Wikipedia talk:Edit summary

message: I can't see any mention of how to flag an edit as a minor edit (so it gets that 'M' in the recent changes list) - a) can someone tell me how? b) can it be added to this article if relevant? -- S
:I added the answer to Wikipedia:How to edit a page, you have to log in. - Patrick 15:08 26 May 2003 (UTC)
::What if we cannot use the checkbox, or if there is none, as in the Korean WP? There must be another way to do this. 82.83.105.206 00:30, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flagging edit as Minor edit 

message: I noticed this change, i.e. including the section title automatically, when editing tonight; strangely I haven't seen any discussion of this feature whatsoever before it was implemented -- could someone point me to the relevant page which I missed? I was on the brink of suggesting such a feature myself, so first of all I want to say I'm very happy with the concept.
Why do I mention this? Well, I might be interested in participating in such a discussion, which I assume has taken place somewhere (in the wikimedia domain, perhaps? I must admit to not having checked very much of that area yet). For instance, I would suggest using something else (almost anything, in fact) than parentheses for delimiting the section title in the summary field, for clarity/esthaetic reasons.
How about single or double hyphens or something, like --section title-- , which would look like (--section title-- user's own text) in history lists. I feel that such delimiters would be better than the current ((section title) user's own text). Or perhaps something other than hyphens would be even better.  No matter, I would like to know where to discuss it, anyway --Wernher 00:44, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: See Wikipedia:Village_pump#Auto-Summary_and_Preview.--Patrick 01:11, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep, did, tnx! Now the format is great, by my preferences -- which is what counts.  --Wernher 22:58, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Section title as automatic edit summary

message: Hi,
I just made a change to a page, and I forgot to put a summary in the box.  That's bad, because it could be a controversial change, and I don't want it to look like I was trying to sneak it in.  What do you do if you need to put a summary in afterwards? Creidieki 03:42, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: See .--Patrick 11:43, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: In those situations I try to do some copyedit chore and say btw... Xiner (talk, email) 21:42, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What to do after erroneous summary 

message: If, like me, you forget to write edit summaries, then the following code, added to your monobook.js, should help:
function addForceSummary(){
    if(!/&action=edit/.test(window.location.href)) return;
    if(/§ion=new/.test(window.location.href)) return;
    if(!document.forms.editform) return;
    document.forms.editform.wpSave.onclick = forceSummary;
}
function forceSummary(){
    if(!document.forms.editform.wpSummary.value.replace(/(^ +)|( +$)/g,).replace(/^\/\*.*\*\/ */,)){
      var r = prompt('Are you sure you want to submit without adding a summary?\nTo add a summary, type it in the box below:',document.forms.editform.wpSummary.value);
      if(r == null) return false;
      document.forms.editform.wpSummary.value = r;
    }
    return true;
}
if (window.addEventListener) window.addEventListener("load",addForceSummary,false);
else if (window.attachEvent) window.attachEvent("onload",addForceSummary);
Note that this pops up a dialog if the edit summary is blank or only contains the automatic text (/* something */). – ABCD 14:16, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Forcing summaries 

message: Someone who knows that the outcome of "[external URL]" in the edit summary doesn't return "[n]" should explain this and other differences for we newbies. Thanks,  hydnjo talk 23:13, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In other words, since we can't Show preview the "Edit summary" it is sometimes an unintended surprise! ;-)  hydnjo talk 23:27, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Edit summary & wikifying  expectations

message: This page advises that, "edit summaries are not the place to carry on debates or negotiation over the content. Doing this will actually exacerbate the situation, because it naturally encourages the other party to respond in the same manner - in other words, by making an edit and using the edit summary - and what might have been productive dialogue instead becomes an edit war."
This is good advice if the discussion is heated or hostile, but there are times when it's just easier to have friendly and cooperative negotiation over content using edit summaries, simply because it's a much more lightweight process than going to the discussion page. This is not a bad practice, presuming that it's good always to describe the change. — Matt Crypto 00:38, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You have a good point. I negotiate with an edit summary sometimes too. However, this is a finer level detail for people experienced enough to not get into edit wars (too often). That is, in general, not using the edit summary for discussion is a good rule of thumb. Oleg Alexandrov 02:13, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Edit negotiations

message: I just reverted Uncle G's deletion of a lot of text. He says it duplicates text from Help:Edit summary. Well, I say that is not a good reason. 
I write on people's pages all the time telling them to put an edit summary, link which redirects here. Uncle G removed the most important text and the picture from this page, which is not right. Yes, that text is available at Help:Edit summary, but that is a huge dry document, and when you confront people with the fact that they fail to put an edit summary, you don't want them to go to that Help:Edit summary page. They need to get a concise idea what an edit summary is (the picture is very suggestive), why it is important, and that it is required.
Besides, Uncle G, that was a big change. You should have discussed here first. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:47, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Then you need to remove this page altogether. What you left is just a rather useless stub. I would suggest it be redirected to Help:Edit summary. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:12, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  My reversion 

message: There being a need for concise one line summaries of guidelines, I offer this version. Please feel free to change it as necessary, and update the template Template:Guideline one liner to suit your taste. If the summary is inaccurate, please improve it rather than removing the template. Comments and opinions welcome! Stevage 14:18, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: One line summary

message: Is there any way to use templates such as  in edit summaries? They could be really helpful. AucamanTalk 06:24, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Templates in edit summaries?

