SMWCon Spring 2015/Discussions/Interwiki Behavior and Transclusion
Introduction[edit]
Interwiki functionality creates some interesting possibilities to link to and share information between different wikis. There are two distinct functions: interwiki linking and transclusion.
Interwiki linking is based upon an interwiki table, accessible by administrators via the special:interwiki page. If a wiki is added to the interwiki table and the "Forward" parameter is set to "yes", interwiki linking is enabled. An HTTP request to the local wiki with this interwiki prefix in the URL is redirected to the target URL given in the interwiki link definitions (i.e. treated like references in local pages). Now if in the same table the "Transclude" parameter is set to "yes" it will not automatically lead to transclusion.
Transclusion between wikis requires the appropriate parameter in the interwiki table to be set to "yes". Setting the transclusion parameter in the interwiki table is not enough. It also requires the $wgEnableScaryTranscluding parameter set to "true" in the localsettings.php file. The name of the parameter sounds scary indeed, and it is not clear to what extent it would enable the transclusion of wiki data and templates. Activating scary transclusion requires some analysis.
The page on configuration parameter $wgEnableScaryTranscluding (MediaWiki.org) explains that this feature is "scarily inefficient" and that a better (but not yet stable) alternative exists. This would be "Reasonably efficient interwiki transclusion" extension, which development unfortunately has halted in 2011. Hence, no working alternative yet exists.
This discussion captures some ideas on how transclusion between MediaWiki sites can be achieved, and which requirements can be identified and developed for improvement.
