Help talk:Minor edit/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Help:Minor edit. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Failure to mark an edit as "minor"

What is the proper thing to do if I made an edit that is in fact minor but failed to mark it as minor? JY.public 00:38, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Likewise, what is the proper thing to do if an edit was mistakenly marked as minor when it is not minor? Op12 17:39, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Do nothing in the first case, the consequences are trivial. In the second case, the best practice is to undo your edit twice. When making the second undo, mark the edit as non-minor and provide an edit summary.LeadSongDog come howl 23:27, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Minor comment

Does all vandalism have to be marked as minor? Simply south 20:40, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, anybody performing vandalism should mark their edits as minor.--Father Goose 18:59, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Is add/modifying Categories minor?

I know that adding links is generally considered minor, but what about adding a given article to an existing category? Should that be marked as minor? Phoenix Flower 23:07, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I would think that adding a category should not be considered minor, as you're adding "fact" or some new information/interpretation to the subject. Such edits is in fact making a change to the factual content, and should be reviewed.

Any senior editors able to shed some light on this?

ps. I think this (whether or not categories are minor) should be added to the Help:Minor edit page.

Hohockjim (talk) 04:46, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I think categories, like any other edit, can be major or minor. If there's an infobox that says the person is a Democratic politician from Iowa, adding Category:Iowa Democrats should be a minor edit. If it is interpreting information in a new way or adding new information to the article, that would be a major edit. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 21:23, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Should the addition of a new item to a disambiguation page be considered minor? Gcpeart 18:25, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

What to do with minor edits on talk pages?

There's no guidelines to when you should mark talk page additions as minor. Seems self-explanatory enough, but it wouldn't hurt to have it all spelled out. Any thoughts? Kennard2 03:04, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I will add some text. If it is not acceptable, feel free to modify or revert it. Lightmouse 09:47, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

The general guidelines seem to apply here. Minor if the edit changes the meaning, Major if the edit does. Maybe a cross reference would be better than new text. Rolfedh (talk) 20:36, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I would have thought that one can mark comments on talk pages as minor edits, providing that they are literally only minor edits, such as correcting punctuation errors. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 15:52, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Accidental Minoring

I am constantly double-clutching on hitting the 'Save page' button and checking the minor edit box instead, and then hitting 'Save page' before my brain can catch up. Anyone have a work-around for this (other than faster brain and/or slower, move accurate fingers?) --Clay Collier 09:55, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Not a minor edit, yet not a major edit either.

It seems to me that Wikipedia is big enough that it would be useful perhaps add a third type of edit category, something in between Major and Minor, Can't think of a good name though.... Medium edit? Hypereides 14:07, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Special Protection

This page is a part of the master manual, and despite a "Do not Edit" warning at top, it is editable. Shouldnt it be protected to prevent vandalism? — [Unsigned comment added by Sneidich88 (talk • contribs).]

Only if it's frequently vandalized. Even help pages are written by self-selected contributors. And the "master page" line just means this is a copy of a page on a different server.--Father Goose 02:06, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

When to mark an edit as minor

Does requesting a citation (e.g. via "Template|Fact") count as a minor edit? --Shooter tx 14:13, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd say so. If you don't think so, don't mark it as minor, otherwise, do.--Father Goose 17:09, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd have though it better not to mark this as minor. You want editors who have previously contributed to the page (including the one who added the fact) to see your addition on their watchlist. Depending on their preferences, a minor edit may not show. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 09:24, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I would say adding a template which says, "I think this is a problem" is, by definition, not minor. To quote, a minor edit "could never be the subject of a dispute". Addition of such a tag indicates you're disputing something. It may be a perfectly professional, amicable, good-faith, all-around happy dispute, but you're still saying something is wrong. That can't be a minor edit, in my view. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 19:49, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Updated main article to say so. Gerardw (talk) 16:59, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Gerardw's update got reverted. Does anyone have a different opinion? In my opinion, adding or removing a tag is not a minor edit.--SaskatchewanSenator (talk) 18:27, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

That sounds good for any "I think this is a problem" templates, but requestion a citation does not necessarily mean you contend the statement. Still, AJH makes a good argument on why it's pragmatical to not mark those as minor either. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 14:14, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I concur, the majority of the time I want a citation is simply because the statement/text in question requires one, not because I doubt the veracity of the claim. I actually looked this page up because I was unsure if simply asking for a citation is considered a minor edit, it does currently (and clearly) state that "Adding or removing visible tags or other templates in an article" is not a minor edit. While I do not know if explicitly defining a citation request as a major edit is necessary, I know that if it had been listed I would not have needed to search this page. My opinion is that adding "(such as a request for citation)" or something to that effect certainly would not hurt. --Aʀchon • derp —Preceding undated comment added 22:21, 29 July 2011 (UTC).

cosmetic untidiness in in the "master document"

The "Disputed page" and "Limitation on users not logged in" paragraphs in the "Wikipedia-specific help" section caught my eye when reading this page through. Cause arnt they just repetition of statements made further up in the document? They are slightly fleshed out but nothing that couldent be incorporated in the original statements. Mokopila (talk) 22:22, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Contradiction?

Perhaps if the person that added the contradiction template could also explain what's contradicting what? CapnZapp (talk) 10:27, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I clarified it. Cheers. Carlosguitar ^{(ready and willing)} 15:42, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Always minor

There are some editors who always mark their edits as minor. How bad is it? Is it bad enough to give them a block warning? There is no guideline for them now. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 06:40, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree, that's a problem. I was looking for the right template apropos this non-minor edit marked minor.--Elvey (talk) 16:32, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

You can use {{subst:uw-minor}}. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 03:51, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. (The user abusing the minor flag has since been blocked for sock puppetry.) --Elvey (talk) 05:00, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Lol, now we know what that means. They try to hide edits--Neo139 (talk) 18:09, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Lol, I really do not try to hide any of my edits. I do minor edits, especially spelling, and mark almost everything as a Minor Edit. Arrghh! I just did not know. Would someone check my edits to be sure I haven't caused any irreparable damage? Respectfully, Tiyang (talk) 09:25, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I've had a quick look at your contributions, and they are fine. You are 100% correct in marking your typo fixes as minor. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:35, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much, John of Reading. Respectfully, Tiyang (talk) 20:35, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I bring back the question. There is an user which happen to edit several articles I watch and marks everything as minor, I pointed it on his talkpage but he continues to do so. pmt7ar ^(talk) 03:30, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

The user hasn't made any edits since you added a {{uw-minor}} message. Let's wait and see. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:27, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

The "history" link...

... should probably navigate to a page about Wikipedia's section showing revision history rather than a page on "history" as the study of the past.

Bader Bros, Inc Brooklyn New York

What happened to Bader Bros, Inc from Brooklyn, New York? How old is the company? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Conniej (talk • contribs) 21:54, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Los Feliz Spanish translation

I removed the parenthesis in the introduction that says: (those who are happy or the happy ones in the Spanish language), because it is grammatically incorrect. Those who are happy or happy ones is Los Felizes in Spanish. Los Feliz simply means The Felizes as in a plural of those who identify as Feliz (namewise). --zeragito 06:11, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Why is there a bunch of arabic at the end of this page?

