This template adds little value and a lot of clutter to Extension and Skin documentation. Links are spammy and refer mostly to commercial projects, including one associated with the author. The template should be deleted.
Topic on Template talk:Used by
I've reverted your addition of {{delete}} to this template because that seems like entirely the wrong process - this template won't be deleted by just slapping a template on it and waiting seven days, but instead by people here (or in some other venue) coming to a consensus to delete it.
What is the correct venue/process? This template is less than a year old. It is spamming the wiki with thousands of outgoing links. Flounder ceo (talk) 18:45, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
I think the information is very useful for users, so I am in favor of keeping it. I see no problem that partly also commercial projects are mentioned here.
A way out of the linking problem could be to change the template to only link to an internal page on mw.org - and there the service can be explained and ONE link can then point to it.
Note the ticket that introduced the template in the first place: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T260998
Personally, I'm in favour of keeping the template as well, as it allows for a level of tracking extension usage by different wiki farms or solutions.
I support using this template for major wiki farms.
There could perhaps become a point where it is spammy, but there are very few reliable signals to users for if an extension is stable and well made. Used by X is probably the best one we have.
We already have a Hosting services page, so should we delete that too? Speaking from the perspective of one of the companies listed on that page and this template, this is immensely helpful with answering questions from potential clients about “do you have this extension?”
I am fine with @Krabina’s proposal if the concern is links to commercial projects are objectionable. Edit: after realizing there may be ulterior motives behind this proposal, I am no longer supporting a compromise.
Perhaps the links could be internal as suggested above (though in the case of some like wiki.gg there is no page here). The categories should be hidden as they are repetitive of the template and only need to serve a statistical purpose.
I think this template is a useful one. Debatable about the commercial links, but then again it might give added value to a person interested.
I'd rather have the discussion about a template like : Template:Professional Wiki extension
I agree that if there is a template of interest for deletion, it is the above. Maintainer is already an attribute provided, as closely relevant to the extension, in the extension's infobox.
Even though we compete directly with ProWiki, and we have no such template for MyWikis-developed extensions, I strongly oppose such a proposal. If they wrote the extension, they should have the right to at least have make it clear this is part of their extension portfolio, more so than the existing extension infobox provides. This is not an egregiously spammy ad, so deleting that template would basically be censoring free speech.
That they maintain the extension is already in the {{extension}} infobox. It does not need repeating at the bottom.
ok I converted some external links to internal links on the template. For those sites that lack pages here on this site, I think they should be excluded until they are notable enough to warrant a page. But I will wait until there is more consensus.
(Moved this reply to a later comment)
The Fandom flag is very useful for the same reason {{OnWikimedia}} is useful: it implies some level of quality control. Presumably the same is true for many other well-maintained farms and bundles, like Miraheze or BlueSpice, although I have no experience how much that is true in practice.
On a high level, I think it makes more sense for mediawiki.org to be an "inclusionist" wiki rather than a "deletionist" one: as long as factual accuracy isn't in question, there is not much disadvantage in including niche information.
On the high level, there is a reasonable criticism of these not on some inclusionist-deletionist spectrum but on the spam-advertising spectrum. I do not think the former is interesting in this case. I do think the latter is. I also don't think it's that interesting, as its utility in this case is as you say.
I would like to second what Bawolff said.
on the subject of where the links go. I think links should go to whereever would be most useful to the user.
In most cases, i think a direct link would be more useful than an internal link, but don't have strong opinions.
Most websites take care not to surprise their users with external links. It's annoying to users and bad for SEO.
I think most users are not surprised by external links being external, and find interstitials annoying. Most sites that do do stuff like that are trying to protect against open redirect attacks or misleading messages to trick people, which doesn't seem particularly relavent here.
As for SEO, most SEO is pointless cargo culting. I am extremely doubtful this makes a difference one way or another for mediawiki.org's SEO.
I think this depends on how the link is supposed to help the user. If the user wants to sign up at a wikifarm which has that specific extension (which doesn't sound like a common use case), a direct link is more useful. If the user wants to see the extension in a realistic environment, direct links would be useful, but they should go to specific wikis (which isn't the case currently). If the user is interested in how reliable the extension is (which was the original use case as mentioned above), the either they are familiar with the given farm already and the link is irrelevant, or they are not and a wiki page giving an assessment is probably more useful than a direct link (but also opens a new can of worms wrt fair and PR-free assessment of the various projects).
