Last modified: 2011-07-06 22:21:04 UTC

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Bug 12600 - Create project namespace alias "COM" for Commons
Create project namespace alias "COM" for Commons
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: Wikimedia
Classification: Unclassified
Site requests (Other open bugs)
unspecified
All All
: Low enhancement with 3 votes (vote)
: ---
Assigned To: Priyanka Dhanda
: shell
: 13904 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2008-01-12 16:49 UTC by Eugene Zelenko
Modified: 2011-07-06 22:21 UTC (History)
16 users (show)

See Also:
Web browser: ---
Mobile Platform: ---
Assignee Huggle Beta Tester: ---


Attachments
Result of namespaceDupesWT.php (67.42 KB, text/plain)
2011-07-06 18:03 UTC, Priyanka Dhanda
Details
Result of cleanupTitles.php on commonswiki (6.49 KB, text/plain)
2011-07-06 22:21 UTC, Priyanka Dhanda
Details

Description Eugene Zelenko 2008-01-12 16:49:31 UTC
Please create a new prefix/namespace COM: for Commons as alias to
namespace Commons: (Project:).

Relevant discussion:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#COM_as_alias_for_Commons_namespace
Comment 1 Brion Vibber 2008-01-14 23:19:03 UTC
Conflicts with language code space.
Comment 2 AnonMoos 2008-02-11 13:24:49 UTC
Actually, it only conflicts with language code space if we think that there's a reasonable possibility that a Comanche-language Wikipedia will be established...


Comment 3 Brion Vibber 2008-02-25 21:52:18 UTC
While at the moment that language has a very small speaker community, we would certainly not rule it out.
Comment 4 brianna.laugher 2008-02-25 23:51:05 UTC
The request is only for COM: to be used on Commons, not as a Wikimedia-wide shortcut. Do interwiki links have to work for capitalised codes? I thought they were always lowercase...

In fact it is already used as such, so if a com: project came into existence it would slurp all our shortcuts into interwiki links, would it? That's pretty uncool.
Comment 5 Casey Brown 2008-02-26 02:09:50 UTC
(In reply to comment #4)
> The request is only for COM: to be used on Commons, not as a Wikimedia-wide
> shortcut. Do interwiki links have to work for capitalised codes? I thought they
> were always lowercase...
> 

Interwiki links are case insensitive.

Comment 6 Eugene Zelenko 2008-02-26 02:27:32 UTC
May be we can rename all shortcuts to C: (like M: for meta)? Is C: prefix used for any wiki?
Comment 7 Brion Vibber 2008-02-26 22:17:06 UTC
Just type the name, kids. It's not that hard. :)
Comment 8 Brion Vibber 2008-05-01 17:50:48 UTC
*** Bug 13904 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 9 Aryeh Gregor (not reading bugmail, please e-mail directly) 2010-01-04 08:40:59 UTC
In this particular case it seems reasonable to make the shortcut:

1) Commons doesn't need [[de:Abc]] style interlanguage links, because there's only one Commons.

2) In the unlikely event we ever get a Comanche Wikipedia, you could link to it using [[w:com:Abc]].

3) In the really really unlikely event we ever get a Comanche-language Commons or something that really requires [[com:Abc]] to work, hey, what do we have zillions of editors for if not manually fixing stupid stuff like this?  They knew what they were asking for, so just change it and let them fix up the fallout.
Comment 10 AnonMoos 2010-01-06 14:04:01 UTC
"COM:" is not going to be approved, but there has been some discussion about how "CM:" might be approved as a Commons prefix, since there is no ISO639-1 code CM, and various policies that the list of two-letter ISO639-1 language codes will at best only very rarely be added to in future.  Not sure why things haven't progressed further on "CM:" ...
Comment 11 Betacommand 2010-05-10 15:10:26 UTC
Once the community makes their mind up feel free to re-open
Comment 12 MZMcBride 2010-05-21 12:52:00 UTC
(In reply to comment #11)
> Once the community makes their mind up feel free to re-open
Huh? Re-opening.
Comment 13 JeLuF 2010-05-21 13:14:16 UTC
Has the community decided to use C: or CM: ?
Comment 14 Krinkle 2010-05-21 13:25:02 UTC
I'm not sure.

