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Comment by eksith | Hacker News Reader

It would be interesting if it keeps a version history between each dump file. WP often deletes articles that it finds not notable (these are excluded in dumps) and it would be nice to still retain the last version.

In an odd way, we're going back to days where encyclopedias came in CDs. There was Encarta on a single disc, now we can have a lot more for around 80Gb ( http://xowa.sourceforge.net/requirements.html )

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This is an interesting idea. When Wikimedia finalizes an incremental backup solution, it may be possible. They'll release a dump with incremental additions / updates / deletions. You would then have XOWA accept the additions / updates, but ignore all the deletions.

It would place more responsibility on the user to maintain their copy of the dump though.

That's true. The burden then shifts to the user. But in a way, that's also good because then you can choose which snapshot to follow.

It's a bit like maintaining your copy of an OS. You can stick to the "stable" branch or, if you're feeling adventurous, you can switch to "release". If you're really into the bleeding edge, you can go with the "nightly" build.

All-in-all, I really like this.

One concern I have is the possible increased bandwidth load for WP. Maybe you can include a small icon or notification to support it by donations. Couldn't hurt to have one there for yourself as well.

Source control is an interesting analogy. In the same vein, when a user syncs their version with the main branch, there will be hundreds of thousands of changes to review. It'll be pretty harrowing for anyone to figure out what to keep / reject. Just something to consider.

Anyway, thanks for the food for thought as well as your suggestion. I added donation links for archive.org and wikipedia tonight.

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