Help:Edit Summary

An Edit Summary is a brief explanation of why an edit was made to a page. They exist so other users can understand what the editor was trying to achieve, and why they did it. This can be very important as it can prevent edit wars and arguements from breaking out.

Edit summaries are most useful when a user performs an edit that other users might not agree with, or might not understand. The edit summary is that editor's chance to explain why they did what they did, so other users don't jump to conclusions and undo the edit.

An example of this would be where an editor removes text from an article. Other users might wrongly think of this as vandalism or a personal attack on the editor who first added that content. However, the edit summary of: (This is already mentioned on Page X) or (This was proved to be false at Page X) would let other users see why it was removed.

It is best practice to leave an edit summary for all edits, but this is not a rule or policy. However, edit summaries must be made for controversial edits, or where other users disagree.

When making highly controversial edits, or where it's known other users disagree, it is best to discuss the changes on the talk page first.

Adding an Edit Summary

When editing a page, there is a small box for the 'edit summary' above the Publish/Preview buttons.

Try to keep your comment short and precise, whilst explaining the main point of your edit. You don't have to list every single thing that you change.

This box accepts basic wiki formatting and links, but not images or templates.

For example, the following edit summaries would be suitable:

Fix spelling
Rewrote article
Removed spam
This was already removed (see history)
Removed false sentence - see [[Talk:PageName]]

Shorthand comments using standard notations are acceptable. Usually this would consist of either 'fix' or '+' and then what was changed. Some examples of these:

Sp (fixed spelling)
+cat ( adding categories)
+links (added links)

Where Edit Summaries Appear

The edit summary appears in brackets as italics in the following places:

• Recent Edits – list of all recent edits to Grand Theft Wiki
• Page history – list of previous revisions and contributors to the page you have edited
• User contributions – list of all edits a user has made
• Watchlist – list of recent changes to your selected watched pages (logged-in users only)
• Diff page – shows the difference between two edits (from the history or recent changes)

See Also

• Help - The navigation to all other pages documenting help.