Here's two links:

This discussion was linked in start of this ticket (archived since here:)
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2008Jan#COM_as_alias_for_Commons_namespace

Another subject the month after:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2008Feb#Redirect_COM:_to_Commons:
Comment 15 MZMcBride 2010-05-21 15:09:47 UTC
(In reply to comment #13)
> Has the community decided to use C: or CM: ?
All of the discussions have been about using "COM:", which is what is used currently for all of the shortcuts. There are no objections from the Commoners.
Comment 16 Rehman 2010-11-07 01:57:01 UTC
I recently posted [http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Village_pump&oldid=45833982#Pointing_.22COM.22_to_.22Commons.22], thinking that it was never discussed.

I entirely agree with Aryeh Gregor's facts.

To me, the CM: is also good, but far from the common use (i.e. Ask an unsuspecting Commoner whats the short for Commons, and s/he'd say COM). But C: is definitely too short.
Comment 17 p858snake 2010-11-07 02:02:24 UTC
(In reply to comment #16)
> unsuspecting Commoner whats the short for Commons, and s/he'd say COM). But C:
> is definitely too short.
how is it to short, we other single letter interwikis else where (which i hate, and so do a few others), for example W: for wikipedia and Q: for wikiquote.
Comment 18 Krinkle 2010-11-07 02:03:24 UTC
(In reply to comment #16)
> To me, the CM: is also good, but far from the common use (i.e. Ask an
> unsuspecting Commoner whats the short for Commons, and s/he'd say COM). But C:
> is definitely too short.

Why is C: Too short ?

Wikipedia(nl) uses H: and P: for Help and Portal.
Dont see the problem.
Comment 19 Rehman 2010-11-07 02:07:15 UTC
(In reply to comment #18)
> (In reply to comment #16)
> Why is C: Too short ?
> 
> Wikipedia(nl) uses H: and P: for Help and Portal.
> Dont see the problem.

Oh... I'll take that back... ;)
Comment 20 MZMcBride 2010-11-07 02:10:25 UTC
(In reply to comment #18)
> (In reply to comment #16)
> > To me, the CM: is also good, but far from the common use (i.e. Ask an
> > unsuspecting Commoner whats the short for Commons, and s/he'd say COM). But C:
> > is definitely too short.
> 
> Why is C: Too short ?
> 
> Wikipedia(nl) uses H: and P: for Help and Portal.
> Dont see the problem.

I think the better example is m: for Meta (another interproject wiki).

The issue with single-letter prefixes is that they're limited (only 26 Latin alphabet letters to choose from) and they have a tendency to conflict with page titles that already exist. Just looking at the English Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:PrefixIndex/C: is used in a quite a few contexts (usually to mean "Category:").

That isn't to say that this blocks this bug from being implemented, but the damage it might cause across all 700+ wikis needs to be properly measured and considered.

There is a similar bug for changing Wiktionary's prefix from "wikt" to a single letter (I can't remember which). I do vaguely remember it not being implemented for similar reasons, though. It might provide valuable lessons to find and read that bug.
Comment 21 X! 2010-11-07 02:13:47 UTC
> There is a similar bug for changing Wiktionary's prefix from "wikt" to a single
> letter (I can't remember which). I do vaguely remember it not being implemented
> for similar reasons, though. 

It was d:. For example: [[D:Ream]]
Comment 22 Krinkle 2010-11-07 02:17:08 UTC
(In reply to comment #20)
> (In reply to comment #18)
> > Why is C: Too short ?
> > 
> > Wikipedia(nl) uses H: and P: for Help and Portal.
> > Dont see the problem.
> 
> I think the better example is m: for Meta (another interproject wiki).
> 
> The issue with single-letter prefixes is that they're limited (only 26 Latin
> alphabet letters to choose from) and they have a tendency to conflict with page
> titles that already exist. Just looking at the English Wikipedia,

Since when is this bug about interproject links ?
This is about a namespace alias within Commons as far as I know.
Comment 23 MZMcBride 2010-11-07 02:56:40 UTC
(In reply to comment #22)
> Since when is this bug about interproject links ?
> This is about a namespace alias within Commons as far as I know.

Ah, that was me conflating issues. My bad.

The implications of possibly having a namespace alias and an interproject prefix that use the same string ("c:") might still be something to consider. This of course presumes that both features would be implemented as such.
Comment 24 MZMcBride 2010-11-07 02:58:56 UTC
(In reply to comment #23)
> (In reply to comment #22)
> > Since when is this bug about interproject links ?
> > This is about a namespace alias within Commons as far as I know.
> 
> Ah, that was me conflating issues. My bad.

I changed the bug summary to (hopefully) be clearer ("Create new prefix COM: for Commons" --> "Create project namespace alias "COM" for Commons").
Comment 25 Krinkle 2010-11-07 03:26:52 UTC
(In reply to comment #24)
> I changed the bug summary to (hopefully) be clearer ("Create new prefix COM:
> for Commons" --> "Create project namespace alias "COM" for Commons").

Okay :) - comment 0 and comment 4 emphasized this though, but the summary was fairly vague about it.
Comment 26 Rehman 2010-12-08 12:20:54 UTC
Just trying to keep things from going stale...

Now as the proposal is about the COM: prefix for use only within Commons, why can't it just be implemented sooner?

Are there any clear issues blocking this change from happening?
Comment 27 AnonMoos 2010-12-10 07:58:10 UTC
(In reply to comment #26)

> Now as the proposal is about the COM: prefix for use only within Commons,
> Are there any clear issues blocking this change from happening?

Unless the software has changed recently, it seems that namespaces and interwikis aren't so separate that they can't conflict, and 3-letter combinations are generally reserved for ISO 639-2 language codes.  However, "CM:" could be approved if there was some push behind it (i.e. if it was somewhat agreed to at Commons Village Pump, etc.) -- see my comment of January 6.
Comment 28 Rehman 2011-01-23 02:42:03 UTC
(In reply to comment #27)
> Unless the software has changed recently, it seems that namespaces and
> interwikis aren't so separate that they can't conflict, and 3-letter
> combinations are generally reserved for ISO 639-2 language codes.  However,
> "CM:" could be approved if there was some push behind it (i.e. if it was
> somewhat agreed to at Commons Village Pump, etc.) -- see my comment of January
> 6.

I don't understand. We could simply make it function this way:
* If you type COM in Commons: it would simply function as a project-space shortcut
* If you type COM outside Commons: it would redirect to Comanche Wiki.

Or am I missing something here?

I don't think creating anything other than COM would be useful; because nobody knows, or is used to this shortcut, and all the current existing shortcuts is COM... I could start a VP discussion to see what is preferred, if anyone finds that useful...
Comment 29 Krinkle 2011-01-23 03:27:19 UTC
(In reply to comment #28)
> (In reply to comment #27)
> > Unless the software has changed recently, it seems that namespaces and
> > interwikis aren't so separate that they can't conflict, and 3-letter
> > combinations are generally reserved for ISO 639-2 language codes.  However,
> > "CM:" could be approved if there was some push behind it (i.e. if it was
> > somewhat agreed to at Commons Village Pump, etc.) -- see my comment of January
> > 6.
> 
> I don't understand. We could simply make it function this way:
> * If you type COM in Commons: it would simply function as a project-space
> shortcut
> * If you type COM outside Commons: it would redirect to Comanche Wiki.
> 
> Or am I missing something here?

No, (although it's been confused before in this bug) this request is for a simple local namespace alias. No interwiki prefix or whatever.
Comment 30 Rehman 2011-01-23 03:53:44 UTC
(In reply to comment #29)
> No, (although it's been confused before in this bug) this request is for a
> simple local namespace alias. No interwiki prefix or whatever.

So considering all the facts discussed above, from our non-developer point of view there are no issues in assigning COM as a shortcut for Commons at Wikimedia Commons?
Comment 31 Rehman 2011-01-23 05:12:08 UTC
I have also started a local discussion here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Village_pump&oldid=48600763#.22COM:.22_as_a_redirect_to_.22Commons:.22_only_within_Wikimedia_Commons

Please see the current version for updated discussions; an editor did mention that it is almost impossible to have the COM "for use only within Commons", if the Comanche Wikipedia existed.

Also, on a rather different topic, the Wikipedia article states that the language is used by around 200 people only, all of them elderly. It is quite unlikely that one of them would come up and propose a new com.wiki. Not going against the devs, but IMVHO holding up a useful shortcut for an almost-extinct language is sort of unproductive. Just saying.
Comment 32 Rehman 2011-03-13 05:38:05 UTC
Considering all WMF policies, is there any chance COM: could be made a namespace alias within Commons?
Comment 33 Krinkle 2011-03-16 23:46:28 UTC
This request is only for a local alias. If and when sucha com: language prefix would be used on our projects, we (Commons community) will have to fix our links.

That is no different from the current situation since there already are links to COM: and pages existant with those names.

Please add the wgNamespaceAliases for commonswiki from 'COM' to NS_PROJECT and run the link fixer to append /BROKEN to any dupes.
Comment 34 Killiondude 2011-06-25 03:03:39 UTC
Poke? As noted by Krinkle, this request is just a local alias, not an interwiki prefix. Please update the appropriate files.
Comment 35 Mark A. Hershberger 2011-06-26 20:16:36 UTC
Assigning to pdhanda to bump this up on her scale of importance.
Comment 36 p858snake 2011-06-27 00:45:56 UTC
this would still cause issues if in future a interwiki matching COM was created, still recommending wontfix as per the previous disuccions.
Comment 37 Krinkle 2011-07-04 21:41:47 UTC
(In reply to comment #36)
> this would still cause issues if in future a interwiki matching COM was
> created, still recommending wontfix as per the previous disuccions.

I'm not sure how that makes any difference. Currently there are over 720 pages on commonswiki in the Main namespace starting with "COM:". If and when such an interwiki would be created the Commons will have to fix these some how.

That is a fact no matter what.
Comment 38 Bawolff (Brian Wolff) 2011-07-04 21:52:21 UTC
(In reply to comment #36)
> this would still cause issues if in future a interwiki matching COM was
> created, still recommending wontfix as per the previous disuccions.

Can't we cross that bridge when we come to it? The com language is next to dead (200 speakers total, most elderly), and almost no one uses the whole interlanguage link feature on commons anyways.
Comment 39 AnonMoos 2011-07-06 03:33:54 UTC
Bawolff wrote:
> almost no one uses the whole interlanguage link feature on commons anyways.

That's not really true -- many gallery and category pages have interwikis.
Comment 40 Priyanka Dhanda 2011-07-06 17:41:14 UTC
mhershberger asked me to go ahead with COM as the alias. Done.
Comment 41 Priyanka Dhanda 2011-07-06 18:03:45 UTC
Created attachment 8751 [details]
Result of namespaceDupesWT.php

Added the output of namespaceDupesWT.php
There were a few pages that it could not resolve automatically that are in the output.
Comment 42 Bawolff (Brian Wolff) 2011-07-06 18:08:30 UTC
(In reply to comment #41)
> Created attachment 8751 [details]
> Result of namespaceDupesWT.php
> 
> Added the output of namespaceDupesWT.php
> There were a few pages that it could not resolve automatically that are in the
> output.

Typically the script is run with the option --suffix BROKEN so that local admins can fix the left over pages easily (otherwise one needs to do really technical stuff with the api, or use firebug to modify form elements on special:movepage to rename such pages)
Comment 43 Priyanka Dhanda 2011-07-06 22:21:04 UTC
Created attachment 8753 [details]
Result of cleanupTitles.php on commonswiki

I ran cleanupTitles instead. Hope that works.

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