[Wikipedia-l] Call for a vote (was: Moving the wikis)

[Brion VIBBER]

Lars Aronsson wrote:
> I think Jimmy promised me a year ago that the old URLs would be
> permanently valid.   Is this something that can be voted on?  Would
> http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/William_Shakespeare still be a valid
> URL to the article in English on William Shakespeare?

All URL forms we have used to point to articles will be valid forever 
insofar as I have anything to do about it.

> Wikipedia should have a written policy for URLs, just like the GFDL
> license.  Why should I want to contribute to a project where all URLs
> can be changed by a vote the next month?

We use redirects to preserve old links when titles and URLs are refined, 
both within the wiki and without. Anyone who violates that is an enemy 
of this project and its purposes and should be severely walloped on the 
head with a Nerf ball while someone yells "404 FILE NOT FOUND!" in their 
ears until they learn the error of their ways.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)