Most users realise the problem you describe only after the fact. It's good you are reminding them.

Unfortunatly there is no way to create a copy with the revision history intact.

This can be a problem for Google Apps with Google Docs users. When someone leaves the organisation and the Apps account for that person must be closed, often the files pertaining to the organisation must be moved to another account. This can only be done by the method you described, there currently is no way to transfer ownership of a file. And so for these documents revisions that maybe should have stayed intact get lost...

I have the same problem with the recently released version of Google Sites.

If you make a mistake, or you think all of the sudden that some content shouldn't be on a page, than you can remove it, but it'll stay always in the version history.

That's a very powerfull features. But you don't want this to be on your public 'site'. I hope Google will all you to choose if you want the versions to be seen or not...

Wow. I didn't even think of THAT.

Google Docs will add a more limited collaborator role that won't be able to access the revision history, publish the document, export it etc.

Ionut, what or who is your source on that?

Ionut, are there simular plans for Google Sites?

Philipp:
The source code (LIMITED_EDITING).

"Google Docs will add a more limited collaborator role that won't be able to access the revision history, publish the document, export it etc."

Let's hope so.

And Google should make explicit the info contained in this post on its Google Docs help pages.

In fact Google really needs to re-vamp their help pages to cover the myriad topics one can only find out about by reading a blog like this, or the Google Group.

I'd love for Google Docs to succeed, but they need to be more forthcoming about all the tip, tricks, and current limitations.

Know what I mean?

<<In fact Google really needs to re-vamp their help pages to cover the myriad topics one can only find out about by reading a blog like this, or the Google Group.>>

They actually did that for Gmail, Google Calendar, but not yet for Google Docs.

"Google Docs will add a more limited collaborator role that won't be able to access the revision history, publish the document, export it etc."

I wonder how they will keep such a collaborator from copying the document and pasting it into a document of the collaborator. In fact such a limited collaborator would suggest false security.

Just like the suggestion that published Google Docs spreadsheets are safe against copying the underlying formulas. Which is *not* the case; intoo many cases you can download the Excel version of a spreadsheet once you now the URL used for publishing.

Google Docs has a rather frivolous idea obout security anyway as the Advanced option/permissions for sharing, i.e. 'Collaborators may invite others' and 'Invitations may be used by anyone' are on by default; novice users – even corporate ones – hardly grasp the implications of that.

Choosing ease-of-use over security is IMHO not the best favour they do their users