AuthorPagesExample

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An example of AuthorPages, presuming a 20-day expiration policy. Sample scenario of a very busy wiki page:

July 1, 2001: Fred creates a new page
July 2: George edits the page.
July 3: Ethel adds some more good material.
July 4: The three authors above go on vacation together.
July 5: While others are still on vacation, a vandal makes some malicious edits.
July 6: Bob notices something is strange, and writes "did you mean that?" on the page.
July 7: Carol writes more comments on the page, not noticing the controversy.
July 8: George returns, and notices the vandalism. He restores Ethel's latest version (from of July 3).
July 9: Mike adds some comments.
July 10: Carol notices her comments are gone (since George didn't notice her version--bad George!). She goes back to her old copy (July 7), and copies her old comments into the current version (not just replacing the current version).
July 11-20: Nobody edits the page after Carol's addition. During this time there are 7 versions of the page: Carol's current version, and kept versions from Fred, George, Ethel, the vandal, Bob, and Mike.
July 21: Fred's kept version expires (the original edit of the page).
July 23: Ethel's old version (July 3) expires.
July 25: The vandal's version expires.
July 26: Bob's version expires.
July 28: George's version expires (of July 8, recovering the vandalism).
July 29: Mike's version expires.
July 30: Only Carol's current version remains. Everyone is happy (except maybe the vandal).
July 31-November 2: Nothing happens on the page.
November 3, 2001: Tom edits the page, and now Carol's version is the (only) saved one.
November 23, 2001: Carol's version expires.

Simpler (and faster) scenario:

3:57 pm: Mike saves several long comments on a page.
4:15 pm: Alice visits the page, and likes Mike's contribution. (She doesn't write anything.)
4:50 pm: David also likes Mike's contribution.
5:16 pm: Fred takes offence at Mike's comments, and removes most of Mike's edit.
6:30 pm: Bob writes some unrelated material on the same page.
8:32 pm: Alice revisits the page, and is shocked to see that Mike's comments are gone. She views Mike's old version, and saves it to her local system (outside the wiki). (Alice is new and doesn't want to protest.)
9:17 pm: David revisits, and decides Mike's comments should be largely restored. David copies Mike's good content to the current version (maybe in a separate discussion section).
Three days later: Mike revisits, and wonders what the fuss was about. He can review the saved versions from Fred, Bob, and himself, along with the current version by David.
Two months later: All the old Mike/Fred/David disagreements are gone from the wiki. (Although Alice may still have her private copy.)

AuthorPagesExample

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