On 01/09/05, Sy <sy1234(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > A > B > A when followed once A becomes
just A with no redirecting.
[...]
Yes, it means just a blank page.. no, it won't make the problem of
missing content go away.. it's just another dead-end page.
So how does this improve on the current system, where it is obvious
that it's a broken page, because you get redirected to a redirect
rather than an article?
A, as (A > B > A), becomes just A
B stays (B > A)
Why? Just as A is A->B->A, B is B->A->B - the only reason one seems
more natural is because we're discussing them with labels which have
an obvious sequence to them. In reality they might be "color"
(#redirect [[colour]]) and "colour" (#redirect [[color]]); according
to your system, whichever a user happened to visit first would become
blank, and the one they happened not to visit would continue
redirecting, to that blank page. Surely it makes more sense to change
either both or neither?
You could have A have a reference that it was (A >
B) but that B is (B
> A), so there's no loss of knowledge there.
Why not leave the reference that's already there - i.e. the redirect?
This concept solves the
double-redirect problem, but it can't be much smarter. Another panel
to describe lost pages like would be a help for that though.
It doesn't "solve" the problem at all - it detects it, and replaces a
broken redirect with a note that "this was a broken redirect".
Certainly, if multiple redirects were allowed, loop detection is
necessary, but I don't see what is gained by having that detection
change the content of the pages in question - all it needs do is
present a message to the user that a loop has been detected, listing
the redirects involved in the loop.
Hmm.. I see your point. Maybe the answer is that when
a page is first
turned into a redirect page the editor is told that it's a double and
they can act on it immediately.
That's reasonable, but I think most double redirects are created the
other way round: a page has redirects pointing to it, and then becomes
a redirect itself, often through use of the Special:Movepage function.
So it would more often be "you've created a redirect [[Foo]] which has
the following redirects pointing to it; these will no longer work..."
Then the page that tells them about the existance of
that
double-redirect could be the helper concept being mulled over.
An interesting point - moving a page or creating a redirect could warn
users about double redirects, and offer a mass-edit interface for
those linking into or out of the redirect just created. As I've
mentionned already, we'd have to think about how much power this would
give users, and how to make it hard to abuse and/or easy to revert...
Blah, but I don't have much interest in the
problem of redirects,
because my primary editing experience is with my solo wiki.. I just
needed to vent a little. =)
Fair enough, but perhaps you now realise that the current setup isn't
as daft as it might seem - lack of on-wiki mass-edit tools
not-withstanding ;)
--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]