Template talk:Sister project links

Discussion of where to place Template:Sister bar

A discussion of where to place {{Sister bar}} on articles is now open at WT:MOSLAYOUT. Please feel free to join the discussion! — hike395 (talk) 19:40, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 10 January 2023

Please can line 418 of Module:Sister project links be edited from:

• "'''%s''' at Wikipedia's [[Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects|<span id=\"sister-projects\">sister projects</span>]]"

to:

• "<b>%s</b> at Wikipedia's [[Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects|<span id=\"sister-projects\">sister projects</span>]]"

At the moment, articles that start with an apostrophe (such as 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad', which has this template) break the formatting, as the renderer puts the first ' of ''' on its own line above the rest of the title, outside the bold formatting.

I've tested the above fix at Module:Module sandbox, and it's working as expected. ‑‑Yodin^T 15:03, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

 Done Nice catch. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:05, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Cleanup: Parameter "qid"

For the paramter qid there is no description! It seems that with this parameter you can define a search string for wikidata, but this is already possible with parameter q. Or does it something more? Regards --W like wiki ^{good to know} 12:50, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

It's purely for testing: it forces the template to behave as if it were placed on an article with that qid. It should not be used on normal pages, so it remains undocumented. It's used, e.g., on Template:Sister project links/testcases. — hike395 (talk) 16:01, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

|q= is something entirely different: it is for displaying links to Wikiquote. |d= links to Wikidata, but does not force the entire template to behave as if it were on a different article. — hike395 (talk) 16:03, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

@Hike395: Oh yes, that was my mistake, sure, I meant |d=. So  Done. Thx! --W like wiki ^{good to know} 17:08, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Cleanup: Parameter "iw" (Wikipedia link)

Hello and hello @Hike395: I think the Parameter "iw" (Wikipedia link) is not needed. Interlanguage links are not interproject links. A Wikipedia link here in this box is a bit irritating. Sure, the case is different if this box is in a Wikiversity or Wiktionary article, but here on Wikipedia a link to another language edition of Wikipedia should not appear under sister projects. Agree? Regards --W like wiki ^{good to know} 17:19, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. There already is a template {{InterWiki}} that links to an edition of Wikipedia, and produces a big box designed to be in External Links. |iw= simply allows editors to fold that link into this box, instead of forcing a completely separate box which looks ugly (see right).

If you feel like {{InterWiki}} does not belong in EL at all, I would suggest gaining consensus at Template talk:InterWiki. — hike395 (talk) 01:19, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Edit Request: Display order of wikivoyage and wikiversity

Hello and hello @Hike395: it would be nice if the the order of the wikivoyage and wikiversity links could be switched. First profite: Textbooks (wikibooks) and wikiversity are displayed together. Second: All projects that default to "yes" when auto=no (bold) are displayed together. So the order will be:

before	after
Wiktionary Commons Wikinews Wikiquote Wikisource Wikibooks Wikivoyage Wikiversity Wikispecies Wikipedia Wikidata Meta-Wiki MediaWiki	Wiktionary Commons Wikinews Wikiquote Wikisource Wikibooks Wikiversity Wikivoyage Wikispecies Wikipedia Wikidata Meta-Wiki MediaWiki

Regards --W like wiki ^{good to know} 17:37, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

This change is easy to make at Module:Sister project links, but it would be good to hear if other editors support or oppose this change. — hike395 (talk) 01:24, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Too trivial to oppose :) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:54, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

@MSGJ: --W like wiki ^{good to know} 18:41, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

 Implemented — now live, affects {{Sister project links}}, {{Sister bar}}, and {{Subject bar}}. Easy to revert if there are objections. — hike395 (talk) 20:49, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

From?

The wording provided by the "iw" parameter, "<Language> Edition from Wikipedia" (seen, for example, in the articles for Swahili and Bulgarian), seems awkward. "<Language> Edition of Wikipedia" would be better. - dcljr (talk) 01:44, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

 Done --- good idea. — hike395 (talk) 12:39, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

hike395 and Dcljr: I don't think this edit makes sense in the context of the other phrasing. Each of the phrases in the sister projects box appears, to me, to omit roughly the same words: a preposition and the article name, like "of XXX" or "about XXX" or "by XXX", where "XXX" is the article name. For example, "Definitions from Wiktionary" really means "Definitions of XXX from Wiktionary". "Travel information from Wikivoyage" means "Travel information about XXX from Wikivoyage". In that grammatical context, "English edition from Wikipedia" was correct, meaning "English edition of 'XXX' from Wikipedia". For example, if I use this template at John Dalton with |iw=es, I get:

• Definitions from Wiktionary (read: Definitions of John Dalton from Wiktionary)
• Media from Commons (read: Media about John Dalton from Commons)
• News from Wikinews (read: News about John Dalton from Wikinews)
• Quotations from Wikiquote (read: Quotations by John Dalton from Wikiquote)
• Texts from Wikisource (read: Texts about John Dalton from Wikisource)
• Textbooks from Wikibooks (read: Textbooks about John Dalton from Wikibooks)
• Resources from Wikiversity (read: Resources about John Dalton from Wikiversity)
• Spanish edition of Wikipedia (read: Spanish edition of John Dalton of Wikipedia)

The last one no longer makes sense. I think "from" was, while not perfect, more correct. There may be a third way to make the phrasing even better while keeping it brief. Inserting quotation marks around the article name in the interwiki phrasing might be slightly better, but it could have unforeseen consequences for titles that already contain punctuation. – Jonesey95 (talk) 12:53, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: |iw= is only used on articles about languages. Following {{InterWiki}}, the iw links in the sister box don't link to a corresponding article in the other edition, they link to the main page of the other edition. In other words, the link is not to the "Article about the Spanish language in the Spanish edition of Wikipedia", it's truly the "Spanish edition of Wikipedia". — hike395 (talk) 13:13, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

How very odd. Thanks for the explanation; this is why I try to discuss changes like this on talk pages instead of knee-jerk reverting changes that I do not fully understand. A few thoughts:

1. I did not see a good explanation of |iw= in the documentation; hence my confusion. (Also, I did not actually click on the link when I tried it at John Dalton, which is lazy on my part).
2. Possibly because the documentation is lacking, |iw= is used on articles other than language articles.
3. The other sister project links take me to information about the topic covered in the article, but |iw= links just take me to the main page, as you describe. That seems like a missed opportunity, and a possible WP:EGG problem (see, for example, the link at Avigliana castle). I wonder how difficult it would be to make the |iw= link work like {{ill}}, possibly pulling the proper link title from Wikidata. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:45, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

(Outdenting a bit, but replying to Jonesey95…) Its use in the Avigliana castle article is Just Plain Wrong (IMO… so I've changed it). Interlanguage links are already provided by Wikidata (and the article already links to it:Castello di Avigliana in the sidebar, or wherever it appears in your skin). There's no other reason to link to the Italian Wikipedia in that article (not in the box at the bottom, anyway). - dcljr (talk) 14:59, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

OK, but again, if the documentation does not say how to use the parameter, how is an editor to know what is Wrong? More fundamentally, it seems strangely non-parallel and a violation of WP:EGG to use |iw= in French language, where the heading of this template says "French language at Wikipedia's sister projects", but the link does not take you to fr:Français. I propose that this parameter be removed entirely or radically reformatted to show that the heading "XXX language at Wikipedia's sister projects" does not apply to the "XXX edition of Wikipedia" link. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:02, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

1. I added a section to the documentation to explain usage, so now editors can realize that using |iw= on non-language articles is Wrong, and that the link goes to the Main Page.
2. This is a useful parameter and I claim it should not be removed. Per the discussion above, the layout when {{Interwiki}} is used in addition to {{Sister project links}} looks ugly. Non-English Wikipedias are still sister projects, and it seems sensible that links to the XXX language Wikipedia should be folded into the sister box.
3. I'm hoping that dlcjr's proposal fixes the link surprise problem? If the link says "French edition of Wikipedia", that would tell readers that the link goes to fr:Wikipédia:Accueil principal rather than to fr:Français.
4. I would have thought that the entire French edition of Wikipedia was a valid entry in a list titled "French language at Wikipedia's sister projects" --- it's French and it's a sister project. It's not like the other links are guaranteed to always go to the parallel article in another Wikipedia. Editors can override the entry -- I've seen Wikivoyage links go to more general articles (e.g., Sonoran Desert linking to voy:Desert (California).

— hike395 (talk) 17:05, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Punctuation missing for uses with only Commons link

Hello! I don't know enough about templates to know how to fix this, but I found that when this template is used, sometimes when selecting the option to fill in defaults from Wikidata it only shows a Wikimedia Commons link - and when this happens, the box format changes to match the format of the Commons category box, except that it's missing the period normally included at the end of the sentence. (See examples at right)

Doomhope (talk) 18:16, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

 Fixed here — hike395 (talk) 19:28, 3 March 2024 (UTC)