I don't understand why it's there. Lot 49a^talk 19:29, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't see that in Firefox 3.0 on my computer. Try bypassing your cache and purging for the page. There are various links to this page in other languages. With the default skin, those links should appear in a box on the left, but if you got an incomplete version of the page, it might be scrambled. If the trouble persists, please take a screenshot of the issue, upload it, and post here with a link to the uploaded file. Alternatively to a screenshot, describe precisely what you are seeing, and what surrounds it. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 23:22, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

I worked out what was going on, someone happened to have vandalized the Wikipedia-only template at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Ph:Minor_edit I've since undone the vandalism.Lot 49a^talk 07:33, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Possible re-write

Hey--I'm new to editing articles on Wikipedia and came across this help page... For obvious reasons, it wasn't much help. If someone could please rewrite it, I think that would be a good thing. Haha I may not be formatting correctly or have used the right template for notifying of the need to a rewrite... Sorry about that. :-) 2xoc (talk) 02:34, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

You added the template on a vandalized revision of the page, so it isn't clear if you meant the vandalized version isn't helpful or the normal version. I reverted the vandalism, so if you think the normal version should be rewritten, please add the template again, preferably with a reason ({{cleanup-rewrite|Reason for rewrite}}) and explain why here. Thank you -- Nx ^talk 10:18, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Is adding a reference a minor edit ?

Is adding a reference a minor edit ? -- Nic Roets (talk) 20:56, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I think not. It's not in the examples, and it could be subject to dispute -- Nx ^talk 22:02, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Agree, will amend to make clear.LeadSongDog come howl 23:37, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Should this sentence be changed?

The last sentence from this Wikipedia page's first paragraph, "An edit marked as minor appears to the right of a lower case, bolded "m" character (m) into history.", seems incorrect to me, but it's been there for a while, according to the page's history. Should it be changed, or am I not seeing the correct way to read it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rom maniac (talk • contribs) 10:40, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Ooh, you're right; well spotted. Feel free to change it as you see fit. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 13:40, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Suggest change to "When not to mark an edit as minor"

I suggest the first three bullet points be changed from

Adding sections to an article
Removing sections from an article
Adding controversial information to an article about a living person

to

Adding content to an article
Removing content from an article

It seems unnecessary to mention sections; adding or removing even part of a sentence in a way that changes meaning should not be marked as minor. This change would render the third bullet point redundant. Thoughts? Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 13:13, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Agree. Good points that I hadn't noticed before. —EncMstr (talk) 13:46, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks EncMstr. Change made. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 02:59, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Abolish adding comments to talk pages as non-minor edit

I believe that the practice of not marking talk page comments as minor should be abolished and instead all talk page comments should be marked as minor. mcjakeqcool Mcjakeqcool (talk) 14:59, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Other than your continued insistence on marking all talk page comments as minor (despite requests and warnings) do you have ANY good reason for this? --Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:46, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

The fact that edits to talk pages ARE NOT wikipeida contributions and edits to articles ARE. mcjakeqcool Mcjakeqcool (talk) 14:28, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Talk pages are a vital part of the process of creating articles. Marking talkpage edits as minor risks otherwise interested people not seeing them - as this help article explains, many people configure their watchlists not to show minor edits. You are therefore hiding your comments from other editors. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:56, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Elen. There is nothing remotely minor about making comments on talk pages. They're vital to article work and don't always include talk. They include things like placing templates, making requests for protected article edits, making notes on GA and FA reviews, and several other things. None of these are minor edits.--Crossmr (talk) 23:20, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I also agree with Elen and Crossmr. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:22, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Tagging - minor edit?

I've removed the blanket recommendation "Adding tags or other templates to an article" from the "When not to mark an edit as a minor edit" section since I don't at all agree with it, and don't see that it reflects current practice. In my opinion, in particular with new page patrolling, addition of maintainance tags like {{wikify}} or {{orphaned}} or even {{BLP unreferenced}} to a brand new article by a, presumably, new editor should certainly be a minor edit. I do agree with the above that the addition of inline {{fact}} tags or most other maintainance tags (if those are appropriate in the first place) to established articles with many revisions or authors should typically not be marked minor.
In the end, I think this depends too much on context to just put it into this help page one way or the other. Amalthea 15:21, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I reverted that edit, and I strongly disagree with it. Although you are at least largely correct that a lot of current practice does not follow that guideline, the fact is that a huge number of users misuse the minor edit marker in all kinds of ways, but that does not mean that they are correct to do so. I've seen too many POV content disputes where other editors edit war over POV tags and mark their reciprocal reversions as minor, for me to agree with letting all tag additions and deletions be marked as minor. On the other hand, I partly agree with you that some tag edits can be properly minor. Self-removal of an {{inuse}} tag seems like an obvious case; I'm not sure what I think about new page patrol. If you or anyone would like to list specific tag edits that could qualify as minor, I think that could work—but the default needs to be that most tag edits are not minor. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:14, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

You strongly disagree that it depends on context whether such an edit should be marked as major or minor? That was all I said, or changed. I did not add it to the list of specific examples when to mark an edit as minor.
This page is a help page. We can try to establish best practices, and be specific if possible, but don't think we want to enumerate specific tags here. A basic distinction of what is a minor and a major edit can be enough, in that respect, since I don't see how we can classify them as always major or always minor. An example, assume that a new page patroller finds Neema Barnette. There are different kinds of new page patrollers, some only like to check for SD criteria and classify them, if necessary, and leave the actual maintainance to other, dedicated Wikipedians. That biography article could, for example, have been tagged with {{BLP refimprove}}, {{orphaned}}, {{dead end}}, and {{uncategorized}}. If that is the only edit to that page, who will it help to mark such an edit as a major edit? Nobody will have watchlisted it (articles that receive maintainance tags are usually not created by experienced Wikipedians), and no one will want to see this in the Special:RecentChanges.
Amalthea 23:46, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

No, I strongly disagreed with the deletion from the help page. Actually, it looks like we both agree about context. The problem with the deletion is that some editors will, predictably, use it as an excuse to label as "minor" tags that should never be considered minor. Spelling out the context, or, better, the specific templates, would be a very good idea. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:56, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I guess we're just coming in contact with tags at the opposing ends of the spectrum. I'm not sure how we can reconcile them if tags are to be explicitly mentioned in the help page. Let's see what ideas others have. If I understand your concerns correctly though, a POV pusher who uses tags won't particularly mind what's written here anyway (and, as a help page, it's not enforcable as well). The only people who'll take it to heart are probably the ones who can decide based on more vague description on what's generally considered "minor" and what isn't. Amalthea 00:56, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, that's fine, thanks. I'm pretty sure it is possible to spell out a list of tags or categories of tags that should not be marked as minor, and that would work. (About people who might take it to heart, there have, for example, been ArbCom decisions instructing parties not to misuse the minor edit label.) --Tryptofish (talk) 17:03, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Every arb member I know is smart enough to recognize misuse of the minor edit flag regardless of what's written on this help page. As long as we are not giving the opposite recommendation to mark all additions of tags as minor it still can't be used as an excuse. Do you have a particular sanction in mind that you would be worried about, one where the specifics aren't inferable from the case (i.e. POV pushing and related minor-edit taggings weren't part of the case)? Amalthea 12:33, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I was trying to be a little vague, to avoid pointing fingers, and I guess I was too vague! Of course, ArbCom members do not need to refer to this help. Rather, I meant users who, having learned from this help, will hopefully never get to the point where ArbCom has to get involved. There is a long-time editor, whom I prefer not to name, who has been repeatedly instructed by ArbCom not to mark major edits as minor, but who has continued to disobey those instructions. I have edited pages where these edits have fairly recently been an issue for other involved editors. It has been helpful to me to point other (less experienced) editors of that page to this help. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:25, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I think we should remember that this is a page that will be read mainly by new contributors. If we can give simple advice that a newbie can follow and avoid trouble 99% of the time, we're doing well. Recent changes patrollers are typically experienced editors, and experienced editors will know that ignore all rules applies to this page as much as any other, and can use their judgement. WP:KISS applies. I think simple advice that leads to some edits not being marked minor when they could have been, is far preferable to complex advice that spells out every situation, or simple advice that leads to some non-minor edits being marked minor. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 12:38, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Those are good points. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:37, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Exceptions section

