Just Solve the File Format Problem:Community portal

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Open issues

Below is a list of "issues" which would ordinarily be in a ticketing system of some kind, but are here on the Wiki instead, because that's how we roll. As things are resolved, they will be moved to the Discussion page. If there's an appeal or an issue, the conversation can continue there - this page will be for open issues.

Use of case in URLS / links. I went through all the electronic format types pages, and tried to normalise all the pages where I could (there was a mix of link structures - I've tried to get them all (apart from animation - I've been at it all day!) so they are file extension - file type name. I notice that we have a mix of upper and lower case file extension through out. This means we may have 2 links which should point to the same URL (e.g. mix and MIX) is this a known issue with the current layout? --JaygattusoNLNZ (talk) 01:32, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Since you're linking both the extension and the name, does that mean that there are supposed to be separate articles for each? I don't know if there's really a need for "mainspace" articles by extension, since there are already categories for that purpose; you can browse them through Category:File formats by extension. Dan Tobias (talk) 02:12, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

I just copied the most common model that I found on the formats pages. The problem is, if you don't homogenize the method, the linking/crosslinking doesn't work properly. All instances of .doc (for example) should point to the same resource page / disambiguation page. If someone has linked to only format in one place (e.g. MS Word (.doc)), and someone else the extension (MS Word - doc), we can't makes sure they point to the same place. The problem occurs because format names and extensions are used interchangeably. You raise an interesting question about the relationship between the ext and the format name. I would argue they are not equal (1:1), nor (1:many) / (many:1) so it makes sense to protect both aspects as definable things - the extension because that's whats most commonly searched for and 'format name' because its more accurate --JaygattusoNLNZ (talk) 18:31, 20 November 2012 (UTC)