If the internal links actually had a neutral assesment of the wikifarm that would be a different story.
I've been wondering about this template, as it's been added to more extension pages in recent weeks. My first thought was that it's redundant because of the link to Wikiapiary that's already in extension infoboxes — but that link was removed in August last year.
The function of this template as a means to judge the reliability or maintenance level of an extension seems useful, but also feels a bit like it's a step removed from what might be better: a way for wiki sysadmins to rate extensions (with a timestamp). Every time that's come up in the past though, I think it's been too hard to figure out how to do it fairly. But most other systems with plugins allow it, so maybe we should think about it again?
WikiApiary is extremely slow at the best of times, and has a difficult to understand UX. IMO its should be seen as more of an internal tool than something that's useful to the average mediawiki.org reader.
Keep for reasons already mentioned. Wondering why the template was ok as long as this single wiki was included ;)
ok so it looks like a majority here (of mostly people associated with projects on the list) want to keep the template. But I really like Krabina's idea to change the external links to internal links, so that's what I did. I created a new article so that we can do this for projects that are not notable enough to have their own standalone pages. List of MediaWiki packages and wiki farms. It is not ideal, but a compromise that serves the ostensible purposes of the template while avoiding some of the spam issues.
Nobody has consented to these changes, and there is not enough consensus to make such a change, so I have reverted your changes at this time and kindly ask that no changes be made until a clear consensus is reached.
This makes no sense. These internal links only make people click even more.
Also the text with the template :
This is not an authoritative list. Some wiki farms/hosts may contain this extension even if they are not listed here. Always check with your wiki farms/hosts or bundle to confirm.
Make it as if it only concern a wiki farm or host. While it clearly not the case for everything. It makes this used by template VERY confusing
I don't think this compromise works that well - it just forces people to click twice to get information about the thing they're curious about. I also don't see an inherent problem with external links - there are already external links all over this site, and they don't seem to make anyone's life worse. A mix of external and internal links here seems fine.
The problem with nudging users off-site to various paid or ad-supported options is that it conflicts with the open source/DIY philosophy that many of us share. We should be helping and encouraging our visitors to set up and use MediaWiki for themselves. That is why they come here to read Skin and Extension pages.
If you are setting up your own wiki, it is probably useful to know what other people have done.
In particular, the original version of this template that was just for WMF was fairly useful as WMF is known to be very conservative in what extensions it allows and have high standards. Knowing that an extension meets those standards is very useful for people who DIY.
Of course, it is kind of a poor solution because extensions may be high quality but simply not of interest to a major provider, but so far its the best solution we have to marking extensions that are high quality.
I don't think "people are better off setting up wikis for themselves" is a sentiment shared by many people here, and it's certainly not an officially-held position. Even if it were, your compromise of putting in an extra page before people get to the external site they want to go to does nothing to encourage a DIY approach.
"people are better off setting up wikis for themselves"
Yikes! I may be biased here but I think this is not only unpopular but the blanket statement is objectively wrong. 100% agreed with Yaron on this one. If this is the sort of driving motivation behind proposing to delete this template, then I have to entirely oppose this entire proposal (even the compromises), because as several members have pointed out on here and on other forums, it appears this is revenge for having your wiki taken off of this template, and I no longer think this proposal is being made in good faith.
Let's suppose someone comes to MediaWiki.org to learn more about a skin or an extension, and they click your MyWikis link. Now instead of getting the info they are looking for, they are being pitched a paid service. Sorry to single you out but this is practically the textbook definition of spam and it applies to most of the external links on the list.
Now yes, I did offer a link to my site, because it is a working wiki where the user can see the skins and extensions being used. It is a high value, relevant link, unlike the landing page at your hosting service. I quickly dropped the issue when some others felt that the link did not add enough value. Will you do the same, or do the rules only apply to independent wikis?
Let's also agree to disagree on the merits of using MediaWiki.org to teach people how to use MediaWiki. Yikes indeed.
