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Once a post has been edited once, there is a direct link to the revision history of the post that is visible to everyone as in this example:

Edit link sample

However, when a post has not been edited, this link is not directly accessible. The revision history still exists: one has to manually change

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/123456789/...

to

http://mathoverflow.net/posts/123456789/revisions

to access it.

Admittedly, there is little point in doing this when the post hasn't been edited. However, for the purpose of transparency, it would be useful to have access to the post history even if there is nothing to see. In fact, for the purpose of academic citations, which is of great interest to MathOverflow, it would be best to have access to direct links to specific versions of a post.

Moreover, non-edit actions such as open/close and delete/undelete history cannot be seen without doing a manual url change. This is in opposition to the moderation transparency that MathOverflow seeks to have.

Remark (added on Oct 4, 2015): This feature request is still pending.

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  • 1
    $\begingroup$ There are GM scripts for that. $\endgroup$
    – Asaf Karagila Mod
    Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 10:44
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Kaveh mentions such a script on a vaguely related post That being said I think that mainly to have this change, which I fully support, would be relevant for thos that do not know it is possible at all so that they know (rather than as a convenience for those that do know) $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 13:34
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    $\begingroup$ Related to this perhaps one could also think about displaying the info that the center link leads to revision history (rather than just having it as a tooltip). Like 'see all revisions (last changed [timestamp])' instead of 'edited [timestanmp]' $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 13:38
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    $\begingroup$ By the way, while we're at it, we might as well ask for the timeline link to be made accessible. $\endgroup$
    – Asaf Karagila Mod
    Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 15:20
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    $\begingroup$ @AsafKaragila The timeline is an unsupported feature, and it looks rather confusing to anyone not familiar with the details of this feature. I doubt it will be available publicly anytime soon. Though I'd really like a better timeline feature accessible to non-mods, the mod-only timeline is already pretty good (though it has a different purpose than the timeline you mentioned). $\endgroup$
    – user35354
    Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 21:29
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    $\begingroup$ I'm going to bring this up on our feature call this week. So what you're basically saying is whenever there's no edits, just have a link that says 'history' instead? $\endgroup$
    – Tim Post Staff
    Commented Feb 2, 2014 at 13:25
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    $\begingroup$ Also, note, as a moderator you can get a very detailed history by clicking on mod -> timeline on any post (I do realize that this is about the public one, I just wanted to make sure you knew it was there as it's quite new) $\endgroup$
    – Tim Post Staff
    Commented Feb 2, 2014 at 13:26
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    $\begingroup$ @TimPost: Thanks! Yes, a history/revisions link that is always accessible even if a post hasn't been edited. We would be happy to discuss implementation details. $\endgroup$
    – François G. Dorais Mod
    Commented Feb 2, 2014 at 13:31
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    $\begingroup$ Related posts on Meta Stack Exchange: Show link to revision history when there are revisions but no edits and Add a link to /revisions from the timeline. $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Commented Mar 11, 2023 at 8:16
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    $\begingroup$ Regarding "non-edit actions such as open/close and delete/undelete history", these can now be seen by navigating to the timeline of the post, by clicking on the clock icon below the vote buttons. $\endgroup$
    – The Amplitwist
    Commented Mar 12, 2023 at 4:00

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