Every sentence in this section is either redundant or illogical. The sentence about a cumulative effect makes no sense – by the argument presented every reversion should be marked as a minor edit. The last sentence is neither an exception nor specifically related to the rest of the section. In any case, the nuances of rollback should be discussed at Wikipedia:Rollback feature, not here. Would anyone object to the outright removal of the whole section? Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 12:38, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Instead of deleting it entirely, how about deleting the second and fourth sentences, while retaining the first and third sentences? --Tryptofish (talk) 18:38, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

That would be an improvement, but why does this page need to discuss rollback at all? Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 06:14, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

The way I see it, this is an area where edits are automatically and correctly marked as minor, and this explains why. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:10, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I see why the section was added, but I'm still not convinced it helps anyone. New users won't know what rollback is and mentioning it here is just extra information they don't need. Established users wouldn't come to this page for information about rollback. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 11:27, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I remember being at a stage when I was a little past being new and just finding out what vandal reversion was. Without anything about this, it's reasonable to wonder why such reversions are minor, when, strictly speaking, they do change the meaning of the page. (Put another way, I, in turn, am not convinced it hurts anyone.) Let's at least make the partial improvement. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:16, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I am an experienced Copy-Editor of educational material, and have been editing here for over two years. I consider myself a newcomer because I am still encountering rules and terms to research. I am writing this from the viewpoint of a newcomer and truly hope everyone will accept it as such. I know what rollback means but two years ago I did not. If I had found this page and read what rollback means, it probably would have given me more confidence because I would have known if I made a mistake, my edit could be reverted (or rolled back). Looking at it from this perspective, it might be very useful to Editors new to WP. This is a comment only; please accept it in the manner in which it is presented. Thank you. Respectfully, Tiyang (talk) 10:39, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

linking

The section re "When to mark an edit as a minor edit" includes: "Adding or correcting wikilinks". May I suggest (1) changing this to: "Correcting wikilinks" and (2) adding a new bullet to the "When NOT to mark as minor" section", for "Adding wikilinks". The reason is that I have been adding lots of links (since becoming a new editor in May). Today another editor kindly pointed me to the policy on linking. (I will now try to cut back on my linking.) The reason the editor noticed my linking is that I never mark my linking as "minor". If I had marked it as "minor", that editor might not have noticed my over-linking. Eagle4000 (talk) 03:41, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

If you start explicitly excluding wikilinking, we can just as well get rid of the feature altogether. Every edit has the potential to be against one guideline or the other without the editor realizing it. Listing some examples of what's always considered minor or major is OK but a blanket recommendation that wikilinking or adding or removing templates of any kind is never "minor" is not helpful, and not correct as far as my understanding or personal usage of "minor edit" is concerned.
Next to a couple uncontroversial examples of minor and major edits, the very simple advice we should give here is that if your change is so trivial that other editors watching over the article will not be interested in its details, mark it as minor. Yes, people's opinions vary on which changes they consider "trivial", but enumerating badness is neither helpful nor possible here. It's only a help page, and the understanding of minor edits is so context sensitive that some common sense advice should and has to be enough. Amalthea 12:23, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Proposal - replace minor edit box

I have found and seen a lot of people comment that the minor edit box is misused a lot. Many people, even some veteran editors, simply do not know the guidelines as to what is considered a "minor" edit. An idea I came up with to solve this problem is to replace the minor edit box with a few other possible boxes that could be checked for the following:

Spelling correction
Caps
Punctuation
Minor word correction (addition/removal/change of words without changing meaning, such as a to an when needed)
Formatting fix (e.g. italics, headings)
Spacing
Image resizing
Linking a word/phrase already in article to another Wikipedia article
Addition of navigational template
Removal of vandalism
Removal of spam
Removal of inappropriate external link(s)

With this proposal, there would be the option of checking multiple boxes.

I am not saying all these examples have to be listed, or that other suggestions can't be added. But one thing for sure is it'll stop the incorrect use of the minor edit box. Sebwite (talk) 00:33, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Better yet, have MediaWiki automatically detect a minor edit or, even better, get rid of the distinction altogether. An edit is an edit and having to differentiate them as "minor" or "non-minor" (normal, major, whatever) is annoying. -Eekerz (talk) 21:59, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

The Edit filters are a start in that direction, maybe one day they can be expanded to fulfil this function...? Lee∴V (talk • contribs) 22:46, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Efficient wording

User:Tryptofish reverted changes I made that cut down on the unnecessary wordiness. What's the big deal? There's no literary sense in repeating "adding or removing" and "in an article" so many times. -Eekerz (talk) 05:52, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

My immediate reason for reverting was that you made a major content change without first discussing it here. Beyond that, on the merits, I think what you proposed would make this page considerably less clear and less user-friendly. The current wording is, I think, easily understood. Your alternative would have turned it into a collection of links, without any explanation of why each link was there. Readers would have to, first, figure out why each link was listed (does it mean this is a minor edit? does it mean this is not a minor edit?), and, then, click through to that link to read what it says. That's too cryptic. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:19, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Reversions and redirects

Recently an editor cut a page from 4+ kb to 2+ kb, then redirected it. The redirection was marked as minor and had no edit summary. The material was not added to the redirected page. When I asked the editor about it, I was told, "I tend to mark reverts and redirects that way to signal that I'm not making a content change as such." Maurreen (talk) 20:09, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I hear you, but I'm also the editor who reverted you and asked you to take it here to talk. The problem with the edit you made was that it indicated that any revert or redirect can never be a minor edit. As for reverts, that's not true. I can revert obvious vandalism, and that's clearly minor, and the help page says as much just above. On the other hand, deleting half a page is obviously something that should never be marked as minor (assuming the half was real content, and not vandalism). That needs to be made more clear than just saying "reversion". As for redirects, I'd have to think about it some more, but there are probably redirects from obvious spelling variants that are minor, whereas moving a page is not minor. Anyway, any changes to the language really should be discussed first for something like this. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:21, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm OK with the reversion you made to me here.

What do you think about adding something like "Reversion of good-faith edits"? Maurreen (talk) 20:30, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I guess there could be arguments about what was really good-faith. At this point, I'd like to hear from more editors about this question. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:34, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

NPOV edits

If something is reworded because it's not NPOV, but the meaning isn't changed at all, is that minor? Like changing, "Everybody in the press is always criticizing Smith for diving too much," to, "Smith has received consistent criticism in the press for diving too much."--Atkinson (talk) 20:08, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, issues of NPOV are never minor edits, because editors presumably have disagreements about the matter. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:32, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

As an aside, the above example can be made more neutral, such as with "Smith has received consistent criticism in the press, accusing him of diving too much." Here, whether the diving is too much or not is an open question.

