http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=752676


in reply to Re: Last modified date on nodes
in thread Last modified date on nodes

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.

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Re^3: Last modified date on nodes
by planetscape (Chancellor) on Mar 25, 2009 at 03:00 UTC

    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.

    HTH,

    planetscape

      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.

Re^3: Last modified date on nodes
by GrandFather (Saint) on Mar 23, 2009 at 20:22 UTC

    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.


    True laziness is hard work

      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.

        Possible answers:

        • Sorry; if I tell, Node_Reaper will hang me, upside down, in chains, in his deepest dungeon, until I'm as skeletal as he.
        • I don't recall whether I found the information on viewing original content in a thread or whether perhaps Corion mentioned it in the cb.

        (BTW I just searched using terms such as "original content" or (by name, now that you know it's Corion's work) "xml" and didn't find the original.)

        In any case, the line of code I offered for your Free Nodelet is literally and exactly what's in the third line of mine; viz:

        This node's id: &#91;id://`id`] <br>[Nodes to consider] <br>[http://corion.net/perlmonks/`id`.xml|Original content of `id`] ...

        Now, back to your threshhold question:

        My view is that "simply to flag them" (from Eric's, above, with which I gather you concur) is NOT enough. Yes, it's nice to know something has been changed, but unless one knows "from what" it doesn't solve the potential mysteries of the now-contextless replies.

        Thus, I'm not sure that the magnitude of the coding work (by the PMDev's -- esp those with a better grasp of the guts of the Monastery) -- and the extra cost of retrieving and rendering by the server) is worth the effort.

        And just FTR, Eric and I may not be in total agreement, but I do agree whole-heartedly with his remark, " There is no reason not to allow some updates, its specific types of updates that are harmful." It's just that I took your ideas as a springboard for a dscussion about ways to deal with the "harmful" ones, for those values of "harmful" which seem to me to detract from the value of the information here.

        Update: But that may just reflect my feeling that it's good manners for those who come seeking help make the effort to observe our standards.