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I was rather disturbed to discover recently that all past revisions to any story are available for any logged-in reader to view. I suppose there might be some value in being able to see my own history, but I find it disturbing that others can also go through it. Even the best of us make mistakes at some time, and personally, I would rather such mistakes did not remain on public record. What is even more disturbing is that, like me, other authors may not be aware that such records remain publically on view.
For example, the story may have been changed because the author considered the words offensive, or even libellous. Even though the author may have imagined the old edition had been replaced by the new one (as I did), those offensive or libellous words are still on public view, and still liable to cause offence, or at the worst, litigation.
At the very least, a warning should be displayed whenever an author updates a story, and s/he should then be able to request the old version be removed from the site. But I would question whether this facility adds any value at all to our wonderful site. If not, please let it be taken off.
Comments
I thought it was only visible
to the author and those with editor or admin status.
Angharad
The Revisions Tab
is for that author alone, editors, mods, and admins. That is there because it is a backup feature. If the author starts correcting mistakes and then suddenly some glitch happens, either through a power outage, site outage, or some dumb movement of the mouse that erases your work, then through the revisions tab, the versions visible prior to the glitch can be reinstated with no fuss and not involve us restoring the site from a backup. Think of it like backing up a program you are coding. It is like restoring windows to a prior state before the installation or update of some program you want to now get rid of, and just like if you accidentally mess up your story while editing and lose some sentences or punctuation in the process and suddenly realise it went missing for a few revisions and you want to skip back 3 or 4 revisions to restart with that previous version. It's a tool to use that is helpful... and it is most certainly not for everyone else to use. It is restricted.
The revisions tab, when used, restores a previous state of the story. That is all. And like all the controls, It tracks whoever touches the control and when. And of course, at any point in time, I am probably the most prolific user of the controls dealing with authors and stories: I am creating author pages, paginating author works and posting for 12 authors now.
The editors on up are supposed to have access to that feature as well, especially if they are posting for the author so they can make on the spot corrections as per the author's directions if the author doesn't want to do it themself or has assigned the editor or mod to do so, or if the editor made a mistake in the posting they did for them.
But the assumption that you are making is an incorrect one. The author always has the final word for the presentation of their story, which version appears and how.
It seems that through our site updating some glitches may be occurring that are revealing controls that should be hidden to others.
I will talk with Erin and Piper about the revisions tab again. It should only be visible for the author herself, and editors/mods/admin. No one else should have access to it. I do thank you Charlotte for bringing this to my attention. I do not have a regular account so I am failing to notice some of these glitches.
Sephrena
Revisions Tab
The revisions tab is supposed to be visible only to authors, editors and admins -- and authors can only see the tab on their own stories. I just checked that this is the case. If you are seeing the revision tab in any other situation, please let me know with a link to the story, blog or whatever where you are seeing the tab.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
I Wondered About That...
...mostly idly. But when something turned up in the comments that didn't seem to match the way I read the story, there were a couple of times (literally) that I checked another author's revisions list.
So I know that it had been possible. No complaint from here about killing it, though.
Eric
Good Call Charlotte!
We found and fixed the bug you had observed! *hugs*
Sephrena
Thank you
Thanks Sephrena
Glad it was only a glitch.
When I saw it yesterday, my reaction was, "I didn't know that was there."
It's really good that you and Erin tackle and correct these things so quickly.
Thank you both, and all others for maintaining this wonderful site.