[wp-hackers] Some Thoughts/Enhancement Ideas In And Around TheCategory Side Of Things

[Mike Schinkel]

On Feb 11, 2010, at 9:51 AM, Otto wrote:
> Okay, reading through the thread, I see that you are making a false
> assumption by assuming that /category has meaning by itself or show go
> to something other than a 404 page. I find this almost as amusing, if
> only it wasn't so misguided.

URLs should be "hackable" according to usability expert Jakob Nielsen, new media professor Dennis G. Jerz and many others:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990321.html 
http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/e-text/url-hacking.htm
http://www.flickr.com/photos/drewm/280526490/
http://blog.mastermaq.ca/2007/03/20/clean-amp-hackable-urls/
http://mattwilcox.net/archive/entry/id/990/

Once again, you are prove yourself out of touch with users and arrogant to imply your opinion is the only right one.

> URIs are not path structures. They are distinct identifiers. They do
> not inherently have hierarchy. The URI of /category/whatever is not
> some kind of subclass of /category, and just because
> /category/whatever works doesn't mean /category is a legitimate URI.

That's the spec, but not the reality of the use of URLs.  Throwing paint again the wall and having it land where it may obeys the laws of physics but doesn't necessarily create art.

> In other words, the fact that /category throws a 404 is because there
> is no /category. It also doesn't matter one little bit because nowhere
> on my site or anywhere else on the web will you find a link to
> /category by itself. Google will never go to /category because *nobody
> links to it*.

Duh! Nobody links to it because it's broken!  You'd find people would link to it if it provided meaningful content. Such a page could logically default to being an entry point for the list of categories on a site. The fact that isn't obvious to you is what I find sadly amusing and misguided.

> URI paths are distinct. They are whole. You don't slice and dice them
> as if they were some kind of series of independent things. They can
> *look* like a hierarchy, and they can be *mapped* to a hierarchy. But
> /category/whatever is a single whole entity, not a series of two
> entities strung together.

Sigh.  Your technical knowledge and subsequent technical help of others on this list a hugely great service to the WordPress community.  OTOH your constant advocacy against common sense greatly diminishes your contributions on balance.

-Mike