Last modified: 2010-05-15 15:51:56 UTC
The "description" field in the table would 'describe' the wiki that was being interwikified (if that makes sense). For example ... | wikia | http://www.wikia.com/wiki/index.php/$1 | 0 | 0 | | the place for communities to come together | wikibooks | http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/$1 | 1 | 0 | | a free collection of open-content textbooks that anyone can edit | wikicities | http://www.wikicities.com/index.php/$1 | 0 | 0 | | usless redirect to wikia etc. etc. This would be a big advantage over the existing table, which is totally anonymous with respect to the links that it contains.
True, but then we also need a page to view the interwiki prefixes - its easier to just have an on-wiki page with a description of them all.
The description should come from the table. Talking of 'on-wiki' pages, do you mean something like this ... http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Special_page_to_work_with_the_interwiki_table The interwiki links are part of the MW install, so it is facetious to suggest that each individual Wiki that uses them should individually document them. (I don't suggest that this is what you are suggesting, but what you suggest would seem to suggest that this is your suggestion). It is a good idea to have such a standard table of interwiki links packaged with the MW distribution. They are useful, promote standardization and encourage the free dissemination of information among a growing cluster of sites. However, they should be documented within the system, and the best place for this data is in the database. Meta should have a list of the links it provides, I agree with that. The following link lists a few, but not many; http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Interwiki Ah, found it (thanks) http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Interwiki_map A perfect case in point, the table on the above page needs a description field, and that should be in (come from) the database table.
NOTE; The interwiki map on Meta is not the same as the interwiki links in the MediaWiki distribution tarball. This is because the map on Meta is for Wikimedia projects. All wikis are supposed to develop their own interwiki map; the interwiki links which benefit them, which is what Wikimedia wikis have done. MediaWiki ships with some default links which contain some well-known communities, and some useful links such as Google and so on. An attempt to make a list specific for the actual MW tarball distribution is here; http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Interwiki_map The table was generated from a dump of a recent install, and has the added 'description' field ;-) as well as a 'debugging' field for dead / garbage / junk links.
Added in r53746, but they're not really used anywhere yet though.
how can I start adding descriptions?
At [[Mediawiki:Interwiki-desc-PREFIX]] and [[Mediawiki:Interwiki-name-PREFIX]].
Will descriptions added there make it into the tarball?
Right now, no.
