Template talk:NCwiki

Hello everyone. I am trying to create a template which would allow links to the same article on the Non-Canon Star Trek Wiki, but I am having trouble linking it up. If anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated. :-) --The Doctor, 10:18, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It's all fixed now... give it a try. -- Renegade54 13:46, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Works brilliantly, thank you very much. :-) --The Doctor, 14:08, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't work as described
This template doesn't work as described. If you're on MA page Worf, and want to link to MB page Deanna Troi, then typing

produces:
 * "Worf at Memory Beta, the wiki for ....", but if you click on Worf it takes you to the page at Deanna Troi

The only way to get it to both link properly and say "" is to type:

To illustrate the problem more clearly, here's what results if I type

on this page:

If you click on "NCwiki", above, it takes you to

Can anyone fix this little "glitch" in the template?  Czech Out  ☎ | ✍  00:44, 4 October 2007 (UTC)


 * That's how it's supposed to work. It shows the page you're on as the display unless you give it the display option.  The first option is simply the page on the other wiki to take you to.  The second option is the display option. -- Sulfur 01:18, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, the change you just made to the instructions is confusing me even more. You have reverted back to a conception of the functionality of this template that you introduced to the instructions back in January. Those changes to the instructions were then further edited by someone else in February, indicating that should do the trick. That didn't actually do the trick, as explained above, but it was made to look as if it should've.

Now, since the instructions have claimed — for most of the life of this template — that works like , it seems to me that it should work that way. For instance, if I wanted to link to a Wikipedia article from this page, with a name other than this page's name, I would just type:

and I would get

So, I guess my question is, was your edit meant as a quick fix to just describe it as it's truly supposed to be, or merely as it is? Or is there some technical reason it can't ever be made to work like ? I'm not quite seeing why the two templates work differently. Nor am I seeing the possible value of being able to properly link, but improperly display, a clickthrough to MB. Why would I want to have a response like "" returned to me?  Czech Out  ☎ | ✍  03:03, 4 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The intention of the NCWiki template is to add an external link at the end of a character's (or place's, or idea's) page. Since the external link is intended to be the same idea/character/place, just as covered in non-canon works, it was originally written for simplicity. Generally, a is to be used. If (as in some cases) the non-canon name of the same idea is different, the first field would cover that. The name would still be the same as the page so people aren't confused or think it links to an unrelated idea/place/character. The third field would be used in the rarer cases where one would want to display a name not the same as the page name. Why one would want to link to an unrelated page in the external links section is beyond me though, and I assume hardly ever occurs.--Tim Thomason 03:33, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

See, I would assume it to be the most useful thing you could do with this template. It would seem natural to me that if an MA article has an Apocrypha section, it's probably going to mention the title of NC works. It would therefore seem user-friendly to link to the name of the referenced work, which will not be the same as the name of the MA article. For a practical example, see sehlat.  Czech Out  ☎ | ✍  14:09, 4 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, but MB's articles about people generally link to the reference material too, in a similar manner to us, and thus logically, we should link to the same article, and that article will (in theory) have much more information. If they want to check out the reference work it's from, they can go to our article on it, followed by going to the MB article that would be linked from our article. -- Sulfur 14:28, 4 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I was the one who initially created the NCwiki template (actually, The doctor created the first version, but couldn't get it to work properly, so he asked for help and I rewrote it into essentially the version that it is today). My logic was exactly as Tim explained above: in most cases, the names of the articles on both sites match, so no parameters would be required. In a few cases, the MB article has a different name than ours, but we normally keep the displayed link the same, so the first parameter would be needed to specify the name of the MB article, and the link name would match the MA article (i.e. page) name. I only added the third parameter for the sake of completeness, so that in the rare case someone wanted to link to a related article there would be a way to name the link correctly. I didn't envision that being used very often, but I wanted it there just in case.


 * I was also the one that added a third parameter to the wikipedia template, but I had to make the mechanism work a bit different there, since it was only added recently, and if I had made it work the same as NCwiki, it would have broken tens of thousands of existing links. Thus, wikipedia works the opposite in that if the second parameter is specified, that becomes both the link and the link text, unless the third parameter is specified, which then changes the text. -- Renegade54 16:21, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

(to respond to Sulfur, above) As you explained at "Forum:Duplication of effort?", though, our entries for NC works "don't care whether Kirk is killed in one, reanimated in another"; they exist solely to confirm the existence of the NC item from a real-world perspective. Thus, if you're trying to make a point as to content, MB is the place to link to. To send someone to our page is, frankly, a waste of time if you're trying to give them more narrative information. Besides, you'd logically make an in-line link to our page, and then an external link to the MB article. You wouldn't do it under an "External Link" section, cause it's not, well, external.

(to respond to Renegade 54). Ahhh, okay. So you're saying it's working as it's supposed to. Your edit of the instructions on 8 February is the one that confused me, because you stated then that would produce the results of.

Maybe I could suggest that we have another template, or perhaps , that worked like. I just don't think we're leveraging the wealth of information at MB in the most efficient manner.  Czech Out  ☎ | ✍  05:49, 5 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Erm... why have a second template that does exactly the same thing, just a different order of arguments? Strictly speaking, the wikipedia template should be altered to match this one (because that template's variables are poorly done), but as R54 noted above, that would break far too many links.  Ditto for changing this template.  Yes, it would be nice if they were both identical.  But unfortunately, they're not, and unless someone's willing to figure out which entries would have to be altered and making a list of notes for that, it's not going to happen any time soon. -- Sulfur 11:30, 5 October 2007 (UTC)