Help talk:Transwiki

See also: Category talk:Pages to be merged, Template talk:merge and Help talk:Transwiki.

Clarification needed

HI I think the following needs clarification:

• "Tag it with {{merge|{{PAGENAME}}}} or if the existing page starts with a lower case letter tag it with: {{merge|{{lcfirst:{{PAGENAME}}}}}}.

Having gotten this far on a list of items I have marked to merge, I don't know what next to do. If only admins can merge with a merge bot, we should say something like "An admin bot will merge them" or if its like wikipedia, users are encouraged to merge documents manually, but to leave a flag on the redirect page that says {{r from merge}} underneath the redirect command, which tells other users to retain redirect page as a history of a merge. Should Wiktionary copy that? If so the template Template:r from merge needs to be created. Goldenrowley 23:01, 26 October 2007 (UTC) Please note this is only to save both history pages (if necessary). Goldenrowley 23:14, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, you are breaking new ground for us, in general. (No one has taken the effort seriously, so far.) I don't see any problems with merging the content and marking the history as being in need of a sysop-history-merge. AFAIK, there is no bot process that anyone has written to do the history merges. The sysop steps are as follows (correct me if I'm wrong!):

1. delete target
2. move tw page to target
3. restore all versions
4. manually edit the "last good" version, removing "{{merge}}"

I'm not familiar with the Wikipedia method for doing the same. I suppose we could have {{r from merge}} simply redirect to {{merge}}, right? --Connel MacKenzie 00:00, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Well If administrators can and are willing to do sysop-history-merges, I can offer to make that the final point on these instructions (noting where history-merge instructions are, for new administratoris... where are they?) Otherwise I would suggest we just copy Wikipedia's already hashed out procudure and just mark merged pages as keepers, to redirect indefinitely purely for the legal reasons to document our sources. Saying that I work in a legal dept but am not a lawyer.Goldenrowley 20:02, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Here's English Wikipedia's procedures to which I refer: "Merging and moving pages..Selective paste merger" Goldenrowley 20:10, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I guess I should point out that the reason a Wikipedia article might be merged is very much opposite Wiktionary's needs. As a rule, we want entries split into separate entries. For Transwikis (and Transwikis only) the merges need to happen. To comply with the GFDL, we do a history merge. So, copying Wikipedia's approach might not only be wrong (non-GFDL compliant for how we use it,) but might also mislead people into thinking that is acceptable.

There is a brief "new sysops" guide floating around somewhere, but it doesn't go into any detail about merges (if it mentions them at all.) So, any verbiage you come up with is likely to be quite helpful. --Connel MacKenzie 20:28, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Two merge types

I guess I'm seeing the problem more clearly now. There are two types of merges:

• Page content merges (that anyone can do)
• History merges (than only sysops can do)

For content merges, yes, the Wikipedia process (linking the "from" page in the edit summary) is fine and GFDL compliant...partially. Since this is only used for Transwikis, the history itself should be merged over. This means that the content should just be added on the target page, removed from the transwiki page, and replaced with the history-merge request tag, {{merge}}.

I think it would help immensely, to not commingle the two issues. Perhaps we could have a {{content merge request}} template for tagging potential content merges. That would allow us to reserve {{merge}} to the understood role of history merges only.

Does what I said, make any sense at all? Should I rephrase it? Comments?

--Connel MacKenzie 21:33, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes it makes some sense. Here's an example I merged a music definition from Transwiki:Coloration (music) to coloration. I redirected the 1st to the 2nd once finished. The only thing left to do is to merge or preserve the history section. Goldenrowley 04:01, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

How about "merge" stays non-assuming and as the parent category with at least 2 sub-categories? I can see sub-category within the merge category where one can separate "content merge" requests versus complete "over-write" requests? Goldenrowley 20:36, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Hm. Add a parameter type= to template:merge for the subcats? That might work. --Connel MacKenzie 20:45, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes I think so, it will also allow someone (me) to help finish the instructions for each. In the meantime editors who dont have time or expertise to make judgement calls can put them in "merge" for someone else to think about. Goldenrowley 22:04, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

What the license mandates

I copied this from the GNU Free Documentation License[1]. Bolding mine. It dictates to keep all renditions of a content-merged page, although collect all the history in one place. Question do administrators have the ability to do collect all the history in one place?? . This wold only apply to the pages Transwiki'd articles where elements were merged into a page already at Wiktionary. Goldenrowley 03:36, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

"5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS

You may combine the Document with other documents released under this License, under the terms defined in section 4 above for modified versions, provided that you include in the combination all of the Invariant Sections of all of the original documents, unmodified, and list them all as Invariant Sections of your combined work in its license notice, and that you preserve all their Warranty Disclaimers.

