Today I have added the so called "Revision System" to the site which can be applied to certain articles or content types when needed.
What does it do?
Some of you might have encountered such a system on sites like Wikipedia already. Its basic purpose is to allow several people to edit and enhance an article or page but preventing them from deleting or permanently changing the additions by a previous user. Futhermore is allows the reader to immediately spot the changes that have been applied to a page or an article.
Example:
A good example where the revision system fulfills its purpose is the (newly re-) added FSF history page. This historic document should not only be maintained and continued by a single person but by every clan member that feels that a certain addition should be made. In this case every clan member with "Elder" status should be able to add content or change content of the FSF history page.
Therefore every elder clan member can hit the "edit" button of the history page and make the changes that he feels are necessary:
[img_assist|nid=2221|title=|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=156|height=100]
He can now edit the content in every way he wants. In contrast to "regular" editing he can not permanently change or delete the previous content: He is merely able to add a new revision of the article. In case the other clan members feel that the changes are bot correct or in case the editor has made a mistake while editing, all his changes can easily be reverted to the original status since every change is being logged and can be viewed.
In the example below I have added a line to the top of the history article giving credit to _FSF_Godfather for creating the original version. Everybody who is making changes is asked to give a short summary or explanation for the changes he has made so that others can immediately see the reason for doing so:
[img_assist|nid=2222|title=|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=86|height=100]
Other people can now easily track, what exactly the changes are, that have been applied by the edito via the new "Revisions" tabr:
[img_assist|nid=2223|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=383|height=57]
On this revisions page you will see a summary of all revisions that have been applied before by other people plus a short explanation why the changes have been made. You can also select two versions of the documents that you want to compare which enables you to quickly see every single character that has been altered. As you can also see on the screenshot, previous versions can be easily restored with just one mouse click:
[img_assist|nid=2224|title=|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=168|height=100]
When comparing two versions, the following screen will show you each and every line that has been altered by the latest editor:
[img_assist|nid=2225|title=|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=154|height=100]
Discuss changes!
Of course not every change that one makes is always appreciated by other. But before we end up in a "change-revert" fest, we should discuss the usefulness of changes that hev been made or those who have to be made. For this, every article has its own comment or "talk" system whish should be used by the clan members!
[img_assist|nid=2226|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=449|height=46]
