NIWA Community Forums

NIWA Community => NIWA Discussion => Topic started by: Matt on December 26, 2010, 08:04:37 AM

Title: Interwiki Redirect Pages
Post by: Matt on December 26, 2010, 08:04:37 AM
I'm bringing this to attention here. Zelda Wiki.org recently attempted to set up redirects to take users directly to Smash Wiki. They're breaking several special pages.
http://zeldawiki.org/Special:WantedPages
http://zeldawiki.org/Special:BrokenRedirects
http://zeldawiki.org/Special:DoubleRedirects

All the errors currently on there are caused by redirect pages to Smash Wiki. I'm told that other NIWA wikis had this kind of trouble too.

One of our users has this to say about it:
Quote
A bit early to come up with a conclusion, but here's what I think: The wiki takes the redirect and sees if it exists in the domain.

ie. It will look to see if zeldawiki.org/ssb:Dream Land exists, not ssbwiki.com/Dream Land
If that is the case, we either have to:
1. Fix the wiki from the inside
2. Delete the redirects

So the questions I have are: Are other wikis here having the same problem? If so, have you figured out anything about them? And then what could we do about them? If we can't fix it, should we all abandon these kind of redirects and instead make a more of "soft" redirects like what are used on Wikimedia sites (for example, German proverbs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_proverbs))?
Title: Re: Interwiki Redirect Pages
Post by: Toomai on December 26, 2010, 03:47:12 PM
If interwiki redirects were possible I'd think Wikipedia would have done it by now.
Title: Re: Interwiki Redirect Pages
Post by: Miles of SmashWiki on December 26, 2010, 05:28:49 PM
I don't see anything wrong with following the WikiMedia example and using soft redirects.
Title: Re: Interwiki Redirect Pages
Post by: tacopill on December 26, 2010, 08:32:30 PM
check out: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/w/index.php?title=Fox_McCloud&redirect=no.
Title: Re: Interwiki Redirect Pages
Post by: Matt on December 26, 2010, 11:52:55 PM
If interwiki redirects were possible I'd think Wikipedia would have done it by now.
It is of course possible. I think it might be just this problem that lead Wikipedia to using soft redirects instead. It's not exactly a high priority bug to fix I'd imagine. So it fits.
Title: Re: Interwiki Redirect Pages
Post by: Garrett on December 27, 2010, 12:53:22 AM
Links to other wikis should be handled through interwiki links (either directly or as templates), not redirects. Wikipedia avoids interwiki redirects because the significant downsides outweigh the very minor benefits.
Title: Re: Interwiki Redirect Pages
Post by: tacopill on December 27, 2010, 02:58:31 AM
Links to other wikis should be handled through interwiki links (either directly or as templates), not redirects. Wikipedia avoids interwiki redirects because the significant downsides outweigh the very minor benefits.

Which downsides would those be?





Title: Re: Interwiki Redirect Pages
Post by: Garrett on December 27, 2010, 03:41:18 AM
Which downsides would those be?
I was specifically referring to "hard" redirects, in case that wasn't clear; as well as the reasons mentioned above there's the added hassle of maintaining the redirects. The normal "redirected from" links don't appear across wikis, so you need to approach the page in an indirect manner in order to edit it.

Redirects (soft or not) are advantageous if you're wanting an external page to appear in a local category, but other than that one instance the only actual difference is whether you have to type a couple of extra characters when first adding a link on a page.
Title: Re: Interwiki Redirect Pages
Post by: Matt on December 27, 2010, 05:08:12 AM
Which downsides would those be?
Yeah, I mentioned that Wikimedia sites probably avoid them for good reason.

They are:

There may be others, but those are most important.
Title: Re: Interwiki Redirect Pages
Post by: SnorlaxMonster on December 27, 2010, 11:23:56 AM
check out: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/w/index.php?title=Fox_McCloud&redirect=no.
It works perfectly, except that it fills up Special:DoubleRedirects (http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Special:DoubleRedirects)
Title: Re: Interwiki Redirect Pages
Post by: tacopill on January 01, 2011, 04:07:02 AM
check out: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/w/index.php?title=Fox_McCloud&redirect=no.
It works perfectly, except that it fills up Special:DoubleRedirects (http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Special:DoubleRedirects)

That's a glitch....

It filled up one row with

Code: [Select]
"Fox McCloud (edit) →‎ Fox McCloud →‎ Fox McCloud"
how can it redirect to itself - twice?
Title: Re: Interwiki Redirect Pages
Post by: Nintendoguy1 on January 01, 2011, 10:34:44 PM
check out: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/w/index.php?title=Fox_McCloud&redirect=no.
It works perfectly, except that it fills up Special:DoubleRedirects (http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Special:DoubleRedirects)

That's a glitch....

It filled up one row with

Code: [Select]
"Fox McCloud (edit) ?? Fox McCloud ?? Fox McCloud"
how can it redirect to itself - twice?
It's because those are interwiki links, it's not a glitch - it's just not working properly.
Title: Re: Interwiki Redirect Pages
Post by: tacopill on January 01, 2011, 11:16:22 PM
check out: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/w/index.php?title=Fox_McCloud&redirect=no.
It works perfectly, except that it fills up Special:DoubleRedirects (http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Special:DoubleRedirects)

That's a glitch....

It filled up one row with

Code: [Select]
"Fox McCloud (edit) ?? Fox McCloud ?? Fox McCloud"
how can it redirect to itself - twice?
It's because those are interwiki links, it's not a glitch - it's just not working properly.

um... last i checked "not working properly" would be considered a glitch.
Title: Re: Interwiki Redirect Pages
Post by: Nintendoguy1 on January 01, 2011, 11:23:48 PM
check out: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/w/index.php?title=Fox_McCloud&redirect=no.
It works perfectly, except that it fills up Special:DoubleRedirects (http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Special:DoubleRedirects)

That's a glitch....

It filled up one row with

Code: [Select]
"Fox McCloud (edit) ?? Fox McCloud ?? Fox McCloud"
how can it redirect to itself - twice?
It's because those are interwiki links, it's not a glitch - it's just not working properly.

um... last i checked "not working properly" would be considered a glitch.
Well, a glitch is when coding which is intended to do one thing goes wrong, this thing was just never meant to be redirected so it's technically not going wrong.
Title: Re: Interwiki Redirect Pages
Post by: tacopill on January 02, 2011, 06:04:19 AM
check out: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/w/index.php?title=Fox_McCloud&redirect=no.
It works perfectly, except that it fills up Special:DoubleRedirects (http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Special:DoubleRedirects)

That's a glitch....

It filled up one row with

Code: [Select]
"Fox McCloud (edit) ?? Fox McCloud ?? Fox McCloud"
how can it redirect to itself - twice?
It's because those are interwiki links, it's not a glitch - it's just not working properly.

um... last i checked "not working properly" would be considered a glitch.
Well, a glitch is when coding which is intended to do one thing goes wrong, this thing was just never meant to be redirected so it's technically not going wrong.

Ah, ok. Then the makes more sense.

Still, if it is not a glitch, i would consider it at least a bug (https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=26531), which has a much looser definition.