Template talk:Sister project

Edit request (add "c" for Commons)

Problem: Hello, I wonder why for the most projects there are shorthands but not for Commons:

• Wikimedia Commons logo commons
• Meta-Wiki logo meta, metawiki, or m
• Wikibooks logo wikibooks, wbk, wb, or b
• Wikidata logo wikidata or data
• Wikiquote logo wikiquote, quote, wqt, or q
• Wikipedia logo wikipedia, wp, or w
• Wikisource logo wikisource, source, ws, or s
• Wiktionary logo wiktionary, wkt, wdy, or d
• Wikinews logo wikinews, news, wnw, or n
• Wikispecies logo wikispecies or species
• Wikiversity logo wikiversity, wvy, or v
• Wikivoyage logo wikivoyage, voyage, or voy
• MediaWiki logo mediawiki or mw
• Wikimedia Outreach logo outreachwiki or outreach
• Wikimedia Incubator logo incubator
• Wikimedia logo default

Proposal: I propose to add c as alias / shorthand for Commons. Line 9:

    | commons|c               = Commons-logo.svg

That will also match with Template:Sister project links#Images used.

And if you want to continue, there they have additional:

• wikt for Wiktionary
• d for Wiktionary

What I think is a good idea too. Strangely there they have also:

• iw for Wikipedia

what we maybe better change there than here. Thanks and Regards, --W like wiki ^{good to know} 22:43, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

I guess it makes sense to bring the two templates into line. Would you please make required changes to Template:Sister project/sandbox? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:47, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Partly edited – included c for commons and wikt for wiktionary. d for Wiktionary is already in this template and has been since it was created in 2008. That's a bit confusing since Wikidata uses "d" as a prefix, see d:Q34969. Not sure what to do about that since Wikidata wasn't added to this template until 2012. The iw denotes an interwiki link to an other-language Wikipedia. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 13:14, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Edit request 19 February 2024

Description of suggested change: Please add the wikifunctions logo as an available option.

Diff:

−

+

| wikifunctions = Wikifunctions-logo.svg

Thanks,🌺 Cremastra (talk) 02:34, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

 Done * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 03:28, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Wiktionary icon in Dark mode

Hi all the Wiktionary logo has issues in dark mode - it is not visible. This was flagged in https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T365622 and requires a modification to this template. Test url

@Izno I know you were looking into this, but I also know you have lots on your plate, so I figured a message here will also be helpful in case someone else can help.

Dark mode is currently planned for launch on July 16th so there is still a bit time to fix this before launch. Let me know if I can help in any way! Jon (WMF) (talk) 02:16, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Apparently Main Page#mp-sister is working as expected, so perhaps the fix here just needs to be applied here too? Jon (WMF) (talk) 02:17, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the fix would be similar, but there's more involvement here because there's a switch in the way. I'm afk right now but can look at this in a couple weeks. Izno (talk) 20:39, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

I went ahead and provided a short term fix of adding a white background to this SVG. If there are more logos perhaps this rule can be generalized to target any SVG. This is in line with how we're fixing the transparent SVG image issue elsewhere. 🐸 Jdlrobson (talk) 20:12, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Delinking icons

The idea of delinking icons was raised again by @PrimeHunter here. Looking at the history here, it seems there are copyright issues with that in many cases, because many of the project icons are under CC licenses that require attribution. For the Commons icon specifically, the local copy here is deemed PD-ineligible but the Commons version is not. We should sort that out and delink the icons we can delink. And we need to link many of them at {{Sister project links}}. Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 01:39, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

😱 When I ported Template:Sister project links to Lua back in 2020, I just copied the link=| that was in the template, without thinking about it. Clearly that was incorrect. I agree with PrimeHunter's point that linking the icons makes the template less usable, but we have to obey the license (in some way). Here is a table of sister icons and their corresponding licenses:

