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Archive the DoubleWiki extension
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Description

Reason
Currently the DoubleWiki extension is unmaintained. The last proper commit was in 2013, and we should/could probably merge the extension into the Wikisource extension and/or be converted into a WMCS tool.

To-do list

    • Figure out what we should merge/convert to a WMCS tool
    • Should we notify Wikisources?
    • Add maintainers of that extension/skin as subscribers to this task (if they have no apparent Phabricator account, notify them on-wiki or via email if possible and note it here).
    • Add Phabricator project as a tag for this task, and remove MediaWiki-extensions-Other/Other-skins as appropriate.
  • On-wiki documentation
    • Archive documentation on mediawiki.org (provide URL): replace page contents with {{Archived extension|last revision id before archiving|task=T######}} (for extensions)/{{Archived skin|last revision|task=T######}} (for skins); replace T###### with this task's number.
    • If documentation page was translatable, remove <translate>, visit Special:PageTranslation, and click "remove from translation" (if you don't have the translation administrator right, ask a user who does).
    • Update Wikidata item (provide URL) associated with documentation page
      • add statement Abandonware (Q281039) to instance of (P31) together with qualifier start time (P580) = the YYYY-MM-DD date that you decided to archive extension/skin (generally per edit history)
      • add qualifier end time (P582) = the YYYY-MM-DD (same date as above) to instance of (P31) = MediaWiki extension (Q6805426)/MediaWiki skin (Q21996535)
  • Phabricator
    • Mark all Phabricator tasks for the extension/skin either Declined or Invalid. Add a comment pointing to this task when doing so for reference.
    • Archive Phabricator project MediaWiki-extensions-DoubleWiki for the extension/skin.
    • Edit Phabricator project MediaWiki-extensions-DoubleWiki description for the extension/skin with a link to this ticket.
  • Translatewiki.net/translations
  • Configuration/tests/integrations/etc.
  • Repositories
    • Empty repository, leaving only the README indicating the repo is archived, and referring to this task by URL.
    • Remove from mediawiki/extensions / mediawiki/skins (along with in .gitmodules).
    • Mark the repository read-only in Gerrit (also edit description to prepend "[ARCHIVED]" and a reference to this task): (provide Gerrit Repository URL).
    • Archive the Diffusion repository for the extension/skin: (provide the Diffusion repository callsign or URL).
    • Delete the GitHub mirror: (provide GitHub repository URL).

Event Timeline

cc @Samwilson @Tpt who are the current maintainers :)

I am not actively maintaining the extension. I never took the time to try to rewrite it properly. I am fine with undeploying it. Some consultation of the users (frwikisource...) might be nice to avoid a backslash.

Is the proposal here to merge the functionality into the Wikisource extension, or to drop the functionality entirely?

In the former case there is no obvious need for community consensus. Given its age and state of unmaintenance I am not sure just dropping it is an issue for community consensus either, but in that case it would probably be good to go through a period of deprecation, warnings to the communities, helping users to migrate to something else (at the very least to disable any Gadgets depending on it and update community docs and guidance etc.) before turning it off.

Migrating the functionality to a WMCS/Toolforge tool doesn't immediately sound like a good idea to me, but projects that are heavy users of it (are there any? frWS maybe? Did anybody run a mwgrep or similar to try to quantify its actual usage?) might want to try to put something together iff it's going away.

I've never used its functionality in anger, but trying it now on the examples linked in the doc it worked remarkably well for something unmaintained since 2013.

In T344544#9103741, @Tpt wrote:

I am not actively maintaining the extension. I never took the time to try to rewrite it properly. I am fine with undeploying it. Some consultation of the users (frwikisource...) might be nice to avoid a backslash.

I intend to put out a user notice out in the next Tech News.

In T344544#9103959, @Xover wrote:

Is the proposal here to merge the functionality into the Wikisource extension, or to drop the functionality entirely?

