updated

From IndieWeb

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An updated is a post that has been edited by the author. It should have dt-updated with the datetime of the update for machines. For people it may have either text and optionally some other visual indicator to show which parts of the post were changed.

HTML has tags including <ins> and <del> for assisting in helping to mark up changes. Many CMS platforms include some basic CSS mark up for making these changes visually obvious. This paragraph is an example of how they display in MediaWiki with a strikethrough for <del> and an underline for <ins>.

Why

There are numerous reasons you may want to update a post, and indicate to others that you want any copies updated, hoping they will update any caches of it, from displays of your responses to reply-contexts in reply to your original posts.

Use Case

A user updates a post and wants any copies of that post (i.e. if it was a reply post) on other sites to also be updated.

Handling

How to handle updated posts, i.e. implementation details:

  • When a post is updated by the user, implementations should:
    • send a webmention to all URLs that were either in the previous version of the post or the new version
    • update any POSSE copies of that post. See POSSE Update for details.
  • When the permalink of a post that has been updated is requested, implementations should return:
    1. an HTML h-entry with a dt-updated with the date the post was updated.

IndieWeb Examples

Not sure who explicitly supports proper "updated" posts with dt-updated and automatic sending of webmentions to all URLs whether in the previous or new version of a post.

If you think you support updated posts properly, try http://webmention.rocks/ Update tests, if you pass them all, add yourself here with citations of your updated post(s).

bear

bear has implemented updated posts support on his site bear.im since 2016-04-15.

Example URL of an updated post:

Eddie Hinkle

Eddie Hinkle has implemented updated posts support on his site since 2018-11-03.

gRegor Morrill

gRegor Morrill has implemented updated posts support on his site since 2014-07-11.

Chris Aldrich

Chris Aldrich has used the dt-updated microformat on his updated posts since around 2015. Except for small spelling or grammar errors, he marks up larger changes in HTML with the <ins> tag which includes some CSS to highlight all or portions of the changed text as necessary for readers.


Media Examples

Major media sites update their articles from time to time, e.g.

New York Times

The New York Times updated this article published 2017-03-24 within minutes of publication, with a revised article name and content edits:

Silo Examples

Facebook

Facebook supports editing posts and shows that a post has been "edited". (See versioning#Facebook for details).

Flickr

Flickr supports replacing the photo of a photo post, without changing its permalink, comments etc.

Brainstorming

Update POSSE copies

When you update a post, you should update its POSSE copies too if you can.

Notifying Responses

Issues

Threaded Comments Problems

Similar to deleted posts, but perhaps less disruptive, and updated post or comment may impact the relevance / meaning of subsequent replies.

See Also