Keeping the Wiki self contained VS. using interwiki links

chimeric · 2008-04-16 10:50:15

Hi,

I just took a look at the wanted pages to see if I could find a topic I might be able to add an article to the Wiki and noticed that there are lots of "dead links" to pages like "QT", "LADSPA", "HOSTNAME", "Mozilla" - you get the picture.

What do you think about using interwiki links (to Wikipedia for example) for such links in cases where these links are not in a HOWTO like context but are used to point the reader to further resources (I know that it might not be easy to distinguish between both)?

The motivation behind: IMHO there's no need to duplicate certain information ("QT", "LADSPA") and it would also shorten the list of wanted pages.

What do you think about it? Would it be worth adding a "linking" guideline to the Wiki?

PS: In case the Wiki admins like the idea I'd be glad to help editing all the existing pages ;-).

Allan · 2008-04-16 10:53:54

I don't know if there is an official policy for this but I see no problems with linking to external data sources, so long as it is made clear they are external sites. Maybe like in wikipedia, where there is the external site section at the end of articles.

foxbunny · 2008-04-16 12:07:04

I think that for maintenance reasons it would not be prudent to link to external sites unless EXPLICITLY done so by the author. For example, a person wishing to create a new page, can do so by simply clicking on the link in Wanted pages, which opens an empty page offering the potential author a chance to edit it (and therefore create it).

I believe that you can still explicitly link to external (and Wikipedia) articles. Also, this is Arch specific Wiki, and as far as I'm concerned, it is okay that it stays self-contained.

EDIT: Sorry, I thought it was about automatically linking to External resources. My bad. Anyway, I hope the below helps.

To offer an external link:

[http://www.google.com/ Google search engine]

A link to Wikipedia is this:

[[Wikipedia:Arch Linux]]

Last edited by foxbunny (2008-04-16 12:14:13)

chimeric · 2008-04-16 12:17:31

foxbunny wrote:

Also, this is Arch specific Wiki, and as far as I'm concerned, it is okay that it stays self-contained.

Well that's exactly my point , maybe I didn't make it clear enough though. I can't see what's Arch specific by linking to:

[SourceForge.net]
[freenode]
[QT]
[Mozilla]

IMHO in these cases it would be better to link to external resources than cluttering the "wanted pages" section of the Arch Wiki with pages which most probably no one will ever create.

foxbunny · 2008-04-20 22:13:19

You've got a point there. Perhaps people simply don't know the correct syntax for linking to external resources. But I think that's not a simple thing to weed out, at least not without direct database access...

We would need a script that would find and compile a list of all internal references that point to non-existent articles, and then another script to replace them with external based on a keyword file. At least that's what I'd do (if I could code that up, and had proper access, that is ).

Misfit138 · 2008-04-22 02:27:16

chimeric wrote:

Hi,
I just took a look at the wanted pages to see if I could find a topic I might be able to add an article to the Wiki .....

If you have mastered a function of Arch, add a page to the wiki. Get involved. Share your knowledge.
The pypanel page supposedly needs work: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PyPanel
Pick a topic you are proficient at; see if there is an entry for it. If there is, improve it. If there is not, create it.

chimeric · 2008-04-22 11:08:48

foxbunny wrote:

We would need a script that would find and compile a list of all internal references that point to non-existent articles, and then another script to replace them with external based on a keyword file. At least that's what I'd do (if I could code that up, and had proper access, that is ).

Since I don't have proper access as well and no idea about mediawiki internals and its database structure I think I just stick to the good old fashioned manual search+check+fix way of doing things .

chimeric · 2008-04-22 11:12:26

Misfit138 wrote:

If you have mastered a function of Arch, add a page to the wiki. Get involved. Share your knowledge.

Aye aye sir !

Misfit138 wrote:

The pypanel page supposedly needs work: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PyPanel

Well I don't use PyPanel at all so this maybe isn't the right page for me, I'll look if I am able to find something else (I have an article about backups with dar at my own Wiki, I think I'll start rewriting it for the Arch Wiki).

dolby · 2008-04-23 10:17:54

If you just copied the text from somewhere else IMHO you should post a link to your source. Some websites even use a creative commons license for their content and some people never notice that.

chimeric · 2008-04-23 11:00:33

dolby wrote:

If you just copied the text from somewhere else IMHO you should post a link to your source. Some websites even use a creative commons license for their content and some people never notice that.

Don't worry I wrote it all by myself but it would need to be rewritten to fit the Arch Wiki as it's current form is more blog like (I am aware of licenses, I use a CC license for my personal stuff as well).

Arch Linux

#1 2008-04-16 10:50:15

Keeping the Wiki self contained VS. using interwiki links

#2 2008-04-16 10:53:54

Re: Keeping the Wiki self contained VS. using interwiki links

#3 2008-04-16 12:07:04

Re: Keeping the Wiki self contained VS. using interwiki links

#4 2008-04-16 12:17:31

Re: Keeping the Wiki self contained VS. using interwiki links

#5 2008-04-20 22:13:19

Re: Keeping the Wiki self contained VS. using interwiki links

#6 2008-04-22 02:27:16

Re: Keeping the Wiki self contained VS. using interwiki links

#7 2008-04-22 11:08:48

Re: Keeping the Wiki self contained VS. using interwiki links

#8 2008-04-22 11:12:26

Re: Keeping the Wiki self contained VS. using interwiki links

#9 2008-04-23 10:17:54

Re: Keeping the Wiki self contained VS. using interwiki links

#10 2008-04-23 11:00:33

Re: Keeping the Wiki self contained VS. using interwiki links

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