@Kghbln do you know what the current best practice is for linking to MediaWiki? Do you know which patch to core removed support?

No, I cannot tell when MW stopped providing a predefined set of interwiki links. Definitely before MW 1.39.x or starting with MW 1.39.x latest.

Since we are talking about a regular system message, I'd say linking like in this example for the Semantic MediaWiki extension should be fine.

Even if there was an interwiki link present, the current linking should imho rather be [[mw:Desktop Improvements|Desktop Improvements]] since the link looks kinda ugly with the visible prefix.

In T356739#9522256, @Kghbln wrote:

No, I cannot tell when MW stopped providing a predefined set of interwiki links. Definitely before MW 1.39.x or starting with MW 1.39.x latest.

The code populating the interwiki table is still in the installer.

In T356739#9535644, @Func wrote:

In T356739#9522256, @Kghbln wrote:

No, I cannot tell when MW stopped providing a predefined set of interwiki links. Definitely before MW 1.39.x or starting with MW 1.39.x latest.

The code populating the interwiki table is still in the installer.

Cool. Either way the interwiki prefix mw pointing to mw.org is not part of the interwiki table rendering the link in this system message being broken. Just checked a wiki with the broken link. Here only the rfc and pmid prefixes are provided which confirms the issue.

Which wiki though? They might removed the mw prefix or cleared the interwiki table (un)intentionally, the built-in interwiki list has not changed in 3 years and some dead sites are still there, not to mention the living mw prefix.

It was a fresh installation done with install.php, and all it got was the rfc and pmid prefixes. In the meantime, more prefixes were added, but none were removed. Anyhow, I believe this discussion has already left the scope of this task. There should be a separate issue for it.

Do we want to change to [[mw:Desktop Improvements|Desktop Improvements]] and potentially rely on a mechanism not working in 10% of the cases, or do we change to [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Desktop_Improvements Desktop Improvements]. I found a WMF extension that is doing the latter, too: https://github.com/wikimedia/mediawiki-extensions-CodeEditor/blob/master/i18n/en.json#L8 though for an external link.

Well, another thing is to do nothing and close the issue as declined. ;)

Change 1004698 had a related patch set uploaded (by Func; author: Func):

[mediawiki/skins/Vector@master] i18n: Adjust the Desktop Improvements project link

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1004698

Change 1004698 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/skins/Vector@master] i18n: Adjust the Desktop Improvements project link

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1004698

@Jdlrobson, what needs to be validated here?

Thanks for the ping. I can verify the fix by visiting https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:Version and confirming the "Desktop improvements" link inside the row with Vector still links to the correct page.

Test Result - Prod

Status: ✅ PASS
Environment: mediawiki
OS: macOS Sonoma
Browser: Chrome
Device: MBA
Emulated Device:NA

Test Artifact(s):

QA Steps

Visit https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:Version and c
✅ AC1: Confirm the "Desktop improvements" link inside the row with Vector still links to the correct page.