Re: Last modified date on nodes

[ww]

I'd give this an absolutely, rock-solid "maybe"...
    except for a contrary inclination to say "lousy idea."

On the plus side -- and assuming it's feasible -- it might pose less work for the janitors who get a fair number of considerations requesting "restore original content" (which they can and sometimes do, whilst differentiating the OP from its updated content.

But, TTBOMK, Corion's records, at http://corion.net are the best source for original content and are accessible to anyone who wishes to review a node for possible un-flagged updates. I keep a link in my Free Nodelet for such review. It looks like this:

[http://corion.net/perlmonks/`id`.xml|Original content of `id`]

On the down side, your proposal fails to discourage the abusers who update without warning; especially those who remove their original content in favor of something that's responsive to a reply or to make themselves appear a bit less dunder-headed. A datastamp would do nothing to restore the original... and it's the lack of that which -- IMO -- makes the replies "confusing."

An alternative might be developing a mechanism that "locks down" a node as soon as it receives a reply (thus encouraging a reply to a reply), but even that has its weaknesses, as threads sometimes contain nodes that are tantamount to replies to nodes at the same level.

[eric256]

I don't think the point was to discourage updates, but simply to flag them. There is no reason not to allow some updates, its specific types of updates that are harmful. With a last update stamp you would at least know that content had been updated, unlike now where you have to guess (which gets increasingly more difficult if you haven't looked at the specific node recently.)

Additionaly it would appear that the database already holds an update date, so then its merely a matter of adding it to the output.

[Nkuvu]

eric256 summed up my intentions for this idea rather well. This isn't intended to record what changed, or how often a node has changed, and it's certainly not intended to discourage abusers. Just a flag to say that it did change.

Anything further than the flag could still rely on requests to janitors or referencing the node history you've indicated, just like it happens already.

For the record, Corion's site sounds very useful. But tell me how I'd find that? This is the first I've heard of it, and it isn't like I joined the site yesterday. Even looking at Corion's homenode I see nothing about the node history available.

[planetscape]

AFAIK, this bit of arcana was solely the purview of janitors, since the only place I recall it being discussed was the editors wiki, 'way back when it was g0n's "secret node stash". Or IOW, unless you were a janitor (or other cabal), you would not have found it.

Note that neither tribal knowledge nor leprechauns should be derided as potential sources of esoteric knowledge, especially as regards PM.

[Nkuvu]

Don't get me wrong, there was no derision of tribal knowledge or leprechauns in my other post. Just wanted to identify the sources of knowledge.

[GrandFather]

By using the link just as ww suggested, but replace the 'id' with the actual node id. For the OP in this thread for example the link is http://corion.net/perlmonks/752660.

[Nkuvu]

I'm sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. The link provided is pretty obvious in terms of usage, but where did ww get the link in the first place?

For an unrelated but similar example, consider me looking for history on the Chatterbox. The other day I realized that the link I had for CB history was dead (the nbpfaus.net link). I was given another link: last hour of cb. This works really well, but where did the link come from? Tribal knowledge? Random guesswork on node numbers? Leprechauns? In that example, if you click on Other CB Clients, at the bottom of the page is a link to Chatterbox FAQ, which has a link to last hour of cb.

That chain of links (or something similar) is what I'm asking about here. The link to Corion's site came from somewhere, I just don't know where.