[RFC] Post Revisions

[callumacrae]

I'm more worried about allowing new users to edit Wiki posts. I don't want some untrusted new user having "fun" by wiping out posts. Sure, a moderator could revert those posts (preferably by deleting the revision ), but that could waste a lot of time.

I don't think that it would be any more dangerous than allowing them to create threads or make posts?

[Pony99CA]

Second, will there be some kind of indicator that a topic contains Wiki posts and that a post itself is a Wiki post? If so, will those indications be available even to those people who don't have Wiki editing permissions (in other words, will people without the editing permission know that the topic contains Wiki posts and that a post is a Wiki post)?

Currently there is not an indicator on the post or the topic noting that it is/has a wiki post. I plan on adding one, but have not decided what would look best. Suggestions?

I forgot to reply to this. You would probably need a new set of topic icons and post icons. For example, a set of topic icons using "W" instead of the lines for normal topics to indicate a topic containing at least one Wiki post and adding "W" read/unread post icons. You would only need one set of "locked" icons, of course -- a locked topic or post is locked regardless of whether it's a Wiki or not.

The "W" is just an example (and not a good one because it would need changing for other languages, unlike most of the phpBB standard icons).

Steve

[Pony99CA]

I'm more worried about allowing new users to edit Wiki posts. I don't want some untrusted new user having "fun" by wiping out posts. Sure, a moderator could revert those posts (preferably by deleting the revision ), but that could waste a lot of time.

I don't think that it would be any more dangerous than allowing them to create threads or make posts?

Sure it would. I can subscribe to all of my forums to get notified of new topics or posts, but I don't get notified of edits to posts, and I presume the same will be true of revisions to Wiki posts (I haven't seen anybody suggest differently).

Also, there's the View new posts and View unread posts options on boards to find posts and topics, but those won't find edited posts, right? (I haven't checked whether somebody editing a post resets its "read" status to "unread", so I could be wrong.)

It's one thing when only a trusted user (a moderator) or I could make changes to my post, but Wiki posts change that.

Steve

[Pony99CA]

Will there be an option to search for Wiki posts specifically?

Will there be an option to order the posts (both in topics and search results) by last revision time instead of creation time (and the other sorts)? (This isn't really just about revisions -- even standard phpBB could use this feature -- but Wiki posts make it more useful.)

Steve

[Pony99CA]

To cut down on the number of revisions, could we apply a little heuristic -- only generate a new revision if somebody else has viewed the post since that revision (or at least have that as an option). As posts don't seem to have a "last viewed time", unless this RFC has added that, you may have use the topic_last_view_time, which may get tricky if the author views the topic again (which happens by default usually), or something in the topics_track table.

That would allow the user to Post-View (like Preview but after submitting ) his work and make corrections without generating a revision. There's not a lot of difference between previewing your post before submitting and submitting and editing before anybody else has seen it (like asking "If a tree falls in the woods with nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound?" ).

I don't know how expensive it would be to join against topics_track and look for mark_time > post_revision_time for anybody other than the post editor, though.

Steve

[callumacrae]

I don't think that that is a good idea - there should be a new revision made every time the post is revised.

Why does the number of revision need to be cut down?

[brunoais]

Cutting the number of revision posts should be up to an extension (in my opinion, currently).

[imkingdavid]

Will there be an option to search for Wiki posts specifically?

I have just added a filter onto the search page that, when enabled, limits the search results to only wiki posts. This filter is only available when the wiki post configuration setting is enabled in the ACP.

Will there be an option to order the posts (both in topics and search results) by last revision time instead of creation time (and the other sorts)? (This isn't really just about revisions -- even standard phpBB could use this feature -- but Wiki posts make it more useful.)

I'm not going to make this a priority. Perhaps later on we can look into this, but for now this isn't really needed.

To cut down on the number of revisions, could we apply a little heuristic -- only generate a new revision if somebody else has viewed the post since that revision (or at least have that as an option). As posts don't seem to have a "last viewed time", unless this RFC has added that, you may have use the topic_last_view_time, which may get tricky if the author views the topic again (which happens by default usually), or something in the topics_track table.

That may be getting a little too complex. Yes, we want to cut down on revisions for smaller boards, but this may be a bit much. After all, we do want to keep track of the post's history, and skipping the revision-creation process in certain cases distorts the history, imo.

Thanks for the suggestions and ideas, though!

[drathbun]

To cut down on the number of revisions, could we apply a little heuristic -- only generate a new revision if somebody else has viewed the post since that revision (or at least have that as an option).

That's actually an interesting concept, and one that I would consider valid. However I think the overhead and added code complexity would far outweigh the potential database savings. In an earlier post I wrote that a very small percentage of posts ever get revised anyway. Let's suppose that of the 10% of posts that get edited, maybe 10% of those are edited before someone else looks. If I have done my math right, that means 1% of the total posts on a board are edited more than once before they're viewed. I don't think it's worth trying to work through the logic and add the tracking that would be required to include this feature for the small number of exceptions that could occur. Just my opinion.

There's not a lot of difference between previewing your post before submitting and submitting and editing before anybody else has seen it (like asking "If a tree falls in the woods with nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound?" )

[drathbun]

Was anyone ever able to scan the phpbb.com database and get a percentage of how many posts had been edited?