message: At least, this is User:Radiant!'s suggestion.
At first glance, the merge is a nobrainer, the pages basically talk about the same thing.
However, Wikipedia:Edit summary is much better written, attuned to local Wikipedia concerns, while Help:Edit summary is the Meta-wide page (copied here) and is hard to read. I would disagree with any merger unless one rewrites Help:Edit summary to explain in simple language why people should use edit summaries instead of blandly explaining what an edit summary is. 
That is, in my view, and to repeat myself, these two pages share different purposes. Wikipedia:Edit summary  clearly describes the guideline for why edit summaries are necessary, while Help:Edit summary is a bland description for what an edit summary is, and the policy that one should use an edit summary is buried within a lot of other things. I thus vote to keep the pages separate. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:23, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I suggest that there is a need for two separate pages. Help should explain what summaries are and how they work.WP:EDIT should be strictly about *why* we should use them. I've reworded it a little bit, and don't see much that overlaps with the help text. Ideally we do something with the very ugly preamble, but I'm not sure what, exactly. Is anyone unlikely to know what an edit summary is? Stevage 00:41, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, they should be merged.  Duplication in Wikis is evil! It is firstly of course extremely confusing and unhelpful to have two pages named the same thing - straight away this implies that they should be merged.  IF, and I say IF, there is a need for a specific Wikipedia page to explain specific Wikipedia peculiarities (which I sincerely doubt), then it should be given a title to reflect the uniqueness, e.g. Wikipedia:Why use an edit summary or Wikipedia:Guide to using an edit summary with a link refering to the main Help:Edit summary page.  I don't agree with Oleg Alexandrov that the Wikipedia version is better written - I think it is worse: it misses a lot of useful information and does not even reference the main source. Perhaps the main article should contain a better short summary of WHY to use an Edit summary and the sort of information it should contain. Brusselsshrek 11:49, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It does reference the main source, Help:Edit summary, you just need to read more carefully the very first paragraph. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:45, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merging [[Wikipedia:Edit summary]] with [[Help:Edit summary]]? 

message: The project page specifies:
:Text enclosed between /* and */ should [bold added by me] be left, and your summary added afterwards.
I never do this, and from a glance at the "Recent changes" list, I'm not sure many people do.  I generally remove it completely because I want to use as much space as possible.  Can we simply DELETE this sentence, or change it to read something like:
:Text enclosed between /* and */ may be used as a default, but preferable is to either add something after the /* and */, or to completely replace it with one's own description.
Brusselsshrek 20:09, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Some wording change is necessary. Xiner (talk, email) 21:36, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should be left? 

message: Here are a couple other guidelines/policies which might be useful:
# No personal attacks in edit summaries.  While personal attacks are not acceptable anywhere in Wikipedia, personal attacks in edit summaries is especially obnoxious, as they will be visible in edit histories and other pages.
# Do not include your username or the time/date of your edit--they are automatically added to the article.
# Don't put try to put images, etc. in edit summaries--may not work anyway.
# Dishonest edit summaries (i.e. ones which claim to only correct spelling, but conceal substantial changes to the article) are frowned upon.  (Guideline?  Policy?)
--EngineerScotty 03:07, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A couple of other guidelines/policies 

message: This might clear up the confusion over possible "duplication". "Edit summary" is a meaningless name for a guideline. It should follow the style of "Sign your name on talk pages" or "Three revert rule" and actually explain what the article is in the topic. I'm not married to my suggestion - others welcome. Stevage 21:19, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Disagree. Not worth the trouble, and is also too long. People just should stop picking at this one, it works the way it is. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:45, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How about "Provide a good edit summary". "Edit summary" is just a bad title for a guideline. It says nothing. Also, Oleg, I notice that almost all your edits to this page are reverts. Maybe let someone else have a turn, eh? Stevage 00:11, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Is there anything specific you disagree with me about? :) Saying "your edits are reverts" is not terribly helpful, and I may say it is not constructive either.  Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:40, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I disagree, this is not only a policy but an explanation of what it is and how to use it. The best way to think about it is simmilar to pages for templates, userboxes, and simmilar devices.--Oni Ookami AlfadorTalk|@ 00:33, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Rename to [[Wikipedia:Guidelines for edit summaries]]

message: Recent changes to this Wikipedia:Edit summary page made it rather unusable, with the picture being gone, and the explanation of what an edit summary also. 
I would suggest this page be merged with Help:Edit summary, which is the WikiMedia-wide documentation, but is considered the primary source of information, and which transcludes this page at the bottom, see Help:Edit summary. 
I am aware that this page is a guideline, not a help page, but again, the way it is now it is not helpful, and we may more productively focus on improving instead Help:Edit summary (and its Meta master copy). Comments? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:52, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There were no comments, so I redirected this to Help:Edit summary. Since that's meant to be the main page discussing the feature in question, we could as well improve that article, than this one. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:24, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merging with [[Help:Edit summary]]? 

message: Is there any way to use templates such as  in edit summaries? They could be really helpful. CapnZapp (talk) 09:17, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I second this. Trying to use  when manually writing an edit reversion summary, for example, but no dice. — JivanP (talk) 00:58, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Templates in edit summaries 2?