In the former case there is no obvious need for community consensus. Given its age and state of unmaintenance I am not sure just dropping it is an issue for community consensus either, but in that case it would probably be good to go through a period of deprecation, warnings to the communities, helping users to migrate to something else (at the very least to disable any Gadgets depending on it and update community docs and guidance etc.) before turning it off.

I'm open to both approaches, if there is not much community interest, (I know frwikisource and itwikisource use it) we could just kill it. If there is community interest, we could modernise the code (improvements include: moving away from table based formatting and surfacing the links in more prominent locations etc) and merge it into the Wikisource extension.

Migrating the functionality to a WMCS/Toolforge tool doesn't immediately sound like a good idea to me, but projects that are heavy users of it (are there any? frWS maybe? Did anybody run a mwgrep or similar to try to quantify its actual usage?) might want to try to put something together iff it's going away.

Looking at the code, this could easily be a gadget that is used by specific wikis (it is already partially enabled via a gadget). I agree that a toolforge tool might not be the best option, however, these are options via which we could have the same functionality without the added complexity of maintaining a extension.

I've never used its functionality in anger, but trying it now on the examples linked in the doc it worked remarkably well for something unmaintained since 2013.

It definitely works better than I would have expected :)

Amire80 updated the task description. (Show Details)
Soda updated the task description. (Show Details)
Soda updated the task description. (Show Details)
Ladsgroup subscribed.

I strongly support undeploying this extension. One way to tackle missing functionalities is through gadgets and iframe or a wmcs service. The communities can build that as they see fit.

It might be useful tool, if someone knows about existence of it.

The example book looks terrible on my monitor in Vector '22:
https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Criton_(trad._Cousin)?match=en

obraz.png (562×974 px, 74 KB)

I believe this feature could be quite useful if the text could be synchronized in some manner, similar to how two-language books are organised. However, I'm unsure if this is really feasible, considering that translated pages wouldn't necessarily align.

For instance, in this particular scenario, the English content has already concluded while the French text still has a few screens to go.

obraz.png (819×976 px, 99 KB)

In the current state, it seems more practical to open two pages in separate browser windows. On Windows, you can achieve this by using [Windows]+[Left arrow].

Next week I'm going to disable the extension.

Change 965707 had a related patch set uploaded (by Ladsgroup; author: Amir Sarabadani):

[operations/mediawiki-config@master] Disable DoubleWiki extension everywhere

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/965707

Change 965707 merged by jenkins-bot:

[operations/mediawiki-config@master] Disable DoubleWiki extension everywhere

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/965707

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2023-10-16T14:02:13Z] <ladsgroup@deploy2002> Started scap: Backport for [[gerrit:965707|Disable DoubleWiki extension everywhere (T344544)]]

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2023-10-16T14:03:27Z] <ladsgroup@deploy2002> ladsgroup: Backport for [[gerrit:965707|Disable DoubleWiki extension everywhere (T344544)]] synced to the testservers (https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mwdebug)

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2023-10-16T14:10:22Z] <ladsgroup@deploy2002> Finished scap: Backport for [[gerrit:965707|Disable DoubleWiki extension everywhere (T344544)]] (duration: 08m 09s)

Since there is no objection has been made for more than a month, I'll start the process of undeploying and archiving the extension.

Aklapper renamed this task from Merge, undeploy, and archive the DoubleWiki extension to Archive the DoubleWiki extension.Nov 23 2023, 4:57 PM

Change #1037562 had a related patch set uploaded (by Pppery; author: Pppery):

[mediawiki/extensions/DoubleWiki@master] Archive repository

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1037562

Change #1037564 had a related patch set uploaded (by Pppery; author: Pppery):

[translatewiki@master] Rm some more archived repos

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1037564

Change #1037569 had a related patch set uploaded (by Pppery; author: Pppery):

[integration/config@master] Mark some repos as archived

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1037569

Change #1037564 merged by jenkins-bot:

[translatewiki@master] Rm some more archived repos

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1037564