Icon	License
	CC-BY-SA-3.0
	CC-BY-SA-3.0
	CC-BY-SA-3.0
	PD-Ineligible
	CC-BY-SA-3.0
	CC-BY-SA-3.0
	CC-BY-SA-3.0
	CC-BY-SA-3.0
	CC-BY-SA-3.0
	CC-BY-SA-3.0
	PD-Ineligible
	PD-Self
	CC-BY-SA-4.0

For {{Sister project links}}, I wonder if we can add a link to the bottom in smaller font that says [[WP:Icon licensing|Icon licensing]], which then contains something like the table to the right in it, and then users could click through to find the authorship. Is having two clicks considered not following the license? Not sure what to do about {{Sister bar}} or the individual box templates like {{Commons}} -- those might simply have to be linked. What do other editors think? — hike395 (talk) 04:11, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

Later -- I have code all ready to go at Module:Sister project links/sandbox in case we decide to directly link all of the CC icons. — hike395 (talk) 04:37, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

The Wikibooks, Wikivoyage, and Wikifunctions logos look PD-ineligible to me; I've proposed at Commons that we tag them accordingly. A case could probably be made for some of the others, too. It's a shame that more of them weren't released with a license that wouldn't require us to link for attribution; not sure what the prospects of getting them changed would be. Sdkb ^talk 05:47, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

I think you should approach the creators of the icons and ask them directly. Any other path seems very difficult. Interestingly, the Wikiquote icon was changed unilaterally without discussion in 2011. Not sure if that is valid.

Marking an icon as PD in the new code is simply a matter of adding an entry to a Lua table, so that can be done very rapidly. — hike395 (talk) 08:22, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

Later -- there was a very short discussion at c:File talk:Wikidata-logo.svg converting it to PD-ineligible. It sure would be nice for the WMF to weigh in. In the meanwhile, out of an abundance of caution, I will have the code link to everything except File:Wikimedia Community Logo.svg, but it is incredibly easy to change. — hike395 (talk) 08:45, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

I reached out off-wiki to someone at the WMF; please ping me if I forget to follow up. Sdkb ^talk 19:58, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

The Wikiquote icon is unquestionably PD-ineligible. See commons:COMMONS:TOO for examples of how complex a logo needs to be to be eligible for copyright protection. Some of the others are more borderline. Sdkb ^talk 20:02, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

If you'd like to delink it, you can add q=true, to the PDIcon table at Module:Sister project links/config. — hike395 (talk) 01:16, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

I think Wikivoyage's logo should be PD-ineligible. Candidyeoman55 (talk) 20:46, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

Not sure if you should be worried about the license. Images on the main page don't point to image description, see: Template:Wikipedia's sister projects. Most wikimedia logos don't point to image desc page. Including the globe in the top bar. So that should be fine? Nux (talk) 22:46, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Sadly, I think that's an "other stuff exists" argument. As far as I can tell, when you show a CC-licensed image, you have to link to it. MediaWiki is actually being very stubborn here. I am unable to get <div inert></div> to work, apparently because of the HTML sanitizer. I think we'll have to go with "alt=logo" and hope that a short two-syllable spoken word isn't too annoying for unsighted readers. — hike395 (talk) 23:53, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Yea, inert is not whitelisted (mw:Help:HTML in wikitext). But I don't think the logos are decorative, since they visually identify the project (doesn't matter much for blind people, I assume, but it does for people who can see) – section508.gov even goes so far as saying logos are never decorative. {{Lemondoge|Talk|Contributions}} 00:42, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

@Hike395: It's not required for all CC licensed images, just those with the BY right - which nowadays means all of the licenses except CC0. As far as we are concerned, CC BY and CC BY-SA both require attribution, for all version numbers. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:53, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Note that even the old CC 1.0 non-BY licenses (e.g. CC SA) still require that a link to (or copy of) the license be distributed along with the work, so those would probably still need the file description page link for that purpose. AFAIK CC0 is the only one without that requirement. Anomie⚔ 11:48, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

And yet exactly the same logos are not linked to licences on the main page. I don't think this is "other stuff exists". I think this is: exact same thing and on a highly visible page. The owner of the logos is the owner of this site. Still not a lawyer, but I don't see any problems here. Nux (talk) 20:37, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

You're literally pointing to other stuff and saying "What about that? Because that exists, this should be allowed too." Even if WMF does it wrong (and even if they're allowed to as copyright holder), that doesn't mean it's not wrong for us to do it. IMO the most sensible thing would be, if WMF is going to keep the CC BY-SA licenses on the logos, for them to officially grant an exception to the attribution-and-notice-of-license requirements when the logo is used to link to the corresponding project. But they'd have to actually do such a thing. Anomie⚔ 01:49, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

Sister projects template is not created by WMF. And other stuff is for articles not for licenses. Nux (talk) 03:52, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

@Nux: It doesn't matter who created Template:Sister project. What matters is the copyright owner of the various images. Consider File:Commons-logo.svg: this is licensed CC BY-SA 3.0 and as such, requires attribution. The copyright owner is Wikimedia Foundation, and only they can alter the license to one where no attribution is needed. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:20, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

@Redrose64 I meant Template:Wikipedia's sister projects. That is oo the main page. Uses same logs, is a template. It is not just similar, it is the same or worse. Nux (talk) 19:04, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

That doesn't change the fact that only the copyright holder can alter the license. If they want attribution, we are obliged to provide it. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:29, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

Edit request 15 March 2026

Description of suggested change: Add alt text to the logos based on the corresponding project.

Diff:

−

}}|40x40px|class=noviewer|alt= ]]

+

}}|40x40px|class=noviewer|alt={{#switch: {{lc: {{{project|}}} }} | commons|c = Wikimedia Commons logo. | meta|metawiki|m = Meta-Wiki logo. | wikibooks|wbk|wb|b = Wikibooks logo. | wikidata|data = Wikidata logo. | wikiquote|quote|wqt|q = Wikiquote logo. | wikipedia|wp|w|iw = Wikipedia logo. | wikisource|source|ws|s = Wikisource logo. | wiktionary|wikt|wkt|wdy|d = Wiktionary logo. | wikinews|news|wnw|n = Wikinews logo. | wikispecies|species = Wikispecies logo. | wikiversity|wvy|v = Wikiversity logo. | wikivoyage|voyage|voy = Wikivoyage logo. | mediawiki|mw = MediaWiki logo. | outreachwiki|outreach = Wikimedia Outreach logo. | incubator = Wikimedia Incubator logo. | wikifunctions = Wikifunctions logo. | #default = Wikimedia logo. }} ]]

(ins 01:11, 17 March 2026 (UTC): added ending periods per section508per harvard) {{Lemondoge|Talk|Contributions}} 21:16, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

 Not done I think MOS:BLANKALT applies here; the text immediately after the logo provides all needed information. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:05, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

@Pppery it does not apply as the logo is a link. The logo must either have alt or be aria-hidden completely or not be a link. Not sure what would be best here. Nux (talk) 02:19, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

The logo is not a functional link (i.e., one that helps the reader), but is a decorative image. The only reason to link to the image is to fulfill licensing requirements. The MOS directs us to use free images for decorative images (to allow blank alt). However, in this case, the logos are not generally free to use and are not replaceable. The best idea (discussed at Template talk:Portal) is to wrap the link in area-hidden=true (per Nux's suggestion). This would require editing Module:Side box to accept |aria-hidden= and then setting that parameter in Template:Sister project. I can attempt that in the sandbox, but it would be good for someone with a number of screen readers to test before we promote it to main. — hike395 (talk) 02:51, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

No!!! Focusable elements mustn't be hidden from the accessibility tree (per mdn). (pinging @Nux) {{Lemondoge|Talk|Contributions}} 18:27, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Lemondoge is correct -- my code keeps the image in the tab order, which is terribly confusing for unsighted users. I'll revert Nux's promotion: this isn't ready yet. — hike395 (talk) 20:04, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Yes, sorry about that. I had many discussions about this in the past when I was doing sister projects temple for the main pages (e.g. for plwiki). I forgot we actually ended up removing links from logos. There are some more notes here: UX stack answer. Nux (talk) 22:42, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

 Implemented in the sandbox. @Nux: if you have access to screen readers, can you check the test cases? — hike395 (talk) 03:34, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

{done} it works well, thank you. Nux (talk) 09:47, 16 March 2026 (UTC) PS: sorry, not done.

