Currently, the advanced search of MediaWiki does not provide our sort articles or pages according to the date. What I want to propose, is to add another parameter to search for the articles, dates. This may include the date it was created, the date it was last edited and the dates when the protection on the page was changed.
Why do I think it is useful? I have been editing Wikimedia projects for two and half years, and often I want to search articles per the dates, and I think this would help other editors as well.
Real life example
- I was searching for news about 'Chelsea FC from 2012' on Wikinews. Instead of looking for all of the search results, it would be easier to look for those articles which were created and/or protected in 2012 (plus or minus three days). This feature could be useful there.
- I was looking for photos of 'March for life' for the rally that took place this year. Adding a check to search for images from January 1, 2017 would show me the images which I wish to search for, by looking for images that were taken at January 1, 2017.
- I was looking for software related stub articles on Wikipedia which were not edited for more than six months so that it can be improved. (If it were to be recently edited, it can only that somebody is working on the article)
Thoughts?