Help:Edit summary

Edit summary
The text in the edit summary box will appear in black italics on the Recent changes page, in the page revision history (see below), and on the Diff page.

In the case of a small addition to an article it is highly recommended to copy the full text of this addition to the summary field, giving a maximum of info with a minimum of effort. Put "ft" in front, as abbreviation of "full text"; this way the reader knows that checking the edit further does not make sense. These kinds of edits with this code "ft" allow checking of Recent changes, Page history and User contributions (see below) very efficiently, both for the user and for the servers.

If the addition is more than 200 characters, so it does not fit fully in the edit summary box, you should write a short summary of the changes you have introduced into the article. For an addition of e.g. 400 characters you can also save time by simply copying that into the summary field, the excess will fall off, and the first 200 characters will usually be acceptable as a crude "summary".

Unfortunately one can copy only one "line" (in the sense of the text until a newline) into the edit summary box. The contents of further lines can be pasted at the end of the line. Thus e.g. a bulleted "see also" list is cumbersome to put in the edit summary box. One possible workaround for a new list is putting the list on one line, separated by the asterisks for the bullets, copying it to the edit summary box, and then, in the main edit box, putting the newlines before the asterisks.

In addition to a summary of the change itself, the summary field may also contain an explanation of the change; note that if the reason for an edit is not clear, it is more likely to be reverted, especially in the case that some text is deleted. To give a longer explanation, use the Talk page and put in the edit summary "see Talk".

After saving the page the summary can not be edited, an extra reason to avoid spelling errors.

An important guideline is always fill in the summary field. Even a short summary is better than no summary. An edit summary is even more important if you delete any text; otherwise, people may think you're being sneaky. Also, mentioning one change but not another one can be misleading to someone who finds the other one more important; add "and misc." to cover the other change(s).