Mailing List Archive

Jonathan Walther wrote:
> What is the desired behavior? If someone creates an article that was
> previously deleted, should the articles previous history get restored?

Currently, the previous history is only restored if it is restored from
the deleted pages archive via Special:Undelete. If a new page was since
created with the title, the old revisions are simply integrated into the
existing history (generally at the end -- but if the new page was
renamed from an older title, it's possible that the histories could
intermix when presented sorted by date).

Here's a diagram of what exists in what tables over the lifetime of such
an event:

Page creation:
rev A -> cur

Later edit:
rev B -> cur
rev A -> old

Deletion
rev B -> archive (hidden)
rev A -> archive (hidden)

New creation with same title:
rev C -> cur
rev B -- archive (hidden)
rev A -- archive (hidden)

Later edit:
rev D -> cur
rev C -> old
rev B -- archive (hidden)
rev A -- archive (hidden)

Restoration of deleted revisions:
rev D -- cur
rev C -- old
rev B -> old
rev A -> old

Since deletions are usually done to suppress vandalism or unusuable text
due to copyright infringement, there would be little use in
automatically restoring such revisions.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Brion,

Thanks for explaining the page lifecycle. I have clipped this diagram for reference.

> Here's a diagram of what exists in what tables over the lifetime of such
> an event:
>
> Page creation:
> rev A -> cur
>
> Later edit:
> rev B -> cur
> rev A -> old
>
> Deletion
> rev B -> archive (hidden)
> rev A -> archive (hidden)
>
> New creation with same title:
> rev C -> cur
> rev B -- archive (hidden)
> rev A -- archive (hidden)
>
> Later edit:
> rev D -> cur
> rev C -> old
> rev B -- archive (hidden)
> rev A -- archive (hidden)
>
> Restoration of deleted revisions:
> rev D -- cur
> rev C -- old
> rev B -> old
> rev A -> old

Gratefully,

Ed Poor