[WikiEN-l] Tool announcement: Alternative names redirect

[RLS]

On 10/22/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> IMHO:
>
> A [Foo] Bar = A Foo Bar, A Bar
> A [Foo|Moo] Bar = A Foo Bar, A Moo Bar
> A [Foo|Moo|] Bar = A Foo Bar, A Moo Bar, A Bar
> A [[Foo|Moo]] Bar = same as previous, but discouraged.
>
> It keeps the total syntax down to three elements: [], |, and an escaping
> mechanism, presumably \. Fortunately [, ], | and \ are all extremely
> uncommon in (Wikipedia) page titles.

For self-consistency, how about:
A [Foo] Bar = A Foo Bar, A Bar
A [Foo|Moo] Bar = A Foo Bar, A Moo Bar, A Bar
A [Foo|Moo|] Bar = A Foo Bar, A Moo Bar

That is, the final pipe/bracket combo would be used to make the
bracketed choices a required part of the expansion. That's consistent
with the use of [Foo] to mean Foo is optional (you could then do
[Foo|] to mean Foo is required, although that's just a waste of
space). It'd also probably be (logically) easier to parse.

Also, there's no reason to implement an optional (but already
deprecated) syntax if we're creating something from scratch.

--Darkwind