Maybe we could try to integrate the cross-wiki options into the response for "search pages"? Or maybe add a third tab between "search pages" and "external link" for sister projects? Not sure what we'd call it; it'd need to be 'obvious' to newbies (a) what it is, (b) why they'd use it, and (c) that they should try to use it.

Interesting problem.

On non technical perspective - it shouldn't be "too easy" to add links to other wikis, so adding suggestions from other languages/projects in the same list should probably be avoided.
Otherwise users can easily mistakenly add links to enwiki/other-projects when they really want to do internal link.

In T98135#1486085, @eranroz wrote:

On non technical perspective - it shouldn't be "too easy" to add links to other wikis, so adding suggestions from other languages/projects in the same list should probably be avoided.
Otherwise users can easily mistakenly add links to enwiki/other-projects when they really want to do internal link.

I was thinking of doing this for sister projects in the same language (or multi-lingual projects).

So "Chat" on frwiki would suggest https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/chat and so on, but not https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chat or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chat

Another option: completely ignore it in the front side (VE) and let users add it as external link, but on the backend (parsoid) use "interwiki" table to replace iw_url with iw_prefix.

My main concern here is that that link inspector is already a bit complex (relative to wikitext linking) and links to other projects/languages is not so common as links (usually done with wikidata/specific templates)

In T98135#1486097, @eranroz wrote:

Another option: completely ignore it in the front side (VE) and let users add it as external link, but on the backend (parsoid) use "interwiki" table to replace iw_url with iw_prefix.

Parsoid already does that.

My main concern here is that that link inspector is already a bit complex (relative to wikitext linking) and links to other projects/languages is not so common as links (usually done with wikidata/specific templates)

Fair point. But encouraging sister project links would be nice to help them grow.

Hi, as I mentioned in T109835 - it could be very useful to have ability to create links to other wikipedia languages/projects by internally using special templates (like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Interlanguage_link). The template name can be customized by wiki administrator.

So, the proposal is:

Add tab "Interlanguage link"
Add language selector
Add 2 input fields:
the name of page in foreign language (existing link);
the name of page in target language (red link)
If possible, it'd be better to do this without creating separate tab - just add the "Advanced" button to existing "Search pages" tab.

I believe that we can ask at different projects what they want the interface to be and how they are using the links. We would get stories from these projects about what links they insert, where, and how, and what user interface they would like.

Something like this:

Hi,

We were requested to expand the wikilink dialog (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T98135), but we are not well familiar with how interlanguage and interwiki links are being used on different projects. We are calling for your advice.

• Which links do we use here -- interlanguage or interwiki?
• How often are these links used in articles?
• Do we use a template for interlanguage or interwiki links, or raw markup?
• Please show several examples of pages linking to another language or another wiki in the page text.
• How would you prefer the wikilink dialog look like? It looks like this now:

It is particularly hard as we need to avoid confusion for new users while also make the dialog convenient to use without excessive clicking or clumsiness. Options can be like:

• Add Another language tab and separate Wikipedia tab? Please name the wikis you most often link to here.
• Add sister link tab which does both?
• Don't add any tabs, integrate the interwiki and interlanguage links into the 'search' tab?
• What else do you prefer? Please draw and upload your preferred choice.

Thanks.

May you do a multilingual message delivery everywhere in your copious time, please? I think you have access to places where volunteers can translate your message, and deliver it in a non-manual way; alas, I lack both these skills.