Help talk:Permanent link

Is oldid unique?
It seems oldid must not be unique, since you have to tell it the fullpagename. Is it unique per namespace at least? I should probably go to MediaWiki for this question.

Oh, BTW, please mention permalink in the lead? &mdash; Cp i r al  Cpiral  23:06, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
 * It is unique. Provided the oldid is valid, the shorter URL  has the same effect. The title is needed so that the software can return a better error message if the oldid refers to a page that has been deleted - compare   with.


 * I think this page is aimed at readers, not editors, so it wouldn't be appropriate to mention the templates that format oldids. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:29, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The audience is readers, OK. Great.


 * The URL missing the ?title parameter says it was "Main page". Maybe the deleted pages always say "Main page". Now I wonder if the software has the oldids in circular files that enact a delayed reuse. (BTW, I found at Help:URL they say explicitly Note that the version ID is unique across all pages, so the title parameter here has no effect, and can in fact be omitted.) In any case, thank you. &mdash;  Cp i r al  Cpiral  00:12, 3 April 2013 (UTC)


 * But this page is about inserting permalinks on Wikipedia. It's a guide for people doing something more than reading. Special:Permalink seems to serve essentially the same purpose as permalink (i.e. oldid) or oldid2, so why discuss the first and not the other two? (Because they're templates?) Actually, I can't find any page that discusses them together. Shouldn't that be done here? There does seem to be some kind of delineation between what's discussed on Help: and Wikipedia: namespace pages for similar topics, so maybe that's better suited for a page in the Wikipedia: namespace. There doesn't seem to be an appropriate Wikipedia: page for that, so maybe one should be created and linked here. But at the moment, if this is the only overview of permalinks we have, shouldn't it at least mention those templates? Even if another, more specialized Wikipedia: page were made, I think at thevery least a couple See also links would be warranted. (We've gotten away from the original topic. Should this be moved to a new section?) Languorrises (talk) 19:02, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

URL format
The actual URLs of permanent links to Wikipedia pages (provided by Wikipedia software) have the following long form (including an example):

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title={some-title}&oldid={some-old-id}

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portable_Network_Graphics&oldid=585254471

rather than the /wiki/Help:URL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/{some-title}?oldid={some-old-id}

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics?oldid=585254471

The short form saves 13 characters. For instance, I use it in programming documentation because often its lines are limited in length.

I'm sure it's more humanly readable because the page title is found in the main part of the URL instead of in the options part after the question mark. Besides, all other things being equal, short URLs beat long URLs in terms of user experience.

I notice that the short form isn't browser-redirected to the long form. Therefore the short form is no less efficient in terms of HTTP (I'm sure).

There may be URL *rewrites* happening locally in Wikipedia's webserver software (such as Apache) but I'm sure its processing time is *extremely* trivial, relatively speaking. Presumably, furthermore, since most people don't use permanent links, they must only be a *very* tiny fraction of all the web requests to Wikipedia.

Any (hypothetical) extra computer time (spent automatically rewriting the URLs of permanent links) is especially unimportant, relative to the time human beings will spend reading (and cutting and pasting) these permanent link URLs.

Of course, when a person makes a decision to use a permanent link, it is for a special, human purpose such as making a written document. Therefore, many people actually will read these URL strings as text (at least briefly).

Unquestionably, both forms should continue to work when submitted by browsers.

I assume Wikipedia has some good reason to continue to choose the long form when its viewers request new permanent links.

