Per discussion here, apparently this has been an issue since October 2015, if not earlier.
First of all, let me distinguish two kinds of shortcut:
- those intended to redirect to an article. Example: WP:N.
- those intended to redirect to an anchor within an article, e.g. to a heading within the article. Example: WP:GNG.
The latter type of shortcut currently does not work unless the user has JavaScript enabled in their browser.
Instead of taking the user to the anchor as intended, such shortcuts simply take users without JavaScript to the top of the article that the anchor sits within. That means that instead of seeing the intended section of the article, the user instead sees the article's heading and introduction. This can potentially be very confusing for the user, if the article's introduction is of limited relevance to the circumstance that caused the user to follow the shortcut.
Such breakage is especially unhelpful in the case of Wikipedia guidelines. It is common practice for Wikipedia editors to use such shortcuts to refer to Wikipedia guidelines. This works very well if the shortcuts work, but if the shortcuts don't work, then it leaves the user confused about the editor's intended meaning, and about which aspects of the guidelines the editor was trying to draw to their attention.
I therefore feel it is important that these shortcuts should not be broken: they should work as intended, regardless of whether the user has JavaScript enabled.
To forestall any replies to the effect that all users should enable JavaScript, let me note that there are many valid reasons why users might browse without JavaScript enabled, including:
- Performance: enabling JavaScript can slow down some computers.
- Lack of support: some Web browsers do not support JavaScript.
- Security: many classes of security vulnerability can be avoided by avoiding executing JavaScript in the browser.
- Accessibility: some users find animations and other dynamic uses of JavaScript to be an accessibility impediment.
See also: