Feature Request Change urls to use ID numbers instead of title

This is mainly to deal with series that either have the same name as another series or whose "official" name changes (ATTE -> AWE for example). In the first case, it prevents people from being directed to the wrong series, in the second case, it prevents dead links. I assume that there would also be other benefits from a back-end perspective, but not really sure.

The biggest downside I can see for this is that the site would need to receive and interpret both types of urls for any currently existing series, but something like that should only take about 2-4 lines of code.

 

You would also need some sort of translation table for those codes to look things up in if you want to keep the old and new at the same time. (Maybe just a column to check in the new series table.)

Another downside to having numbers is that it can be a tad harder to know where you end up with a link to the site. A number or name is a big difference at the end. I personally don't care either way though.

 

Assuming that it's stored in SQL or something similar, that table already exists. The new urls would simply refer to a different part of it.

 

So you want to change:
novelupdates[dot]com/series/i-shall-seal-the-heavens/
Into just:
novelupdates[dot]com/series/15/ ?

That wouldn't be very user friendly...

If anything, it should rather change to the "domain/series/id/title" format instead.

So we'd have:
novelupdates[dot]com/series/15/i-shall-seal-the-heavens/

And to make title changes irrelevant, the "title" part should be adjustable on connect.
What I mean is that whatever was written after the "id" wouldn't matter. Be it either:
novelupdates[dot]com/series/15/
novelupdates[dot]com/series/15/issth
or novelupdates[dot]com/series/15/whatever
It would still "redirect" to:
novelupdates[dot]com/series/15/i-shall-seal-the-heavens/

If you're worried about causing additional strain on the server, then I guess you could omit checking the "title" on connect. But the links should still work without the title at the end. This way anybody that comes across a "dead" link in the future would be able to just remove the title part of the link to reach their destination.

The minimal post count needed for posting links is really a drag

 

http://www.novelupdates.com/series/space-speedstar-hen leads to a 404, even though its a listed alternate title for http://www.novelupdates.com/series/space-speed-xing-hen/ so I just assumed that wasn't the case. I suppose this would be better in the Bug category then?

 

Ah. Still, shouldn't it link to the correct series since the name is in the list? Or does it not work that way?

 

So how does it distinguish between A Thought Through Eternity and A Will Eternal if its not referencing the alternate name list? Do you just keep a separate list of the past 'official' names or something?