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Moin,
On Monday 24 October 2005 08:57, Brion Vibber wrote:
Nick Jenkins wrote:
Brion Vibber wrote:
One possibility is to embed the timestamp into the URL. So the goatse version might be: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2005/10/23/074223/Puppy.jpg
and the reverted image would get a different URL, a few minutes later: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2005/10/23/074506/Puppy.jpg
Alternative but very similar idea would be to embed the revision number in the URL, instead of the upload timestamp:
Example original: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/P/1/Puppy.jpg
Example revised: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/P/2/Puppy.jpg
We had a lively discussion on in #wikimedia-tech on this subject; as well as the revision ID numbers another possibility discussed was using a content hash.
A content hash has the additional advantage that duplicate file versions only need to be stored once; for instance currently when reverting a file it makes a new copy of the file on the filesystem, which wastes space. (However you then need to be careful about deleting.)
So you might have something like: http://upload.wikimedia.org/584/590/5845907fdfc6eb1125129c4ce0da0704c49 6a7e4.jpg
Obviously a disadvantage is that the filenames are ugly. One might tack a 'pretty' but ignored filename on the end, using rewrites or whatever tool to drop it on the backend:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/584/590/5845907fdfc6eb1125129c4ce0da0704c49 6a7e4/Puppy.jpg
Which is still very human-unfriendly. I couldn't remember this URl even if my life depended on it!
I rather like
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/P/2/Puppy.jpg
although I am not sure why the "/P/" needs to be visible to the user (it is deterministic, after all), and it would be handy to have a "latest" revision URL. Which could be just:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/Puppy.jpg
and the software behind the back figures out what the exact latest revision is and under what /CapitcalLetter/ directory it falls. These are things a human user shouldn't need to do or know about.
(Yes, I know, it is technically difficult. But I'd rather have you spent some time figuring it out and implementing it, than every wikipedia user to remember these little technicalities :)
If the plan is to hide all that, well, please forget my 0.02€.
Best wishes,
Tels
- -- Signed on Mon Oct 24 18:58:02 2005 with key 0x93B84C15. Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/ PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo." -- Andy Finkel, computer guy