Saying backreference is "for maintaining 1-1 relationships" is an insufficient warning that it very much shouldn't be used in any other context. Applying backreference to many-1 relationships will force them to be 1-1 by deleting previous references to the same node. Because backrefence also doesn't create a new revision when making changes to the referenced node, the lost data can not be recovered. This at least needs a clear warning. Better yet, it should check for many-1 relationships and not apply to them.

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sreynen’s picture

sreynen commented
Title: Should not apply to many-1 relationships » Should not apply to many-1 relationships without multiple backreferences

On further testing, references are only deleted when multiple nodes reference a node with a singular back reference field. This could probably be auto-corrected by backreference, but it should at least trigger a warning. Deleting the previous backrefence and the associated reference, as it does now, results in silent data loss.