On 9/1/05, Rowan Collins <rowan.collins(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 01/09/05, Sy <sy1234(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Frankly I would see value in an automatically
self-healing setup where
redirects adjust themselves after being followed to point down the
chain to that final target page.
This I'm less sure of - sometimes, people will move a page so that
they can create something else at the old location; in this case, at
least some redirects to the old location *should not* be fixed. If
they were automatically "healed" as soon as someone followed them,
they would come to point to the wrong location. I think automating /
assisting in the *process* is fine, but the decision to carry out the
action should still be left to a human.
Aah, I totally missed this.. good point.
A > B >
A when followed once A becomes just A with no redirecting.
Why is it not fixed at A->B, with B not redirecting (since you could
equally describe the loop as B->A->B)? And what does "just A with no
redirecting" mean - a blank page? How is this an improvement on the
current situation, since it still needs someone to work out why it's
gone wrong and fix it. And by arbitrarily manipulating the redirects
like this, you've lost some of the information about the original
situation - it is no longer as easy to see that A was a redirect to B
in order to work out what it *should* be.
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.
A, as (A > B > A), becomes just A
B stays (B > A)
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. 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.
A > B >
C > B when followed once, A becomes A > B
What is actually changed in this situtation? A already redirects to B,
but you imply that it is A that changes; in fact, what needs changing
is B and/or C, presumably to a blank page - but then you've lost any
feedback that there is a broken connection. As I've said elsewhere [1]
you'd end up needing to draw a diagram just to explain what chain of
redirects the user had stumbled upon - it ought to be obvious that
A->B->C->D->E->C is a bit of a mess, and *all* those should be
changed; an 'auto-heal' algorithm might set A->E, B->E, C->E, D->E
and
E blank, but has that really '"fixed" anything?
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.
Then the page that tells them about the existance of that
double-redirect could be the helper concept being mulled over.
example:
---
You just specified this page "foo" as a redirect to "bar".
Unfortunately, "bar" is also a redirect (to page "baz"), would you
like to change your mind?
Redirect page to: [_________bar]
---
Then if they changed "foo" to redirect to "baz" they can be again
told
if there is a conflict, etc.
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. =)