[Foundation-l] Missing wikis now redirect to Incubator

Thu Dec 22 22:44:40 UTC 2011

On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 23:26, Robin Pepermans <robinp.1273 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> As of yesterday, when you go to a missing wiki (the redlinks on
> Special:SiteMatrix) you will no longer see a static "this wiki does
> not exist" error, but it will redirect to the Wikimedia Incubator,
> where there is either a development wiki or an info page inviting you
> to start one.
> Exceptions are Wikiversity and Wikisource, because they are hosted on
> different wikis.
>
> For existing development wikis, going to for example
> <http://or.wikiquote.org> directs you to the main page
> <http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wq/or/ପ୍ରଧାନ_ପୃଷ୍ଠା>. You can
> also link directly to a page:
> <http://or.wikiquote.org/wiki/ରଜ_ଦୋଳି_ଗୀତ> to
> <http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wq/or/ରଜ_ଦୋଳି_ଗୀତ>. This also
> enables interwiki links to these Incubator pages. (Interwiki bot
> maintains: you are welcome to make use of that!)
>
> For missing wikis, going to for example <http://arz.wikinews.org>
> directs you to an info page
> <http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wn/arz> which is an improved
> version of the "this wiki does not exist" page: it is adapted to the
> respective language, and the messages are localisable through
> <https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Special:Translate/ext-wikimediaincubatorinfopage>.
> (Translators: you are welcome to translate that!)
>
> It only works for languages listed on SiteMatrix, so in general it
> doesn't work for Wikipedias on Incubator.

This is great news! In the sense of software implementation, we are
just a step behind the implementation of the initial spirit of
Wikipedia: If you know this language, you can start free encyclopedia
now! (Though, there are some organizational issues to be resolved.)

Thanks to Robin and WMF admins!