42

In the latest Recent Changes FAQ I saw this:

2013-02-18: The revision history of a question that was closed as a duplicate is now showing the chosen originals as part of the "Closed as duplicate" notice.

That sounds cool, so I went to go see what it looks like and realized that questions with revisions, but no edits, don't have an "edited <date>" link to click.

This applies to questions which had a bounty posted, or have been closed, reopened, locked, deleted, etc.

Examples:

no link

I realize I can manually type the URL:

https://meta.stackoverflow.com/posts/168761/revisions

But it would be nice to simply click. It could say "revised" instead of "edited" if there were no edits:

enter image description here

Improve this question
5
  • 6
    This really annoys me. You missed deleted off your list as well... There's a brilliant Shog9 rant somewhere where he says something about this as well... but I can't find it.
    – ben is uǝq backwards
    Feb 23, 2013 at 19:43
  • Manually constructing the URL and using "source" or "link" works great.
    – This_is_NOT_a_forum
    Aug 4, 2014 at 20:35
  • 4
    I agree with your idea. Maybe even make this a feature for users with over 101 rep, so that is isn't noise for casual readers.
    – Frank
    Oct 30, 2014 at 18:29
  • @Frank Maybe even only to those with close privileges, since the information is irrelevant otherwise.
    – yo'
    Jan 19, 2015 at 10:27
  • Also if the software is updated and it changes the rendering of the post, making the bug reported seem invalid, there's nothing recorded. The post is simply altered without any record and no way to see what it looked like before the update, making another edit to restore the original appearance a challenge.
    – Rob
    Dec 4, 2021 at 12:41

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
16
+50

Not only what Shog9 says. We have now had a case where a question was closed as dupe, then reopened, and then a discussion about the reopening started. And I didn't manage to see what the dupe question was until manually changing the address from http:/....com/question/12345/i-have-a-question to http:/....com/post/12345/revisions, in order to get the desired link (note how this is considered hacking in some countries? /sarcasm).

Please, implement this! The correct information to show is probably either "post modified 1 hour ago by Community" or "post reopened 1 hour ago by Community".

Improve this answer
10
+50

Normally, the revision history link only shows up when there've been edits to the post - there are a bunch of other things that can show up there that won't trigger the creation of the link (closing/reopening, deletion/undeletion, migration, locking, bounties, annotations, tweeting...)

For most casual readers, that's all just noise - they're interested in the current state of the question, maybe how the text has evolved over time, but not all the administrative minutia.

The close-as-duplicate record's kinda special though, since that used to be an edit - it did trigger the revision history link, and there was potentially some useful information there even if the post was later re-opened. Realistically, those links should probably show up somewhere else as well - comments, or the "linked" sidebar - but since those are deleted (either when the post is closed, or when it's re-opened), that's not working either.

For now, you can do what the rest of us process wonks do: install the SE Modifications userscript and get a link to the revision history on every post (and occasionally some minor layout weirdness thrown in free of charge).

Improve this answer
9
  • 3
    For most casual readers, that's all just noise They are already seeing all that "noise" if they click the "edited <date>" link (and a large percentage of questions have that link). Putting "revised <date>" where they are used to seeing "edited <date>" is hardly distracting. But those SE scripts sound interesting. I'll check them out.
    – ThinkingStiff
    Feb 23, 2013 at 20:20
  • 1
    No, I mean if there aren't any edits the information behind "revised" is just noise - the post itself hasn't changed, just its status (with, again, dup-links being the exception here since that history entry actually lists stuff that showed up on the question). Granted, it's noise that a lot of us are very interested in, but that doesn't matter to most of the folks visiting the site.
    – Shog9
    Feb 23, 2013 at 20:22
  • 3
    Do you think there are a large number of users that both don't care about that data and would be distracted/confused by that link being there (a link that is on many other questions already)? I can't speak for the all new users, but I clicked on everything when I was new to try to learn about SO.
    – ThinkingStiff
    Feb 23, 2013 at 20:30
  • 2
    The vast, vast majority of people visiting SO care not a whit about learning about SO. For the ones that do, it's still important to give them stuff that they can use first and foremost - if you log in as a new user, you'll quickly notice that there are a lot fewer links hanging around each post.
    – Shog9
    Feb 23, 2013 at 20:36
  • To your point: I've been on over a year and just now noticed this.
    – ThinkingStiff
    Feb 23, 2013 at 21:04
  • 5
    It's like boiling a frog... You increase the number of links slowly, so the frog barely notices that his comfortable home has suddenly become TVTropes.
    – Shog9
    Feb 23, 2013 at 21:09
  • How about making "marked as duplicate" a link to the revision history? Or even the date, like the "edited" one.
    – Kevin
    Mar 5, 2013 at 15:16
  • 2
    Except that info is most needed when the close notice isn't being displayed, @иɪvэЖєvɪɴ
    – Shog9
    Mar 5, 2013 at 15:19
  • 1
    Any chance for a re-evaluation, maybe only triggered by rep (1K, like the vote-counts)?
    – Deduplicator
    Jul 15, 2015 at 17:58
10

I'd like to see "asked ..." linked to revs if there were no edits.

Improve this answer
7
+25

While I still support this request, since January 2020, we have a link to improved timeline available always:

link to timeline

The timeline view is different from revisions, but still contains most, if not all, of the details.

Improve this answer
0

As of today (Jan 2021), the link trick doesn't seem to work for me. It simply returns to the post.

Test: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/168765/revisions

Improve this answer
1

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .