Suggestions for extensions to be integrated

An extension should be bundled with the installer after it has become extremely widely used. There are various schools of thought concerning other extensions. When deciding whether to integrate an extension into the core, one should consider the likelihood, if any, that extensions will be written that depend upon that functionality, and the prospects that it might be later desired to remove that functionality from the core, which would break those extensions. Extensions with uncommon external dependencies should generally not be bundled with the installer or integrated into the core.

Open
For more ideas see Category:Extensions used on Wikimedia, ...

AntiSpoof

 * AntiSpoof has no default rules installed and isn't an obvious thing to find, so is of limited use to just install by default. --brion 21:17, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It is a prerequisite for Extension:AbuseFilter though. --Damian Yerrick (talk) 19:57, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Assert Edit

 * Belongs in the API somewhere? Or does it?  Maybe the API obsoletes this, in which case we should leave it out (and force people to move to the API to get the benefits).
 * Yeah I guess this can be integrated into the API and just be killed out the main edit form. -- Bryan ( talk|commons ) 17:38, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Not convinced this is needed. --brion 21:17, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

BackAndForth

 * [disabled by default].

CategoryTree

 * may be included as optional configuration variable [disablable].
 * I wouldn't bother with this by default necessarily, though some people like it. The tree widget is rarely used directly, so it's not needed for content compatibility. --brion 21:17, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It's pretty useful. E.g., compare how easy it is to browse documents in this Category listing compared to this CategoryTree listing. The latter is much more navigable, because you can see the full filenames. I also think CategoryTree has reached a degree of popularity sufficient to justify its inclusion in the core; the wikisphere seems to have settled on it as a standard. Leucosticte (talk) 03:11, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

CheckUser

 * should not. There are laws in some countries forbidding logging of IPs, etc.
 * So it should be disabled by default. Soxred93 00:35, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * COPPA forbids collecting e-mail addresses in some circumstances that we don't accommodate (sites targeted at minors must ask for age and get parental approval if age < 13). And we don't provide any way at all for admins to comply with that.  Since when does the law of one country force us to not add a feature for everyone else?
 * What country actually forbids collecting IP addresses from being logged period? Some may require them to be discarded after a period, but CheckUser does that.
 * We already log IPs in rc anyway.
 * So this is an entirely unreasonable reason. All bulletin boards I know of, for instance, have similar functionality enabled by default, and they don't even typically allow you to purge old IPs. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 12:41, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Cite

 * still have some breakages and not properly handled by clauses.
 * Well, neither is or  or any other XML-like tag, right? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 12:36, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree this should be included by default. Bawolff (talk) 17:46, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 * This seems logical to me - even for third-party wikis. --Varnent (talk) 00:45, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Duplicator

 * "copy" function available on most systems since the beginning of time.

ImageMap

 * useful [disablable].
 * With the ability to use |link= now, probably not needed in core (see also: r41727, r41789).
 * Agreed. Bawolff (talk) 17:46, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Inputbox

 * Inputbox needs a rewrite, it's a little scary. :) [disablable].
 * Got a pretty decent rewrite recently ^demon 08:23, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Some Wikipedia templates use this, but not generally in content areas. It's also got such a horrid config interface I wouldn't wish it on new users. ;) --brion 21:17, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Intersection

 * [disablable] — a.k.a. DynamicPageList.

