Help:Transwiki

Some articles created in one wiki project are more appropriate for other projects. For example, a Wikipedia article containing only quotes should be in Wikiquote, or an article written in French for an English-language wiki should be moved to its French equivalent. Transwiki is the process that has been created to move articles between Wiki projects. It uses the following steps:


 * 1) On the originating wiki project:
 * 2) Nominate an article for a transwiki move.
 * 3) Move the article into the new project's transwiki space.
 * 4) On the destination wiki project:
 * 5) Move, merge, or delete the incoming article.

Each wiki project establishes its own detailed practices for the transwiki process, but they are all based on the process described at Transwiki. This page discusses the outgoing and incoming transwiki process for Wikiquote.

General information
All Wikiquote transwiki activity is recorded in Transwiki log, which can also be reached by entering "transwiki" in the Search box. All articles being transwikied are listed in subcategories under Category:Transwiki. Articles coming into Wikiquote are in Category:Move into Wikiquote, and articles to be moved out of Wikiquote are in a "Move to" category that corresponds to their destination project. See also m:Help:Transwiki for general transwiki direction.

Outgoing transwikis
The two major steps for moving an article out of Wikiquote are as follows.

A. Nominate an article
You can suggest that an article be moved to another wiki project by adding the following template to the top of the article:



where PROJECT is one of:
 * Wikipedia (for encyclopedia articles)
 * Wikisource (for entire speeches and other large works)
 * Wikibooks (for books or chapters of books)
 * Wiktionary (for dictionary definitions)

If you feel the article should be moved to a non-English project or a project not listed here, you should add the template:



replacing PROJECT with the destination project's name. If you feel comfortable moving articles between projects, this nomination step is optional, but it is recommended to give the community a chance to review the possibility of making the article useful for Wikiquote. If you aren't comfortable with executing a move, you can leave the actual move to another Wikiquotian.

B. Move the article
Articles cannot currently be moved between wikis as easily as using the "Move" function, so a transwikied article (and its Talk page, if it exists) must be cut and pasted into a new article in the destination project. There are six steps to this process:


 * 1) Create a new-project article. To allow the new project's readers to format the material by their standards before placing it in their main article space, you must create a new article in the "Transwiki:" namespace, using the same title as the article you're moving.
 * 2) Record the edit history. The CC-BY-SA policy under which many wiki projects operate requires that the edit history of pages be retained. For this reason, you must record in the new article what edits have been done in the original project's pages (both the article and its Talk page, if it exists). If there is only one edit, you can paste the single history line and its author into the Edit Summary when you create the page. If there is more than one edit, you must copy the entire page history onto the new article's talk page. (NEED AN EXPLANATION OF HOW TO DO THIS.)
 * 3) Log the new article creation. In the new project's Search box, enter "transwiki" to get its transwiki log. Add a line, following the new project's instructions and formats, to indicate the old Wikiquote article and its new-project Transwiki name. Be sure to sign the log entry.
 * 4) Tag the old article for speedy deletion. Add the template    (replacing PROJECT with the appropriate project's name) so that it may be deleted.
 * 5) Log the old article deletion. In Transwiki log, add a line, following Wikiquote's instructions and formats, to indicate the same information you recorded in the new project's log. Again, don't forget to sign the entry.

Incoming transwikis
Incoming articles for Wikiquote have three possible fates: The process of finishing an incoming transwiki depends on which of these cases seems most appropriate. It is up to the editor who is processing the transwiki article to determine which option makes the most sense. (If others later disagree, the process may be undone, not without difficulty, so please do your research.)
 * 1) They may form a unique new article that can be moved into place.
 * 2) They may overlap one or more existing articles, into which they must be merged.
 * 3) They may appear inappropriate for Wikiquote, which suggests they be nominated for deletion.

Move the article
If you have found no identically-named or overlapping article already in the Wikiquote article space, or if you feel this page can stand on its own, you can simply perform a Move to place the article in the main Wikiquote namespace (e.g., Move "Transwiki:Alfred Pennyworth" to "Alfred Pennyworth").

A redirect will remain in the transwiki namespace to point to the new article title. (NOTE: At present, it is transwiki policy to maintain this redirect indefinitely. Do not delete it.) When the move is complete, check the redirect page for "What links here" (and for its Talk page, if any) and update any pages that link to it (except Transwiki log) so they point directly to the new article title. Your work on this article is then done.

Merge and delete the article
If Wikiquote already has an article with the transwiki page's title, or if there is a more appropriate article or articles that should receive this transwiki page's quotes, it must be merged into these other articles and then deleted. In addition to copying the material into existing articles, you must also record the page history of the old article.
 * If it has only one editor, you can paste the history information (along with the user name or IP) into the Edit Summary for your edit.
 * If it has two or more edits, you must copy and paste the entire history onto the Talk page of the new article. (See Talk:Go for an example of what this looks like. This page history is important not only to comply with the CC-BY-SA policies under which Wikiquote operates, but also to aid sysops in resolving any problems that may occur, or restoring lost material at a later date. It is probably a good idea to copy the page history before adding the quote material so you don't forget to do this later.

Once you have completed copying the material and page history to the one or more articles into which you are merging, you can nominate the old transwiki article for speedy deletion by adding a line like the following to the top of the article:



replacing ARTICLE with the article or articles you merged the transwikied quotes into. This will help sysops understand why this article should be speedily deleted.

Your work on this transwiki article is now done.

Nominate the article for deletion
Some articles coming into Wikiquote will not seem to be useful quote pages, so a transwiki reviewer may consider them worthy of deletion. In these cases, please follow the Votes for deletion process to nominate the article for deletion. If the community agrees with this assessment, a sysop will delete the article. If not, other actions can be taken by other editors. In either case, your work on the article is done.