the VOY would appear in the template. If you'll take a look at that code, maybe you can tell if all that's necessary or not:
@Paine Ellsworth: Ah, I see - we need to show Wikivoyage if |voy= is set, even if the Wikidata property doesn't have the right value. It's become a little more complicated, but this should do the trick without having to specify the actual Wikivoyage link more than once. — Mr. Stradivarius♪ talk ♪13:17, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
Oh thank you! for your help – you did in five mins what would have taken me, well, quite a bit longer, I believe. I'll check the /doc to see if it could use an update. – Paine14:25, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
To editor Mr. Stradivarius: It appears that the documentation is still up to date; however, I see one thing that may be of concern. In the Default display section resides: However, voy only displays by default if the entity type on Wikidata is "geographical feature".
That link is to Wikidata page d:Property:P107, which has been titled "(OBSOLETE) main type (GND) (P107)", and is further described: ** Do not use ** Due to be deleted. Please use instance of (P31)/subclass of (P279)
I'm not sure if we should stay with that page or if there is a better link, such as d:Property:P31, d:Property:P279, or perhaps even d:Geographical object ("feature" on en wiki). Can you provide guidance? – Paine16:45, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, but I'm the wrong person to ask (just found the link in #Wikivoyage and would like to see this issue resolved, but am not competent enough to fix it myself). FDMS 4 18:59, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
Good question – the matter of fact is that SW is not listed at WP:SIS, which is probably a better place to ask your question since this template follows that 12-sister guideline. Joys! – Paine EllsworthCLIMAX!08:02, 21 August 2014 (UTC)
As it's a separate language, it belongs to the sidebar rather than the bottom of articles, where it already can be found today … FDMS 4 20:58, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
People on Wikispecies
Latest comment: 10 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 10 years ago15 comments4 people in discussion
Can I ask, why does the wikinews link appear to be hidden by default? I notice previous conversations about wikivoyage focusing on the number of location articles that would need to have this revealed. There are at least as many equivalent pages on wikinews, so not sure why it might be treated differently. CSJJ104 (talk) 20:57, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
Erm … there are no "equivalent pages" on Wikinews at all – only articles on certain events from the viewpoint of a certain point in time and categories, which often only contain very few and old articles. So please don't change the default status for Wikinews. FDMS 4 02:57, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
Wikinews has pages for subjects, e.g. France or politics. The location subjects is what I meant by equivalent pages to wikivoyage pages and the discussions surrounding them. Still don't really see why they aren't relevent to wikipedia. CSJJ104 (talk) 09:45, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
All that is needed to show Wikinews is the n=yes parameter, correct? Editors who feel that it is needed to accompany another sister link can use that parameter, can't they? – Paine EllsworthCLIMAX!18:52, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
But categories aren't normal pages like encyclopaedia or travel guide articles, but categories. And many categories on Wikinews contain only very few articles and therefore very few information, which is also often very old. As for the portals: Only every 9545th Wikipedia article has a corresponding Wikinews portal page, and they wouldn't even be linked to if the Wikinews link became visible by default on this template. FDMS 4 22:24, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
Portals are de-facto deprecated on en.wn. Categories are used. Conceptually, the difference is that a portal is oriented toward current news, from moment to moment —which, for most topics, wouldn't work very well on en.wn unless en.wn were a hundred or even a thousand times more active that it is atm— while categories are oriented toward the news archives (though of course things appear there immediately when published). --Pi zero (talk) 12:12, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
My reason for asking the question was that I had thought news articles, few or old as they may be, could still be of interest or use to a wikipedia reader, from the point of view of providing a different perspective or providing context from the time. It is possible I have misunderstood the criteria for adding a link to wikinews, is there a guide for this anywhere? CSJJ104 (talk) 16:02, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
WP:Wikimedia sister projects#When to link: Wikipedia encourages links from Wikipedia articles to pages on sister projects when such links are likely to be useful to our readers. I personally doubt that some random news articles on, for example, politics would be useful for our readers. It would make sense to link to Portals offering full news coverage of the topic (which portals probably should have offered, see Pi zero's comment), but I guess Wikinews would need even more active users than Wikipedia to be able to offer that. FDMS 4 00:05, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
I don't know of any sister project other than Wikipedia with any significant part of its community arrogant enough to even try to pass judgement on the quality of the pages provided by its sisters before linking to them. Which is ironic since contributors to the other sisters usually know far more about enclyclopedic writing than Wikipedians of that judgemental sort know about the other sisters on whose pages they try to pass judgement. Certainly at en.wn we're mostly present-or-past Wikipedians who link to corresponding Wikipedia articles no matter how bad the Wikipedia articles are. --Pi zero (talk) 02:31, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
Not primarily, I see, which I'll keep in mind fwiw. It doesn't impinge on my comment, though, which concerned Wikipedian sister-link practices. To amplify, it's of potential interest to a inquiring mind to consult the available neutral, accurate news published on a topic in an archive that will never go behind a paywall — and yes, we publish high-quality stuff, but defending the quality of Wikinews should be obviously irrelevant to the handling of sister links. The fact that it isn't perceived as irrelevant is a combination of the phrasing of Wikipedian policy, and the Wikipedian cultural norms that determine how that phrasing is interpreted. --Pi zero (talk) 05:23, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
There are no "neutral news" :o … And, of course, I'm not saying that all content on Wikinews is of bad quality – still, an incomplete high-quality news archive might not be relevant enough to link to it in the EL section of all articles using the sister project link template. FDMS 4 22:57, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
If nobody bothers to pursue neutral news writing, excusing themselves with the argument that perfection is metaphysically impossible so we clearly shouldn't be trying to do our best, then we would end up with the truly horrible state that mainstream journalism is actually in right now. En.wn is now in the position of having university journalism professors sending their students to us to learn about hard news.
