FamilySearch Wiki:WikiProject Creating Interwiki Links

Current Projects page

Adding Interwiki Links

Purpose

We have a new Wiki extension that allows us to move the link (located on the left side bar) indicating if that Wiki page is available in different languages. We will be editing the former Language template at the bottom of the page to create this new link. This will improve visibility and accessibility to Wiki articles in multiple languages.

Before you Begin

Each Wiki has it's own separate editing rights. You should have already received editing rights for the English Wiki.
To request editing rights for all ten of the language wikis:
1. Go to the English Wiki Home Page
2. Sign in
3. Scroll to the bottom of the home page, until you see "In other languages"

4. Click on the link to each language wiki so that it recognizes your username.
5. Email Heather (Heather.mecham@familysearch.org) and let her know you're ready for editing rights to the language wikis.

Task List

Do this task list first:

• English Wiki: Task List

Note about the Language Google Sheets:

• Spanish Wiki: Task List
• Portuguese Wiki: Task List
• German Wiki: Task List
• French Wiki: Task List
• Russian Wiki: Task List
• Swedish Wiki: Task List
• Chinese, Japanese, and Italian: Task List (do each tab)

Project Instructions

Step 1 - Sign up for a page to fix

1. From the list above, choose a task list to work on and click on the link. it will open a Google Sheet. We suggest starting with the English Wiki. You will not need to know the language to fix the language Wiki pages.

2. On the Google Sheet, choose a Wiki page and put your name in column A. Once you have completed the task, you will return to the Google Sheet and put the date beside your name.

3. Click on the link to go to that Wiki page. On a google sheet, after you click on the link, a small dialogue box with the URL will appear. You must click the dialogue box link to open the Wiki page you will work on.

Step 2 - Find the Language Link

1. Once on the Wiki page, make sure you are logged into the Wiki. You will know if you are logged into the Wiki if you can see your FamilySearch username in the top right hand corner of the screen, as seen below with the username, Batsondl.

2. Once you are logged in, you will see a tab in the top right corner of the screen, labeled, "Edit Source." Click on that tab and you will now see the wikitext code for the page.

3. Use the scroll bar on the wikitext box and go to the bottom of the page. You will see some wikitext code that looks something like this:

{{H-langs|en=United States Genealogy|es=Estados Unidos - Genealogía|pt=Estados Unidos}}

This code creates two language Wiki links for the English Wiki page, United States Genealogy: one link to the Spanish Wiki (Estados Unidos - Genealogía) and one link to the Portuguese Wiki (pt=Estados Unidos). That link looks like this when displayed at the bottom of the Wiki page:

Step 3 - Fix the Language Link(s)

Once you locate the code at the bottom of the page, you will now alter Spanish and Portuguese language links to match the coding for an Interwiki link by doing the following:

Original wikitext code:

{{H-langs|en=United States Genealogy|es=Estados Unidos - Genealogía|pt=Estados Unidos}}

1. Review the link to make sure the links are in the correct order. You are currently in the English Wiki and therefore, the link you will remove is for the English Wiki article. The "en" in the first part of the template indicates that the Wiki page listed is for the English Wiki. The articles for "es" and "pt" are the links you will convert to the new template and will link to the Spanish and Portuguese Wikis.

2. To fix the Spanish link (indicated by the "es" in the template), delete the 2 curly brackets, template name and the en= and name of the English page. In this example we would take out the following wikitext: {{H-langs|en=United States Genealogy

The resulting wikitext code is:

|es=Estados Unidos - Genealogía|pt=Estados Unidos}}

3. Remove the pipe or vertical bar ("|") and add 2 square brackets before the "es" which stands for the Spanish Wiki and it will now look like this:

[[es=Estados Unidos - Genealogía|pt=Estados Unidos}}

4. Change the equal sign to a colon and it will now look like this:

[[es:Estados Unidos - Genealogía|pt=Estados Unidos}}

5. Now replace the pipe with two square brackets facing the left. It will now look like this:

[[es:Estados Unidos - Genealogía]]pt=Estados Unidos}}

6. If there was only one language link, you would skip the next part to Step 4.

Change other Language Link, if necessary

7. Because there are two links in this example (Spanish and Portuguese), you need to create the other language template. Do this by going to the end of the Spanish word and the square brackets, "Genealogía]]" and click on the "Enter" key to make the rest of the link go to the next line. The remaining wikitext should be:

pt=Estados Unidos}}

8. Change the Portuguese link the same way you did the Spanish link by changing the equal sign to a colon, removing the curly brackets at the end of the link, and by adding square brackets to the beginning and the end of the link, like this:

[[pt:Estados Unidos]]

9. The new completed wikitext code for the 2 language links should now look like this:

[[es:Estados Unidos - Genealogía]]


[[pt:Estados Unidos]]

Note: Each language has an abbreviation that will send the user to the correct language Wiki age.
Here is a key:

• en: English
  
• es: Spanish
  
• pt: Portuguese
  
• fr: French
  
• de: German
  
• it: Italian
  
• ru: Russian
  
• ja: Japanese
  
• ko: Korean
  
• zh: Chinese
  
• sv: Swedish
  

Step 4 - Review the Link

1. Now that the Interwiki templates for both Spanish and Portuguese are made, let's check to make sure it will appear on the page correctly.

2. At the bottom of the page, you should see a "Show Preview" button. Click on it.

3. Scroll up the page until you see below the Tools menu on the left side of the screen, the phrase, "In other languages"

4. Directly below it you should see links labeled, Español and Português. Below is an example of interwiki links correctly displayed:

5. If the links do not appear on the page, review the above instructions and make any necessary adjustments to the wikitext code.

Step 5 - Save the Page

1. With the old template now converted into the 2 new templates and it displaying correctly, you can now save the page.

2. Scroll back down the page and type, "Added Interwiki link" in the "Summary" field and click the blue button, "Save Changes."

3. Return to the task list and put the date you fixed the link beside your name.

4. You can now choose another Wiki page and repeat the above steps.