Help:Edit summary
An edit summary allows you to give a brief description of the changes you have made when you edit a page. They should generally be used for every edit, except when creating a new entry, as they are quite useful. (Do not use them when creating a new page: the software will fill in a useful edit summary automatically.) They are software-limited to a maximum of 500 characters.
Edit summaries help …
- … those who are looking at the page's history to work out how the page has changed over time.
- … people who have the page watchlisted to see whether they are interested in your change.
- … anyone watching Recent changes to get an impression of what sort of edits are going on.
A good edit summary …
- contains a brief description of all the changes that were made.
- may include a brief reason for making the edit.
- does not include excessive justification for the edit (if necessary, use the talk page).
- does not include irrelevant or off-topic information.
Abbreviations used in edit summaries include:
- ISO 639-1 or ISO 639-2 language codes;
- the name of any templates used;
- shortcuts to relevant policies or guidelines;
- any abbreviation listed at Wiktionary:Glossary or Appendix:Glossary;
- other abbreviations, including these listed below.
- +
- Added (e.g. + ety)
- ++
- Added to a list, such as Derived (or Related) terms
- -
- Removed
- ^
- Improved/expanded/detailed/clarified (e.g. ^ def ^ quots)
- 2c
- Two cents
- cat(s)
- Categorized the page
- def
- Definition
- ety
- Etymology
- fl
- Fixing links
- fmt
- Adjusted formatting
- hdr
- Changed heading(s)
- img
- Added image
- ipa
- Added IPA transcription(s)
- iw
- Added link to another Wiktionary
- L[x]
- Altered a heading to be at level [x]
- lk
- Link
- mfmt
- Minor adjustments to formatting
- pron
- Pronounciation
- quot(s)
- Quotation(s)
- re
- Reply
- rm / rem
- Removed
- rv
- Undid last change
- rvv
- Undid vandalism
- sc
- Added missing script to transliterated-only text
- sp
- Corrected spelling
- tr(ans(l))
- Translation or translated
- tr(anslit)
- Transliteration or transliterated
- u(se)x
- Added a usage example
- wp
- Added a link to Wikipedia
Some edits have automatic edit summaries.