I noted that a user removed {{Commons cat}} due the concurring presence of {{Sister project links}}. In my opinion it should not affect or discurage the use of {{Commons category}} or {{Commons}} because {{Sister project links}} simply "provides links to the 'Search' page on the various Wikimedia sister projects". It does not grant that any related content actually exist, it is just a (blind) guess. {{Commons}} and {{Commons cat}} instead state that Wikimedia Commons actually has media related to the subject and provide a link to it. This is a precious information. It is the difference between the search function and a link. -- Basilicofresco (msg) 15:23, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm seeing this with {{wikivoyage}} and {{sister project links|voy...}} as well, what needs to happen (instead of having two templates for the same siblings, one of which launches a pointless search) is that this template needs to link directly to a page whenever a pagename or category name is fed as a parameter. No reason to invoke special:search at all if the target is already provided and in the crosshairs. K7L (talk) 18:54, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone explain to my why this whole template doesn't run afoul of WP:ELNO #9? The entries in the box created by this template consist only of search engine links, and ELNO#9 disallows "links to any search results pages, such as links to individual website searches, search engines, search aggregators, or RSS feeds." —David Eppstein (talk) 18:21, 20 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I also dislike Special:Search’es as a permanent solution – EL or ELNO, but it is just a silly complication in the worst tradition of 21th-century technology. Replace all of these to direct links, yeah. Resulting dead links, IMHO, can be reduced with bots. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 19:12, 2 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If the user explicitly specified a target, such as {{sister project links|voy=Europe}}, the template needs to send them directly to that page... launching a search is superfluous. The same applies if the user specifies a Commons category or anything else specified right in a parameter. I could explicitly set every parameter to a specific page or category and still have them all become search links... why? Perhaps fr:modèle:autres projets (where the links go to only the projects listed, and the target pages are specified by name) would be a proper example of what needs to happen in any case other than this being arbitrarily dropped on the page with no parameters at all. K7L (talk) 18:47, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What about including parameters for cookbook (and Wikijunior) (with default parameter set no)? We already have a separate one for {{cookbook}}. Thank you.···Vanischenu^「m/_Talk」 19:29, 25 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Now that Wikivoyage has launched, should the link to there be opt-out instead of opt-in? I've boldly made it so, but feel free to revert (and explain here) if you disagree. MER-C 10:47, 15 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know, but the code is misbehaving. See for example its use on Martin Luther King, Jr.. I don't know enough to fix it, can someone take a look? Kendall-K1 (talk) 13:34, 15 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed by EmilJ (talk · contribs). Thanks! Kendall-K1 (talk) 17:56, 15 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've reverted; as the WV link was showing on Aaron Swartz. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:34, 15 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A bot request for approval for The Anonybot may affect the usage of this template. Feel free to discuss there. The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 08:18, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I see one potentially-major problem... while the {{wikivoyage}} and {{wikivoyage-inline}} templates point directly to the specified article on the destination wiki, this kludge of a "sister project links" template instead blindly and arbitrarily links to Special:Search on each targeted project. This is ugly.

I'd ask that you do not run this 'bot. K7L (talk) 15:16, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So the solution is to change this template, right? The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 17:07, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It might be a bit late for that. This template was designed with the theory that it could be randomly and indiscriminately dumped on pages without parameters and used to blindly launch Special:Search on a long list of random projects with {PAGENAME} as an implicit target. That's not the same as the individual {{commons category}}, {{wikivoyage}} or other individual-sibling links where the target is named explicitly, is a mainspace page instead of Special:Search, has actually been verified to exist and to contain usable content (and not a stub, outline, empty category or page nominated for deletion). I realise that fr: scrapped and deleted all of their individual-sibling templates in favour of {{fr:modèle:autres projets}} a few months ago, but that template was a direct link to manually-selected interwiki targets only... no projects inserted by default, no interwiki calls to Special:Search. This template is clearly not a drop-in replacement for "autres projets" nor for the individual sibling templates. Fixing it now could be awkward as something would need to be done with all the pages already calling it with missing parameters.