The links to the logos are only there for licensing reasons, not to be truly helpful to our users. I would suggest that we should keep the alt tag very short, in order not annoy users of screen readers. In main, I have implemented "alt=logo" which is the shortest descriptive string I could think of. Comments? — hike395 (talk) 03:58, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

As mentioned above, I think the logos aren't decorative images because they each visually identify the corresponding project (section508.gov even goes as far as to say all logos are non-decorative), so the alt text should probably also identify which project the logo is of (as in the edit request textdiff). {{Lemondoge|Talk|Contributions}} 04:16, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Whether the logo is decorative isn't an issue here, I think: it's the redundancy. The name of the corresponding project is the first word of the text description. Right now, someone with a screen reader would hear "logo" <tab> "Wikivoyage has travel information...", while if we implement the proposed edit, someone would hear "Wikivoyage logo"<tab>"Wikivoyage has travel information...". The former is less redundant. The latter perhaps describes the link better, but I would be quite surprised if any notable fraction of people will click through the logo link. As I said above, the link is purely to obey licensing: it has no other purpose. — hike395 (talk) 04:24, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

But with the alt text being just logo, what the logo is is ambiguous – it could be the Wikimedia logo, the black WMF logo, some designated "crosswiki logo", even a logo for the subject of the transcluding article! By specifying the project in the alt text, we can eliminate all doubt, and communicate the same information that would be conveyed visually to a well-sighted reader: "here's the logo of the project mentioned to the right." The concern here isn't describing the target of the link (at least not in this particular case), but rather making sure readers aren't missing information due to vision issues or etc. {{Lemondoge|Talk|Contributions}} 05:22, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

I can see merit in your argument. I will defer to the consensus --- what do other editors think? — hike395 (talk) 11:13, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Personally, I'd most want to hear from User:Graham87 and others who actually rely on screen readers, rather than from accessibility crusaders who may be prioritizing an abstract ideal of "accessibility" over actual usability by the people it's supposed to be accessible to. Anomie⚔ 11:56, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. I think "Wiktionary logo", etc. would probably be best. I was toying with "Logo for Wiktionary" so the word "logo" could be cut off, but "Logo for Wiktionary Wiktionary" (which could be said depending on the screen reader) sounds clunky too. Graham87 (talk) 12:47, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

I see that {{Sister project}}, Module:Sister project links, and {{Wikipedia's sister projects}} all handle sister project logos in an inconsistent way. My plan is to implement Module:Sister project logo to produce Wiki image markup for any Wiki logo that respects the CC license and provides a sensible alt per Lemondoge and Graham87, above. We can then change all three of these template/modules to use the new module and get consistent and correct logos throughout the project. I'll ping this talk page when ready. — hike395 (talk) 15:16, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

 Implemented in the Template:Sister project/sandbox. @Graham87: please check the test cases. The Wikivoyage logo has a link with an alt, while the Wikidata logo (which is in the public domain) has neither a link nor an alt). Does this seem correct to everyone? — hike395 (talk) 03:10, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

@Hike395: Thanks; sounds good to me. Graham87 (talk) 03:53, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Two side effects from this change to note:

• The wikitionary logo now works correctly in dark mode.
• The wikibooks logo has been changed to remove "wikibooks" footer, for consistency. I think it looks better.

— hike395 (talk) 12:14, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

 Done Now live. Let me know if anyone finds anomalous behavior. — hike395 (talk) 04:41, 2 April 2026 (UTC)