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When editing a page, logged-in users have the option of marking a change to a page as a minor edit. A minor edit to a WWWiki page is generally one that makes only trivial changes such as typo corrections, formatting and presentational changes, and rearranging of text (without changing any of the text's content). When to mark a change as a minor edit is often a matter of personal preference and judgment.
By contrast, a major edit is one that basically makes the article worth reviewing for someone who wants to watch the article closely — therefore, any change that affects the meaning of an article is not minor, even if it is only a single word.
Minor edits are significant because logged-in users have the option of ignoring minor edits when they view the recent changes list, to try to weed out some of the less-important changes. No one wants to be fooled into ignoring a significant change to an article because it was marked "minor". Therefore, remember to consider the opinions of other editors when choosing this option.
Users who are not logged in to the WWWiki are not permitted to mark changes as minor because of the potential for misuse of the feature during vandalism. The ability to mark changes as minor is considered an incentive to register an account with the WWWiki.
[edit] Specific cases
- Any change to the source wiki text, even if it does not affect the presentation of the page in HTML (if it involves adding a space or a line break, for example) will still be treated as a change according to the database.
- Marking a major change as a minor one is considered poor etiquette, especially if the change involves the deletion of some text.
- Reversions of pages are not likely to be considered minor edits under most circumstances. When the status of a page is disputed, and particularly if an edit war is brewing, then it's better not to mark any edit as minor.
- A user's watchlist will only list the most recent change made to a page, even if that edit was minor. Therefore, a minor change will supersede a major one in the watchlist. This is because a user who keeps a watchlist is generally interested in all changes made to a page. If you are uncertain about the changes made to a page, check the page history to double-check.
- If you accidentally mark an edit as minor when it was in fact a major edit, you should make a second, "dummy" edit (where you don't actually change anything), but note that "the previous edit was major" in the edit summary.
[edit] Exceptions
An administrator can semi-automatically revert the edits of the last editor of a page; all such "rollback" reversions are marked as minor by the wiki software. This is because the cumulative effect of the rollback is only a minor change. The most frequent use of the rollback feature is in cases of vandalism, where the act of reverting any vandalism should be considered minor (and can be ignored in the recent changes list).
[edit] See also
A check to the minor edit box is intended to signify that only superficial differences exist between the current and previous version: typo fixes, formatting, or otherwise rearranging text without changing content. A minor edit is a version that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute.
By contrast, a major edit is a version that should be reviewed by other editors to ensure that everyone agrees on the change. Therefore, any change that affects the meaning of an article is not minor, even if the edit is a single word.
The distinction between major and minor edits is significant because editors may choose to ignore minor edits when reviewing recent changes; logged-in users might even set their preferences to not display them. If you think there is any chance that another editor might dispute your change, please do not mark it as minor.
An edit marked as minor is signified with a bolded "m" character (m) in the page history.
When should I mark an edit as minor?
- Spelling corrections
- Simple formatting (capitalisation, et cetera)
- Formatting that doesn't change the meaning of the page (e.g. bolding text, splitting one paragraph into two)
- Obvious factual errors (changing 1873 to 1973, where the event in question clearly took place in 1973)
- Fixing layout errors
- Adding and correcting wiki links or categories
- Removing vandalism and graffiti
Things to remember
- Any change to the source text (Wikitext), even if it does not affect the presentation of the page in HTML (if it involves adding a space or a line break, for example) will still be treated as a change according to the database.
- Marking a major change as a minor one is considered poor etiquette, especially if the change involves the deletion of some text.
- Reverting a page is not likely to be considered minor under most circumstances. When the status of a page is disputed, and particularly if an edit war is brewing, then it is better not to mark any edit as minor. Reverting blatant vandalism is an exception to this rule.
Who can mark an edit as minor?
Users who are not logged into Wikia are not permitted to mark changes as minor because of the potential for vandalism. The ability to mark changes as minor is another reason to register.
An administrator, or a user with rollback rights (see Help:User access levels) can semi-automatically revert the edits of the last editor of a page; all such "rollback" reversions are marked as minor by the wiki software. This is because the cumulative effect of the edits and the rollback is nothing.
The intended use of the rollback feature is for cases of vandalism, where the act of reverting any vandalism should be considered minor (and can be ignored in the recent changes list). This has the undesirable effect that if preferences have been set to hide minor edits, and an undesirable edit has not been marked minor, one sees that, but not a possible semi-automatic reversion, in Recent Changes and Enhanced Recent Changes.
See also
