Forum:Treatment of interwiki links to wikis no longer in NIWA
Dragon Quest Wiki has been unanimously expelled from NIWA. Therefore, we need to decide what to do with our interwiki links to them. This is starting out as a discussion rather than a vote, as the possible options are not yet set in stone.
My belief is that we have three options.
- Keep things as they are.
- Slowly go through the wiki and repoint/remove links. When done, delete the interwiki item.
- Delete the interwiki item, breaking all the links immediately. Then fix or remove them later.
The resolution of this discussion will also be used for any such future cases, should there be any. Toomai Glittershine 
The Dispenser 18:53, December 11, 2022 (EST)
- I would think Option 3 best, the red links (if they would be red links?) will make them easier to locate while removing them, and it shows unity with the decision NIWA has made. Toast
ltimatum
19:00, December 11, 2022 (EST)
Another option (Option 4?) would be to update the URL of the dragonquest interwiki entries to point to the FANDOM Dragon Quest Wiki. Then if another Dragon Quest wiki ever joins NIWA, the URL could simply be changed again. This has the benefit of keeping most of the existing infrastructure in place. --Porplemontage (talk) 19:15, December 11, 2022 (EST)
- I'm on Option 4. It's not the greatest, but it will at least keep our links from being destroyed.
- That being said, I'm not sure if we should leave those links available on the infoboxes (e.g. Yggdrasil's Altar) -- PanchamBro (talk • contributions) 19:40, December 11, 2022 (EST)
- I don't think we should be using the same interwiki template for Fandom Wikis as NIWA ones. Something about it rubs me the wrong way, although I can't fully explain why. Maybe its that it sort of puts them as equal options to NIWA wikis? Also, and this is more of a practical concern, using the same template for fandom wikis as other wikis would bring up weird issues like the Xeno Series Wiki, which technically "replaces" two Fandom Wikis (Xenoblade and Xenogears), but in both cases there are still Fandom links to them because although XSW is an official member of NIWA, there are still pages that are covered better by the Fandom Wikis since XSW is relatively young (Links to the Fandom Xenoblade wiki, Links to the Fandom Xenosaga wiki). Also there's cases where Fandom Wikis and non-Fandom Wikis might use different names for pages on a given topic, and that means that swapping which wiki things refer to isn't as simple as changing the interwiki table. DekZek
20:19, December 11, 2022 (EST)
- I don't think we should be using the same interwiki template for Fandom Wikis as NIWA ones. Something about it rubs me the wrong way, although I can't fully explain why. Maybe its that it sort of puts them as equal options to NIWA wikis? Also, and this is more of a practical concern, using the same template for fandom wikis as other wikis would bring up weird issues like the Xeno Series Wiki, which technically "replaces" two Fandom Wikis (Xenoblade and Xenogears), but in both cases there are still Fandom links to them because although XSW is an official member of NIWA, there are still pages that are covered better by the Fandom Wikis since XSW is relatively young (Links to the Fandom Xenoblade wiki, Links to the Fandom Xenosaga wiki). Also there's cases where Fandom Wikis and non-Fandom Wikis might use different names for pages on a given topic, and that means that swapping which wiki things refer to isn't as simple as changing the interwiki table. DekZek
This is basically reiterating what I said on Discord, but my recommendation would be to manually remove the interwiki links from the expelled wiki, replacing them with links to the best available alternative (even if that means Wikia/Fandom), then removing the interwiki table entry once all such links have been removed. Basically, this would be converting it to the standard we already use for series without a good independent wiki (for example, see the many links to the MegaTen wiki on Fandom on Joker). Miles (talk) 20:23, December 11, 2022 (EST)
I don't know if SmashWiki has been on okay terms with Wikia/Fandom or what not since it left, but if you guys are okay with linking to an alternative wiki from that site, sure. Otherwise, go with Option 3. MHStarCraft 
20:59, December 11, 2022 (EST)
Given the justification I mentioned before (namely, different wikis utilizing different naming conventions), I don't believe option 4 is viable, especially if this is something we plan to also do in any potential future cases. Given that one of the main benefits of NIWA is facilitating inter-wiki linking, proceeding with option 1 would significantly de-fang any motion to expel a member from NIWA. That really just leaves options 2 and 3, both of which have the same result in the end. From those two, I prefer Option 3 as it would immediately indicate the scope of the work that needs to be done, as opposed to option 2, with which the scope would only be visible by utilizing the search function, meaning most editors won't know it needs to be done. DekZek 22:31, December 11, 2022 (EST)
