2 ms·

As the parent comment illustrates, change.gov is already under version control. It's just being maintained by an army of semi-independent volunteers using ad ho

As the parent comment illustrates, change.gov is already under version control. It's just being maintained by an army of semi-independent volunteers using ad hoc tools. If you build a website with a substantial audience, every change of every word is being tracked, by Google and the Wayback Machine if nothing else. That's just the facts of life in the 21st century.

yummyfajitas 18y ago
So far, the wayback machine has nothing on change.gov. My ad-hoc mechanism of tracking changes was the following: I remembered a conversation on the internet, during which the website was modified (1). I then managed to google this conversation, and find quotes on the original language. I managed to track precisely one change, but I'm reasonably web savvy (read: I've written webapps, probably putting me in the top 1% of web users). Do you think the average citizen could manage to do even that? (1) In fact, after it was modified, several Obamatons accused the conservative posters of lying about the contents of the website. This is another hazard of unmarked modifications.
- mechanical_fish 18y ago
  Oh, I understand and agree. I'm not trying to say that the current system of ad hoc "version control" is very good, let alone good enough. I'm just pushing back against this the argument that using a real version control system will create a P.R. problem. If the P.R. problem is going to happen, it's going to happen. The changes are public. People like you are reading them, copying and pasting them, emailing them to each other. I wouldn't be at all surprised if various political professionals are taking snapshots of the site on a weekly basis. There isn't even a security-through-obscurity argument to be made here, because the edits aren't all that obscure!

2 ms·

As the parent comment illustrates, change.gov is already under version control. It's just being maintained by an army of semi-independent volunteers using ad ho

by mechanical_fish 18y ago

yummyfajitas 18y ago
So far, the wayback machine has nothing on change.gov. My ad-hoc mechanism of tracking changes was the following: I remembered a conversation on the internet, during which the website was modified (1). I then managed to google this conversation, and find quotes on the original language. I managed to track precisely one change, but I'm reasonably web savvy (read: I've written webapps, probably putting me in the top 1% of web users). Do you think the average citizen could manage to do even that? (1) In fact, after it was modified, several Obamatons accused the conservative posters of lying about the contents of the website. This is another hazard of unmarked modifications.
- mechanical_fish 18y ago
  Oh, I understand and agree. I'm not trying to say that the current system of ad hoc "version control" is very good, let alone good enough. I'm just pushing back against this the argument that using a real version control system will create a P.R. problem. If the P.R. problem is going to happen, it's going to happen. The changes are public. People like you are reading them, copying and pasting them, emailing them to each other. I wouldn't be at all surprised if various political professionals are taking snapshots of the site on a weekly basis. There isn't even a security-through-obscurity argument to be made here, because the edits aren't all that obscure!