# Versions and approval

> Why nothing in an article is ever overwritten, how outlines and drafts accumulate as versions, and what approving one of them starts.

Audience keeps everything. Every outline and every draft is a version, whether Scout wrote it or a person edited it, and the record of who decided what stays with the article for as long as it exists. That is what lets you send a draft back without losing the one you had, and read later why an article says what it says.

## What a version is

Each time Scout writes an outline or a draft, that is a version. Each time you save an edit to one, that is a new version too, under your name. A version carries:

- Who wrote it: **Written by Scout**, or the editor's name.
- A summary of what changed from the version before.
- Its number, so a review or a comment can refer to the exact text it was made against.

The **Drafts** and **Outlines** rails on the article's record list every version. The review screen's **Versions** list does the same for the draft you are reading.

## Editing is not overwriting

When you change a heading in the outline editor or a paragraph in the draft editor and save, Scout's version is not replaced. Yours is added after it. The review that ran against Scout's version still refers to Scout's version; a new review runs against yours. This is also why applying a flag creates a version rather than patching in place.

## The approved version

One version of a draft is marked **Approved**. It is the one you were reading when you pressed **Approve & move forward**, and it is the one that leaves Audience as a download. If a draft changes after approval, the change is a new version and the approved one stays as it was. The download always gives you the approved text.

## Decisions

The **Decisions** list on the article's record is the audit trail: each approval and each send-back, who made it, and when. Together with the feedback thread, which holds the notes that went back and Scout's summary of what it did with them, it answers the question the page is built to answer: what happened to this, and who decided it.

## What approval starts

Approving an outline starts the draft. Approving a draft marks the version, moves the article to **Approved**, and puts **Download Markdown** on the review screen. In this release, what happens next is yours to do: see [publishing and Markdown](/content/publishing-and-markdown). Once the page is live, Reports begin measuring it about a week later, when search has had time to notice.

## Who can approve

Owners, admins and editors. A viewer can read every version and comment on it, but cannot approve. See [who does what](/start-here/who-does-what).