The earlier examples using "for diving too much" suggest that the writer believes that Smith does dive too much. Maurreen (talk) 22:33, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Clicking on minor help edit by mistake

When I go to preview an article I'm editing I often click on the minor help box by mistake, and when you click on it your edit is lost. Is there any way it could be re-positioned or else a way for the preview edit to remain? Maybe this is a technical issue that should go somewhere else? Eldumpo (talk) 18:23, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Your edit doesn't get lost. Just hit the back button. Done it a hundred times. -- Mufka ^(u) ^(t) ^(c) 18:38, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

If you'd still like to change the layout, I'd suggest taking it to Village Pump, Technical. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:39, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Is repairing a dead link considered a minor edit?

I think this article should specify whether repairing a dead link is a minor edit or not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thomas6274 (talk • contribs) 20:04, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

That would be a minor edit, yes; I'm not sure if it's necessary to note this specifically in the page though, as it's sort-of covered by "formatting that does not change the meaning of the page" and/or "obvious factual errors". By the way, please remember to sign your talk page comments with four tildes (~~~~) GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 20:06, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Wow, that was really fast! Thank for very much for the quick feedback and the welcome on my talk page. I agree that it should be considered a minor edit because it seems to fit the definition of a minor edit laid out in the first paragraph of the article, but I think the article should specify that reparing dead links is a minor edit. If the article is going to give examples of what is a minor edit, then I think this example should be included since it is probably one of the more common examples of a minor edit. Also, in the section "When NOT to mark an edit as a minor edit", it lists "Adding or removing references in an article", so one could take that to mean that repairing a dead link, where you are technically adding a NEW working reference link, is NOT a minor edit. That kind of made me unsure. Also, the article makes the case that it is kind of important to be accurate in your labelling of what is a minor link, so I think the article should try to be as specific as possible. I think I will leave this up here for a few months and see if I get any more feedback, then probably make the change if there is no big objections. Thomas6274 (talk) 22:37, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I see the difficulty; I would definitely consider fixing an existing reference or link to be minor, so I've been bold and added that in the same bullet point as "adding or fixing wikilinks" with a disclaimer to revert me if there's a disagreement. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 23:05, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Cool. Thanks for your help. Thomas6274 (talk) 01:41, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with the change. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:01, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree as well. As long as the new source supports the subordinate text, it is a minor edit. —EncMstr (talk) 19:13, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Adding signature?

Would adding a signature to your own post if you forgot to (like I have numerous times) count as a minor edit? Atomforyou (talk) 22:08, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

... like I just did now? Atomforyou (talk) 22:08, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes it is minor (because nobody would consider it something to dispute), but it's often a good idea to not mark edits like that as minor, otherwise people who are using watchlists might see it as a skippable-diff (not something to check) and thereby miss your actual comment. This aspect can be overcome by using a copy of the prior edit's edit-summary (eg Summary:"add sig - prior edit was - reply to Bob"). HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 23:15, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Optional or Required?

I've made quite a few minor edits, but I often forget to mark them as such. Is this considered problematic? Basically, I want to know whether marking an edit as minor is an option or a requirement.--Music+mas (talk) 21:57, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

No, it's not a problem. You are never required to mark edits as minor; it's a courtesy to editors who want to be able to skip such edits when they are reviewing their watchlist or the history of an article. For genuinely minor edits it is always helpful to mark them, though. — Gavia immer (talk) 22:15, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Also, note that anonymous editors do not have the option to mark edits as minor. —EncMstr (talk) 23:42, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt responses.—Music+mas (talk) 02:42, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Pop up this article in a new window when it is clicked.

I just made my first post, and since I could not pop this up in a new window, I did not mark my punctuation correction as minor. iPadFanboy 23:53, 15 December 2010 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by IPadFanboy (talk • contribs)

Don't worry! It's not a problem if you make a small edit, and don't mark it as minor. (It can be a problem if someone makes a major edit and marks it wrongly as minor.) Welcome, and happy editing. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:57, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

interwiki

Is the addition of Interwikis a minor? Msbarrios (talk) 16:06, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Generally, I'd say so. No problem if it's not marked as such, though. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:07, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

thanks. most of my contributions are new interwiki links, and only recently I saw the checkbox "minor" :D I'll always mark it. Msbarrios (talk) 16:04, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Sort Values, Project Banners, Banner Shells & Living

While I mainly have been working with sort values, {{DEFAULTSORT}} and |listas=, in the process of doing that I have also added WikiProject banners, country of origin and project that covers the subject's notability, |living= and, if justified, a banner shell. I do not believe I have ever marked an edit as minor. Should I? Does it really hurt anything if I don't? JimCubb (talk) 21:58, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

No problem! I think the consensus is that it is never a problem to not mark an edit as minor. The problems arise only when edits that should not be marked minor are marked minor. The examples you give are ones where one could argue it either way: editors rarely object to including a talk page in a WikiProject, although there could be disagreements about assessment for quality or importance. (In the interests of keep it simple, I'd lean against spelling this out on the help page.) --Tryptofish (talk) 22:27, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! I do not feel qualified to determine an importance to any given project and I learned a long time ago that what I would call a Stub someone else would call a C so I stay away from that also. JimCubb (talk) 22:39, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Should we remove the Preference setting to "Mark all edits minor by default" ?

This option tends to cause problems when users check it and then neglect to mark their non-minor edits as "major", then they get brought to ANI, etc.

I propose we simply remove the option from preferences. –xeno^talk 14:23, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The preference setting was removed sometime in late 2010 John of Reading (talk) 07:48, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh please yes.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:08, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Support proposal I cannot imagine this preference setting being useful, and it could only cause problems. It should be removed. Immunize _{Contact me} Contributions 15:11, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Support The setting runs contrary to consensus that an edit should not be marked as minor if in doubt: "A minor edit is one that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute." Allowing users to easily and automatically mark all their edits as minor is asking for trouble; for example, "Adding or removing tags or other templates in an article" or "Adding comments to a talk page" but marking the edit as minor. If someone wants to participate in anti-vandalism work in which most or all edits are minor edits, he/she can install Twinkle or request rollback permission, which will mark the edits minor in the majority of cases. I have done anti-vandalism work using all of the major tools (Twinkle, Huggle, plain rollback, undo, and manual revert) and have never switched that setting on. When reviewing pending changes, I (correctly) do not use the minor flag when reverting changes as unsourced. The default setting could in fact cause such edits to be marked minor, and therefore the change might attract less scrutiny (for example, to improve sourcing of the article). PleaseStand ^(talk) 15:54, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Support This is a nuisance. It only serves to invite lazy/uninformed editors to mark all edits as minor.—Emil J. 16:07, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Support. Please do. The community for which this is actually intended - WikiGnomes who make very large numbers of such minor edits - generally has access to tools with a separate setting to accomplish this. In practice, the wiki-wide preference setting is most often used by editors who intend to avoid any scrutiny of their actions. Since we can't force a user to run with specific preference settings, our only current options with such editors are to block them or to do nothing except agonize. That means that even if someone immediately rigged up a "mark all edits as minor" script, we still would have more options to deal with it. There's no need for this preference any more. — Gavia immer (talk) 17:07, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Support for all the good reasons stated above. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:19, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Support PleaseStand's and Gavia immer's comments persuaded me. The other advantage would be that when you saw someone marking every (manual) edit as minor, you'd know they were doing it consciously (though perhaps ignorantly) and not just because they'd forgotten setting that preference. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 03:43, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Support. That setting is absolutely no use to anyone, and on occassions causes trouble of its own. Alzarian16 (talk) 10:47, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Support per arguments made above. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 14:11, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Support; has no purpose. Courcelles (talk) 14:12, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Support. Bizarre preference, I assume it has some historical basis that is no longer remotely applicable? Anyway, lose it. With fire or something. TFOWR 14:13, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

