redirection over deletion, for the argument of the cleanest and most maintainable solution (given that linkrot is neither clean nor maintainable).
-Michael Paulukonis http://www.xradiograph.com <http://goog_2112721603>Interference Patterns (a blog)<http://www.xradiograph.com%5Cinterference> @XraysMonaLisa <https://twitter.com/XraysMonaLisa> http://michaelpaulukonis.com <http://www.BestAndroidResources.com> Sent from somewhere in the Cloud (hearthrug, by the fender) On Sat, Sep 7, 2013 at 12:18 PM, Tamara Temple <[email protected]>wrote: > > On Sep 7, 2013, at 7:03 AM, Petko Yotov <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Hello, > > > > I'd like to know the opinion of the community about deleting pages from > the documentation of the default PmWiki distribution. This concerns not > only new users but also those who upgrade from older versions. > > > > PmWiki ships with a number of pages containing documentation in the > PmWiki group. As we work to improve the documentation, while refactoring, > content can be moved from a page to other(s) and some pages may become > empty. > > > > In this case we search pmwiki.org for backlinks and point them to the > new place of the information, so that no page on pmwiki.org points to the > empty page. > > > > There is also concern for "link rot" > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_rot that is, external sites possibly > pointing to the empty page - in this case, we can use a (:redirect NewPage > status=301:) directive so when someone lands on the old page it gets > automatically sent to the new place with the information. > > > > Or, instead of redirecting, we could delete that page and when people > land on it, they will see an invitation to search the wiki or to create the > page. (Recently, previously deleted pages have been re-created by spambots > adding unrelated links, but our main concern is to not confuse real people.) > > > > When someone upgrades from an old version, the core documentation gets > updated too, but only existing and new pages. If a page was removed from > the distribution and someone upgrades, they will still have the old page in > their wikilib.d directory, with the old content. So they will have an > orphan page with obsolete content. If, instead of deleting the page, we use > a redirect, they will have a tiny page and if elsewhere on their wiki (or > on external sites) they have linked to it, it will redirect to the most > recent information. If nothing links to this page, they will have a tiny > orphan page. > > > > In a new, clean PmWiki installation, if we delete the page, everything's > fine; if we redirect the page, they will have a tiny orphan page. > > > > So my question to the community is should we delete empty pages or > redirect them to the latest place of the content? Are there other pros and > cons? > > > > Thanks, > > Petko > > Given this changes legacy sites, the redirection is the way to go with > this. It populates perhaps useless pages in new wikis, but deleting breaks > the standard social contract of the web to redirect when content changes, > keeping old links working. The user clicking on that old link may not have > any understanding of the original intent of the link, and not know what to > search for if they land on a 404. > > > _______________________________________________ > pmwiki-users mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.pmichaud.com/mailman/listinfo/pmwiki-users >
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