ORIGINAL: FlyinTiger
The article you read said that most shorts occur and the battery "blows them out," meaning the battery would just quickly short and then cease to work at all. You would be flying on your other battery and probably not even notice the short until you checked your battery's capacity before your next flight (or right after you land).
I read the article differently: "Rarely does the short occur all at once but rather building up a very small conductance path termed "soft shorts". In a charged cell the energy in the cell will blow away any short as it tries to develop. You've heard about "zapping" cells. The cell actually zaps itself before the short can develop."
As I read the comments, a "soft" short is corrected by the the energy in the charged cell. The "soft short" is blown away, not the entire capacity of the battery, i.e., the battery would not cease to work at all.l