The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, and multiple identical Invariant Sections may be replaced with a single copy. If there are multiple Invariant Sections with the same name but different contents, make the title of each such section unique by adding at the end of it, in parentheses, the name of the original author or publisher of that section if known, or else a unique number. Make the same adjustment to the section titles in the list of Invariant Sections in the license notice of the combined work.

In the combination, you must combine any sections Entitled "History" in the various original documents, forming one section Entitled "History"; likewise combine any sections Entitled "Acknowledgements", and any sections Entitled "Dedications". You must delete all sections Entitled "Endorsements."

I've expanded the instructions substantially to clarify content merges, adding nothing new just the unwritten procedures. If we've come to a consensus, I can work next on tweaking this to differentiate the name of the "content merge" template from the "replacement page merge" template. Goldenrowley 04:27, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

So, since Wiktionary has no Wiktionary-specific invariant sections, just the GFDL, the only acceptable way to history merge is to have a sysop delete/move/restore/edit merge them. Thanks for digging up the relevant portion of the license. --Connel MacKenzie 22:19, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Potential Import problem

I haven't seen this in a very long time, but it is something that anyone interested in transwikis should keep an eye out for. When re-transwiki-ing a previously transwiki'ed and redirected entry, newer edits from Wikipedia can supersede the redirect. Since the current bot tries to refuse to automatically re-transwiki entries, this is not such a big problem right now. --Connel MacKenzie 22:43, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

This nasty glitch has made merging more difacult than planned. The history of the over written pages aren't even showing unless you do a final "manual" restore save of the final page. After trial and error this month, I've gone ahead and clarified and simplified steps and offered work-around for the glitches. Goldenrowley 05:14, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Note: I found the "redirect" step was causing some glitches before a merge (it appears to make it hard to identify what to merge, and also puts the history in a circular loop after the merge) thus removed "redirect" as a step. Goldenrowley 05:14, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

The following conversation is no longer live. It has been archived here from Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/Others and removed from that page.

Transwikis that Wikipedia kept and keeps I propose to delete Transwiki entries over a year old where its clear Wikipedia kept the article and keeps editing them, even though they Transwikied them to us. We have a backlog from prior years here of 'Pedia imports, particularly from Feb 2007 when our Bot transferred about 1200 entries in one month. There are 3 reasons: (1) we have a backlog going back 3 years of imports; (2) Wikipedians can add considerable edits in one year on any entry, so our imports go out of the date comparatively (3) and any entries Wikipedia keeps means the history of edits is cloned. I propose to work from the Wiktionary export list from 2007 as a start: [2], to identify the entries Wikipedia kept. Some good examples are: Transwiki:Cook Islands Maori Transwiki:Direct quotation Transwiki:Going over the top Thank you for your consideration. Goldenrowley 04:12, 29 January 2009 (UTC) Support. AFAIK, you're the only person with the intestinal fortitude to deal with these in bulk, so AFAI am concerned, what you say goes. :-) -- Visviva 05:48, 29 January 2009 (UTC) +1 —RuakhTALK 18:14, 29 January 2009 (UTC) I support this proposition. Shouldn't it be bot-doable? (Any such bot would have to be able to check histories, though.)—msh210℠ 21:42, 29 January 2009 (UTC) Okay I'll wait the obligatory 30 days. I think the only way to do it is manually. Goldenrowley 03:22, 3 February 2009 (UTC) Seeing how much sense it makes, I just started with the old imports from 2005-2006. I eliminated 20% from year 2005 that were kept and better handled on Wikipedia. I look forward to the day we can finish Transwiki in process 2005 and 2006 lists. However we're down to the "hard words" and other languages. I am recruiting help there. Goldenrowley 04:11, 14 February 2009 (UTC) Keep transwikied glossaries. Coming late here, I propose to keep transwikied glossaries in Wiktionary, regardless whether they are kept in Wikipedia, no matter how old they are. Processing glossaries takes a lot of time, and they are useful to have in Wiktionary appendix namespace. --Dan Polansky 16:59, 23 July 2009 (UTC)