support per all ofthe above Active Banana (talk) 14:14, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Support better it is underused that we get more of these reports S.G.^(GH) _ping! 14:15, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Support - I can't fathom why this option was given in the first place. —DoRD (talk) 14:17, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Support - most editors are probably over 18. I'm kidding. Jauerback^dude?/_dude. 14:38, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Support - for reasons given by other users above - David Biddulph (talk) 14:39, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Support - The only purpose this has is disruption, and we could do without it.— Dæ dαlus^Contribs 20:38, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Support - No reason I can see for this to be a global Preference. EdJohnston (talk) 14:48, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, no benefit, some harm. --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:55, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Support per all above. Salvio ( ^{Let's talk 'bout it!}) 14:57, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Support Please. I've never seen it as anything but a potential and sometimes real problem. Dougweller (talk) 16:08, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Support There is nothing good that comes from that option. Better to accidentally not mark an actual minor edit (essentially harmless) than to leave it on and do all manner of editing under cover of the m. —Torchiest ^talk/_contribs 16:25, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Support Per everyone above. BTW, it appears the code for the preference was added in rev:923, November 2002. Anomie ⚔ 16:52, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Support For 99.9% of all editors, there is no good use for the option. On the contrary, it enables significant bad practice. —EncMstr (talk) 16:53, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Support per above. Only can result in a plus. —fetch ·comms 17:42, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Bugzilla filed. –xeno^talk 20:37, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Gee, I don't know, Xeno, the !vote is so close... :-D --Tryptofish (talk) 14:50, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

As a side note to this, anyone who supports this change should probably vote it up from the bugzilla report, to make sure it appears on the radar, so to speak.— Dæ dαlus^Contribs 21:49, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Support; a bit late, but still. The setting does little good, and edits should not be marked minor most of the time, rendering this setting useless. —MC10 (T•C•GB•L) 00:20, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Support, useful to very few editors, not worth the problems associated with it. Herostratus (talk) 01:46, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Support Not only yes, but truly and sincerely Yes! Montanabw^(talk) 06:17, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Support This is a potential cause of problems, with little benefit. Cardamon (talk) 17:27, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Support. I believe the setting originates from before the days of automation scripts and bots, which mark minor edits as minor automatically. It still serves a purpose in the software on non-Wikimedia sites (where the WP automation tools may not work), but it should really have been deactivated on WP some time ago. Rd232 ^talk 12:06, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Hmm... Will I be getting into trouble now for not marking my edits as minor? -LilHelpa (talk) 22:26, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Users who had been properly using this preference in the past can probably install a javascript to restore the functionality. –xeno^talk 22:35, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

No, failure to mark a minor edit as minor is not a problem, it's only incomplete information. In contrast, marking a major edit as minor is a problem, e.g. many people hide minor edits on their watchlist.—Emil J. 10:16, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

As a user who does do mostly minor edits, although Xeno's comment is correct and the course I will follow, I am rather put off by the number of Support comments above suggesting that mostly minor edits can never be a valid editor's style. Mark Hurd (talk) 06:05, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I must admit that I had some reservations, thinking that the editors who will be most put off by this change will be least likely to notice it happening in order to object (being quiet gnomes, not involving themselves in the internals of the 'pedia). There are scripts are available at VPT to restore the functionality: [1] –xeno^talk 12:58, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it was anyone's intentions (and I certainly hope not!) to denigrate work by editors who do large numbers of minor edits. It most certainly is a valid editing style. It's just that there's a problem when a non-minor edit gets marked accidentally as minor. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:49, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Support per - having had to explain this problem and how to fix it, to at least 3 editors now, over the years. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:15, 27 July 2010 (UTC) Support - If Quiddity hadn't noted my setting, I might have gone on defaulting to minor edits for some time. At the time I set it, I thought the vast majority of my edits would be minor, and I had forgotten about it. But it's fixed now. I think it's dangerous to default to minor, although I AGF that the vast majority of editors do not intend to use this feature to hide edits. I didn't. Also noted that for some editors, minor editing is significantly more common and usual and is a perfectly valid editing style. I'm glad it was caught before I got into trouble. Thanks Quiddity. — Becksguy (talk) 04:16, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Oppose I make mainly minor edits (phrasing issues, maybe adding an external link like YouTube, etc) and I don't want to have to keep clicking "Minor Edit". I'm also lazy, and don't want to have to start using a script/bot. I think that, for the most part, "Mark as Minor" is a good thing to have. swat671 (talk) 22:27, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I think you are too late, as the checkbox has already been removed from "My preferences" > "Editing". As an aside, I don't think the addition of a link to YouTube should be marked "minor", as other editors may wish to check that the link passes WP:YOUTUBE. If you are desperate to have "Minor Edit" ticked by default, see this VPT thread. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:13, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Oppose Didn't know I was a gnome 'til reading all this. Hmmph. I mostly do copy editing for grammar, sense and smooth reading with no intent to change the meaning. I think 99% of it is properly considered minor. That said, some fine subject matter experts who I would never want to discourage from contributing can slaughter English in ways that risk brain damage in sensitive readers. Sometimes major surgery is required to respectfully extract the substance and reassemble it in cogent, readable English. Unchecking the box now. Here.it.comes.again (talk) 09:30, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I wonder if you'll see a flood of response, now that notification of the bugzilla report and impending software change has gone out, from those of us who found this preference useful, and used it more or less responsibly. To be sure, I support the change anyway, as it seems common misuse of the feature caused the community a lot more work than I will ever do checking the box (or implementing the javascript). But I can't help but scoff a little bit at all these blanket assumptions that the preference had no use or had only negative potential value. /ninly_(talk) 21:43, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

One man's major edit is another man's minor. — Robert Greer (talk) 01:38, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Oppose, for what it's worth (i.e. not much). I've been using this for years and I don't think I ever had a complaint. If minor edits are a problem, then the correct solution is to disable them altogether. This half-assed measure is just silly and annoying, IMHO. _R_ (talk) 02:26, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I am also one of those editors put off by the assertion that no valid editor could make only minor edits. I don't edit a whole lot, but I will do so less, since consensus is that my contributions aren't valuable. --Geoffrey 07:24, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I suggest you press on regardless. This discussion was not seen in time by many of the "Gnomes" who tend to make a large number of valid, useful edits that are correctly marked "minor". About 80% of my 50,000+ edits are marked minor. If you wish to have the "minor" checkbox ticked for you by default, the javascript solution is shown in the VPT thread I mentioned above. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:46, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Geoffrey, consensus is that the easily accessible mark-all-edits-minor-by-default option caused far more problems then it was worth. It does not say that minor edits aren't valuable, or that editors who mostly make minor edits aren't valuable editors. Please don't interpret it that way.
If the option made sense for your editing style, you are very welcome to use the javascript solution mentioned above, and I'd gladly help you set it up if you want. Amalthea 09:31, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Do minor edits count in the edit count?

