RouterOS documentation links change?

RouterOS General
1

Recently all RouterOS documentation links introduced some unfriendly parts of the URL, for example:

https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/spaces/ROS/pages/328068/Bridging+and+Switching#BridgingandSwitching-BridgeHardwareOffloading

The random number doesn’t look good for a URL, but what I’m more worried about is if it’s some sort of versioning that will be broken at some point.

I had the old link to the same page above in my own notes, here is how it looks:

https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/display/ROS/Bridging+and+Switching#BridgingandSwitching-BridgeHardwareOffloading

It still works but redirects to the new numbered page.

I’m just wondering why the change was necessary, the old links look better.

2

Oh just one of many problems with docs — the lack of stable URLs for protocol/commands. I’ve noticed same thing, I’ve just manually updated the URL to use the “generic” form you show in 2nd example when need in other doc/code. I could never find some way to get Confluence to show the “generic” page URL, in recent docs.mikrotik.com it seems to use /pages/#####/ everywhere.

Perhaps there is some options Mikrotik can change to allow this, IDK, I hate Confluence. But you’re right it’s annoying as I often need to link to the documentation, and using some pages/##### does NOT seem like durable URL.

3

Confluence is not ideal for documentation. Maybe OK for some small business 10 pages wiki. But for this case it is actually too expensive.

4

Probably not exactly what you want, but you can click on the 3 dots in the upper right hand corner, then click “page information”. From here you can copy a “Tiny Link”.

According to Atlassian, both the links with “page id” and the “tiny link” remain valid when the page is moved or renamed. Take that for what its worth.

The Differences Between Various URL Formats for a Confluence Page

5

Thanks for that, I didn’t know about it.

I’m not sure what was wrong with MediaWiki in the first place, why MikroTik decided to switch. I’m not familiar with Confluence, I’m sure there are some benefits to it. But it’s hard to beat the price for MediaWiki—just hosting costs. At work I used to maintain a local wiki for about 10 years, it’s not that hard. Probably the most difficult was to get various extensions like VisualEditor working, but it got much better over time.
And I like MediaWiki’s URLs, very readable and friendly.

On the other hand, if they only have 10 editors, then I guess Confluence is free and includes hosting, availability, patching etc. Doesn’t get any easier.

At the end of the day all that matters is the quality and consistency of the documentation, and I must admit it gets better and better. I only wish MikroTik would do a section that matches WinBox layout. It can be just a set of links to other pages with actual content.

Another idea is to allow general public to highlight and report errors/omissions/comments. If I see an error or maybe have a suggestion on how to make things clearer, I’m not going to open a support case for it. But if it was as easy as highlighting a paragraph and dropping a note, I’m sure plenty of people would be willing to help as they read the documentation.