LocalisationUpdate
It's about time we start supporting localisation well in all MediaWiki installations. As far as I know, LU has already been updated to use will soon work (thanks to 34496, while WMF used a custom hack) with gerrit/git reliably enough; the problem would be that as is it needs cron (like which was discarded). If we had this, we could also use some special system messages, or qqq messages, to spread crucial information or docs (see also 41578). --Nemo 21:28, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm somewhat doubtful this is really needed for proper localization support. We ship the localizations with MediaWiki. Well it is certainly nice for WMF wikis to have up to the minute localization updates, I don't see why it is critical for up to the moment updates of the localizations in general. Bawolff (talk)
 * Have you considered that most wikis are not updated for months or years and that sometimes not even 1.x.y releases include localisation updates? WMF wikis are those which need LU less now, thanks to the bi-weekly update. Could you please elaborate on why updated localisation is not so useful in your opinion? I don't know where to start replying. Thanks, Nemo 17:55, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't see the need for bundling LocalisationUpdate. I think it would be much better to find a way to encourage updating the whole MediaWiki installation of outdated wikis rather than focusing on updating their localisations. If we offer LocalisationUpdate *from now on*, that won't have any effect for wikis that are already using older versions at this moment anyway. And non-WMF wikis are usually in major languages that are already very well localised. SPQRobin (talk) 19:31, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Do you have any stat for the last claim? About updating, by default security updates don't necessarily include localisation updates. Updating MediaWiki is not a solution to have an up to date localisation, unless one uses git of course. We should go towards a usable experience for tarball users. Nemo 19:44, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * No, I don't, but it's quite logical (see also sites using MediaWiki). Or, the other way around, look at translatewiki:Translating:MediaWiki/statistics/1.20: I don't think there are many non-WMF wikis at all in languages with less than 80-90% localised. About updating, I'm not really talking about security updates, I'm also talking about wikis using versions like 1.15, 1.16 etc, I think it would be better to focus on wikis upgrading more regularly rather than solely keeping their localisations up to date. SPQRobin (talk) 18:55, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
 * You should use this list and extract language info from there, not rely on assumptions. "Why don't you focus on X instead" is not a valid argument, anyway it's also wrong here because in these days I am working on contacting those thousands of wikis which need to upgrade.
 * I'd rather like to hear reasons why bundling LU would do harm or not do good. --Nemo 20:01, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I just give my opinion, I said "I think it would be better to focus on...". And please, even from the linked list it is, imho, quite obvious that when you take away all English, German, Italian, Spanish, ... wikis you will have only few wikis left in "rare" languages. SPQRobin (talk) 00:14, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Why don't security updates include localization updates? I think they should. The fact that many wikis don't update actually makes me like the idea of including this extension a bit more. A separate conversation from if we want to bundle this is how we would make it work. It needs cron, and I'm opposed to bundling any extension that cannot be automatically set up via the web installer. Bawolff (talk) 23:15, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Can you file a bug with a proposal on how to make the installer set such things up? It was needed for TorBlock too. In the case of LU, running the script once in a while is still a valid use case. Security releases usually include localisation updates, but it depends on Siebrand being notified in advance and having enough time for it the days before. --Nemo 09:05, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

SyntaxHighlight GeSHi

 * external dependency
 * What external dependency? I think this should be bundled with or merged into the core. It helps a lot with collaboration involving code, and a lot of wikis have adopted it. Leucosticte (talk) 00:21, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Tab0

 * very simple usability helper.

TitleKey

 * Might want to merge this straight into the page table (as long as we get that easy schema upgrade ability on Wikimedia first...).
 * Integrating TitleKey would be beneficial to new mediawiki users. Its use case is confusing, because so much seems to work already without it, making it hard to see whether it is a legacy extension or not. What I mean: this adds substantially to the "learning curve" of installing a usable mediawiki installation. The main reason to not include it in core seems to be that it is a little bit of a hack for something (case-insensitive search and suggestions) that should work without the need to install another extension and a special table - correct? Can this then be fixed? G.Hagedorn 08:53, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Validator

 * Validator is a generic parameter handling tool. As a lot of parameter handling is happening in both core and extensions, it would greatly increase simplicity and consistency, as well as add a lot of useful things such as auto documentation generation. I'm quite sure most core devs will go "we don't need this". Try it, and then tell me it's not vastly better then hard-coding all the stuff over and over again for every use-case. --Jeroen De Dauw 03:29, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Since this is not currently used by core or production stuff, no reason to ship it just yet. To the extent that things in it are useful for other extensions, those things probably belong in core; doesn't make sense as its own extension. --brion 21:17, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Such a meta extension should only be included by default when and if it has wide usage in my opinion. Bawolff (talk) 17:46, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Should be integrated in core
Tracking:

Extension:NoTitle

 * how about putting Extension:NoTitle somewhere on here? Wikademia (copied from discussion page--Moejoe000 21:06, 18 May 2011 (UTC))
 * Moved here. Is a very trival feature. Wikipedia uses a JaveScript workaround (for main pages). Removing just the Title in HTML seems really better. --Moejoe000 07:07, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The way this extension does it isn't much cleaner, it inserts a tag in the head section for scripts to declare   on the first heading. On the other hand, removing it may break bad scripts. Krinkle 15:39, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I was suggesting to add the feature, not the particular implementation of the extension--Moejoe000 06:54, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Configure

 * every other web software system has had this since the beginning of time [disablable].
 * The current Configure extension is too fragile IMO, based on editing config PHP files. I'd much rather see us work out a proper configuration database which can have a clean, safe UI written on top of it; supporting multiple wikis with cascading configuration options from global -> group -> individual site is a must. --brion 19:40, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

DismissableSiteNotice

 * Was implemented, then reverted. Needs a rewrite to make it less hacky-ish before being merged back in [disablable].
 * *nod* would prefer a cleaner implementation on this. --brion 19:42, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Interwiki

 * (at least the option to view available interwikis, see also InterwikiList) - merged in, reverted in - "please continue working on it, it'd be a nice thing to have for third-party installations if the UI is cleaned up." (ref)
 * It has since been cleaned up quite a lot. I think it should be added to MW core. SPQRobin 20:38, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree, it's a simple extension to view and modify interwikis without having to mess in the database and also keeps track of everything in a logging table. Since the interwiki table is populated by default it makes sense to have this in core. Krinkle 12:44, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Still doesn't work for WMF wikis -- any implementation of this needs to work with $wgInterwikiCache. ^demon 17:16, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, a lot of the complaints I see from the previous merge still exist in the extension: those need resolving. ^demon 17:18, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I made it work with the interwiki cache, and cleaned up the code. Editing the data is disabled when the cache is used. Are there any other issues left? SPQRobin 16:18, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

See also bug 22043 and bug 31951.

Title Blacklist

 * This is probably very useful to avoid a lot of junk on wikis with unexperienced sysops (for instance, Manual:Combating vandalism suggests it in bold). Should probably include some default blacklist for them or default to Meta's global blacklist (which is quite conservative). Nemo 11:09, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Given the prevalence of spam on wikis these days - this seems valuable to me. --Varnent (talk) 00:47, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

SpamBlacklist

 * Is this actually ready to be merged? See 4459 for a request to basically rewrite it.
 * Same as above, but probably less useful unless some statistics prove that there are recurring spammed domains. Nemo 11:09, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Poem

 * no disadvantages
 * Merged in r41710, then reverted in r43520
 * Should probably be &lt;nobreak> instead of &lt;poem> (&lt;nobr> is not an option because it is part of HTML)
 * I disagree. The tag does a lot more than preserve line breaks. See Extension:Poem. We should keep the &lt;poem> tag, IMO. Kaldari (talk) 23:40, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Should be merged and not bundled, as there are no disadvantages of merging. --Moejoe000 19:06, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I concur. It's useful enough by default with no discernable disadvantages, and merging it would be a good idea. I wouldn't mind it being bundled with the installer, but merging would be as good an idea if not better. Arcane21 (talk) 13:43, 26 November 2012 (UTC)Arcane21

Extension:NewUserMessage

 * Should be included in core : it helps to create a basic community by giving indications about the wiki and is very simple to configure. Already used in wikimedias wikis. --Jibec (talk) 20:05, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The Welcome Notification in Extension:Echo accomplishes a similar function. I would hold off on merging this with core until we have a clearer picture of what we're going to be doing for new users via Echo and Flow. Kaldari (talk) 23:43, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Do not merge (maybe to be bundled): this extension does a very particular thing. It may be interesting for public wikiks, but there are a lot of different approaches to achive effects (extension Echo as Kaldari mentioned, personal welcomes, using a bot, just use a welcome message after account creation,...). --Moejoe000 (talk) 10:03, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Extension:Disambiguator

 * When Special:Disambiguations is removed from core. --Moejoe000 (talk) 10:58, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Core is better. --Nemo 12:13, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I originally implemented it in core, but was told it should be built as an extension instead. Personally, I thought it would make more sense in core, but I was under the impression that consensus was otherwise, per https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=35981. Let's discuss further in the bug. Kaldari (talk) 23:20, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

AntiBot

 * zomg secret

BoardVote

 * Wikimedia-specific

CentralAuth

 * not includable

CrossNamespaceLinks

 * even now it is useless

EasyTimeline

 * while it is in Perl

ExpandTemplates

 * doubtable usefulness for usual user
 * It can make finding bits of code that are buried within templates much easier. If improved, it could even create a tree of sorts. Perhaps this should be in the maybe category?

