1113693 - SUMO /discuss/ links without language in URL

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(support.mozilla.org :: General, defect, P5)

Description

[scootergrisen]

From here : https://support.mozilla.org/da/forums/contributors/710939 :

When people post a link like this it only work for me if i have selected "English" as preferred language in edit profile : https://support.mozilla.org/kb/how-to-write-knowledge-base-articles/discuss/5761

If i have selected "Dansk" and visit that link i get : https://support.mozilla.org/da/kb/how-to-write-knowledge-base-articles/discuss/5761

With a "Side ikke fundet" aka "Page not found".

But https://support.mozilla.org/kb/how-to-write-knowledge-base-articles without the /discuss/5761 part works.

Comment 1

[Michael Cooper [:mythmon]]

The issue here is that article discussion is tied to a particular document, and documents are tied to a locale. Additionally, we only pick the documents based on the current UI locale. That's because we don't have any guarantees that a slug is unique between locales. So https://support.mozilla.org/da/kb/how-to-write-knowledge-base-articles/discuss/5761 is trying to find the discussion with id 5761 for the *Danish* article "how-to-write-knowledge-base-articles". That Danish article may or may not exist, but there probably isn't a discussion with that ID associated with the Danish article.

On the other hand, the ID alone *should* be enough to identify the discussion thread you want. We could likely attempt to look up based on that alone. Over all this sounds fairly complex though. Is it possible to fix this behavior to get users to not link to "generic" KB discussion articles? (Generic meaning without a locale code). The URL https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-to-write-knowledge-base-articles/discuss/5761 would work despite your profile settings. It will only show you the English UI though.

What do you think scooter?

Comment 2

[scootergrisen]

If the website redirects the user based on the language setting, then could it not check to see if the article have been translated to that locale and use the locale slug.

Just like when you translate a sumo article, then you can keep the english article titles and the website will change the links and titles automatically if the articles that are being linked to have been translated.

Comment 3

[Michael Cooper [:mythmon]]

The problem is that if we get the localized version of the article, the discussion doesn't exist. The discussions are tied to the locale and slug of the article. The problem isn't that we have the wrong slug, it's that the combination of slug and discussion and locale don't match. Nothing exists at the intersection of those things, and the locale and article slug are fundamentally tied together.

Comment 4

[John Hesling [:John99] (NeedInfo me)]

As regards to links without the language (locale).
I am not sure where these links are predominantly seen and used. Probably within locales whilst discussing KB articles, if so, it may be worth needsinfo Michal (Vesper).

Note: In relation to links to KB articles in general.
Links within a forum, KB article or a private message may be posted in the form [[article title]] a specific example [[Markup cheat sheet]]. 

(In reply to  [e-mail]  from comment #0) 
> If i have selected "Dansk" and visit that link i get : 
> https://support.mozilla.org/da/kb/how-to-write-knowledge-base-articles/discuss/5761
> With a "Side ikke fundet" aka "Page not found".
> But https://support.mozilla.org/kb/how-to-write-knowledge-base-articles 
> without the /discuss/5761 part works.  

*My suggestion of a workaround: Post both an article and a discussion link, one after the other*

Posting [[How to write Knowledge Base articles]] at least works in both English & Dansk to get within one mouse click of the discussion, without generating a 404 error in either language. And I presume in Dansk the link anchor itself localises if appropriate. An example where an article is localised [[Get started with Firefox - An overview of the main features]] presumably the anchor entered in English displays in Dansk as [[Kom i gang med Firefox - en oversigt over de vigtigste funktioner]] and has the target https://support.mozilla.org/da/kb/kom-i-gang-med-firefox-en-oversigt-over-de-vigtigs. The discussion may be directly linked as [[article]] > [discus url]

On the forum entering in full as [https://support.mozilla.org/da/kb/kom-i-gang-med-firefox-en-oversigt-over-de-vigtigs/discuss/5641 /discuss/5461] 
Rather cludgy but maybe consider using twin links [[article|optional alternative text]] > [discussion link optional anchor text after first space] 

As part of a general; but very similar; Sumo link problem I WAS going to complain
  A similar issue is that we are able to link to a KB article's # section.
  For example using a link pasted form a KB articles table of contents.
  But we are not able to post a suitable link to a specific OS version section.
HOWEVER it's ok now. After changing from the system that set cookies for OS & Fx version we are able to use URLs It no longer flips all other articles. So no need to switch to Private Browsing first or clear cookies afterwards. An example if wanting to see what another user sees in this case Mac on ESR https://support.mozilla.org/kb/update-firefox-latest-version#firefox:mac:fx24  
Note locale removed from link so it should work in Dansk & English.

Comment 5

[Seburo]

Closed as per https://blog.mozilla.org/sumo/2019/06/07/sumo-platform-roadmap/