I admit, I have difficulty finding a polite term (is "fatuous" polite?) for the idea that a news archive would have to be comprehensive to be useful to link to. As I say, we link to Wikipedia articles even when the Wikipedia articles are of, ah, extremely low quality; Wikipedia is a sister project, and we support sister projects. We even link to Wikispecies, and the one time I went over there to put in the usual reciprocal link back to Wikinews, found a rather skimpy set of templates for such things, and inquired at their forum (I forget just now what it's called) about how best to format sister links, the one user who replied at all asked why they would want to link to a sister project.
Again, though, there's zero validity to the idea that Wikipedia has any business putting itself up as a judge of sister projects.
The point about Wikinews not being comprehensive also loops back to the point about mainstream journalism being in a mess. The sororicidal anti-Wikinews set launched a big misinformation campaign... late last year, was it?... claiming Wikinews had failed its core mission, based on the stultifyingly obvious fact that it's not comprehensive. Now, Wikinews is relentlessly fact-oriented, so if (hypothetically) I were to launch a campaign centrally featuring a claim that some sister project was failing its core mission, the first thing I'd do would be to investigate and thoroughly understand what that sister's core mission actually is. It's striking that they didn't do that. It's apparently worse than merely being wrong about that central claim of their campaign, worse than knowingly spreading false information (lying), and worse than making stuff up without caring whether or not it's true (bullshit). As best I can tell, it's an example of something that has no such standard pithy name, which lately I've been calling "dogmatic fabrication": rather than instinctively always seeking for objective facts on which to base a position, the claimant starts by assuming that what they want to believe must be true, and then assume that if they invent claims to support their position, those claims will turn out to be true because they support a Righteous position. Dogmatic fabrication has been thriving lately, including significant parts of the mainstream media; it's the antithesis of knowledge, the antithesis of what —I sincerely hope— the wikimedian movement stands for, and frankly, exposing readers to the fact-based mindset of Wikinews is beneficial. --Pi zero (talk) 00:53, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
To editors CSJJ104, FDMS4 and Pi zero: Been at work on another issue (voy=) and started browsing around the n=yes parameter a bit, and frankly, I liked what I saw. Wikinews has come a long way, and we really should seriously consider making n=yes the default. I realize from the above discourse that this idea is still controversial, so I would not make Wikinews the default without due discussion process. I really do think that the plusses outweigh the minuses at this present point (heaven knows Wikipedia isn't quite perfect, yet) and would like to open an RfC if nobody objects vehemently. – Paine EllsworthCLIMAX!02:31, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
When should the Wikidata link be turned "on" when this template is used? Doesn't every (or almost every) Wikipedia article have a corresponding Wikidata page (in which case the link should be on by default)? Please place some guidance in the documentation for this template.
