Wikibooks:Reading room/Proposals/2024/February

Wikibooks the project with the least number of interwikis
It seems that Wikibooks in different languages are quite separate. As I said previously there isn't a clear interwiki policy, and for this reason each language version is like an independent project. In my opinion, Wikibooks needs a guide more explanatory than that of Wikipedia. --Doostdar (discuss • contribs) 20:57, 9 July 2023 (UTC)


 * I imagine that Wikinews has far fewer, as very little content is going to have a one-to-one correspondence. In principle, there is no reason why we couldn't have (e.g.) a guide to Common Lisp in Xulu and a textbook of advanced statistical methods in Quechua and have all of these various books link to one another with structured data, but in practice, Wikibooks is a very small project and individual books on individual subdomains tend to be single-person passion projects, so there just won't be many interwiki links in the first place. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:04, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Some Wikibooks like German, Italian, French and Japanese are big enough and we need a guide for how to link pages between these projects. I haven't yet added interwikis for categories in Persian Wikibooks. Today I'll start to add Persian Wikibooks categories to Wikidata. --Doostdar (discuss • contribs) 07:29, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you to bring this subject up. [//en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Special:Search?fulltext=Search+current+discussions+and+archives&fulltext=Search&prefix=Wikibooks%3AReading+room&search=wikidata+links&ns0=1&ns4=1&ns102=1&ns110=1&ns112=1 Since 2015 a part of the community was reluctant to use Wikidata], but because of this decision, I regularly see newcomers being revoked by replacing the "old interwiki system" from most of the other wikis point of view, by Wikidata links. In addition, these good old interwiki links are never up-to-date comparatively to the Wikidata system. With these experiences, I now consider that maintaining the old system is a waste of time and a source of frustration, and propose to vote to import and adopt w:Help:Interlanguage links here too. And that won't impact the individual writers badly, on the contrary because for example they wouldn't be notified anymore in their watchlists for someone adding an interwiki link into their books. These links do not belong to the books contents so let's host them elsewhere and avoid a bad surprise for Wikipedia contributors. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 16:46, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Interwiki policy can help us find hot subjects in each Wikibooks project. For example physics and art are hot subjects in Dutch Wikibooks. --Doostdar (discuss • contribs) 07:12, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
 * To clarify: Would this make it so things like interlanguage links in the sidebar are automatically updated (based on wikidata) without having to edit the articles themselves to create the links? This seems like it would be very useful. @JackPotte in general, what were the objections about? —Kittycataclysm (discuss • contribs) 22:38, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
 * As far as I understand, the reluctance was not about using Wikidata but removing the local links, which are in the markup format. But I can't see the problem myself because the links from the Wikidata database are displayed with the same HTML markups. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 06:08, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Just read through the discussion you linked! Like you said, it seems like the main concern is removing all the local links indiscriminately—this issue can be avoided by leaving any local links that aren't broken. To clarify again: @JackPotte is your proposal simply that we adopt a new policy/guide (i.e. the policy described at w:Help:Interlanguage links)? Since the wikidata-based interlanguage links are already implemented here? —Kittycataclysm (discuss • contribs) 12:25, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Exactly, and if the not broken local links are redundant of Wikidata, we should remove them to avoid watching them in real time by bot. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 13:33, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Got it, thanks! I would be in support of drafting a Wikibooks policy like w:Help:Interlanguage links to provide clear guidelines on how to handle these links, and then reviewing and voting on it. —Kittycataclysm (discuss • contribs) 13:55, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I emphasize that Wikibooks needs a guide more explanatory than that of Wikipedia. Currently, Wikipedia is known as a multilingual project but what about Wikibooks? Wikipedia is currently working with language speakers and computing organizations to support as many languages as possible. Is Wikibooks doing the same or not? Doostdar (discuss • contribs) 09:13, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
 * It looks like there is already a smaller section on this at Help:Editing. Is there any opposition to me creating a draft guide at either Interlanguage links or Help:Interlanguage links so we can flesh it out? @JackPotte @Doostdar? I can't decide which namespace would be more appropriate. @MarcGarver any insight here? —Kittycataclysm (discuss • contribs) 16:50, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Any name you choose, first define what to do with Wikibooks many subpages? As you know Wikibooks has more subpages than othe projects like Wikipedia and Wikivoyage. How should the writer or editor find interwikis for these subpages? Does Wikidata currently accept subpages or not? Doostdar (discuss • contribs) 20:47, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Different Wikibooks versions should know how to connect with each other. Now at Persian Wikibooks, for example, I've made a book on Latex named "لاتک". Is it correct to link it with the book named Latex in English Wikibooks or not? If yes, what about the sub pages of these two books? Doostdar (discuss • contribs) 20:55, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
 * In contrast to Wikipedia, Wikibooks consists of many subpages. These subpages usually lack interwikis in other languages. Is it needed to choose interwikis for subpages or not? This is one the questions never answered. --Doostdar (discuss • contribs) 20:04, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
 * That's a great question. My instinct is that it might make sense to link the chapters to the other language versions? —Kittycataclysm (discuss • contribs) 01:23, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
 * This, of course, assume the different language versions are analogous to each other. —Kittycataclysm (discuss • contribs) 01:24, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
 * No, most of books are not translated versions of another Wikibooks version; in other words, they are not analogous to each other. So we need guidelines in Wikibooks to decide how to use interwikis. Otherwise, Wikibooks is not a multilingual project and it would be better to remove all interwikis ASAP. Doostdar (discuss • contribs) 13:42, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Subpages should all be linked to Wikidata entries. Whether or not there are any strictly one-to-one interwiki links stored at Wikidata is irrelevant. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:23, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
 * For example LaTeX/Introduction should be linked to ...? to Q1358138? Doostdar (discuss • contribs) 22:07, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
 * No, no. d:Q1358138 is an item about forewords as a concept. We shouldn't link every foreword to that one item. Each item in the form of "Book/Foreword" should have its own item. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:34, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Now, 23 Wikibooks have an e-book called "LaTeX" but only 4 of them have a subpage called "LaTeX/Introduction" so it would be better to remove all interwikis. Persian Wikibooks has a subpage called "LaTeX/fonts and colors" but English Wikibooks has two different subpages called "LaTeX/fonts" and "LaTeX/colors". Doostdar (discuss • contribs) 09:20, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
 * That's fine. There doesn't need to be a one-to-one correspondence for all pages. That was exactly the point I was just making. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 11:15, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Now you're talking! One-to-one correspondence for all pages is impossible. For main pages of the books in more than 50% of cases there's a one-to-one correspondence but for subpages it's less than 5% (Between French and German Wikibooks) in my opinion. Don't you agree that Wikibooks is the project with the least number of interwikis? Doostdar (discuss • contribs) 10:19, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Nah, second to Wikinews or third after Wikiversity. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:30, 1 February 2024 (UTC)