Help talk:Minor edit

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I was about to link Help:Minor edit to explain a potential problem with an edit, which might have been incorrectly marked as a "minor edit", possibly to avoid scrutiny. Is there no established policy or guideline about this? ~ ToBeFree (talk) 14:48, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's reasonable to link here for that purpose, and it's true that misuse can be a way of trying to avoid scrutiny. However, the reason that this isn't a guideline, and I don't know of any guideline such as WP:DE that mentions it, is that the boundary between minor and not-minor is too subjective to be enforceable. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:28, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That's a shame in my opinion, as the minor edit mark is quite extensively used and trusted. I think the guidelines for this feature could and should be made objective enough to be considered a policy. This feature has been around for so long that enough experience and information has been gathered on its use to be able to establish a clear line. If not I think this feature should be removed as it's just stupid to have it without regulations, since many misuse or even abuse it then. It seems to me to be fairly common. Particularly are there many who seems to believe that updating sports articles and statistics is considered minor, while I think it's clear from these informal guidelines – uhm, information – that that's not what the Minor edit function is intended to be. But it's not mentioned here, so I cannot say for sure and strike down on those who do it. Details like that can be worked out to form a clear and concise guideline. --Mango från yttre rymden (talk) 19:34, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm of the There Are No Minor Edits school –last time I clicked that button was when I'd accidentally published a page I was still working on– and furthermore not only they are counted in the ESU, they have the option of having summaries of their own (which are themselves counted). Edit is an edit is an edit. kencf0618 (talk) 13:57, 8 November 2021 (UTC) edited 00:21, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I ceased using 'minor edit' a long time ago when somebody started complaining about whether an small edit I made was 'minor'. Seriously? Frankly I find the feature useless in my watch list. A more helpful feature would be a count of the total number of characters changed, rather than the delta of added/removed. Praemonitus (talk) 21:56, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This feature exists as an option in the editing preferences of a Wikisource user, but not here. I think that manual selection should be done away using a simple rule. Any change of three printable characters or less, should be considered a minor edit. After looking at a summary of my contributions by Wikimedia, It's worth exploring what their definition is when calculating minor edits. — Ineuw talk 18:54, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"This is not a minor edit."

Exchanging a plus sign for a minus sign involves only a single character. Paradoctor (talk) 19:05, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I meant visible in read mode. Mia culpa.— Ineuw talk 19:26, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm puzzled. How do the examples not involve printables? Paradoctor (talk) 20:19, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am referring to viewable/readable text. Not everyone edits. In my mind, an edit change which displays three characters or less, is also more or less immune to be an offensive edit. I often make a minor visual adjustment to an article, by adding or removing an empty row for better clarity between paragraphs and sub-headings. These are minor and could be set by the save process automatically, making the checkbox unnecessary. Look at the summary of your Wikipedia contributions on Wikimedia stats, which breaks down edits considered to be minor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ineuw (talk • contribs) 22:04, 21 May 2024 (UTC)— Ineuw talk 22:22, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Your language is confusing. I have demonstrated that a change of a single viewable/readable/printable character can change the meaning of a statement. Which means counting characters cannot be the sole criterion to determine an edit as minor, so "three printable characters or less" is out. Paradoctor (talk) 22:25, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You are absolutely right. I viewed the issue from a completely different perspective and I apologize. Wikipedia editing is not the same as Wikisource editing. We copy scanned text, essentially we are reading prepublished text for our leisure, interest and printing.— Ineuw talk 22:44, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll admit to not understanding how this would not be the same on Wikisource, but hey, I'll take it. ;) Paradoctor (talk) 00:01, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The rules should be the same. But, we don't care if this flag exists on edits, minor or major. If you compare the number of active users on en.wikisource to en.wikipedia, you'll walk away laughing.— Ineuw talk 02:28, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the text ...
As a trivial edit to be made for this purpose ...
should instead read ...
As a trivial edit has to be made for this purpose ...
-- 92.21.141.170 (talk) 09:31, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, was correct. But seeing as it seems to invite misparsing, I removed the entire phrase, it is not really necessary. Paradoctor (talk) 09:49, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The redirect Wikipedia:ME has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 March 26 § Wikipedia:ME until a consensus is reached. Justjourney (talk) 04:48, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The redirect Wikipedia:Me has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 March 26 § Wikipedia:Me until a consensus is reached. Justjourney (talk) 04:53, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What action should be taken if someone deliberately continues using minor edits for all of their edits ? --Nesciuse (talk) 21:30, 15 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