When turning on the Wikidata link, since is is not shown by default, I put "d=yes"; however, the link is then displayed as "Database entry Yes on Wikidata". When I put the number of the WD page, it displayed as "Database entry Q15908324 on Wikidata". Also, should the WD attribute use the name of the page or the page ID? I came across this issue adding this template to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the corresponding WD page is [6], which is titled "Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (Q15908324)" and uses "Q15908324" in the address bar. So, should the link be made to "Malaysia Airlines Flight 370" or "Q15908324"? Using the wikilink d:Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 doesn't work, but d:Q15908324 does...so I assume the latter is the page name? AHeneen (talk) 02:13, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
There is no reason to use this template to create links to Wikidata. Every article already has a link to its Wikidata page in the sidebar. Kaldari (talk) 20:33, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
Proposal to remove Wikidata parameter
Latest comment: 10 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion
Every article on Wikipedia already includes a link to Wikidata in the sidebar ("Wikidata item"). There is no reason to add a redundant link in the External links section. Kaldari (talk) 20:41, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
Since no one has objected to the proposal (and it's been a few weeks), I would like to request that the template be edited to remove the Wikidata parameter. The template sandbox has already been edited to reflect this change. Kaldari (talk) 07:58, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
Linking Had I seen this, I would have objected. The purpose is to guide users to our sister projects, so omitting one of them makes no sense. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯06:24, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
Introductory text
Latest comment: 10 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
I wonder if there is any chance to adjust the template, so the introductory text would be set to three lines, i.e.
"Find more about [Name of the author] at Wikipedia's sister projects"
To explain, in most cases now the names result in appearing in two separate lines with first names of authors being displayed at the end of the first, while their surnames at the beginning of the second line, for a change (see an example). Would not be more efficient to adjust it as mentioned, or to simplify the general text at least to only
"[Name of the author] at Wikipedia's sister projects"
Latest comment: 9 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I noticed that, at San Diego–Tijuana, the commons link that the template provides is a search on "San Diego–Tijuana", which yields San Diego–Tijuana, a page with 3 photos.
What it should do is link to the parent Category:San Diego–Tijuana, with about 10 subcats plus 20 or so loose photos. A casual user won't realize this is available. There must be a way to link the parent category, but it wasn't obvious (to me) in the template documentation. --Pete Tillman (talk) 01:47, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
@Tillman: There are two solutions: improve the gallery at Commons or use commons:Category:San Diego–Tijuana in the template. I don't know why or how that's not clear, though: you can choose any link that you want from any parameter... —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯06:21, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
CCat and gallery
Latest comment: 9 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
Is there a way to integrate Template:Commons and category into this template? For my project on Briarcliff Manor, I want to link to the Commons gallery and category using this template; at the time I can only choose on or the other. Can the above-mentioned template's "(category)" part be added to this template? Thanks.--ɱ(talk · vbm)07:48, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
@Koavf: Thanks for the reply, weirdly enough I'm only seeing it now. What I'm trying to describe isn't easy, and yes I agree that this template should be used instead of all of the separate 'sister project' templates. But do you know how this template links to Commons categories? It would be useful if it could link to a Commons category as well as a Commons gallery (e.g. Commons:France and Commons:Category:France). Does that make sense?--ɱ(talk · vbm)22:30, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
@Ɱ: I guess it could be done but I honestly don't see the value in it. If the gallery is "better" or more useful, link to it--it will be in the category. If the category is more useful, link to that--the gallery will certainly be right there at the top of it. Since Commons uses categories more for navigation than galleries just as an historical accident, you may want to default to categories. Does that make sense? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯08:28, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
Media viewer images
Latest comment: 9 years ago10 comments4 people in discussion
This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
This is not needed; The template already has the metadata class, and all images have |link= set so Media Viewer is never invoked. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}}08:49, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
My link was to the image before the one that should be excluded. So, if you follow that media viewer link, hitting the next image button should take you back to the top (the montage in the infobox), and should not bring you to the wikibooks logo. Readers browsing images for World War 2 should see images of World War 2 and not our sister project logos. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 19:32, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
Hi guys!
