gangleri wrote:

please disregard (In reply to comment #0)

subject changed to
restructure the code to evaluate ?title=foo&oldid=nnnn ; allow ?oldid=nnnn
without title

The scenario is the following:
time period 1) A page A is created

A is modified n times

time period 2) A is moved to B

B is modified n2 times

time period 3) B is moved to C

A is deleted
C is modified n3 times

(optionaly) some revisions are deleted

Now consider the general case of a reference to revisions of this page.

assume that A is [[wiktionary:en:doomsdays]]

B is [[wiktionary:en:Abba]]
C is [[wiktionary:en:abba]]

see http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=abba&action=history

http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=abba&oldid=212042
here title=C all works fine
http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Abba&oldid=212042
here title=B still all works fine (only because "Abba" redirects to "abba"!)
http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=doomsdays&oldid=212042
here title=A no content is displayed;
please see what links are generated for "view current revision",
"← Older revision" and "Newer revision →"

in addition please see also a "wrong" title (somebody mistyped it)
http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Abba_abba&oldid=212042
verify the generated links

what works is also a reference *without* title
http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?oldid=212042

*today* the *last* revision is 672681
both
http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=abba&oldid=672681
and
http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?oldid=672681
generate the same page

additional scenarios

• oldid=nnnn could be deleted
• oldid=nnnn is out of range see http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=abba&oldid=12345678912

oldid=nnnn is used to refer to a version of a page ; at WP also for citation.
This is why the link should remain "valid" as long as the revision exists in the
database else as long as a such a title exists. I assume that such links would
be hanging around as bookmarks here and there. The task is to offer somthing
usefull to the visitors if the version is still available

*request*
Referencing to a version with "oldid" should not be influenced "that much" if
the title does not exist (any more), if the title was deleted (maybe if the
title is invalid etc.) as long as this version exists.
MediaWiki messages can notify that the requested title and the actual titles differ.

I do not know what is best to do if the version does not exist but the title
exists. Should the history be displayed? Other proposals: ... ?

This enhancement request goes hand in hand with
bug 2455: correct navigation links for diffs between two different pages

best regards reinhardt [[user:gangleri]]

robchur wrote:

When an oldid is provided, the title argument is more or less ignored. So
title=Blah&oldid=1 would work, for instance.