791842 - Provide a clearer interface when someone tries to visit at "pseudo-parent" page

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 780277

(developer.mozilla.org Graveyard :: Wiki pages, defect)

Description

[John Karahalis [:openjck]]

If you are visiting a URL where neither the parent page nor the child page exists, you are given a 404 instead of a page creation page.

1. Parent (HTML5) exists, so you get a page creation page:
   https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/HTML/HTML5/sheppy

2. Parent (HTML6) does not exist, so you get a 404:
   https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/HTML/HTML6/sheppy

The workaround is to create the parent page first. If you want a page named HTML6/sheppy, create the HTML6 page and then the sheppy page.

We decided in bug 780277 that we are not going to create these stub parent pages automatically, but the interface can still be confusing for users. Mindtouch allowed people to link to URLs like #2 above, so now users are getting confused when they lead to 404s.

Comment 1

[David Walsh :davidwalsh]

What's the suggestion here?  Deep-linking to a page that doesn't exist and getting a 404 seems is the nature of the internet, despite what MindTouch did.

Do we show a message that says "How about create the parent page first?", and link to the new doc page from there?  I have no idea what we should do.

Comment 2

[John Karahalis [:openjck]]

I agree that linking to a page that does not exist should result in a 404. This is what everyone has come to expect on the Web. I think the challenge is that the MDN treats different kinds of non-existent pages differently, in a way that is not completely obvious.

A link to a page that does not exist (/HTML/sheppy) will lead the user to a "Create a new page" form. A link to a page that does not exist /and/ that does not have a parent will result in a 404. A given page might have 10 red links. Which ones lead to "Create a new page" forms and which ones lead to 404s?

You could imagine a user being a little confused by this. "Why can I create the /CSS/icon page, but not the /CSS/Layout/Grid_layout page? Neither page exists. Both links are red. What gives?"

Comment 3

[John Karahalis [:openjck]]

Nothing to do on this at the moment. I think there is still a usability issue here (I see lots of bug reports from people confused by visiting pseudo-parent pages) but I will pass this by someone working on user experience to sanity check me before we go any further.