XF 1.2 Post Edit History and Logging

Post edit history and logging has been one of the most requested features and it will be a core feature in XenForo 1.2.

Post Edit Logging
Post edit logging is the simpler of the two features. It adds an indication to the post when it has been edited. We have intentionally kept this feature simple for the average user. They have no reason that they have to enter; if they're inclined, they can always include the reason in the message.

We do track the last person to edit the message, but this is not displayed. It could be easily added with an add-on. In most cases, the last edit will be by the owner and the average user likely doesn't care about who edited it. If a moderator needs to know, the history gives much more detailed information.

The edit log can be set to not be displayed if a post is edited in the first X minutes.

So what does this look like on a post?

ss-2013-03-22_11-36-01.webp


Moderators also get a few extra options to control the public log of the edit. Note that these options do not affect the history. This only allows them to suppress the public notice.

ss-2013-03-22_11-36-36.webp


Post Edit History
Post edit history actually keeps all previous versions of a message rather than just an indication that it was edited. This can be used for many things, including handling the "rage-delete" situation, where a user edits all of their content, potentially destroying the flow of many threads.

For developers, it's worth noting that the history system has mostly been developed to be content agnostic. Add-ons can make use of the system and automatically get access to the history and comparison interface.

Whenever a post is edited--even with a "silent" moderator edit--the history is logged. You may have noticed it in the screenshot above, but a history link will appear whenever a post has been edited.

When you click that link, you will have an opportunity to pick two versions to compare and see the actual changes made

Note that the UI I'm demonstrating below is still a work in progress and improvements will be made.

ss-2013-03-22_11-43-27.webp


You can also view the previous version in its raw form with a button to the right (which I didn't include in the screenshot). Options to automatically revert to a previous version may be included.

History data can be set to only be maintained for a specific number of days.
 
It requires some xf_post changes (mostly to track when something has been edited). The core data is stored externally though.
 
Thanks for the tip! We're using pt to periodically check if master and slave are in sync. Didn't know about this command. So how would you proceed? Look at the updater script of XF 1.2 and perform the required table change on xf_post prior to running the XF updater?
For the size of our xf_post table we'll probably need to take a minor outage for it. I talked with Percona tonight and Vadim wasn't confident that we wouldn't have problems. I'm going to test it though to see.
 
Is it possible to have an option that posts older X days need to reviewed by an moderator befor the "new" version goes online? (maybe managed by group and/or forum)
The postowner should be see in case the new version already (to finish realy all the changes), but for public, it will be untouched up to the moment someone set the post as ok, or delete the changes.
Here a note in the moderationlog would be good, too ;)
 
Is it possible to have an option that posts older X days need to reviewed by an moderator befor the "new" version goes online? (maybe managed by group and/or forum)
The postowner should be see in case the new version already (to finish realy all the changes), but for public, it will be untouched up to the moment someone set the post as ok, or delete the changes.
Here a note in the moderationlog would be good, too ;)
That would be a brilliant option. I'd love to give people more than 48 hours to edit, but at the same time I'd like to have my mods approve edits that are over x amount of time.
 
That would be a brilliant option. I'd love to give people more than 48 hours to edit, but at the same time I'd like to have my mods approve edits that are over x amount of time.

Me three. This would be very, very useful for pretty much every serious board owner and every single big board owner.
 
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