FixedImage

 * Wikimedia-specific

OggHandler

 * external dependency

Oversight

 * to be deprecated by rev_deleted

SiteMatrix

 * Wikimedia-specific

TorBlock

 * needs cron

User Merge and Delete

 * causes irreversible changes (deletes users)

Username Blacklist

 * redundant to features in Title Blacklist

WikiHiero

 * too heavy

Maintenance

 * complete and utter hack, plus a security risk since a rogue admin could screw up the site with it.

CharInsert

 * thought he was admin it was in core :).
 * How practical is this extension for core?.
 * Very, especially for all languages the use special characters, but also take a look at the average Wikimedia wiki's MediaWiki:Edittools.
 * CharInsert is going to be pretty much obsoleted by the new edit toolbar, which has a much cleaner system for special chars / edittools. --brion 19:42, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure the implementation of this could be improved dramatically. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 12:42, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Perfect is the ememy of good? Even though it has been adopted widely, it not being perfect would prevent it from being added to core, even though no one touched it since June 2006? (14584)? siebrand 15:16, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, sure. It could be cleaned up in core as well as anywhere.  Just saying. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:02, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * This extension should be obsoleted by WikiEditor. And anyway: the current version of this extension could be re-written completely in JavaScript (with the effect that users that do not have JavaScript enabled do not see unusable links) --Moejoe000 18:01, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Do not ship: provides nothing by default, and is obsoleted by WikiEditor with pre-populates its own special chars list. --brion 21:17, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

ParserFunctions

 * Bug 26261
 * potential merge rejected by Tim Starling: difflink
 * What's wrong with merging ParserFunctions into the core, perhaps with a configuration setting allowing it to be disabled? Tisane 15:41, 24 March 2010 (UTC) (copied from discussion page--Moejoe000 21:06, 18 May 2011 (UTC))
 * ✅ r98515

Vector

 * Maybe one could try to merge those parts which only apply to the vector-skin with the skin itself--188.22.79.199 09:06, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ 101901

ConfirmEdit

 * ✅ r100366

WikiEditor

 * See discussion: 26914.
 * Not shipping this by default is super lame. It should be shipped and enabled by default if possible. --brion 21:17, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree both, your comment and suggestion in 26914 to have a clear interfece for various editors (which would imply "ship with installer" instead of "merge"? --Moejoe000 07:07, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * moved to "Bundle" See also 26918 and 26914. Krinkle 15:41, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ r100366

Renameuser

 * [Merge:] Yeah, that'd be good.
 * [Megre:] Maybe not necessarily the current version, though; see also: 15212.
 * Moved to bundle, as it was bundled currently --Moejoe000 07:50, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ r100366

Gadgets

 * Gadgets are super-useful, but it's still a bit awkward to actually share gadgets from site to site. Might not hurt to slip it in for 1.18, but it'll be way more useful in future versions. --brion 21:20, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I have to oppose here: (the current implementation of) this extension does not provide anything by default - one has to modify system texts to install gadgets. Persons who know how to do that, can also install the extension manually. If also configuration of Gadgets is easy, I would also suggest to bundle. --Moejoe000 09:46, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ r100366

Nuke

 * installed on all Wikimedia wikis and is handy for non-Wikimedia users [disablable].
 * Was implemented in r41630 but reverted in r42117.
 * ✅ r100366

DeletedContributions

 * ✅ r41178

LinkSearch

 * very useful
 * ✅ r40830

Newuserlog

 * disableable
 * there should be ability to disable it for wikis like Wikia
 * ✅ r40769

UniversalEditButton

 * disablable
 * ✅ r41916