Bug: Default home page links to itself

You see, the header doesn’t change, so it’s a link back to the sindex page from wherever you are at the moment. It’s not really that big of a deal.

Yes, I know the header doesn’t change. That’s the bug. The header should be smarter than that.
And yes, I know it’s not that big of a deal, if your age is less than ~55 and your IQ is greater than ~110. However, that does not prevent it from being a bug for everyone else.

I don’t see it as a bug, frankly. How many people even know that the weblog title is a link? And yes, it’s on Jakob’s list, but frankly Jakob’s list is more of a guideline for corporate home pages (see #1: “Emphasize what your site offers that’s of value to users and how your services differ from those of key competitors”).

lol… well, the reason why it is not a bug is because it causes no error. If someone clicks the link only to find that it links to the page they’re on, nothing messes up, they will learn something about the designs navigational structure and realise that no matter where they are on the website, they can click that link to return to the home page.

this is the stupidest thing i have heard today…

I’m under 55 and reckon I must be pushing an IQ of 111, but I quite like the link from the home page to the home page. That way I know I really was on the home page! mpt – most pernickity thread.

You will find this on 99% of blogs, no matter what software they are using, simply because of the way that blog archives are contructed. If you go to an archived post it nearly always uses the same template as the most recent posts. This is because most blogs software simply slots your text into the pre-designed template, rather than generating completely different pages for each entry. Most people then find it useful to have a link which will take you back to the most recent posts. The only way of doing this is to link to the index page.
If you have a problem with this there is nothing stopping you from removing the link back to the index page, or from abandoning blog software entirely and hand-coding each individual post. But I doubt your readers would thank you for it. Abiding by the conventions of blog design is not a bug.

starsky: I was going to add to the persnicketiness of the thread by saying “I think you mean persnickety,” but apparently pernickitey means the same thing. But you still spelled it wrong ??

I’ve seen it spelled ‘pernickity’ before, but never ‘pernickitey’.
(ok, enough with the pedantry.)

Another thing to keep in mind with all of Jakob Nielsen’s top 10 lists: they’re all just guidelines, and even Nielsen himself realizes not ever “rule” will apply to every site. In fact, he only reasonably expects a few.
This is a bit of a side comment, but there’s always been a bit of Nielsen bashing, and his latest list has generated the same type of crap: “#10 is stupid, it doesn’t even apply to me”, “I violate #4 on purpose because…”, etc.
I was lucky enough to see Jakob Nielsen speak in person in San Francisco a couple years ago. One of the first things he said in his keynote, is that he has *never* expected every site to obey every guideline he comes up with. What he’s done is notice a great many sites violating some fundamental guidelines, and he puts out his lists so that others can avoid the same mistakes. For some sites, many of the guidelines simply won’t apply.
For example, in his Ten Steps for Cleaning Up Information Pollution, he has ‘#2. Don’t use “reply to all” when responding to email. Abide by the good old “need to know” principle that’s so beloved by the military and send follow-up messages only to those people who will actually benefit from the reply.’
I’ve read posts on some sites saying this is stupid, because sometimes reply to all facilitates a group discussion. I say, that’s missing the point entirely. The second part of that “rule” is to abide by the “need to know” principal. If the email is part of a group discussion, then “reply to all” is perfectly valid. What the rule is intended for is when people (and I work with plenty of them) reply to all for *every* message they receive, even when the reply is directed only at the sender.
Ok, enough of a tangent…

(Full disclosure: This was an experiment to see how productive it would be to report usability bugs on the forums rather than by e-mail. Oh well.)

Subtract the dirname of PHP_SELF from the ABSPATH and compare that to REQUEST_URI.

This thread has, to me, become more about the semantics of the issue rather than the issue itself. MPT makes a valid argument about a page linking to itself. It’s not a show -stopper, but it is a virtual mobius strip of going nowhere fast in an infinite loop.
Since this discussion has become more about semantics in terms of whether this is a bug or not, I’d just like to point out that semantics is what is necessary to have good code. Try validating your pages while ignoring semantic code and mark-up.
At some point, there is always a line. The things that are closest to that line are often ambiguous, and deciding on which side of the line where linking a page to itself belongs can be subject to much debate. Even if it is resolved, then the line is moved, and suddenly the next issue becomes less cut and dried, because it’s now in that grey area.
I am also disappointed in some of the comments here as well. Anything is up for discussion–just as there are no stupid questions, there are no stupid suggestions. Anything that provokes the free and open expression of ideas is a valuable thing. Don’t debase something by dismissing it off-hand.
Craig.

My opinion (as expressed to Matt privately) is that the “logo” or whatever it is should always link to the home page, but I think a good case could be made for highlighting and unlinking navigation items where practical. The only real navigation I see though is the monthly archive list, where implementing this wouldn’t be too hard.

Perhaps the calendar as well…