Template talk:Filmyr

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Is there a reason that this template is including interwiki links for the pages? This is causing any pages with manually added interwiki links (or those added by interwiki bots) to have duplicate entries for links that exist. It also links to many pages that don't exist in other languages. See Category:1923 films. Pages for be, bg, etc don't actually exist, while link to de shows up twice. --Vina 09:33, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

In my walk through every single article category for films, I found that most of them included interwiki links copied from each other. As it was, in most cases there were no articles at the other end -- the interwiki links were present because they had been present in whatever category the originator was copying from. I could tell that they were copied because they were almost always in the same non-alphabetical order. Also, in many cases the interwiki links for two different years were inconsistent with each other. I elected to include the interwiki links in the template because at least that way the interwiki links are consistent (and at least not wrong). I think that the bots shouldn't be adding them manually. The bots are demonstratively not competent to add them correctly. The interwikilinks should remain in the template.

And as a matter of fact, there was no duplication of interwikilinks until they were caused by User:Vina-iwbot. Cheers, Cleduc 14:24, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

My bot is simply the first one to add back the valid links. There are many interwiki bot operators from various languages and this problem would've have surfaced with every bot run that hits the pages. The reason that I saw this problem was that I check over every change that the bot did, and there were some new film related categories created on the Chinese wiki. From the Edit History, you can see that Chobot has also added links before.

The page on interwiki links indicates that template should not include any interwiki links. The other year related template have the interwiki links in the noinclude section, to remind people of the correct format, but do not add them in the page automatically.

As to the incorrect links, they are actually caused by an initial human error in copy-paste. I have see this a lot in all of the year related pages and categories, where it is not only incomplete and inconsistent, some linked to the wrong year! The interwiki bots only follows the links alerady present, trusting that the person who put in the initial link knows what he/she was doing, and finds all the links added in various languages. Please see User talk:Yurik/Interwiki Bot FAQ for a better explanation of this. The bot can also be ran in a mode to remove links to pages that don't exist, but it seems that no one has done so in the film categories in the English wiki. I'd be happy to do the cleanup if you feel there is a need. --Vina 19:30, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I carefully reviewed meta:Help:Interwiki_linking and did not find the prohibition you imply above. There are two places it mentions templates:

Note that, if a page may be used as a template (even if it is not in the template namespace), it should note its interlanguage links between <noinclude> and </noinclude>. This is the same idea as for categories.

... which refers to avoiding pollution of articles with interwiki links for the templates (as it notes should also be done with categories). It does not refer to this type of usage.

and

Thus there is not the possibility of simply copying each list, let alone of using a template, as can be done if different languages share one project, with or without separate namespaces, see e.g.:

... which refers to the difficulty of having a single list (whether physical or templatised) used for the same article on different sites (e.g. copying & pasting between DE, EN, and FR). It doesn't refer to this type of usage, either.

So, I do not see evidence of a policy or guideline stating that interwiki links for articles should not be produced in templates.

Conversely, I do not know of a policy or guideline absolving 'bot operators of responsibility for damage the 'bots do in their blind revision of articles. On the contrary, the 'bot flag is licensed on good behaviour. I wouldn't have a problem with a 'bot that checks to see whether an interwiki link appears in an article's rendered version and then adds it if appropriate. Perhaps that is a change that the community of interwiki 'bot operators can get behind. In any case, I don't think a flawed tool is an excuse for the operator not fixing a problem it causes.

As for interwiki "redlinks" I don't see any prohibition for them either, and on a practical note I do not think they are a problem in the case of this type of category article (which contain no real unique content in any case). On regular articles I have a different opinion -- but these categories clearly benefit from the consistency provided by a template. Putting the interwikilinks in the template helps prevent the human error that you mention as a cause of 'bot propagated corruption above. It obviates the need for this error-prone, infrequent, irregular, and server-hungry 'botting.

So in short, I think the 'bot is doing damage in this case, and I think the template is where these interwikilinks should be maintained. It is the responsibility of the 'bot operator to clean up problems caused by a 'bot -- in this case, the places where the 'bot duplicated the links. Cheers, Cleduc 23:53, 5 July 2006 (UTC)