Author: wikipedia.org
Description:
MediaWiki is currently storing the approximate time that an article is added to
a category, but isn't using it or displaying it. In certain circumstances,
editors could make good use of this data.
While it's generally useful, there are a number of places where chronological
sorting is particularly useful. These include: maintenance categories that
accumulate long-standing backlogs ([[Category:Articles to be merged]]),
[[WP:PROD]] (as well as most deletion procsses... see for instance the separate
daily categories in [[Category:Images with unknown source]] or [[Category:Images
with unknown copyright status]]).
The schema documentation notes for cl_timestamp: "This isn't really used at
present. Provided for an optional sorting method by approximate addition time."
"Approximate" is 0-2 seconds from when it was added (based on experience
comparing it to rev_timestamp). cl_timestamp was used as a central part of the
[[WP:PROD]] process while the toolserver was replicating enwiki, and
cl_timestamp appeared to be reliable and bug-free.
Version: unspecified
Severity: enhancement