Delete "General Information" page in FAQ, and improve "Found A Problem?" box

Mailing Lists php.doc
1

Hi all,

While looking for sources for the history section of the PHP article in Wikipedia, I stumbled on this page: https://www.php.net/manual/en/faq.general.php

Although it has had a handful of cleanup edits, most of the content is out-dated, redundant, or both:

- "What is PHP?" - out of date copy from the Preface of the manual; the homepage has a slightly different version, as does the Introduction page

- "What does PHP stand for?" - this is also explained in both the Preface and the Introduction; the explanation of recursive acronyms and link to Wikipedia page are nice for the curious, maybe they could go in the Introduction (there's also a link to the homepage of FOLDOC, where there's a short definition of "recursive acronym" written two months before PHP 1.0 was released)

- What is the relation between the versions? - dates from when people needed to understand how PHP 3 differed from PHP/FI 2.0; there is an entire section of the manual about PHP's history, and pages about supported and unsupported versions

- Can I run several versions of PHP at the same time? - refers to an "INSTALL" file which no longer exists; there's an entire section of the manual about different ways to install it

- I think I found a bug! Who should I tell? - talks about the "PHP Bug Database", with the link going to the GitHub Issues page because it uses a shared entity &url.php.bugs;

I suggest deleting this entire page.

The bug reporting is the only thing I can't see covered better elsewhere. On the other hand, every page of the manual has a prominent "Report a Bug" link which is actually for reporting a *documentation* bug.

I suggest adding a second line to this section for problems with PHP itself:

Found A Problem?
With this manual: Learn How To Contribute • Submit a Pull Request • Report a Bug
With PHP itself: Learn How To Contribute • Submit a Pull Request • Report a Bug

The existing "Report a Bug" link also goes directly to the "blank issue" page, rather than the reporting templates - it should be e.g.

instead of

Thoughts?

--
Rowan Tommins
[IMSoP]

2

On 17 September 2025 21:37:01 BST, "Rowan Tommins [IMSoP]" <imsop.php@rwec.co.uk> wrote:

Hi all,

While looking for sources for the history section of the PHP article in Wikipedia, I stumbled on this page: https://www.php.net/manual/en/faq.general.php

(snip)

I suggest deleting this entire page.

I don't think thats wise, as that means the URL will be gone, unless we also add a redirect.

cheers
Derick

3

On 17/09/2025 21:50, Derick Rethans wrote:

I don't think thats wise, as that means the URL will be gone, unless we also add a redirect.

Would that be such a great loss? Is learning that PHP 3 is "a lot nicer" than PHP/FI 2.0 more useful than seeing a 404 page?

Is there content you think is worth keeping? Or content that you think should be reachable on that URL, but isn't?

--
Rowan Tommins
[IMSoP]

4

On 17 September 2025 22:39:24 BST, "Rowan Tommins [IMSoP]" <imsop.php@rwec.co.uk> wrote:

On 17/09/2025 21:50, Derick Rethans wrote:

I don't think thats wise, as that means the URL will be gone, unless we also add a redirect.

Would that be such a great loss? Is learning that PHP 3 is "a lot nicer" than PHP/FI 2.0 more useful than seeing a 404 page?

Is there content you think is worth keeping? Or content that you think should be reachable on that URL, but isn't?

<https://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI&gt;

There is enough breaking of the Web already going on. We shouldn't be part of that.

cheers
Derick

5

On 17 September 2025 22:48:51 BST, Derick Rethans <derick@php.net> wrote:

<https://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI&gt;

There is enough breaking of the Web already going on. We shouldn't be part of that.

Yes, I understand the principle, I was just slightly sarcastically suggesting that the URL is already broken because the content on it is so useless.

Assuming you're not suggesting we keep the URL but no content, I would like to hear your opinion on what content should be there. The mission statement and acronym explanation? A better wording for the link to GH Issues? Links to other sections of the manual about installation and version history? Some new questions that we're missing?

Also, what do you think of the separate suggestion about the "found a problem" footer?

Rowan Tommins
[IMSoP]