[Wikipedia-l] better MOVE documentation?

[Brion VIBBER]

lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>>koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
>>
>>>Should we document the moving of a page from one location to 
>>
> another in the article's history?  e.g. create a new line in the 
> history showing the time and user with an autogenerated comment 
> like "article moved from [[IMDb]] to [[Internet Movie Database]]"?
> 
>>YES YES YES, we should do that. Should be pretty straightforward.
> 
> 
> That's easy for you to say :-)
> 
> Article histories are not stored as change records; they are
> constructed from stored revisions.  Moving an article doesn't
> create a revision--

Therein the reason they don't currently show up in the history.

 > it actually renames the article record and
> all its revision records, so as far as the database is concerned
> the article has /always/ had the new name--it doesn't know any
> different.
> 
> To keep a log of moves would require a new table to record them,
> and the changing the article history list to use that new table.
> Not a major obstacle, but not a quickie either.

You misunderstand; when moving an article, simply *save* a new revision 
of it with a summary field of "Renamed from X". Thus, it shows up in the 
history list because there is a new revision.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)