[Mediawiki-l] Page creation and wpEditToken

[Lars Aronsson]

When I edit a page in MediaWiki, the form contains these hidden 
variables:

<input type='hidden' value="20051008140830" name="wpStarttime" />
<input type='hidden' value="20051008140830" name="wpEdittime" />
<input type='hidden' value="106c45867969e6679906ec3acc5b7c2e" 
  name="wpEditToken" />

I guess they are used to detect and resolve edit conflicts.
Are these values necessary when I (or a robot) create a new page?

I guess the timestamps could be set to 1970 or blank, to ensure 
that the robot doesn't overwrite any existing pages?

In http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Bulk_Page_Creator
the script retrieves the edit page only to extract the token.
What's the point in this?  What is the function of wpEditToken?


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se