Wikimedia Bugzilla is closed!

Hello, Everybody:

1) PERCEIVED PROBLEM:

Currently, when two or more people edit different sections
of the same page and "at the same time", on save, they are presented with 
counterintuitive "compare whole page" message.

2) PROPOSED SOLUTION:

A) In situations when people in fact edit DIFFERENT sections
do transparent (and silent) merge on save.

B) In situations when people edited SAME ONE section in parallel,
on save, present them with "compare & merge 2 versions of same section" option.

C) If something more complex happens,
present them with "compare & merge 2 versions of whole page".

3) PROBABLE ALGORITHM:

A) When section-being-edited is sent to client for edit,
parse parent page for distinctions of all sections
and create MD5 hashes for all sections content;
Store this original-MD5-hash-table in session variables.

B) When client saves section-being-edited:
- reload parent page from DB;
- parse all sections, create current-MD5-hash-table;
- find in "current" table matching "original" MD5 content signature for
section-being-edited;
- if section-being-edited match found: then replace found section with
section-being-edited new content - do "silent merge";
- if section-being-edited match not found, and there is a per-section page-deep
sections matching pattern like this: 
    {beginning sections match} {one section mismatch in the middle} {finishing
sections match}: 
    then give user with an option "compare & merge 2 versions of same section" -
do "expected merge";
- if section-being-edited match not found, and special match pattern above is
not present: 
    then give an option "compare & merge 2 versions of whole document" - do
"worst case merge";