As a programmer, I wonder what that reason is? Please tell me. If there is no advantage, could Wikipedia switch please to supplying the short form? Georgesawyer (talk) 22:32, 13 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm seven years late but better late than never. The url helps identify the type of link.  is the canonical form for wiki pages like articles. Our robots.txt at https://en.wikipedia.org/robots.txt says  . This asks bots like web crawlers to not burden our servers by visiting url's starting with  . They are also omitted from search engine results but that is additionally requested in the html of the page with  . That is also added to the unwanted url http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics?oldid=585254471. Most MediaWiki features produce   url's, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Example&action=history and not https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example?action=history for the "View history" tab. Our servers will survive some bots visiting a couple of "bad" links I saved here but templates like Oldid should be coded to make   links. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:50, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Harvesting multiple permids
Is there some method where I could find a page and get a permid that is saved automatically. I'm trying to get multiple permids to put into another program. See User:Smallbones/1000 random for example. Smallbones( smalltalk ) 18:47, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't know whether it's still relevant but it sounds like you want  or  . The former is evaluated each time the page with the code is rendered, so it changes when pagename is edited.   is permanently replaced by the revision ID pagename had at the time the code was saved. mw:Help:Magic words says   is an expensive parser function so per WP:EXPENSIVE you can do at most 500 at a time. If you subst them then you can make multiple edits with up to 500 each time. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:26, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 July 2017
Add Pp-semi template.

--190.159.239.204 (talk) 21:22, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
 * ✅ -- John of Reading (talk) 21:29, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Removing row one
Removing this row from the table of Examples:


 * {| class="wikitable"

! Link from ! How to create ! Result
 * anywhere in the Internet.
 * anywhere in the Internet.

e.g. a printed publication that is citing Wikipedia.
 * Copy the 'Permanent link' in the sidebar's Toolbox.
 * }
 * }

It's completely unclear to me (someone who uses Permalinks of all sorts extensively) what this row is intended to be. If it's really about a link from a print publication, we need an actual example. Also, is this row implying that print publications use our  format in print? Is that common? Or, are they just naming the article, or perhaps giving the main article url out of their browser address bar, and we're supposed to go find the correct oldid by matching their print pub date, to our history date to get the correct rev? This whole row seems quite opaque.

Not actually sure this row is needed at all, or if it serves any useful function. If it is/does, or if it could be helpful to some users, then fine; but not in its current format. If it was intended as a tutorial on how to extract the Revision id, it didn't do a good job, and an explanation like that is not suited to table format. Since the entire table depends on knowing how to get the id, probably it should be explained briefly above the table, with a link to Revision id (and/or WP:OLDID) prominently included. Mathglot (talk) 03:40, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Expansion
I've expanded this significantly, taking it from three rows, as it was before, to six, adding four rows and dropping the first one, in this version. There's also more explanation of what's going on, and additional wiklinks throughout.

As a matter of table style, I used horizontal rule to separate multiple examples in the middle few rows of the table, and it works, but it was kind of a q&d solution. Really, each example should have its own table row, and use in the first column, as required. Mathglot (talk) 04:10, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Links that stay linked no matter before or after archiving
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T250340 mentions the need of such links. Jidanni (talk) 07:31, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Permalinks of Deleted Articles
As far as I understand, all links to earlier versions of articles in "Revision history" are permalinks. What happens to these permalinks whenever an article is deleted ? Do they still function ?

E.g., is the following correct:

- when I link to an article using its "normal" URL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TITLE, this link goes rotten if the article TITLE is deleted

- when I link to a specific version of this article using a permalink https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=TITLE&oldid=NNNNNNN, this version will still be accessible.

Can I link WITHIN Wikipedia to such a specific version of an article ?

Thanks, Easyloc (talk) 14:43, 13 November 2023 (UTC)


 * No, they're only permalinks as long as the article exists. If an article is deleted it's completely gone, and it can't be accessed from Wikipedia.  You may be able to see it on other sites, like the Internet Archive. Regards, Dan Bloch (talk) 18:28, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Administrators can view and restore deleted pages and revisions but ordinary users cannot. Oddly, a permalink to a deleted page doesn't even work for administrators. They have to do some sleuthing to figure out which deleted revision it referred to. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:23, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Mention Special:Diff
Shouldn't there be a recommendation to use [Special:diff/oldid] or, and a link to Help:Diff? -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:52, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 March 2024
144.129.0.250 (talk) 14:53, 8 March 2024 (UTC) this game has development a ton over thr years and will keep improving.............
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Also, you might be on the wrong article. GrayStorm(Talk&#124;Contributions) 15:24, 8 March 2024 (UTC)