Last modified: 2007-06-27 01:02:15 UTC
Permanent links to a page will display the no-such-page error if the content is moved and the redirect deleted (unlike diff links; see below). Making them more permanent would greatly aid external citation of documents on Wikisource (and presumably elsewhere), and allow the community to tidy up without breaking external links. For example, the following two links should ideally display the same content: * working: http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=The_How_and_Why_Library/Geography/Section_III&oldid=397759 * broken: http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=The_How_and_Why_Library:_Geography:_Section_III&oldid=397759 Contrast this with diff links, which *are* permanent: * working: http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=The_How_and_Why_Library/Geography/Section_III&diff=397759 * working: http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=The_How_and_Why_Library:_Geography:_Section_III&diff=397759
Oddly, the permanent link will work if no title is specified; maybe disabling does-title-exist checking for permanent links would work? * broken: http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=The_How_and_Why_Library:_Geography:_Section_III&oldid=397759 * working: http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?oldid=397759
People should not be deleting redirects, ever, unless they're simple vandalism. It's completely pointless, destroys information, and says "screw you" to anyone who wants to use a Wikimedia project in a discussion, blog, post, or anything else. This issue should not have come up. But it is, nevertheless, fixed in r23445.
