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Make QRpedia codes become permanent links
Open, Needs TriagePublic

Description

QRpedia codes currently use the lemma of the target article as an unique identifier (within the language version). Therefore, the physical codes become useless if, after they have been created, the article is renamed and the resulting redirect is deleted or converted into a disambiguation page.

QRpedia should ensure permanent connection to the articles. The page ID is particularly suitable for this.

This method has advantages in contrast to using the Wikidata ID: 1) Only minor code changes are required. 2) Article page and page ID are permanently connected, but the connection to the Wikidata ID can be accidentally destroyed, for example by merging items.
In the de.Wikipedia you can find specific information – including diffs – about this proposal and an explained link to a working mockup.

Backwards compatibility with existing QRpedia codes is provided.

Event Timeline

How would this work for resolving to different languages? At the moment, a QRpedia code for e.g. enwiki:Apple will go to frwiki:Pomme if a user's device is set to French. For linking to a specific page ID, it sounds like it might be better to just create a QR code for the URL itself (or, rather, the UrlShortener version of it, to keep the QR code size smaller). Personally, I think basing QRpedia on Wikidata IDs is much more useful.

How would this work for resolving to different languages? At the moment, a QRpedia code for e.g. enwiki:Apple will go to frwiki:Pomme if a user's device is set to French. For linking to a specific page ID, it sounds like it might be better to just create a QR code for the URL itself (or, rather, the UrlShortener version of it, to keep the QR code size smaller). Personally, I think basing QRpedia on Wikidata IDs is much more useful.

The only difference to the current procedure is the search criterion for the article: Use page ID instead of article title. Therefore the multilingualism remains unchanged. In addition, the proposed version already includes an URL shortener.
As described above, the link between article and Wikidata ID is not permanent. The main objective of this proposal cannot be achieved by this way.

Edit:
To be clearer: No change in usage at qrpedia.org. As before, insert the URl of the article into the input field and the QR code is created. But it contains the page ID instead of the article title. On qrwp.org, the page ID is used for API queries in this case.

Maybe I should ping a few people who are part of the WMUK staff (or contractors)? They could certainly point out this proposal at WMUK.
@Kelson, @ErrantX please take a look at this.