Just curious? Are minor edits ignored by pages or bots which show the edit count of a user?--Xania ^talk 02:31, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

By and large, "edit count" normally includes minor edits. This is true for what you see at My Preferences and what Kate's tool and Wikichecker show. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 11:52, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I have always taken it that they do, and that the list at Wikipedia: List of Wikipedians by number of edits includes minor edits. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 15:47, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Typos in discussion section

Is it okay to correct typos in Discussion sections? I corrected some in the "Shane Dawson" discussion page, and I was sent a letter to the effect that I had hurt people's feelings. Was I wrong? Should I apologize? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.67.223.63 (talk • contribs) 00:01, 11 July 2011

It's not the done thing to edit others' comments, for the reasons described at WP:TPOC. But it's no big deal that you did... It's a common mistake made by newcomers, and I'm sure no-one was upset. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 01:21, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Question about an editor

User http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ratipok appears to be in the habit of marking every edit they ever make as minor, even when edit warring. I've already mentioned it, but he doesn't appear to respect IP editors much and immediately removed by mention from his talk page (with no reply, and marking the removal as minor). A note from someone who hasn't been involved in editing articles he edits might help. Would also echo the request for information, in the case that the editor ignores the note again, what dya do?92.16.99.141 (talk) 21:23, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Without taking "sides", I'm going to leave a message on his user talk page, and ask him to look here. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:45, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Ratipok has made edits since being notified, and can be presumed to have seen the messages from me and from Sarek. This is a help page for answering questions about minor edits, and not a dispute resolution page for issues of alleged user conduct, so please do not expect anything more to happen here. If you run into further problems, I would suggest that you take it to WP:ANI, and provide a link to here and to his talk page. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:23, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Eh, just seems such a small thing to take to ANI....92.16.99.141 (talk) 18:49, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

That's entirely up to you, of course. Sometimes, it's best to just let things pass. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:39, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Is the "minor edit" function actually useful?

I'm just curious whether anyone actually uses the "hide minor edits" function (which is the only gain to be had from anyone marking edits as minor, isn't it?) and finds it to serve a useful purpose. Or, perhaps more accurately, I'm pretty positive that there must be a lot of people who do use it, and like it, but I was just hoping that at least one such person would make their presence known to me, so I can shake this weird paranoid that maybe absolutely nobody is benefiting at all from the capability and it's just a zillion wasted clicks in that little checkbox.

From my own perspective, on the pages that I care about tending, I generally look at EVERY edit, even if the summary looks perfectly clear and unobjectionable (I know that likely marks me as unnaturally obsessive). So I'd be unlikely to ever "hide minor edits" anyway. However, even if I felt comfortable hiding minor edits, I still wouldn't use the function, because I've seen MANY CASES where users (in good faith or not) don't use it properly, and mark edits as minor that are definitely not minor, and that I would think any person with an interest in supervising the page would want to be aware of. Which just leaves me to wonder whether other people are more comfortable using it, even (presumably) knowing that they may miss significant edits that were mistakenly marked as minor. I suppose the more pages you have on your Watchlist, the more enthusiastic you might be about ignoring edits that are more-likely-than-not to be worth ignoring. Theoldsparkle (talk) 17:16, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm probably obsessive too, but I would never hide minor edits on my watchlist, for much the same reasons as you. And I do (try to) check all edits, although if I see an editor whom I trust to use the minor edit tick correctly make such an edit, I may spend less time looking closely than I would otherwise. To some extent, I find it useful to see, before actually looking at a diff, whether the person making the edit considered it minor or non-minor, just to get a feel for what the edit was about. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:14, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Reverting vandalism -- why is this minor?

If the essential purpose of marking an edit as minor is to allow users to ignore it on their Watchlist, why should reverting vandalism be marked as minor? Won't the only effect be to make it appear that the vandalism hasn't been reverted? Theoldsparkle (talk) 14:49, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

We try not to glamorize vandalism, so to lessen the extent of vandalism we try to push it into the sidelines a little, also reverting generally just takes the article back to what was there before and as such is not a significant edit. That Ole Cheesy Dude ^{(Talk to the hand!)} 14:53, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

But if Vandal edits the article to say "PENISPENISPENIS", and Editor returns the article to its previous form, but marks the change as minor, and then Watcher chooses to hide minor edits, then it will appear to Watcher that the most recent edit was "PENISPENISPENIS" and not "Reverting vandalism by Vandal", am I right? Wouldn't it be more helpful to Watcher to see that the most recent edit was to fix vandalism, and not to vandalize the page? I also don't really see the argument that marking the fix as minor will discourage the vandal; it seems unlikely to me that the vandal would notice, or if he did notice, would know what the "m" means, or if he did know what it means, would feel diminished. Theoldsparkle (talk) 15:01, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Vandalism reversion is a minor edit because nothing new or controversial is being changed. The fact that the original vandalism wasn't marked as minor isn't a reason to make vandalism reversion a non-minor edit. The help page explains pretty clearly what a minor edit is:

A minor edit is one that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute.

One's removal of "PENISPENISPENIS" from an article is something that one should reasonably expect doesn't require review and would never be the subject of a dispute. —Tom Morris (talk) 15:08, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Also on Watchlists, the reversion entry would just not show up at all rather than displaying the previous edit, the next edit overwrites it and because the user has deselected viewing minor edits it just won't show. And Tom has explained everything wonderfully here. That Ole Cheesy Dude ^{(Talk to the hand!)} 15:18, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Theoldsparkle, I think you're misunderstanding what would happen in that case. As far as I know, if I hide minor edits on my watchlist, and someone vandalises and someone else reverts that with a minor tag, the page simply won't show up on my watchlist. It's not that the watchlist will show the older edit, it's that the watchlist won't display the page as having been changed at all. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:16, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

^ What she said.

That Ole Cheesy Dude ^{(Talk to the hand!)} 15:20, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Technically, what she said. —Tom Morris (talk) 15:23, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Surely changes to talk pages can be minor edits

This article says that adding comments to a talk page should not be marked as minor edits. I feel this is misleading, as surely, if all one were doing to a talk page is correcting a spelling or punctuation error, it would be a minor edit. Adding comments per se may not qualify as a minor edit, but this should not alter the fact that minor edits on talk pages are possible. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 20:19, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

The page doesn't say that minor edits to a talk page aren't possible; it says that adding comments to a talk page isn't a minor edit. I don't see it as misleading, but what rewording were you suggesting? - David Biddulph (talk) 21:29, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Reporting a dead link

Does reporting a dead link qualify as a minor edit? Feels like its bigger than that, as its something that one should or rather ought to be notified of, since its a bit of pressing matter to uphold ajour reliability. Danielpublic (talk) 20:06, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I think that's right. The point of tagging the link as dead is to alert people that it needs updating somehow. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:14, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Asking for clarification ?

