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InterWiki is the idea of having one unified Wiki system distributed across many servers. Although the work would be distributed across many servers, to the user the transition between server to server would be apparently seamless: You might not even know that different pages are being handled by different machines on different continents. The main advantage of such an idea is that the Wiki could grow — both in topic coverage and in traffic — without any of the machines getting overloaded.

- from the original definition on Wiki:InterWiki

Wiki:InterWiki has not been implemented — it is too complex to be voluntarily adopted by the many WikiEngines. Or another way of saying it is that too many people do not believe it is worthwhile. A different idea, which is being implemented, is to explore the ways that separate wikis can be connected with one another.

I (Gregor Richards) would like to make my own suggestion for an interwiki content system. I'm calling this my ProposedInterWikiContentStandard.

Interim or alternative solutions exist:

Motivations:

To make interlinked contributions in different Wikis, automatic creations of BidirectionalLinks on the fly would be helpful. Currently we have to do this manually, very timeconsuming. -- FridemarPache

Wiki:SisterSites does just this — poll other Wiki servers for a list of defined words and automatically link to the same word on remote Wikis using icons on the bottom of the page. The main TinyWiki site is running ActiveWikiPages logic to add reverse links back to anyone that links to it, in a similar vein.

InterMap gives "monikers" for easy linking to sites in the InterMap — the name from the InterMap and a colon prefix a WikiWord to designate a link to that word on a different Wiki. A WikiEngine should have a SelfReferringInterWiki moniker. Monikers are also abused on some sites to link to images, non-Wiki pages, and anything else that can benefit from URL simplification. This is the most popular approach to networking Wikis.

InterWikiSearch deals with the obvious problem of not knowing what is where. Wikis covering new subject areas, and differing local conventions also prevent content from being linked in without a method of locating arbitrary content. While not as automatic as a link, this is a very handy tool that cannot easily be replaced. See MetaWiki and InterWikiSearch.

CategoryWikiTechnology CategoryUnimplementedWikiTechnology CategoryInterCommunity

Technology

I just had the idea for WikiPassport technology, which would ease things for people doing a lot of WikiWalking. -- JürgenHermann

What do you mean by a SubWiki?

I have written an article about InterWiki for Wikipedia at, obviously, WikiPedia:InterWiki. Please correct any errors you may find. I'd also be interested in some history. Cheers, WikiPedia:User:Eloquence

Could WikiEngine authors standardize the location of the InterMap files? This would make automatic recursive traversal of the entire Wiki network possible. This could be used for creating a Wiki that automatically SisterSites with all Wikis, could be used to build a list of all known Wikis, could be used by a search engine like InterWikiSearch but automatically covering all Wikis, could be used to graph Wiki interrelationship, and countless other fun things. I'm not naive enough to suggest a new standard — just asking for clarification on an existing one. If a consensus begins to form, then people who want to follow have something to follow. Likewise, a program or page listing all defined words is needed. Oh, I hacked up this page — sorry if I botched anything — feel free to revert. -- ScottWalters

See also Wiki:InterlinkingWikiForums.

The [InterWiki email list] is for discussion of technologies used to connect wikis together, or to connect them with other things.

We are thinking about an Interwiki and a couple of other nice things as well. See

-- MattisManzel

I distrust InterWiki because it seems like too much of a big deal, too coarse a granularity. Creating a new WikiSubcommunity should be as easy and as fine-grained as creating a new page, not as hard as setting up a new site. RecentChanges needs to become fluid and dynamic to support this. -- DaveHarris

You mean like [SebastianPaquet's list of feed manipulations]?

I propose that at least the intermap file (which holds the InterWiki definition strings) is treated case-insensitive. See also my patch for adding UseMod:WikiPatches/InterSiteIcons.

I also wrote a patch for adding UseMod:WikiPatches/InterSiteIcons (see a screenshot there) with an extended intermap file format, which is compatible to the UseMod 1.0 format. -- TomGries?

This is sort of a superset of what I have done on my wiki — [1] — I drop the name before the colon and colour the rest green. It makes things a lot more readable, e.g. using 'a' or 'an' in a more natural way, and you can still find out the full URL (if you want to) by looking at the bottom of the screen. And I agree about the case-insensitivity requirement e.g. the 'b' in Meatball :-) -- Wiki:PaulMorrison

Is anyone interested in attending or hosting a workshop on InterWiki type stuff at WikiSym? -- BayleShanks

I'm certainly interested enough to attend a workshop and I am definitely planning to be there. -- HansWobbe.

Me, too. -- HelmutLeitner

OK, please see InterWikiWorkshopProposal.

One of the (late) results of the interwiki workshop is a growing number of wiki standardisation requests, among one of them [2] tries to create a wiki exchange format. It would be great, if you would contribute by helping to describe a unifying wiki data model (syntax neutral). Ah, read it for yourself. -- MaxVoelkel

PATTERN FORM (WikiPatternLanguage)
END OF PATTERN FORM
CategoryWikiPatternLanguage CategoryInterCommunity

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