Editing Interwiki link standard

In a [[wikitext standard]], an '''interwiki link standard''' refers to articles in wiki form stored in another service.  From within a wiki, the simple standard usage should/must be:

:<nowiki>[[language:service:namespace_within_service:page/subpage#section]]</nowiki>

:''This contrasts with the '''current [[GetWiki]] and [[MediaWiki]] usage:'''
::'''<nowiki>[[ service:language:namespace_within_service:page/subpage#section]]</nowiki>'''

:''The existing usage is clearly wrong since languages is above service in any [[corpus]] organizing scheme.  The present scheme is [[Wikipedia]]-centric:''

::''For example [[Wikipedia:fr:Commerce �quitable]] or [[w:fr:Commerce �quitable]] map incorrectly to what should be at [[fr:Wikipedia:Commerce �quitable]].  It is not up to the service to decide what languages to serve in, nor is it up to the service to decide how to carve up space within that language.  Not only that, but the name of the service is itself expressed in a language.''

::WORKAROUND:  Regardless of the current incorrect or proper standard usage, [[fr:Commerce �quitable]] should map to http://fr.consumerium.org/ if this domain existed and would be enabled in the interwiki maps stored in the database.

The '''interwiki link standard''' expands slightly into the [[standard wiki URI]] when linking into a wiki from non-wiki space.  Since [[wiki linking]] relies on [[HTTP]] almost by definition, it omits the "http://" protocol and "/wiki/" subprotocol designations as redundant, leaving just the language, service, page title, and subpage (if any).

Supporting the proper "language:service:" prefix radically simplifies [[wiki linking]].  Among other things, the language prefix can often be omitted or assumed, if it is the same as the language the current page is in.

Because of various uses of abbreviations for services, assumptions about services, etc., it is presently quite confusing.  [[Mediawiki]] supports a deliberately Wikipedia-centric scheme in which for instance "[ [ en: ] ]" means not "in English" but "in the English Wikipedia".  As a result, a reference to "[ [ en: Metaweb: phyle ] ]" will be interpreted incorrectly as a reference to English Wikipedia where there is no article, instead of correctly to [http://www.metaweb.com/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=phyle English Metaweb 'phyle'] where there is one.  

:''[[Mediawiki]] is likely to continue to resist and retard the development of such a standard for the usual reasons (typically [[software imperialism]] and specifically the control of that project by [[Erik Moeller]] and [[Tim Starling]]).  Other [[wiki code]] will almost certainly be required.''

::''A single standard for at least the [[GFDL text corpus]] is highly desirable, and hopefully will be supported in [[GetWiki_2.0]] or another [[MediaWiki]] fork.  See [http://www.wikinfo.org/wiki.phtml?title=GetWiki:InterWiki GetWiki:Interwiki en:Wikinfo:GetWiki:InterWiki] for more on this and integration into [[GetWiki]].''

'''See [[Wiki linking]] for practical information how similar linking is done right now.'''

A proposal to meet the '''interwiki link standard''' at least from a user point of view, is to use [[anchor text]] that meets it, even though [[MediaWiki]] and [[GetWiki]] are still treating language spaces as subsets of Wikipedia.  So you create links that look right, and meet the eventual language-first-service-second standard, but they can be raw URLs or use the (wrong, service-first-language-second) name scheme [[MediaWiki]] and [[GetWiki]] use now.  So for example <nowiki>[[whatever you are forced by software to put here, put here, like wikipedia:fr:anomie or the raw URL|fr:Wikipedia:anomie]]</nowiki>.  A bot can clean it up later.