Wikibooks talk:Subdomains

Multiple subdomains?
I understand the question of having multiple subdomains for multiple wikibooks languages is somewhat contentious. I just wanted to say that I've now set up the technical means for easily and efficiently converting to a multi-subdomain project. I've just done this with wikiquote, I could easily do it for wikibooks too. The basic idea is to allow users to create wikis which don't yet exist by simply clicking on a button.

Converting to a multi-subdomain site makes it possible to use an interface language which matches the content language. It also makes it easy to create interlanguage links, just like on Wikipedia. I think it's great how you've set up a language-neutral portal, and that portal can be kept after the conversion.

Anyway, I often get requests for setting up wikibooks subdomains, and personally I'm entirely in favour of it. But my opinion on this is irrelevant, what I really want to know is, what do the wikibookians think? -- Tim Starling 06:10, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * Go for it :) Dysprosia 07:10, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree with Dys, let's do it! I think Karl was in favor too, but he's been missing for a little bit. Gentgeen 08:05, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * I prefere subdomains too.--berni 08:49, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * dito --Moolsan 09:06, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * I'm all for it. Could we extend this to the books themselves, i.e. en.(book abbreviation).wikibooks.org, or the other way around? That would be really convenient. - SamE 17:43, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * I think, that's not a good idea. As far as I know, we would need an own webserver for every book. That would be a little bit overkill. Anyway, I don't like that idea.--berni 21:45, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * we wouldn't need an own webserver for each book, but an own virtual host entry for each one. so the webserver would get really slow really fast, what nobody really wants i think ;) and as most if not even all users are used to using the subdomain for the language abbr. as in wikipedia i think its the best way --Moolsan 00:04, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes, thanks Tim. By language subdomains is long overdue. Yann 11:32, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

It seems the only person strongly opposed to this is Maveric149, who judging by his contributions, is not an active contributor here. I just discovered that in fact it's not trivial to set up subdomains for wikibooks, because the wikibooks.org subdomains are not configured to point to the Wikimedia servers, they just give an error. The wikibooks.org domain name is not owned or controlled by Wikimedia, in fact it is owned by none other than Maveric149. Now I'm sure this won't be a problem, since he did say back in July 2003:


 * All these domain names will be donated to Wikimedia as soon as it is able to accept a legal transfer of ownership. It will be up to the Foundation to decide what to do with all these domain names and whether or not it makes sense to renew them (if so then I'll probably help to finance that too but I'm sure I won't be the only one).

Wikimedia is now able to accept such donations. If necessary, we can set up the other language wikis in subdirectories rather than subdomains, or we can move the whole project to a wikimedia-controlled domain. Perhaps that would be useful as an interim measure, while we wait for the transfer to be completed. -- Tim Starling 12:04, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * I don't even have the current password to the GoDaddy.com account that holds those domains. Jason must have requested a new password since the one I had before is nearly impossible to remember. As for sub-domains - if I'm out voted, then I'm out outed. But I would still like people to look at the larger picture here;

Could you enlighten us Tim? Such an ability is really necessary for Wikisource, Meta and the Foundation wiki. I also think that such a patch would make it possible for Wikibooks to stay together. Meta flags could later be added to set the interface language for anons (each page/module would have a language flag that would change the interface language for anons visiting that page). Also, the ability to set-up a new language project without having to ask a developer is a nice and wiki way of doing things. --mav 20:40, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Books can be given descriptive names to avoid naming conflicts.
 * Thus there is no need for a separate wiki.
 * Somebody a while ago at least tried to submit a patch whereby people could set the interface language to whatever they wanted. I have not heard about the status of that patch.


 * If I recall correctly, the patch to allow people to select the user interface language had some serious conceptual problems. We have a $wgLang variable which indicates the current language, so changing it to something else is pretty trivial. But if $wgLang is not the same as the content language, it will be horribly broken. For example, the correct language is needed to send links with a language-specific namespace to the right location, or to link to the correct URLs in the sidebar. The problem requires a much more complex solution than simply changing $wgLang. -- Tim Starling 15:40, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * I think there are some good reasons to have multiple subdomains.
 * The naming conflict appears not only at modules, but also at pages like Portal.
 * There might also be naming conflicts at the Textbausteine (what's that in english? templates?)
 * It's easier for me to argue in german, than in english at pages like "votes for deletion" or here.
 * The search-function might deliver a lot of mess, that one isn't looking for. Example: When I'm looking for the word "gift" I will get english pages about presents, as well as german pages about poisons.
 * The DB-dump is probably smaller, at least it's easier to process only that part, that I'm interested in.
 * A few days before the idea of subdomains came up, I thought about creating a kathegory "german" to mark every page, that is german. I think subdomains are the better alternative.
 * I think we don't share much material between the languages (maybe Images and Sounds; and of course the spirit.)
 * Last but not least. The idea of subdomains will come up sooner or later again. And it will be much more work the longer we wait.
 * I know, that we can find way around some (if not all) of this issues, but I think subdomains are an easier solution.--berni 11:45, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)