There is a missing sister project, Wikipedia:book:PAGE
On Anthropology there is such a book. It would be tidier if the book went into the sister project link box. It means adding a letter to the parameter list. Can do?Botteville (talk) 01:24, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
@Botteville: There might be some confusion here: the Wikimedia Foundation has several projects that they help to curate with the work of volunteers like you and me. These projects are published via the Web but they have also been burned to DVDs and printed as books as well. There is a sister project named Wikibooks which makes free guides, tutorials, and textbooks. There are also physical books made of paper that can be created out of any Wikimedia Foundation project. I think you might be confusing the two or under the impression that the ability to make print books of this content is a separate "sister project" when it's not. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯05:03, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
Latest comment: 9 years ago13 comments6 people in discussion
I suggest a new parameter for the template, to be named commonscat or something like this, with possible values yes or no, in order to automatically add prefix Category: to the commons link if yes, since frequently there is a need to write it manually. The template already has similar parameter, author, which adds an Author: prefix to the Wikisource link.--ɴõɴəχүsƚ16:31, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
@Koavf: there is a large mass of articles which don't have corresponding commons page, but they have a commons category. In many cases, name of this category is the same as the name of an article, so it's easier and shorter to write commonscat=yes than commons=Category:X. For the same purposes, we have separate templates, {{commons}} and {{commons category}}, and author parameter in this template, so I think it would be fine to make some uniformity.--ɴõɴəχүsƚ11:26, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
@Koavf: This change may have caused a problem. In the Sister project links box at the article Saturn, the Commons link now goes to a search for Saturn, despite the fact that the html is marked "commons=Saturn (planet)", which I assume previously made the link go directly to the correct Commons gallery. This is just an example, a link problem I just happened across, but I presume it affects many articles. This needlessly adds an extra step for anyone trying to reach the Commons page for (the planet) Saturn from the Wikipedia article, so I assume it was unintended. SJ Morg (talk) 07:27, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
That's because |commons= was changed to |c= at the same time, possibly breaking many articles. Was this change intended? -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}}08:28, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
I don't know where this conversation left off, but someone privy to the changes should really update the documentation. I just spent a good ten minutes trying to figure out why the usual formatting stopped working. Either revert the change to |c= or add it as an alternative to |commons= or revert this whole change until someone wants to figure it out. – czar21:53, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
Yes, but the template only accepted |commons=, and only |c= after your edit, while the previous was still in wide use. It should have accepted both. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}}08:01, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
Wikivoyage
Latest comment: 9 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Latest comment: 9 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
For the Wikivoyage link, this template is checking Wikidata for d:Property:P107, which has been deleted over there - so it should probably be removed from this template's code - Evad37[talk]11:17, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
It's only used once, in the test {{#ifeq:{{#property:P107}}|geographical feature|true|false}} - should that be replaced with an explicit true or an explicit false? --Redrose64 (talk) 15:08, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 years ago19 comments5 people in discussion
The link from this template to Wiktionry states "Definitions from Wiktionary".
That is an extremely narrow description of what Wiktionary provides. The entries at Wiktionary also provide an etymology, IPA pronunciation, pronunciation audio files, rhyming words, historical and variant spellings, inflection or conjugation, usage information, dated historical citations, etymologically related terms, synonyms, antonyms, anagrams, translations into other languages, and more. (See wikt:parrot for an example of what Wiktionary actually provides in an entry.)
My concern is that wiktionary isn't nearly as known as Wikipedia and some might not be aware that it's a dictionary. How about "about this word at Wiktionary"? Oiyarbepsy (talk) 04:53, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
I could see "About this term at Wiktionary". I'd rather use term than word, because the entry is sometimes a phrase, abbreviation, or something other than a word. --EncycloPetey (talk) 06:15, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
Per EncycloPetey's comment, where WP has an "Article" tab, Wiktionary has an "Entry" tab. Not the last word by any means, but it's something. ―Mandruss☎17:26, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
I think most English speakers are familiar with the term "dictionary entry", more so than "entry in the dictionary". So "Wiktionary entry" might work best. It departs from the x from y meme, but then so does "Database entry x on Wikidata". Considering that Wiktionary rhymes with dictionary and only dictionary, "people might not be aware that it's a dictionary" seems a weak argument. Especially if you used "Wiktionary entry", I suspect most readers could figure it out. ―Mandruss☎17:40, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
Or, "Dictionary entry from Wiktionary", consistent with "Database entry x on Wikidata". Would probably result in a line wrap not present now, a minor point. ―Mandruss☎17:48, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
My two cents For what it's worth, I don't think that using "definitions" is reductive because dictionaries routinely include etymologies, pronunciation guides, see alsos, etc. Wiktionary is probably the most robust dictionary in the world and provides plus ultra content to a definition but still I can't imagine anyone not clicking on the link because he thinks it will lack declensions. The most important thing is to keep it very pithy to avoid wrapping lines. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯23:24, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
The other side: If you're here on Wikipedia reading a full article about anarchism or the prophet Habakkuk, would you then follow a link promising merely a "definition"? Saying that Wiktionary provides just definitions defeats the purpose of having the sister link by emphasizing the wrong bit of content over all others. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:03, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
I dunno, but I disagree that the most important thing is to avoid a line wrap. We should be as useful as possible, avoiding a line wrap if possible. ―Mandruss☎01:09, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
I'm not sure about different screen widths, but trying a few of these above suggestions on the preview function when editing the template's sandbox reveals that there shouldn't be a line wrap, even for 'About this term at Wiktionary', my preferred choice. I agree, after reading an encyclopedic article, few will want to click to simply read a definition.--ɱ(talk · vbm)15:13, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
@EncycloPetey:I point you to WP:VOLUNTEER. There is no organization or task force in charge of this page, and no one obligated to do anything. We never really had any agreement on how to word this anyway. I would suggest:
Create a new section on this talk page (whether than doing it at this section)
List 3 or 4 possible wordings, numbered option 1, option 2, etc, for people to choose from and ask them to state their opinion and preference
Post at WP:Village Pump and ask people to comment at this page.
