Wikipedia:Edit summary legend

This is a list of abbreviations used by most Wikipedians on Wikipedia's Edit summary.

This page is NOT an official guideline on how to fill an article's Edit summary as Wikipedians are encouraged to write accurate and detailed summaries.

Detailed explanation of actions taken

Addition of category

cat, or

[[Category:Whatever]] will put a link to the appropriate category page into the edit summary

Addition of comment

cm followed by either the comment itself or the topic

A comment was added to this page, mostly used on talk pages.

Example: cm ambiguity

Addition of different language version link

Abbreviation: different for each language

Added a link to the wikipedia article's version in a different language.

Example: eo:

link to Esperanto

Addition of external links

ext lk, ext lks, ext link, ext links

Added external link(s) to the article.

It can sometimes be helpful to specify or describe the external link(s) in the summary - ext lk: official strategy guide

Addition of links

lk, lks, link, links, ln

Added a link to the article; put link(s) between single apostrophes ('), or copy from the edit box, so that they are in double brackets.

This is especially useful if the link is to a new article, to draw people's attention to that, and for people who keep track of pages on their watchlist but not systematically of all new pages.

Examples:

link: 'Train'

[[train]]

lks: 'Article Name 1', 'Article Name 2'

link: 'Article Name'

links: 'Article Name 1', 'Article Name 2'

Addition or rephrasing of a short text

ft followed by the full text that has been added (perhaps with a little context), or the new version of what was changed

Thus the edit summary fully informs about the edit, there is no need to open the article unless you want to see the text in context or want to make another edit.

Example: ft: Judge Melville turned down a media's request for publication of 82 pages of documents and related tape recordings because that would violate the parties' privacy rights.

Of course you can use a copying feature of your operating system, you do not have to type everything again.

You can also use double quotes.

Addition of text

+, add, addition

Addition of text to the article.

Examples:

+official links

add: official links

addition: official links

Alphabetization

alpha

Alphabetization, typically of a list or of a series of links.

Break

See horizontal rule

Capitalization

cap, caps, capital, cpt, lc, lcase, uc, ucase

Wikipedia's article titles are case-sensitive, except for the first letter of the article. Also, according to Wikipedia:Manual of Style, only the first word in section headings should be capitalized. The above abbreviations indicate fixing of capitalization mistakes, or lowercasing or uppercasing specific words. cap, capital, cpt indicate general fixing of capitalization. caps is for those instances when every letter of a word is capitalized, when the word is to be made ALL CAPS. lc and lcase mean lowercasing the first letter of some word, and uc and ucase mean uppercasing the first letter of some word.

Examples:

ucase: Bill clinton

lcase: BILL CLINTON

Copy edit

copyedit

Miscellaneous copy editing.

It is encouraged that you specify the changes.

Examples:

copyedit: major reorganization, left original text

copyedit: from 'hello, I like ice cream' to 'hello, I like pizza'

'hello, I like ice cream' -> 'hello, I like pizza' you sick i hate pizza man i like eggs

Creation of a new article

creation, new

Newly created article.

Any remarks are added after 2 single dashes (-).

No other abbreviations should be used since the article is new.

Examples:

creation

new

creation -- NPOV check please

new -- NPOV check please

Divider

See horizontal rule

Edit that is explained on the article's Talk Page

see Talk

An explanation/discussion of this edit is on the article's talk page.

If possible, combine with other text, e.g rephrased, see Talk.

Fixing of typos

tiop, tiops, tpyo, tpyos, tyop, tyops, typo, typos

Fixed typos.

There is no need to specify any typo corrections.

Formatting

fm, fmt, formatting, MoS, mos, MOS

Applied Wikipedia's Manual of Style formatting.

There is no need to specify the formatted text.

Grammar

gm, gr

Fixed the grammar of a sentence

Horizontal rule

hr

Added or removed a horizontal rule (----).

Examples:

+hr

-hr

Merge

... merged in

Other articles have been merged into this article.

All the articles merged should be specified.

Example (for United States): USA and United States of America merged in

Miscellaneous

misc

Miscellaneous edits

Use only when a more specific and more useful edit summary is not practical.

Move

mv

The article or part of it has been moved.

The new location should be specified.

Or: this addition comes from another article.

Examples:

mv to 'United States' (merged)

mv from 'America'

Redirect

REDIRECT 'Article Name', rd 'Article name'

Made the page redirect to Article Name.

The page that the article redirects to should be specified.

Removal of ambiguity

disambiguation, disambig, disam, dab

Changing a wiki link to a Disambiguation page to point to the appropriate page.

There is no need to specify any disambiguation changes.

Removal of duplication

dup, duplication

Removal of duplication.

Examples:

-dup

rm dup

Removal of text

-, rm, remove, del

Removal of text from the article.

Examples:

-official link

rm: official link

remove: official link

Note that the hyphen is also put automatically in section editing, to separate the automatic text (the section title) from the typed text. Therefore it is ambiguous and not very suitable to indicate removal of text. Setting css class autocomment to be different helps, but either the distinction is not very clear for the small hyphen symbol, or the section title is excessively highlighted.

Revert to a previous edit

revert, rv

Reverted to a previous edit.

This short summary is insufficient on its own - you should always briefly explain the reason for reverting.

Examples:

rv: accident

rv: vandalism

revert blanking

rv unexpl del - revert unexplained deletion

rv changes by User:Second user to last version by User:First user

im dumb immm dumb yeaah waht okay

Sandbox

sandbox, Sandbox

Edit to the Sandbox.

This is especially useful for Wikipedians checking the Recent changes as it lets them know that they should ignore it.

Snap double redirect

snap dbl rdr

Turned a double redirect into a single redirect

Spelling

sp, spelling, typo

Fixed spelling mistake(s).

There is no need to specify the spelling change.

Wikify

wikified, wikify, wfy, wiki, dab

Created Wiki links or converted Wiki markup, especially of new articles.

There is no need to specify the wikified words.