Bug tracker admin: don't auto-add the previous base url as an alias without telling the user

[Gavin Panella]

When I modify the base url for a bug tracker, the previous value is automatically added as an alias. If the base url was wrong and has been corrected then it makes sense to add the previous incorrect value as an alias to prevent similar mistakes (using old urls, typos, etc.) from happening again. However, this behaviour is confusing because it's unexpected (unless you know about it) and the user is not told or asked to confirm.

We could remove this behaviour entirely, or, as kiko suggested, do it in javascript so that the change is immediately visible, perhaps with a button to confirm. Or add a confirmation step.

However, I also think this problem is exacerbated because we can't amend the base url in small ways (e.g. change the path, or switch http to https) without triggering some over-zealous validation code (that tells us "http://www.example.com/" is already registered in Launchpad... we know, we're trying to change it). The work around for that is to change the domain name to something stupid (e.g. prefix "foo") at the same time as the small change, then change the domain name back again. The behaviour of automatically adding the previous base urls as aliases makes this a very messy procedure. If we were to fix this problem and also make the auto-adding of aliases explicit then I think we'd be onto a winner :)

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Whichever solution you choose, please, please, please don't add a confirmation step.