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List:       wikitech-l
Subject:    Re: [Wikitech-l] implementing the Interlanguage extension
From:       Nikola Smolenski <smolensk () eunet ! rs>
Date:       2010-02-28 9:18:47
Message-ID: 201002281018.48112.smolensk () eunet ! rs
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If you don't know what this is about, refer to:

- http://www.mail-archive.com/wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org/msg01907.html
- https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15607
- http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Interlanguage
- http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/A_newer_look_at_the_interwiki_link
- 
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:A_central_wiki_for_interlanguage_links

Дана Tuesday 17 March 2009 07:01:39 Nikola Smolenski написа:
> Дана Saturday 14 March 2009 23:20:01 Amir E. Aharoni написа:
> > 2009/3/15 Andrew Garrett <andrew@werdn.us>:
> > > On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 4:10 AM, Amir E. Aharoni
> > > <amir.aharoni@gmail.com>
>
> wrote:
> > >> Sorry about bugging the list about it, but can anyone please explain
> > >> the reason for not enabling the Interlanguage extension?
> > >>
> > >> See bug 15607 -
> > >> https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15607
> > >
> > > In general, extensions with this status haven't been implemented
> > > because they haven't been reviewed by a highly experienced developer.
> >
> > Brion wrote a few comments there, but i didn't understand what exactly
> > is the problem.

I talked with Brion about the extension at the 2009 developers meeting in 
Berlin (I'm sorry it took me so long to report on this). He considered the 
extension a good idea in general, and he clarified to me what did he mean in 
his bugzilla comments. So:


"The lack of automatic updates seems less than ideal" - we actually skipped 
this. One of the problems is that there is no way for the new links to 
automatically propagate from the central wiki to the client wikis. In order 
for the links to propagate one has to edit the page or purge the page cache 
on the client wikis for every change on the central wiki.

Currently, if the extension would be implemented, this would either not be 
done at all (causing a delay in the interwiki propagation) or be done by bots 
(which is stupid). I guess the solution is to add a hook to 
ArticleSaveComplete on the central wiki that would go around and purge caches 
(how? via API again?) on the client wikis.



"as does the multiple fetching of link data over the HTTP API on every page 
render" - Brion would like the links to be fetched directly from the database 
of the central wiki (similar to how Commons image description is fetched 
now), instead of via API as is the case now. This should be very easy to do. 
(I'd keep fetching via API in the extension in case someone would like to 
play with it, but fetching from the database should be the default.)


"Management UI by manual editing of offsite pages looks pretty ugly; what 
could be done to improve this?" - Brion thought that the interwiki management 
on the central wiki should be done on the client wikis.

The first idea was to create some special page for the client wikis that would 
enable the editors to add the links to some central database (wouldn't even 
have to be a wiki). But this was dropped: it wouldn't be possible to control 
who added a link, where, someone could simply delete all the links etc.

Long story short, the final idea was to, basically, enable editing of the 
central wiki through the client wiki. Editors of the client wiki could, 
probably on some special page, edit the list of interwikis, and these edits 
would affect the articles on the central wiki, be viewable in recent changes 
and article histories there etc.

This would be humongously complicated and I don't think it could be done in a 
reasonable time, if at all. So, I don't think it should be done.

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