If we merge these plugins, we might lose the ability to detect whether a link
is "shortener" or a "redirector". Specifically, __URL_SHORTENER will not work
like it does today. It will either fire for both shorteners AND redirectors
(preferred), or it won't fire at all. In reality, we'd probably have a new
__URL_REDIRECTOR rule and __URL_SHORTENER would remain as an alias for
backwards compatibility.
Personally I'm fine with this. I think the line between shortener and
redirector is blurry and mostly irrelevant. They both have legitimate uses and
they're both abusable by spammers.
My current plan is to make the Redirectors plugin handle
url_shortener/url_shortener_get directives instead of changing those directives
to url_redirector/url_redirector_get. That way people can still use the
DecodeShortURLs plugin while it's being deprecated and we don't have to
maintain two lists. We could aim to deprecate it in 4.0.3 and remove it in
4.1.x.
If we really REALLY need to track shorteners separately, I still suggest
merging the plugins but setting a flag on URLs that we consider "shorteners" so
eval rules can differentiate.
Thanks
Kent
