Last modified: 2009-05-06 20:52:32 UTC
(Here is a wishlist item for year 2015, so don't hit WONTFIX so fast, thank you.) Offline (or perhaps various cached states) users of MediaWiki often queue links like ...&action=edit§ion=6 on their PDAs etc. devices with the intention to edit when they later attach to the network, which might even be several days later. The problem is links like &action=edit§ion=6 might now refer to the wrong section, as in the meantime, the sections might now have been somewhat changed by other editors activity. A much more successful scheme would be &action=edit§ion=The_Nurdsburg_Tales, corresponding to the anchor #The_Nurdsburg_Tales. Just use the same string that you would when safely encoding this anchor for use in URLs. One might say "but what about subsections with the same name? That's why we use section numbering. Case closed." However, MediaWiki already deals with this case by appending _1, _2, ... so no problem. Indeed, this is identical to the wisdom and stability of Pie#Apple vs. Pie#12345 where 12345 is a byte offset, or Pie#11 where 11 is the 11th section. I only found some slightly related bugs, e.g., bug #9239, but no exact duplicates.
(In reply to comment #0) > (Here is a wishlist item for year 2015, so don't hit WONTFIX so fast, > thank you.) > > (snip) > > I only found some slightly related bugs, e.g., bug #9239, but no exact > duplicates. > Weird, I thought there had to be dozens of duplicates of this one. It's been a wishlist item for ages. The reason this bug hasn't been fixed is probably that there are too few people who understand both the parser and EditPage well enough to implement this is one go. So ideally, someone who knows the parser well enough should write some code that gets a section by name, and let some else handle the front-end part (or do it themselves, of course, if they can).
(In reply to comment #0) > The problem is links like &action=edit§ion=6 might now refer to > the wrong section, as in the meantime, the sections might now have > been somewhat changed by other editors activity. I assume they won't be able to save to the wrong section of the article then, because they will instead get a notice that the page has changed since they started editing it. Then, they can go back and try to fix the correct part of the page. This is not an issue for PDA users only; PC users also experience this if they keep an edit page open for a while before submitting it.
Though I am mainly frustrated that section=7 is now something different before I pull it in to my computer to edit it, maybe fixing this bug will also fix the case Huji mentioned when what section=7 refers to changes while one is editing it.
(In reply to comment #3) > Though I am mainly frustrated that section=7 is now something > different before I pull it in to my computer to edit it, maybe fixing > this bug will also fix the case Huji mentioned when what section=7 > refers to changes while one is editing it. > It probably will, but it'll also introduce a new issue: section names can change too, so section=foo can suddenly point nowhere because someone else changed its name to bar. If there were multiple sections called foo, section=foo will now point to the second foo section (which is now the first one).
OK, but that is probably worth it vs. the much more common event that somebody has slid in or removed a section above us. Reminds me of http://jidanni.org/geo/house_numbering/ here in Taiwan when a new house ruins every thing: 11, 13, 15, 15-1, 17, 19.
(In reply to comment #5) > OK, but that is probably worth it vs. the much more common event that > somebody has slid in or removed a section above us. Reminds me of > http://jidanni.org/geo/house_numbering/ here in Taiwan when a new > house ruins every thing: 11, 13, 15, 15-1, 17, 19. > We just use 15a in that case. Has led to some very confusing numbering schemes, though, like 15A-15-15C-15B-16B-16A-16-... But you're right about the fact that section renames are rarer than section insertions and deletions.
Also if one has the preference set to show section numbers, "[*] Auto-number headings", I believe, then with e.g., [edit] 10 External links there is a good chance they will not match the section= numbers. (So if one insists on using numbers for section=, then one at least should go the section=1.3.2 route.)
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 9239 ***
