updated

🆙

This article is a stub. You can help the IndieWeb wiki by expanding it.

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

Updates to a post can improve it's content but can cause confusion, so clearly indicating updates helps address differences for both human and machine consumers.

Inform readers that the post has changed
- Explains why it is different than the post they may previously have seen
- Helps give context to comments that may no longer be relevant
Indicate that any copies of the content should be updated
- Your responses shown as comments on other posts
- Where your content was used as reply-contexts

How to

When a post is updated by the user, implementations should:

Show an indication that the post has changed, such as "Updated YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM" for readers.
Include dt-updated in an h-entry with the date the post was updated.
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.

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:

https://bear.im/bearlog/2016/106/testing-webmention-rocks-updates.html

Eddie Hinkle

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

Example: IndieWeb Project Page

gRegor Morrill

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

Example: https://gregorlove.com/2014/07/just-a-heads-up-we/

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.

Code example: <ins class="customstyleclass dt-updated" datetime="2018-07-10T11:47:12-07:00">This could be the updated content</ins>
Note: The WordPress Classic editor has an interface button that will automatically add something like <ins datetime="2018-07-10T11:47:12-07:00">, but with the appropriate date and time the button was pressed, and then the closing tag to make this process easier.
Example: https://boffosocko.com/2012/06/17/big-history/#Added%20material has two insertion tags to indicate that the material below them was added on subsequent updates.
WordPress provides a custom query string (/?orderby=modified) that can be added onto URLs to provide a view of recent updates
- Example: https://boffosocko.com/?orderby=modified
- Example of a feed for updates https://boffosocko.com/feed/?orderby=modified

Anthony Ciccarello

Anthony Ciccarello has used the dt-updated microformat on his posts and includes a short description of the changes at the bottom of the post.

Example: Nani's Baked Rice Casserole

benji

benji has setup dt-updated on some of his posts. Based on a previous discussion at a HWC, he also marks movie watches using dt-published for when the movie was watched and dt-updated when the post actually was created.

Sample watch post

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

send a webmention to all responses to the post (so the responses can update their reply-context, per reply-context CRUD, possibly notify the responder so they can update or delete their response).
- Note: this is subject to the issues documented re: reply-context CRUD

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.

Why