jmclawson
commented
9 years ago Biblatex-mla tries to guess what would be the most unambiguous element of the citation to apply a hyperlink to reference the listing in the Works Cited.
In a typical citation—(Smith 34)—that element is the author's name, "Smith."
In what is probably the second most common kind of citation, when "Smith" is missing in a starred citation—(34)—biblatex-mla then applies the hyperlink to the next available element, namely the page number, "34."
In the third most common scenario, if Smith is cited for multiple entries—(Smith, "Title1" 34) and (Smith "Title2" 34)—then "Smith" will never be an unambiguous element of a citation, so the title is used instead.
The inconsistency you describe is less common, when numbers 2 and 3 coincide. What's happening is both safeguards are operating at once. There's probably a chance I can take it into consideration when updating the files. I'll be more concerned about losing the utility than about making it seem more consistent in its operation, but I'm glad to have it in my crosshairs. Thanks!
In the unstarred autocite only the title gets a link to the entry in "Works Cited", whereas in the starred version also the page number is included in the link.