http://qs1969.pair.com?node_id=195056

There have been a couple flare ups today concerning nodes being silently and significantly updated after the fact. I thought this might be a good time to introduce a new "feature" of my static mirror of perlmonks that I discovered a few weeks ago.

I designed the mirror to fetch new nodes every 15 minutes, then refetch them 3 hours later to account for any updates. Interestingly I happen to be saving both copies of the node. Until now only the second copy was accessible.

I have decided to make the original node publically available in hopes that it can douse some of the brushfires that crop up from time to time. I'm unsure whether this will have the desired effect, and if it happens to cause more bickering I'll simply take it down. Also, it wasn't a designed feature, so I make no guarantee that it will always work.

And now for an example.... Here is a recent node of mine. It looks rather similar to the cached version. However, If you modify the URL a bit, you can now view my slightly different original submission.

pm node http://perlmonks.org/?node_id=192299
cache http://perlmonks.thepen.com/192299.html
original http://perlmonks.thepen.com/192299_orig.html

The pmdevils discussed this and most seemed to approve, but I'm interested in what others think as well. Is this a valuable tool for the community, or is it an affront to your modification rights? If its both, which way should the scales be tipped?

-Blake