Noob question - Template:Clarify must be minor surely ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fentlehan (talk • contribs) 16:47, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

I doubt that anyone would really get angry about it either way, but my advice would be to not mark that as a minor edit. Another editor might really want to act upon such a tag. A useful way to think of it is that the minor edit label is telling other editors that if they are busy, they can safely ignore the edit. If you are asking for someone to clarify something, you actually want them to respond to your request, not to ignore it. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:54, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Where is the "Minor Edit" checkbox?

This article refers to a "Minor Edit" checkbox, but I've never seen one, and can't ever find it on the edit page. Where is it? 86.146.119.142 (talk) 21:51, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Only logged-in editors see the "Minor Edit" checkbox. It's mentioned in the fourth paragraph. -- John of Reading (talk) 22:13, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

main article "thingys"

Should adding main-article links under section headings be minor edits? --Oceans and oceans (talk) 14:09, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I'd say go ahead. Different people have different rules for how they use minor edit, but the bottom line is: if it's unlikely to be controversial, mark it as minor. I'm sure there are cases where adding a main article template would be contested, but I can't imagine one, and I'm inclined to doubt that it's common enough to worry about. People argue over copyedits sometimes too. --Quintucket (talk) 16:03, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Is removing repeated content minor?

I use Wikipedia a fair bit, but tend to only make changes like fixing typos, correcting obvious factual mistakes, etc. So almost all of my edits should be minor ones, however sometimes I come across articles where a paragraph is repeated, either 1) with only small, often inconsequential, changes between the two paragraphs, or 2) repeated verbatim. Would, in the first case, merging them into one paragraph be considered a minor edit, and in the second case, just erasing one of the paragraphs, be considered a minor edit? I'm unsure whether either case would fall under the category of 'removing content' which shouldn't be marked as minor, because really, it would be difficult to class the first case as controversial, and the second case can't be classed as controversial. Thanks. - Ezuvian (talk) 03:21, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

No-one would ever object to either of those edits, so there's no harm in marking either of them as minor. But when you find a problem like this it's a good idea to check the page history and see if you can find the edit that caused it. Reverting that edit should fix the problem, and perhaps also restore content that might have accidentally been deleted at the same time. The same goes for correcting obvious factual mistakes, as they might have been inserted as part of a vandal edit that also introduced other errors you might not have noticed. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 14:30, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 7 June 2012

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

The following sentence is incorrect

He ran 52.75 in the third heat

It should read: He ran 52.6 in the third heat.

This is recorded on Page 31 of the Official Olympic Report Olympic Games 1960

Published by World Sports Official Magazine of the British Olympic Association, 2 Salisbury Square, London EC4. Printed in England by C Nicholls & Company Ltd, The Phillips Park Press, Manchester 11

Techno1972 (talk) 18:52, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

This request is misplaced. Are you trying to correct the article on Chris Goudge? That page is not protected, so you should be able to make the change yourself. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:29, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Here is my dilemma...

I am a biology major and if I understand things correctly, aren't intelligent design and creationism obvious factual errors? What should we do about those articles? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 7thMassExtinction (talk • contribs) 09:20, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia aims to cover all topics that have been written about in reliable sources such as books, journals and newspapers - see Wikipedia:Notability. So these topics do belong here, but have to be written carefully. For example the Creationism article begins "Creationism is the religious belief that...", with a footnote to a book for anyone who wants to check that this is a correct statement about creationism. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:49, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Blanking either article should not be marked as a minor edit. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:10, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Is deleting vandalism with a Citation Needed tag attached a minor edit?

The "When" and "When not to" sections contradict each other on this. Normally, I wouldn't care, but the issue came up. Has this been clarified anywhere? InedibleHulk (talk) 01:41, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

That's an interestingly complex case! In my opinion, it's OK to mark the deletion as minor, so long as it unquestionably is vandalism (in contrast to a good-faith but unsourced statement). I think this is one of those instances when no one would have a major objection to doing it either way. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:03, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

In this case, it was a statement saying Three Little Pigs was said to be^{[by whom?]} Hitler's favourite cartoon^{[citation needed]}. It wasn't vandalism in the "GFGHYYHNBBH!!" style, but I thought it was close enough. An editor did object on my talk page, not to the removal, but to the minor edit description. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:35, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

I guess my reaction is not to be bothered by calling it a minor edit, but I don't quite think it qualifies as vandalism. Although it's a bit of a fishy statement (I don't know the context), it's entirely possible that there's a source somewhere that actually says that about Hitler. I think it's OK to remove it per WP:BURDEN. If I had removed it for that reason, I probably would not have marked it a minor edit, myself. I think there's enough reason to see the sentence as questionable that the editor who complained to you might have been overly sensitive about it, but you can never go wrong by not marking edits as minor. As a general rule, I'd say that challenging good-faith edits as unsourced is not a minor edit, but there might have been a judgment call here about the quality of that sentence. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:09, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

P.S. I went and looked at the edits. I don't think the editor who complained to you was concerned that you had removed the tags and labeled that as minor. Rather, they thought that the sentence was plausible, that the source could have been provided and the "whom" identified, and therefore they regarded it as a non-minor edit. I would also consider it a non-minor edit, as it really wasn't vandalism at all, but I think most editors would cut you some slack per WP:AGF, since it really isn't a big deal. I don't know, but maybe they also reacted negatively to the "gone" in your edit summary. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:18, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

~~The complaint on my talk page seems pretty clear the issue is with the minor part.~~ (Nevermind that, I misread your comment.) But it's not a big deal. I just think there should be some clarification on this page, for theoretical cases of "ghggfgklloik^{[citation needed]}". InedibleHulk (talk) 21:40, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

As for adding it to the help page, I could go either way on that. I suppose we cannot necessarily cover every circumstance that could arise, and this one could be tricky to define clearly. It's always a safe rule-of-thumb to not mark minor any edit where it's a matter of judgment. But definitely, it's not a big deal in this case. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:40, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Good advice on that rule of thumb. Thanks. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:01, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, it would be counter-productive to try and cover every possible circumstance on this page, or it would end up a gigantic bloated mess that no-one would want to read. Tryptofish hits the nail on the head: if in doubt, don't mark minor. That's not actually made clear on this page, though it should probably be the first point under Help:Minor_edit#Things_to_remember. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 14:21, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! I've added it, although I made it the second point, because I think that made it easier to explain why the advice is true. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:46, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Every edit as minor

The user Becksperson mark all his edit as minor, also if they are not. There is something that i can do to stop him? Or someone else? --Stigni (talk) 18:50, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Use Template:Uw-minor or a handwritten note (Which I see you've done :). If they continue after that, collect a few examples of clearly non-minor edits, and explain dispassionately/briefly at WP:ANI. —Quiddity (talk) 20:13, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Minor vs Main Space Edits

Is minor edits falls under main space edit. KAS^{( talk)} 19:05, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Some edits are minor, and others are not; some edits are in main space and others are not. There's no link between the two ideas. I may have misunderstood your point, though. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:26, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Ya I figured it out.Its me who miss understood the whole point.Thanks. KAS^{( talk)} 20:25, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Quotation marks

Shouldn't ' folie des grandeurs ' be in quotation marks? --Jleer1 (talk) 11:29, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

It's already in italics. I'm not seeing a need for quote marks as well, unless I'm missing something. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:48, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

should dummy edits be recommended?

