Options to enable/disable post revisions

Shinsou, you express an opinion many people have, and there is another thread in the alpha-beta section about it. Much like with changes to remove functionality (the more tag for rss feeds) thing like this get chosen to be hardcoded rather than made an option. I can’t for the life of me figure out why, but there you go.

My feeling is the average blog owner that makes typos and corrects them will end up with a post file 2 to 10 times larger depending on the number of edits they have to do. Sort of a waste of space.

I am sure someone will write a plugin to go through and remove all revision posts, as they are mostly unwanted dust.

Has anyone added such a suggestion to trac yet? I haven’t checked, but devs would see it there.

handy, I think the answer would be the same as the more tag, they discussed it sometime in the past and it isn’t up for discussion in the future, no matter how many people would actually use it.

Perhaps weigh-in on this one? https://trac.www.ads-software.com/ticket/7294

My quick scan of trac didn’t turn up much for discussions/requests related to post revisions.

Say, did you see this thread? https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/189050?replies=4

One line added to wp-config.php and you’re done.

Handy, adding a line is “nice”, but if it is that easy, then it should be a configuration option, not something you have to hack into each version. Remember, that sort of hack disappears on the next upgrade unless you go put it back in.

I got off the elevator at 2.5.1, I think it was just in time.

I don’t blow away my wp-config.php on upgrades. That’d be silly (nor is it advocated last I checked).

I back it up and re-use it.

So, since we’re debating from our own perceptions, from my angle I just don’t see the burn. 30 seconds copy and paste and I’m set “forever.”

After your rebuttal how about we then just agree to disagree and not have the OP’s thread hijacked into a philosophical debate?

Hi,
Instead of adding that ‘little line’, I basically edited all my files which had ‘revision’ in it – just to permanently turn of post revisions. It’s more dumb, but I’m leaving it as is for now.

Plus, why have this forum if all we ever really needed to do is post in the Trac? To add to it, do we HAVE to go to WP’s forum to find out how to do certain things? It’s like asking a kid to go buy an apple, but stop at an Apple Tree before continuing. Why go and buy an apple when there’s a tree right in front of you? Blatantly I’m trying to say “Why go to a forum to find out something when you can just edit the settings in front of you?” – That is how most people think. Don’t get the wrong idea, I love forums. I just don’t love it when someone tells me to go somewhere else which has a corresponding title (i.e. Requests in a request forum be redirected to a Trac).

And if you ask me, too many features have been added in without the consent of the a variety of members. I demand a poll before something like this. If anything, pick out a few members to use the new features before releasing it. Members, being random ones. Though, some features are good, some like post revisions are pretty much crap to people like me. Literally, is it so hard to ask for an option in the Settings page? What will happen next? Do I have to add a define(‘WP_BLOG_TITLE’, ‘Shinsou\’s Blog’); to my wp-config? Do I have to add a define(‘WP_BLOG_URL’, ‘https://mysite.com’); to my wp-config? Do I have to add a define(‘WP_TEMPLATE_DIRECTORY’, ‘https://mysite.com/wp-content/themes/mytheme/index.php’) to my wp-config? These are all analogies – they aren’t real but I’m just picking on the ludicrousness of what’s happening.

For WordPress 2.5.1, I felt that the current features were solid and good – nothing more was required. Now things like gears and revisions have been slapped in. Do half the people even know what those things are before using it? Sure you’re introducing something new – I don’t mind that – but what I do mind is that if you’re adding a new feature, add a bloody option for disabling it.

Shinsou.

Plus, why have this forum if all we ever really needed to do is post in the Trac?

Forums: Community oriented support

Trac: Developers and their features and bugs.

I demand a poll before something like this.

I try really hard not to be snarky, but that was just priceless.

I try really hard not to be snarky, but that was just priceless.

Yea, that was supposed to be an inside joke.

By forum I mean a single forum – i.e. the one we’ve just posted in.

30 seconds copy and paste and I’m set “forever.”

And we’re back to making users muck around in PHP files when it could have easily been included on an admin screen. It’s just lazy on the part of the developers.

This post revision malarky definitely needs and off switch, got 30 posts on my new portfolio site and 70 revision entries. Its almost as bad as spam filling up the comments db table.

but what I do mind is that if you’re adding a new feature, add a bloody option for disabling it.

More options are more confusing. Less options are better. Especially when there is no need for the option at all.

I have yet to hear a legitimate reason to disable post revisions. And no, “personal preference” is not a legitimate reason, IMO.

Let’s put it this way… If nobody had told you about post revisions, if you had not scrolled down and saw the revision box at the bottom of the post… how exactly would post revisions impact you, in any way at all?

There is no need for an option for post revisions because there is no real good reason to turn them off.

I believe legitimate reasons were stated.
I’ll list it here again:
1. Slows down posting and can causes user to receive an error in the process. Note that not everyone has the freedom to edit the php.ini file to extend execution time. Don’t give us the bullshit of requiring to buy a better web host.

2. Large size. Not everyone has a large database. Think about it – if someone starts to post about 1 post a day and edits it at least 3 times to fix grammatical errors, 3 extra revision posts will be created. Over a period of 30 days, the user will have ~90+ ‘posts’ in their database which aren’t even needed.

To add to the above statement: Backing up your files. What was once ~500 KB for me has been extended to ~1 MB (minus things from StatPress) for a backup. Eradicating the post revisions punched it down to 600 KB. This is of a duration of one week. Only two to three posts were made. As said before, don’t bullshit us. Some people use free hosts as they can’t use a credit card or paypal or whatever. Depending on the features of the host, they might now want to move.

If you ask me, more options aren’t more confusing. That’s just a sorry excuse of saying that you don’t know how to bloody organize your settings. Is that what WordPress is becoming? A sorry excuse? I hope not. I love using WordPress, but that love is deteriorating.

For example, look at Invision Power Board. They have an abundant amount of features that can be toggled. How do they organize that? They make sub-sections. And those sub-sections aren’t really hard to understand – immediately when I see “Forum Control” I know that it’ll allow me to create/remove/reorder/etc forums.

1. No, it does not slow down posting, as saving the revision takes just as much time as saving a post does.

2. Several points:

a) Those 90 posts probably take up less than 10k of space. Remember, this is TEXT in a DATABASE. Text compresses quite well, you know. Averages around 85-90%.

b) As far as your backup goes, use GZIP compression on the SQL file. A backup.sql.gz file is probably quite small indeed.

c) If a 1 meg database is exceeding your limit, then you seriously need to find a better host. Every host I’ve ever seen adds your space limits together, as in 100MB of space = files + database size. And finding free 100 MB hosting is a short Google away. Paid hosting (as in under $5 a month) gets you up to a gig or more.

d) It’s not about MORE options, it’s about USELESS options. Disabling post revisions has no legitimate use for the normal non-power-user. And power-users should know how to edit a simple text file.

e) Don’t like WordPress? Switch to something else. Seriously, I’m the first person who will tell you to go find another piece of software. This is open source, free software. Free means free, as in you’re free to use it, free to not use it, free to print it out and wear it as a hat for all I care. I’m willing to help you if you want to use it, but I’ll be damned if I’ll change my opinion just because somebody who didn’t pay me one thin dime says something to the effect of they might want to use something else. By all means, don’t use WordPress… that is perfectly acceptable to me, so just don’t even try playing that card.

f) I’ve looked at IPB, and it’s one of the most confusing pieces of software I’ve ever seen. The user interface is fairly horrible, IMO. Of course, it’s not unique, most forum softwares I’ve seen suck in this respect.