Category talk:Transwiki

Templates and categories for Transwiki
I've taken the liberty of creating some templates and categories to help direct Transwiki activities. The following categories have been created: Anyone wishing to participate in Transwiki work need only look at the contents of these categories, grouped under Category:Transwiki (which itself is in Category:Wikiquote cleanup), to see what needs to be done.
 * Category:Move into Wikiquote (incoming articles)
 * Category:Move to Wikipedia
 * Category:Move to Wikisource
 * Category:Move to Wikibooks
 * Category:Move to Wiktionary
 * Category:Move to other project

To make it easy to stamp incoming and outgoing articles, I've also created the following templates: The Wikiquote template is important, because many articles coming from other projects already have this template in them. By having one here as well, we get inclusion in the "Move into Wikiquote" category and a nice message in the article that explains what needs to be done. The other three are modelled on templates from Wikipedia, so that when we send articles out, we can return the tagging favor. (I don't think Wikipedia has implemented incoming tags yet, possibly because almost all Transwiki activity in Wikipedia is outbound. But we can give them the tags in case they decide to implement them!)
 *  
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 * 
 * 

We still need to have some instructions and links to describe the Transwiki process. (I'll be darned if I can remember how I stumbled onto this maintenance work.) For the moment, I've left placeholder text to remind us to provide this as soon as practical. (The text messages in the templates could use some sprucing up, too, like a nice shaded box.) &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 05:58, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Neat. Thank you for those new categories and templates. Since we have many transwikied artrcles it would be very helpful. A nice instruction page might be great. --Aphaia 07:22, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * I hope to move over or link to some instructions from Wikipedia and Transwiki tonight &mdash; after a long sleep and some time for non-cyberspace chores. &#9786; &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 07:48, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, it took me a few more days than I'd anticipated, but I created Help:Transwiki to provide detailed instructions on both the incoming and outgoing process. Give it a spin.
 * Also, I've added two more categories and templates to the above set. (I don't normally like to edit anything but typos out of my previous Talk page comments, but the lists above are good for quick reference, and there are no anachronistic comments yet posted here.) "Wikibooks" is obvious; "other project" is used to catch any other wiki projects, including non-English projects. This system isn't really scaleable otherwise. In fact, I'm raising the issue below that we might not need more than an incoming and outgoing category. Please take a look at that, too. &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 06:40, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Problem pages
Two transwiki pages that I've tagged with refuse to show up in the category page: I can discern nothing different between these two and the four remaining pages that are similarly tagged, that do show up. Anyone have any ideas why these two pages refuse to show up when the others have no problems? &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 07:45, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Transwiki:Nolite te bastardes carborundorum
 * Transwiki:Men can do all things if they will

Different categories for different projects
When I started created transwiki templates and categories, I created different ones for moving to different wiki projects, thinking that someone may feel comfortable moving articles into one project and not another. It also has the side benefit, which I hadn't realized at the time, of making it possible to start a reciprocal practice with the other wikis to use a standardized template,  , that each project could replace with appropriate text, so that incoming articles would automatically display the new project's text and place into a project-defined category. For instance, no matter how each project configures their transwiki stuff, if they use a   template for articles coming here, they're automatically grouped in our designated place, with our text displayed at the top when they get here.

The downside is that it requires a separate template and category for every other wikiproject, which isn't scaleable. I figured that anything outside the most common ones could be grouped under Category:Transwiki directly, using a   template.

It occurred to me belatedly that the step of moving articles into a new project's Transwiki: namespace was specifically to avoid having to learn that project's standards. It's up to them to edit and format the material to make it acceptable for their use, so perhaps there's really no need to feel more uncomfortable for one project than another. Each project's transwiki log is reached the same way. The only issues might be whether one has a login for the new project (but only if one wants credit for moving the page) and whether one speaks the language (for non-English projects).

The question then is, should we use more than one outgoing category/template? &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 06:44, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Transwiki candidates" list
When I first tried to envision the complete outbound transwiki process for Wikiquote (for which I had no examples at the time), I thought it would be useful to have a separate Transwiki candidates list, so people who weren't used to adding categories would have a simple, recognizable way to nominate an article for transwiki. Having just completed a set of instructions for Wikiquote transwikis (Help:Transwiki), I realized that I thought adding one of the   templates was so easy that I completely forgot to provide instructions on the list-based alternative. I'm thinking now that we can just do away with the list, just as we aren't using Speedy deletions anymore except for instructions. Not only has "Transwiki candidates" not even been used yet (so no one will miss it), but all the instructions are in one place at "Help:Transwiki". If nobody has any objections, I'll do a speedy delete in a few days (if I'm not beaten to it). &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 06:47, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Speedy delete old articles?
Transwiki is clear that one can delete an article on its way out of a project, but some (like Wikiquote) have been creating links to the new project from within the old article. Do we want to: I get the feeling that they haven't really addressed all this stuff at Meta:Transwiki yet, so we may be on the forefront of formalizing some practices here. &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 06:59, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) Just delete the article? It's safe (history recorded on transwikied page; can always undelete), but there may be good reasons to either maintain a link or provide a redirect. (Meta's Transwiki page is self-contradicting on this issue, as it says you can delete an outgoing page, but you must keep redirects from the incoming transwiki article because of possible redirects from the orignal project, which shouldn't exist if the original articles are deleted. See Keeping Transwiki articles forever? for my thus-far unanswered question about this contradiction.)
 * 2) Create a link to the main project page? It's a reasonable compromise between outright deletion and redirecting either to a transwiki page that will eventually not exist or a not-yet-existing main-namespace page in the new project. (As I understand it, Kalki did this for many speeches going to Wikisource, largely because he had a considerable number of articles to transwiki while he was the only active admin. I'm sure the aforementioned ambiguity didn't help.) However, as Rmhermen pointed out, the resulting article doesn't provide what it claims (i.e., quotes), and it gives the impression that Wikiquote "officially" doesn't want a proper article with this title.
 * 3) Create a link to the new transwiki page? That is, after reducing the article to a stub or extracting some sample quotes from the transwikied article. This would provide a link to the old information, which might still be useful, but not prevent people from adding quotes. (For example, someone might want to grab a quote or two from a speech while that speech was sitting in Wikisource's Transwiki: area. If there was an "External links" section that had an entry for this transwiki article, this would be easy to do.) This is what Meta:Transwiki seems (to me, at least) to be implying that people processing incoming transwikis should be watching out for, when they talk about preserving the "link chain" from the old projects. Unless I misread that material, finishing a transwiki process should include checking on links or redirects coming from the old project to the transwiki article, so that they may be eliminated or updated to point to the new, proper article. If that's true, then the old Wikiquote article's "External links" entry would be updated by the new project's editor when they complete the transwiki operation.
 * I favor just deleting - our articles are supposed to be pages of quotes, not access to other project's articles. I think having the redirect in some cases may discourage people from creating quote pages that may be useful. Rmhermen 20:06, 2 May 2005 (UTC)


 * The latest pass on this issue is at Help talk:Transwiki, where it is proposed to use the first approach listed above: just delete the article after transwiki is complete. This defies Meta policy, but is common practice among the wiki projects. It also breaks links from the originating project, but a conscientious transwiki editor can still perform the link fixes before speedy deletion if desired. Please post your comments at Help:Transwiki. — Jeff Q (talk) 00:34, 10 July 2005 (UTC)