Why would they have clicked on the link, if they didn't want to know about MyWikis? Did they click on it in error? If so, they should just hit the back button - same as with any wrong click. Or did they want the information, but don't want to be pitched a paid service? If so, then your compromise solution of putting in another small local page between them and the information won't solve the problem at all.
They might have assumed, wrongly, that at an authoritative site the volunteers would take great care to include relevant links. They also might have been deceived by the plainlinks because the customary external link icon is missing.
Another advantage of keeping visitors here on this site is that we are a multilingual, worldwide wiki. The external links might be irrelevant depending on visitors' language and geographic region. If we offer a quick explanation of each of these links, our translation service has a chance to help with this issue.
The plainlinks thing was a bug somewhere in the bowels of the HTML formatting Lua logic. It's fixed now.
Thanks to Izno for doing that. Big improvement.
There certainly is an argument for having neutral and translated information on each of these packages and services. But since, for some of these, such content doesn't exist yet, it's a moot point right now, no? First get the pages created and translated, and then you can link to them.
No one appears to be interested in these sites. That's more reason to exclude links to them. Deleting the template is the best solution.
How can you tell if people are interested in these sites?
"Let's also agree to disagree on the merits of using MediaWiki.org to teach people how to use MediaWiki. Yikes indeed."
Let me clarify: I have no issue with using MediaWiki.org to teach people how to use MediaWiki. In fact, that is how I learned how to use MediaWiki—of course I am not opposed to sharing information about teaching MediaWiki on MW.o. But the precedent for the past 10+ years has been to also share MediaWiki hosting/farming services. We have had a Hosting services page for many years now. The MediaWiki Stakeholders' Group is officially approved by the WMF to support all stakeholders, including both independent sysadmins as well as wiki hosts. This fundamentalist and exclusionist stance of only using MW.o for resources related to self-hosting MediaWiki is simply not shared by most members of the community. Nor is anyone here saying that MW.o should serve only to advertise a few services and MediaWiki-related knowledge should be gatekept and excluded—that'd be ridiculous and I'm sure everyone here opposes that.
As far as the purpose of the Used by template, I can understand that we should be inclusive, but surely we cannot include tens of thousands of wikis being displayed on this template? As far as I am aware, the template is meant to be for services that are general use, not for independent wikis. Sorry that this excludes your wiki, but it just doesn't make sense for individual wikis to be included on a template that displays each user of the extension.
I disagree with the characterization of spam. MyWikis, as well as our competitors, is providing a legitimate service related to MediaWiki and our service provides users a facilitated service to use this extension without them needing to install their own MediaWiki. If they don't want to use our service and want to install it themselves, that's fine with us. But for those who want to use a service, this template provides users an alternative. Every other person commenting on this discussion either directly or, for other related reasons, indirectly supports this template providing such a purpose. Furthermore, it sounds like your stance is heavily biased and even controlling what we're supposed to put on our own website. Everyone's links link to something reasonable. Nobody else here has a problem with how we present our links. We should have the right to decide what we put on our own website. We also strongly condemn any effort to violate our First Amendment rights.
Here at MyWikis, while we love Translate.Wiki in general, we don't want to use Translate.Wiki for our landing page. We already have our own translations in several major languages. Actually, we can't provide support in languages such as Japanese, so a translation to Japanese would be misleading because we actually do require the client to communicate with us in one of our service languages (sorry 😢).
I'll be happy to participate in legitimate discourse about reforming the template, but I'm not going to entertain any further comments made by the OP as there seems to be some ulterior motive that is driving their desire to delete this template, and I can't condone any proposals made in malice. If this discussion makes no further progress, I propose keeping the status quo right before this discussion was started.
Clearly you have strong feelings about who apparently owns this site and what it should be used for. But multiple aspersions of bad faith do not help your argument. In this case, Krabina offered a compromise which both you and I accepted. Then when I tried to implement it, you changed your mind and unloaded with a bunch of nonsense about malice and first amendment rights. So ok, whatever, it's cool. I'll leave the template alone for now, but I don't appreciate the escalatory tactics.
The template should explain what it's purpose is. If I recall it's not not meant to be used if a wiki has installed it. Merely if it's part off a larger package.
That is indeed what the template's documentation says, Sen-Sai.