Note: Chinese Wikipedia also has such pseudo-namespace.

Convert the MOS: enwiki pseudo-namespace to a real namespace (which overrides interwikis)

Regardless this should happen, fake namespaces just causes issues.

List of pages that will be affected:

Generated using Wikimedia Global Search on 2024-04-26 11:28

Update: the list only includes non-redirect pages as redirects can not be searched via global search; See T363568: Global search can not find redirects by title.

Interesting. I see that all the MOS on the Dagbani Wikipedia were copied from the English Wikipedia and the text remained untranslated. I am keenly waiting for feedback regarding the English pages.

In T363538#9747595, @Bugreporter wrote:

List of pages that will be affected:

Generated using Wikimedia Global Search on 2024-04-26 11:28

That list is not exhaustive, because there are a lot more in enwiki.

• Create the wiki at some other name like "mos-x-deconflict.wikipedia.org" (using the BCP47 private subtag syntax is probably the least bad). This would work, probably without major changes, but doesn't feel right.

This is a no-go from my POV. We're trying to minimize the amount of irregularities on Wikimedia language codes vis-à-vis ISO codes, and this would break with that.

• Create the wiki at mos.wikipedia.org and add hacks to the dumpInterwiki script in MediaWiki-extensions-WikimediaMaintenance so, either only for enwiki or for all wikis mos: doesn't become an interwiki. I've written a patch for this locally, and it's similar to what we already do for Swedish ("s:" isn't an interwiki on Swedish Wikipedia because they abbreviate "saint" as s:t), but that caused problems like T177913 and probably others.

Sounds doable, but how will interwiki links to the Mossi Wikipedia be added to enwiki then? AFAIK, "under the hood" Wikibase still inserts interwiki links with the [[old:syntax]], it's just that it happens out of sight.

• Convert the MOS: enwiki pseudo-namespace to a real namespace (which overrides interwikis), and do something similar with WikimediaMaintenance to add an interwiki with some other name like "mos-x-deconflict"

Agree with @Peachey88 that this should be done regardless.

• Someone on enwiki suggested making interwiki prefixes case-sensitive and having "mos": point to the project while "MOS:" is a pseudo-namespace. This isn't how either concept currently works, and will probably break things elsewhere

I've been thinking the same thing. Not to make all interwiki prefixes case-sensitive, but this one specifically. But I haven't looked at the relevant code yet to see how feasible that is.

In T363538#9747520, @Peachey88 wrote:

Convert the MOS: enwiki pseudo-namespace to a real namespace (which overrides interwikis)

Regardless this should happen, fake namespaces just causes issues.

Note: Chinese Wikipedia has four fake namespaces for shortcut only: MOS, LTA (long-term abuse), NC (naming convention), NT (notability guideline). Though lta, nc and nt are not valid ISO language codes for any language.

Someone on enwiki suggested making interwiki prefixes case-sensitive and having "mos": point to the project while "MOS:" is a pseudo-namespace. This isn't how either concept currently works, and will probably break things elsewhere

Note: since search box will try case-insensitive matches, users can type mos:var in lowercase and be redirected to the correct manual of style page. Such workflow will break.

In T363538#9748082, @jhsoby wrote:

Sounds doable, but how will interwiki links to the Mossi Wikipedia be added to enwiki then? AFAIK, "under the hood" Wikibase still inserts interwiki links with the [[old:syntax]], it's just that it happens out of sight.

Presumably the same way interwikis to Swedish Wikisource are currently handled, with a "mos-x-foo" interwiki existing and being used. I admittedly haven't looked into this locally, and don't feel like setting up Wikibase locally to do so.

In T363538#9748082, @jhsoby wrote:

• Create the wiki at mos.wikipedia.org and add hacks to the dumpInterwiki script in MediaWiki-extensions-WikimediaMaintenance so, either only for enwiki or for all wikis mos: doesn't become an interwiki. I've written a patch for this locally, and it's similar to what we already do for Swedish ("s:" isn't an interwiki on Swedish Wikipedia because they abbreviate "saint" as s:t), but that caused problems like T177913 and probably others.

Sounds doable, but how will interwiki links to the Mossi Wikipedia be added to enwiki then? AFAIK, "under the hood" Wikibase still inserts interwiki links with the [[old:syntax]], it's just that it happens out of sight.

If "mos:" only doesn't work at enwiki, then "m:mos:" would still work there, correct? (Currently, for example, both links to "[[m:ms:]]" and searches for "m:ms:" [in the search bar at the top of every page] work to get you to the Malay Wikipedia. But that search doesn't work on the Special:Search page.) OTOH, this wouldn't work if the prefix is disabled everywhere.

Of course, adding local magical interwiki links of the kind provided remotely by Wikidata would not be possible, but would the ones provided by Wikidata still work?

"m:mos" would indeed. I have no idea how Wikidata interacts with this system, though.

Although it looks like Meta is currently treated by the interwiki system as a Wikipedia even though it isn't one, so if the decision is to de-interwiki "mos:" on all Wikipedias (as opposed to de-interwikiing it only on en, zh, and dag wikipedias) it will need more special-case code.

In T363538#9765785, @Pppery wrote:

Although it looks like Meta is currently treated by the interwiki system as a Wikipedia even though it isn't one

Bummer. Is this a holdover from the days when Meta was considered the "metawikipedia"? Might it be easier to change that than to figure out some other workaround (assuming it is necessary)?

The easiest solution in my view is to let mos: become a normal interwiki prefix like all others. Yes, this breaks a couple thousand links on the English Wikipedia. Most of them (those not in old edit summaries) can be fixed by a few bot runs. For the people who type in shortcuts or follow links from old edit summaries, just temporarily (for a year or two) turn the target pages on the new Moore Wikipedia into soft redirects with information that this is a deprecated shortcut.

I do not think weird special cases in the interwiki system are a good idea. (And I say that as an enwiki editor who likes the MOS: shortcuts and has defended them at RFD for more than a decade).

Removed Wiki-Setup because that is about creating new wikis and I think not really related.

Disagree - this is fundamentally about the creating new wikis process.

In T363538#9815582, @Kusma wrote:

The easiest solution in my view is to let mos: become a normal interwiki prefix like all others. Yes, this breaks a couple thousand links on the English Wikipedia. Most of them (those not in old edit summaries) can be fixed by a few bot runs. For the people who type in shortcuts or follow links from old edit summaries, just temporarily (for a year or two) turn the target pages on the new Moore Wikipedia into soft redirects with information that this is a deprecated shortcut.

I do not think weird special cases in the interwiki system are a good idea. (And I say that as an enwiki editor who likes the MOS: shortcuts and has defended them at RFD for more than a decade).

I think you're vastly underestimating the scale of the problem:

At https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Moor%C3%A9#Comments, @Pcoombe wrote:

Unfortunately I don't think breaking all those links on en.wikipedia is viable. Even if you could convince the community to start using longer WP: style shortcuts (good luck!) and update the documentation everywhere, you'll still break all the uses in past edit summaries. A quick query suggests that's around 42,000 uses of MOS: in June 2023 alone.