docs for dataverse.feature.enable-version-note

[DonRichards]

Overview of the Suggestion
The documentation should clearly explain how to enable version notes, including where the dataverse.feature.enable-version-note flag is set, what its default behavior is, and how administrators can toggle it. The current docs mention the flag but don’t describe how to actually enable it in a real deployment.

What kind of user is the suggestion intended for?
Add documentation for this:

• IQSS/8431 Optional Version Note #11068

What inspired this idea?
Trying to set this up and it's not clear and the information is fragmented.

What existing behavior do you want changed?
Improve the documentation so it states that version notes are off by default and must be enabled manually. Include concrete instructions for enabling the feature flag, such as how to set the JVM option in a Payara domain.xml file or via the settings mechanism. Right now the docs mention the flag but don’t tell the admin where or how to set it.

Any brand new behavior do you want to add to Dataverse?
No new product behavior. Just clearer, centralized documentation on enabling version notes.

Any open or closed issues related to this suggestion?
The feature was introduced in v6.6 (PR 11068), but there is no dedicated documentation issue tracking the missing setup instructions.

Are you thinking about creating a pull request for this issue?
Help is always welcome, is this idea something you or your organization plan to implement?
Yes, I can contribute a documentation PR once there is agreement on where the instructions should live in the guides.

[pdurbin]

@DonRichards a pull request is welcome!

I don't if this helps or only muddies the waters but we're working on adding a list of features to the guides:

• feature list is out-of-date, move to guides #11998

That said, perhaps the setup instructions could be linked from a future version of this paragraph: https://guides.dataverse.org/en/6.8/user/dataset-management.html#id15

Also, since you're talking about a feature flag, I'd like to point out that this issue is related:

• Can't link to individual feature flags in the guides #12005

[DonRichards]

The enum and docs use the flag token "enable-version-note", but the javadoc/apiNote for the enum mentions "dataverse.feature.enable-version-creation-note".

Those two names do not match.

• enable-version-creation-note
• enable-version-note

The javadoc/apiNote that mentions "dataverse.feature.enable-version-creation-note" is just a comment and does not introduce a second, functioning feature flag.

There is a single occurrence in src/main/java/edu/harvard/iq/dataverse/settings/FeatureFlags.java inside the javadoc/@APinote for the VERSION_NOTE enum entry. The javadoc line reads dataverse.feature.enable-version-creation-note and this looks like a typo and possibly should have been dataverse.feature.enable-version-note since the there's no place in the repo that references enable-version-creation-note outside of that 1 comment.

I'd also suggest adding a one-line enablement examples to the installation docs (e.g. -Ddataverse.feature.enable-version-note=true and environmental variable DATAVERSE_FEATURE_ENABLE_VERSION_NOTE=1).