The Village Pump post puts eyes and ears on the page, while the list of options gives people something concrete to comment on. If there is clear agreement after that discussion, use the {{edit protected}} template to request an administrator or template editor to make the change. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 20:48, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for the essay about why nothing gets accomplished, but as you can see above, notice was given in the VP back when the issue was raised. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:08, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Projects to appear only if they exist?
Latest comment: 8 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I've added this great template on cywiki, (Nodyn:Wicimedia / {{wikimedia}}) as you can see on the w:cy:Microcephaly article. I would like to see visible only those projects which actually do include a reference to Microcephaly; in this case, only WP and WD. This could then be added (in theory) to all 60,000 cy articles. As it stands it entices the reader to click on links which do not exist, which is not good. Many thanks. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 16:25, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
This should be possible using Lua – e.g. Module:Wikidata has a getSiteLink function, so the template should be able to use that to check if sister projects are linked on wikidata, and if so provide the page names - Evad37[talk]04:08, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
add positions besides align-right
Latest comment: 8 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I recently added three of this template to one article (no longer included), because three terms potentially had links. Since the template automatically aligns to the right edge of the page, the result was that all three formed into a tall column that resulted in vast space to the left being empty. That's a bad layout. An option to allow side-by-side positioning would help. I don't know how to do that. Nick Levinson (talk) 20:03, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
Working on an edit to improve this template for screen reader and keyboard users. Mostly minor or invisible (to most users) edits. With one big exception — the icon links.
How important is it for the icons to be linked? Removing the icon link reduces the tab key presses to navigate the list from two to one per item, and eliminates repetitive speech. On the other hand, there are probably users who'd rather click the icon than the text. As a third option, it might be possible to combine the image and text into a single link by inserting a CSS pseudo-element, but it'd be tricky. Matt Fitzpatrick (talk) 12:12, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
They don't link to the file description page now, either. There seems to be a presumption that Wikimedia doesn't demand attribution for using Wikimedia logos on Wikimedia sites. Should I ask for explicit permission to make it official? Matt Fitzpatrick (talk) 03:26, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
Linking to galleries at Commons
Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
There is an important discussion at Commons here concerning the fact that this template may lead visitors to galleries. Please have a look and share your thoughts. Many thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:41, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
Resolved
Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:18, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Done. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 05:36, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
Done There is now a "display" parameter. ~ PaulT+/C 00:23, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
Not done for now; please past the code into a sandbox so that responding admins can verify that it works. An example page would help as well. This way you can test it thoroughly yourself without a responding admin having to worry about breaking anything.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 13:43, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
Not done: Can you explain the change in detail? Your version seems to have a ragged left margin for the text strings and changes the Wikispecies text. What is the benefit/intent? Thanks, Celestra (talk) 14:05, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Fixed; all say "thanks" to Wikien2009 (talk · contribs) for his minor correction (this is a sarcasm). Incnis Mrsi (talk) 09:32, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Definitions from Wiktionary
Media from Commons
News from Wikinews
Quotations from Wikiquote
Texts from Wikisource
Textbooks from Wikibooks
Resources from Wikiversity
Travel information from Wikivoyage
Taxa from Wikispecies
Not done: – WP:ALT explains that for logo links, the use of the caption also serves as the alt link. The two icons in the Debian article show what happens: One yields "Search Commons" and the other "Search Wikiversity". That satisfies the accessibility requirements. – Paine Ellsworth CLIMAX! 12:42, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
Not done: 
Let's see what happens when I sort of "unfork" the issue. – Paine 21:51, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
– Paine Ellsworth CLIMAX! 02:31, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
Great! Thank you. MiewEN (talk) 07:31, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
Data from Wikidata
![[7]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II#mediaviewer/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_141-1880,_Peenem%C3%BCnde,_Start_einer_V2.jpg){kind=link}
