Last modified: 2014-03-08 21:44:45 UTC
1. There is a set of gadgets reducing unneccessarily lengthy URLs, see e.g. http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Gadget-ShortDiff.js http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Gadget-ShortLink.js 2. Maybe, the longer versinos of these URLs are more instructive, or more readable for humans, and thus should be preserved. 3. Using JavaScripts to do URL cosmetic and such is both inefficient and uneconomic. Solution: Either use URLs as short as possible anyways, or make URL style selectable via user preferences, and/or a global setting.
Gadget-ShortLink.js: Removes the title parameter from permalinks. Gadget-ShortDiff.js: Strips all parameters but oldid and diff from urls having diff parameter. So usually it will just strip the title. It probably fails for FlaggedRevs urls which have &stable. The title parameter can generally be removed without problems, but: a) It makes the link self-describing, by holding the page name you are sent to. b) It is used if the revision doesn't exist any more. That allows you to at least get the deletion log. I vote wontfix.
I am currently working on a change for MediaWiki to makes URL nicer. The idea is to get ride of &title whenever it is possible directly from the PHP files :-b The branch is /branches/hashar/prettyURL/ So I would vote against incorporating the gadget since it will eventually be obsolete.
