Restore interwiki (sister projects) results in search queries
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Description

For a short while, Special:Search showed results from other wikis in a very sensible way: for instance, looking for a word on Wikipedia gave you also a link to the entry on Wiktionary in the same language; searching for a name gave also the link to the person's quotations on Wikiquote; etc. If I remember correctly, they were displayed in a box on the right side of the screen.

This is a feature that, from what I recall, had a universally and greatly positive reaction and then suddenly disappeared. It's quite obviously useful because few readers (or even editors) know the differences between Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikinews... We've missed it for many years now and it should probably be among the highest priority feature requests for our search (after "keep search lights on" but before any design or user experience work).

I don't remember any detail, maybe someone can find links. Looks like it was around 2009.

Version: master
See Also:
T49775: Centralized Search Engine ("interwiki" searches)
T55531: Images in Commons don't show up in search when using CirrusSearch
T3837: Add the ability to simultaneously search all languages on the on-wiki search page
T62975: Expose interwiki search results in API

Details

Reference: bz44420

Related Objects
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Status	Subtype	Assigned	Task
Resolved		debt	T145918 [EPIC] Backend: cross-wiki search results functionality
Resolved		EBernhardson	T146179 Enable cross-wiki backend search functionality on it.wikipedia
Resolved		EBernhardson	T96881 Don't show the "results from other projects" box if empty
Resolved		debt	T139310 [UI design] Search Results page: re-design page display of search results across languages
Open		None	T109957 Restore cross-wiki (interwiki) search across all public Wikimedia wikis
Declined		RobH	T21020 Broken interwiki search results on Swedish Wikipedia
Resolved		• demon	T22375 Interwiki search use canonical namespace name
Open	Feature	None	T65629 Allow adding wiki logos to interwiki search results boxes
Open	Feature	None	T26767 Multilingual search on project portals (e.g. www.wikipedia.org)
Resolved		Nemo_bis	T87631 Interwiki search results should come after local ones in HTML
Open	Feature	None	T87632 Enable interwiki search on Meta-Wiki
Open		None	T3837 Add the ability to simultaneously search all languages on the on-wiki search page
Invalid		Krenair	T91179 Enable interwiki search in Spanish projects
Resolved		• demon	T46420 Restore interwiki (sister projects) results in search queries

Event Timeline

• bzimport raised the priority of this task from to High.Nov 22 2014, 1:16 AM

• bzimport added a project: CirrusSearch.

• bzimport set Reference to bz44420.

Nemo_bis created this task.Jan 28 2013, 10:08 AM

See also bug 16283 comment 10 for something this may help fixing (or not).

btw

(Ram on bug 47775 comment #5)

The current search code (Java) already has a mode for "interwiki" searches
but
it is currently disabled

This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 21685 ***

Updating priority as, according to the RfC, this is indeed one of the key things in consideration for the new search system.

(In reply to comment #4)

Updating priority as, according to the RfC, this is indeed one of the key
things in consideration for the new search system.

Which RfC?

(In reply to comment #5)

Which RfC?

https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Requests_for_comment/CirrusSearch&diff=716862&oldid=716855
Of course it won't be the first release(s) but "I like the idea a lot" to me means that we/they want to keep an eye on this request, hence the priority to avoid losing it.

Yeah - it is reasonably high priority to me. Especially with regards to Bug 53531 which is a limited form of interwiki search that we do still have on in the old search code.

Magnus has written a script which adds Wikidata search results: http://blog.magnusmanske.de/?p=108
http://magnusmanske.de/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/wdsearch.png
This mostly helps with inter-language searches (for title and? something more) in the same project, despite being technically inter-project.

Bug 25278 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Change 105986 had a related patch set uploaded by Chad:
Implement interwiki searches

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/105986

Change 105986 merged by jenkins-bot:
Implement interwiki searches

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/105986

Marking this fixed because it's basically implemented. We can always tidy things up later (and we will).

• bzimport added a project: Wikidata.Nov 22 2014, 1:17 AM

wmf.amgine3691 wrote:

Talking to Wikidata, only Wikipedia, Commons, Wikisource, and Wikivoyage are interwikied in any way. For Wiktionary, Wikinews, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikiversity, Wikispecies, and Incubator this is still broken.

(In reply to Amgine from comment #13)

Talking to Wikidata, only Wikipedia, Commons, Wikisource, and Wikivoyage
are interwikied in any way. For Wiktionary, Wikinews, Wikibooks, Wikiquote,
Wikiversity, Wikispecies, and Incubator this is still broken.

I don't understand this comment, as far as I know this is not related to Wikidata in any way.

wmf.amgine3691 wrote:

(In reply to Nemo from comment #14)

(In reply to Amgine from comment #13)

Talking to Wikidata, only Wikipedia, Commons, Wikisource, and Wikivoyage
are interwikied in any way. For Wiktionary, Wikinews, Wikibooks, Wikiquote,
Wikiversity, Wikispecies, and Incubator this is still broken.

I don't understand this comment, as far as I know this is not related to
Wikidata in any way.

The patch searches the Wikidata Interwikis only.

(In reply to Amgine from comment #15)

(In reply to Nemo from comment #14)

(In reply to Amgine from comment #13)

Talking to Wikidata, only Wikipedia, Commons, Wikisource, and Wikivoyage
are interwikied in any way. For Wiktionary, Wikinews, Wikibooks, Wikiquote,
Wikiversity, Wikispecies, and Incubator this is still broken.

I don't understand this comment, as far as I know this is not related to
Wikidata in any way.

The patch searches the Wikidata Interwikis only.

What do you mean by that? The search doesn't care about the interwiki prefix really, it's what's returned. I think core Special:Search and/or wikidata are mishandling the prefixes actually, not Cirrus.

Nemo_bis added a parent task: T87631: Interwiki search results should come after local ones in HTML.Jan 27 2015, 1:27 AM

Nemo_bis added a parent task: T87632: Enable interwiki search on Meta-Wiki.Jan 27 2015, 1:34 AM

• Deskana moved this task from Inbox to Resolved/Invalid/Declined/Legacy on the CirrusSearch board.Apr 20 2015, 4:12 AM

Nemo_bis added a parent task: T96881: Don't show the "results from other projects" box if empty.Apr 22 2015, 4:45 PM

Nemo_bis mentioned this in T26767: Multilingual search on project portals (e.g. www.wikipedia.org).Jul 2 2015, 4:32 PM

Nemo_bis mentioned this in T3837: Add the ability to simultaneously search all languages on the on-wiki search page.Jul 25 2015, 3:31 AM

Nemo_bis added a parent task: T3837: Add the ability to simultaneously search all languages on the on-wiki search page.

matej_suchanek updated the task description. (Show Details)Jul 25 2015, 1:42 PM

matej_suchanek set Security to None.

Restricted Application added a project: Discovery-ARCHIVED. · View Herald TranscriptJul 25 2015, 1:42 PM

Nemo_bis mentioned this in T97819: A user who is bi-lingual / trilingual can easily switch article language and favorite languages.Jul 26 2015, 9:54 AM

• MZMcBride mentioned this in T71489: Expose mwgrep functionality on-wiki.Aug 21 2015, 3:56 AM