Help talk:Interlanguage links

H:FOREIGNLINK

I think that the usage of items 4-5 of H:FOREIGNLINK, must be strongly discouraged, for several reasons:

• It hides the fact that the Enwiki article is missing
• The function "What links here" does not allow finding Erich Anders where the references to Erich Anders area, if one uses the syntax Erich Anders
• What is most important, if an enwiki aritcle Erich Anders will be written, nobody will see it, because the wikilink will still be pointing to dewiki.

For the same reason the advice #3 "To show the language code and the link to the other language article, but don't link to an English article" must be supplied with the explanation that it should be used when there are serious reasons to do so.

Therefore I would suggest to rephrase this paragraph in view of the above. - Altenmann >talk 04:41, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree that item 5 is bad, as bad as an WP:EASTEREGG. Item 4 is only slightly less bad. It isn't terribly clear, relying on the reader to surmise (a) that the "French:" indicates a link to an article in another language and (b) that the reason for it is that English Wikipedia lacks an article. And it loses the benefit of the redlink. We should stick with the one consistent approach to avoid confusion and to invite creation here of articles about subjects of value. Presumably, if an editor is adding a link at all, it's because they deem the subject to be of sufficient value to refer people to it, hence they should feel it's of sufficient value tohave an article here.

This applies as well to the corollaries to 4 and 5 in 6. Largoplazo (talk) 12:40, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

The whole section is very confusing, and should be broken up, for starters, to separate those that involve the use of Template:interlanguage link and those that are links of other types. Eight is not helpful, and probably should just be dropped. Nine is incomplete, as other sister projects in foreign languages can also be linked; the full list is here, and if we say anything about foreign sister project links, it should probably just link that page, and not give a single example using wiktionary. Mathglot (talk) 00:06, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Interlanguage links with templates

Can we use interlanguage links with templates? (I'm making auto-changing system for the Translation of this week displayer for Latin Wikipedia). Thanks! Nguyengiabach1201 (talk) 04:19, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

When simply linking to a template, yes (see e.g. fr:Template:SOS or fr:Modèle:SOS which is exactly the same); but not when transcluding. That is, {{fr:SOS}} doesn't work. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:16, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Interlanguage links & DAB pages

The actor Alejandro López does not have a page on English Wikipedia, but he does have one on Spanish Wikipedia... I tried {{ill|Alejandro López|es}}, however that shows ONLY a link to the English DAB page (which does not include this particular person) and does NOT show the link to the Spanish wiki: Alejandro López (page where this link should live: Top Chef VIP season 3)... suggestions??? John, AF4JM (talk) 15:38, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

The purpose of the template is to provide the link to the other Wikipedia only as long as nobody has yet created the article here. Once someone does create an article with that title, all {{ill}} links to it appear as normal links.

The template can only tell whether there is or isn't an article here with a given title. If there is an article at that title, the template has no idea whether it's about the subject you have in mind or the same subject as the article with the same title on the other Wikipedia. In this case, there's an English Wikipedia page with that title, so the template does what it's supposed to in that case: it appears as an ordinary link.

Because there's already a Alejandro López page here, if someone were to create an article about the actor, they would have to name it something else, probably Alejandro López (actor). So you need to provide both that name and the name of the article at Spanish Wikipedia: {{ill|Alejandro López (actor)|es|Alejandro López}}. Largoplazo (talk) 16:29, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

nonredlink ILL

Is there a way to get an ILL, but not have it show a redlink? I could use xx:link, but that would show the foreing language not the English. So what I want is the text, and then the bracketed ILL. Metallurgist (talk) 19:59, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

The red link is the point of using ILL. It enables a reader to access associated information on another Wikipedia if they happen to be able to read its language or want to use a translator, while also serving the purpose that WP:REDLINKs serve: to suggest that a topic that doesn't have an article here might merit one and possibly spark an interest in a passing reader in creating one.

In article text, you shouldn't link directly to another Wikipedia because that surprises a reader who isn't expecting to be taken off-site and because the information there won't be useful to most readers.

In other cases, if for some reason you want to link to a page on Wikipedia while displaying the English term, you use a pipe, just as you do for links to other pages within English Wikipedia. (Note how, for example, I used a pipe to create the link the word "pipe"to the guidance about pipes.) Largoplazo (talk) 23:18, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

Yea I dont want to link directly. I am trying to provide links inline without being intrusive to the relevant article on another language, but a redlink would be pointless because no such article is likely to be created or considered notable here (it is in the target language). So I would want it to say Blahblah and then the little ill link in a bracket after. Metallurgist (talk) 17:57, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

It's difficult to give fitting advice without having context for its application. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 00:15, 1 October 2025 (UTC)