Maybe creating a new template that actually is an English-language equivalent to "autres projets" is a viable option. This template, however, is not an "modèle:autres projets" but a series of blind calls to Special:Search. Until that is resolved, a 'bot run would be premature. K7L (talk) 17:25, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I'll put the bot on hold for now since there seems to be a lot of discussion about the Wikivoyage parameter on this page. The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 19:21, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I just made a bold edit, which changed Wikidata links from Special:Search/FooBar to Special:ItemByTitle/enwiki/FooBar. This way, the template will lead directly to a relevant WD entry if possible. Admittedly, this would be worse if there is no such entry (and therefore a totally unhelpful page linked to), but the solution is just to not include any links to WD for articles without entries. I'm open for discussion. -- YPNYPN ✡ 01:38, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think the way Wikivoyage is handled in this template is inappropriate. Only 3 sister sites are automatically omitted unless manually added: Wikidata, Wikispecies and Wikivoyage.

• Wikidata is omitted because an automatic link would never work; the item number must be entered manually. I also believe that the Wikipedia community is as of yet unsure whether it wants to link directly to Wikidata, a computer readable database.
• Wikispecies isn't auto-linked for a similar reason: because they're articles have species under their scientific names while Wikipedia articles take vernacular names. Scientific names must be entered manually.

But Wikivoyage? There's really no valid reason. It could be said that we shouldn't add links to a travel guide from an article on say, a person. But then there's an inconsistent approach. You don't "define" people in a dictionary (Wiktionary). You can't have "quotations" by a building (Wikiquote). You can't have up-to-date "news" on an event that took place 100 years ago (Wikinews). There shouldn't be a double standard. I believe that Wikivoyage should be automatically included in the template, like most of the other fairly low-traffic projects. It's pretty clear to people when a travel guide is and isn't relevant. It will also save Wikivoyage and Wikipedia editors having to go through tens of thousands of location articles adding voy=location. Regards, JamesA ^>talk 07:30, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This argument sounds logical to me. What's the counter-argument? Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:50, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Strong support. What User:JamesA said, I couldn't have said better myself. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 08:25, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

How do we determine if the topic is travel related? We have this "sister link" template on some medical topics to which Wikivoyage of course does not apply?Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 09:01, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Strong support. Wikivoyage should not be an exception; I absolutely agree with User:JamesA. --Nicholasjf21 (talk) 10:10, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In response to Doc James, this change would make Wikivoyage appear on those medical topics by default. It is possible to manually exclude it using voy=no, just like you can do for any other sister project. While Wikivoyage is irrelevant to medical topics, it is the same situation with other sister sites with so many other topics. The only way this can be circumvented is addition of the "no" tag. As I said, I don't think it's far to auto-include other sites which are often irrelevant, yet exclude Wikivoyage. As a means of removing irrelevant links, we could always run a bot or use AWB to mark all "people" articles (using categories) as voy=no, therefore reducing a lot of unneeded links. This could be done with any other categories people can think of. JamesA ^>talk 12:33, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I guess. I typically do not add the full sister link template do to that reason :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 18:19, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Comment. I think a sister project link provides the search results in a sister project for the title of the Wikipedia article in question. If so, even seemingly irrelevant searches can provide useful results. Take Giordano Bruno, for example: A search of his name on Wikivoyage turns up two very relevant results—articles about the places that was the scene of parts of his life. That is something a reader clicking the link to a travel site from a biographical article would expect, I'd guess. – Vidimian (talk) 18:40, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support In the interest of full disclosure everyone who has commented in this discussion so far, myself included, are active Wikivoyagers and this discussion was mentioned over there. While I'm quite certain there has been any bad faith involved in this discussion (any attempt at WP:Votestacking), there should be some input from non-Wikivoyagers before any action is taken (see: Wikipedia:Canvassing). I've dropped a line at the Village Pump to solicit comments. AHeneen (talk) 19:42, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Support, I don't see how this could hurt. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 19:57, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - the reason its hidden (as per previous talks) is because only a very very small portion of the article were the template is used is actually a location were people can visit. The majority of articles are not places - but topics. Moxy (talk) 20:02, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]