"If you accidentally mark an edit as minor when it was in fact a major edit, you should make a second edit, or dummy edit, noting in the dummy's edit summary that the previous edit was major. As a trivial edit to be made for this purpose, just opening the edit box and saving (i.e. changing nothing) will not work. (...) However, one can, for example, add an extra space between two words. This will be preserved in the wikitext and recorded as a change, although it will not change the page's appearance when rendered."

This proposition makes me cringe a little. Rendered or not, the tidiness of an articles wikitext has value, too. It can be argued that such tidiness should have precedence over the placement of a meta flag in the history. At least such edits should not be recommended explicitly. -- Theoprakt (talk) 08:25, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I share your concern about the tidiness of wikitext, but I would argue the other way: marking an edit as minor has several consequences – it's worth correcting if it was so marked by mistake. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:11, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I have always read add an extra space between two words as removing an extraneous space. There are always some wayward spaces at the end of lines, or extra blank lines at the end of the article or around dashes. Maybe the suggestion should be altered accordingly? —EncMstr (talk) 15:24, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm a little late to this discussion, but the way I see it, dummy edits can sometimes be very useful in achieving civility. I've made them to say "sorry, I messed up before and you were right to correct me" in my edit summary. In my opinion, the benefit of doing something like that outweighs the very minor harm of an extra space somewhere. And I've noticed that there are some users who seem to enjoy going around and copy-editing those extra spaces out, not to mention bots that take care of them. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:08, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

I also share your concern, and was thinking that reverting the erroneously marked edit then re-adding the new content, now properly flagged, should be a cleaner solution. koszik (talk) 01:38, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Proposal to standardise message

I have started a proposal to standardise the text for the 'minor edit' checkbox at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Three different minor edit messages. --John Vandenberg ^(chat) 09:52, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 January 2014

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

The wheel was not "invented" by the human he copied the scarab beetle that was the only animal that could roll things, this explains why the scarab beetle was holy in ancient Egypt and some other cultures. Sevenard (talk) 16:03, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Help:Minor edit. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. You will need to provide some reliable sources that discuss this idea. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:24, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Planning on adding "Removing spam" to section saying when it's appropriate to mark an edit as minor

I noticed that in the section saying when it's appropriate to mark an edit as minor, removing spam is not specifically mentioned. I am not sure if it falls under vandalism or not. That is why I won't add "Removing spam" to that section any earlier than 12:00 PM (UTC-4) on March 10. I won't add it period if someone has a problem with me doing so or if I learn that spam is a form of vandalism. Jesant13 (talk) 02:27, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I have a problem with it. "Removing spam" is too subjective to mark as a minor edit. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:46, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

What if I put "Removing spam per the information in Wikipedia:Spam" or something like that? That way it would refer to "spam" as something on that page, versus something someone doesn't want to see which they call "spam". Jesant13 (talk) 04:42, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

There is still too much room for interpretation. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:48, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I've decided not to add what I suggested. If I ever do come across spam I will try to remember to not mark it as a minor edit. Jesant13 (talk) 05:32, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 May 2014

This edit request to Help:Minor edit has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Almar12345 (talk) 18:12, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Not done: Empty request. —KuyaBriBri^Talk 18:18, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Translation Dillemna

ADD Trasnlation to its correct place to the list, minor or non minor.

E.G: "He attended the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)."

"He attended the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne."

Is this a minor edit; when the essence of meaning does not change? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Speeditor (talk • contribs) 21:08, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

That edit could safely be marked minor. But I don't want to add it to the list of examples, as it is not a common edit, and we want to keep the example list short. Remember – if you're ever in doubt, it's always safe not to mark an edit as minor. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 09:54, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Is adding a category a minor edit?

Is adding a category a minor edit? Thisisnotatest (talk) 23:58, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

That depends, a lot. As has been said before here, if in doubt, don't mark an edit as minor. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:12, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Does redirect categorization qualify as minor?

Assume, of course, that the target of the redirect is not changed in the same edit.

In regard to "Adding or removing visible tags or other templates in an article," the key words are "visible tags." Redirect categories are applied via templates ("tags"), but they are not normally visible to an average reader, as the redirect=no query parameter would need to be inserted manually. Does the redirect=no feature need to be considered as an avenue of "visib[ility]" for the purposes of this guideline? --SoledadKabocha (talk) 07:02, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Project assessment

WikiProject assessment from nothing to some level can be considered as a minor edit? It doesn't really change the content of the article, but it would bring the article out from the unassessed category. Any views? OccultZone (Talk) 00:04, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Marking an edit as minor means that the edit you are making is superficial on the page you're on, not the respective article in the case of talk pages. I would say assessing an article is non-minor, as it's relatively important and editors watching the article would be potentially interested. You're not just bringing the article out of the unassessed category, but you are also reviewing the article's quality. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 00:09, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

@SuperHamster: You've just redefined the definition of minor edit. OccultZone (Talk) 00:46, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

@OccultZone: Hmm...how so? Just learned about pinging someone with Template:Yo...I like it. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 00:49, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree with what you have written, that reviewing the article's quality cannot be considered as minor edit. On same post, you have also redefined the definition of WP assessment. OccultZone (Talk) 00:52, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

In that case, I ask the same question - how so? ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 00:56, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

That people might be interested in viewing the updated rating of an article, as some people do enable the option from preferences, it ignores minor edits. OccultZone (Talk) 01:55, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Exactly, so reviewing an article on the quality scale should not be marked as minor, so editors who do hide minor edits will be able to see it. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 02:03, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Eh, I'm pretty confused now. Is there someplace that says that article assessments are considered to be minor edits? If not, looks like we're on the same page. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 02:22, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

I, too, am similarly confused. User:OccultZone suggested initially (althought the grammar is a bit unclear there) that entering a WikiProject assessment on an article's talk page could be considered a minor edit. User:SuperHamster disagreed (as do I). Then OccultZone agrees with SuperHamster, going against the premise of her/his initial remark. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:22, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

@Michael Bednarek: It is pretty easy. I asked a question, I got the answer, and I agreed with the answer. I have fixed unclear part for you. OccultZone (Talk) 06:24, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Minor edits as standard in my preferences

I want to mark all my edits as minor edits. How can I change my preferences to click v = This is a minor edit below the edit box as standard? Here Help:Minor edit I didn't found an explanation. Could you add some words there too? Thanks --Frze ^{> talk} 08:16, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

This can be done with JavaScript, see the archived discussion and code examples in this archived section. But I don't know if the help page should mention this, since it was the community's decision to remove this option from the standard set of preferences. -- John of Reading (talk) 13:49, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Any chance of this decision being revisited? How about having two choices in the Edit Summary: "This is a o major o minor edit" (those 'o's are radio buttons.) This could be set initially in the site preferences and "overridden" in user preferences. At the site level, a new preference would be added: "Require edit weight choice" true or false, which, if true, would require one of the two settings to be chosen rather than a default choice being allowed. This is IMHO superior to the current situation since those site admins who care about contributors making a conscious decision would have a new mechanism for enforcing that. Those sites where the admins do not care so much about this level of granularity could allow users to create a default setting.

--Anyoneis (talk) 18:06, 4 June 2014 (UTC)