Page MenuHomePhabricator

Make permalink display embedded images, templates, red links at that time
Closed, DuplicatePublicFeature

Description

Feature summary (what you would like to be able to do and where): As the article on permanent links points out it self, "The pictures included in the page are still shown at their most current versions, as are the templates, most notably the boxes with text and images placed in the page's right-top corner, as well as any content transcluded from other pages. In other words, the permalink displays what the article would look like today if someone reverted to the revision in question." This in the long-term makes the feature pretty useless as the page will eventually just become filled with red links, broken templates, and deleted images. To solve this, I prepose that a version be create that will use recursively permalinked templates, images, and articles in the form they were when you saved the page (similar to what you get using archive.org). Deleted templates and images would be archived (note: archived images may be removed due to copyvios or other legal requirements), but not deleted pages. The permalink may be deleted if contains content that violates copyright or other critical issues, but if content was removed only for cleanup, consistency or other more minor reasons the permalink would be kept.

Use case(s) (list the steps that you performed to discover that problem, and describe the actual underlying problem which you want to solve. Do not describe only a solution): To mostly solve the problem of permalinked pages eventually becoming filled with red links, broken templates, and deleted images that makes the feature effectively useless on anything other than pure text articles in the mainspace articles in the long-term.

Benefits (why should this be implemented?): See above.

Event Timeline

Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald Transcript
Aklapper changed the task status from Open to Stalled.Jul 14 2022, 8:37 AM

Hi, please provide use cases by describing use cases in the section called "use case". I saw above and I did not spot a use case. Thanks. Same for Benefits. The form above exists for a reason.

Ilovemydoodle2 changed the task status from Stalled to Open.Jul 14 2022, 9:17 AM
Ilovemydoodle2 updated the task description. (Show Details)

Hi, please provide use cases by describing use cases in the section called "use case". I saw above and I did not spot a use case. Thanks. Same for Benefits. The form above exists for a reason.

@Aklapper ✔ Done

Aklapper renamed this task from (Actual) Permanent links to Make permalink display embedded images, templates, red links at that time.Jul 14 2022, 9:55 AM
Aklapper triaged this task as Lowest priority.Jul 14 2022, 10:21 AM

For images this is impossible without a dark archive (T120454: Dark archive for Commons). It would also require spending additional computation time (as some pages use dozen of templates) to pull ancient (and thus likely uncached) revisions of all embedded items from that very certain point in time of that revision.
This does not sound feasible - costs with rather little gain. Did you discuss this idea in a forum first? Please link to that discussion.

The permalink feature is useful as it allows you to check the actual content on that very page (and not things pulled from other places).