Background:

It's possible to link to the revision history for a given oldid, like https://en.wikipedia.org/w/?action=history&oldid=12345, but this will display the latest revisions, which won't necessarily include the specified revision.

To make a link to the revision history with the specified revision at the top of the displayed list, you inconveniently have to find the edit time of that revision and then use the offset parameter, like https://en.wikipedia.org/w/?action=history&oldid=12345&offset=20020216190050

Feature request:

It would be nice if there was a parameter to automatically put the specified revision at the top of the displayed revision list (and as a bonus, alternatively at the bottom of the displayed list). In examples below, I call this parameter showold, with the values top and bottom.

General purpose: Easier linking to a specific part of a revision history. (Every oldid page could then have a link to the revision history with showold=top.)

Specific purpose: For attribution of source article contributors when merging content from different articles, per meta:Attribution. A link could easier be made to the relevant part of the source article's history. For this purpose, special pages like [[Special:HistoryBefore/12345]] could be made to redirect to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/?action=history&oldid=12345&showold=top, and could then be used for posting a clickable history link in an edit summary.

Additional purpose, with usage of showold=bottom: When for example dealing with vandals, it could be useful to easily list the history immediately following a specific revision, so instead of https://en.wikipedia.org/w/?action=history&oldid=12345&offset=20020216190048&dir=prev, one could link to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/?action=history&oldid=12345&showold=bottom. And similar to above, special pages like [[Special:HistoryAfter/12345]] could redirect to this.