[dokuwiki] Re: Patch attached: Optionally add a filetype to wikipage urls, e.g. .html to look like static html

  • From: Anika Henke <anika@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: dokuwiki@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 01:34:14 +0000

Helmut Tischer wrote:

Optionally add a filetype to wikipage urls, e.g. .html
In rewrite URL mode, this makes wiki pages look like static html.


Andreas Gohr schrieb:


... why? ...
web tools do not care for extensions. It's the
content-type header that counts. ...



It is about meeting the expectations of not so technical readers.
For example if there is a search result or someone sends a "funny" link, my motivation to follow the link by sure depends on whether it pretends to be a .jpg, .doc, .ppt, .pdf or unpredictable filetype where I only know that it is a html if I know that the destination site is a DokuWiki, and in this case no ending means actually html. 

In my opinion this is a wrong reason for changing this behaviour.
1. I don't think many users are that uneducated. Google for example is one of the biggest websites, that even many non-tech-savvy people use. Still they do not seem to be confused by any missing ".html" in the majority of google links.
2. I am a bit over-sensitive when it comes to "meeting expectations". You will only serve the prejudice ("pages not ending in .html are no trustworthy web pages") and widen the educational gap instead of helping people to understand. Hiding the truth only because other people don't understand? It's like not wearing a pink t-shirt in fear someone might think you were gay. Or like telling a tall man to please join a basketball team, simply because the majority of people would expect him to be in one anyway ... 
(Disclaimer: I'm far from insinuating that you might be of that opinion!)
The reason Paul Bijnens gives ("wget would get the correct extension automatically") would be a good reason, if wget was not supporting the --html-extension (or -E) option. ;-) 

Just my tuppence,
Anika
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