use an appropriate warn template on their talk page, be polite, & escalate if necessary at the Administrator's noticeboard. WP:UW WP:AN Tomatoswoop (talk) 01:27, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am rather wondering what action should the admin/mod take at such point. --Nesciuse (talk) 08:00, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would expect an admin to evaluate whether this is a matter of not yet understanding, or of deliberately and disruptively ignoring advice. If the former, patience would be indicated, but if the latter, a block might be considered. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:24, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How do we feel about alterations to article talk page maintenance tagging being marked as minor? Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 03:55, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Maintenance tagging" can mean more than one thing, so I think it would depend on the specifics. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:41, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I just now saw [1]. For that kind of usage in articles, I agree with the current guidance that it is almost never minor, because it deals with disagreements over what should be on the page. If we're thinking of the same thing, but on article talk pages, I think the same general concept applies, but because talk pages are not reader-facing in the same way, it still might depend on the specifics. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:02, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Splitting paragraphs can be very problematic due to there being no way in Wikipedia to show the span of a citation. So in the simplest case, a para with a few citations at the end is split, what usually happens is that the first para is left uncited with the second para having the original citations. The first para is now at risk of deletion due to being uncited. So to safely split a para, you really need to check which citations are supporting exactly what content so the appropriate citations remain the appropriate paragraph(s). But this only works for citations you can access, not ones you can't. In that situtation, the only safe option is to copy all the citations onto both paras. Kerry (talk) 23:14, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Users who are not logged in to Wikipedia or are in mobile mode are not permitted to mark changes as minor because of the potential for vandalism." This is no longer the case, yes? I'm able to mark edits as minor on a mobile browser Gethenian (talk) 19:39, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, the mobile site still doesn't let you do it. It's easier to switch to desktop now (at least on firefox mobile) since they've seemingly gotten rid of the *.m.wikipedia.org domain, but I doubt a lot of people would bother. (This page doesn't really explain why, it just says its one of the reasons to make an account, which more seems to apply to IP edits...) Ringtail Raider (talk) 18:13, 10 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, are you sure? I'm definitely on m.wikipedia.org / not in desktop mode and I'm definitely able to mark changes as minor (Firefox on Android) Gethenian (talk) 18:17, 10 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It just gives me an option to write a summary. Do you have mobile editor disabled in settings somehow? Ringtail Raider (talk) 18:27, 10 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure, I just had a look through my settings and didn't see anything that seemed related though Gethenian (talk) 18:52, 10 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am on mobile also and I have a minor edit option on true articles, but NOT on internal pages such as this one or the sandbox - presumably because reviewing edits in such places isn't important, whether minor or not. That may not apply to the help page itself as it's locked, but it does to this TP. So the minor option is available to mobile users (at least some) where it's available at all.

For reference, I'm using Kiwi browser (Chrome based) on Android. The domain is en.wikipedia but I am not in desktop mode - perhaps eliminating the m. domain did away with this difference? ChompyTheGogoat (talk) 04:46, 28 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

When updating your user page, is it okay to mark all changes as minor since there are no other concerned editors? Or should the minor checkbox only be used for minor edits, even on your own user page? Does not marking a change as minor on your user page have any effect on how fast changes are made to it? Cyrus Maws (talk) 13:18, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

According to the mention of dummy edits to resolve an erroneous "minor edit" flag, "Certain changes will not work if they do not affect the presentation of the page in HTML, such as adding a blank space at the end of a line or a blank line at the end of the page." However, WP:DUMMY states "The simplest method of making a dummy edit is to add a space at the end of the first line in the page's wikitext; if the space already exists, remove it."

I tested this out for myself in the public sandbox, and it appears that spaces after standard lines do qualify as logged edits, just not the final line on the page (attempted but not logged). I did not attempt to create separate sections so I do not know whether that would apply to the last line of a section.

I feel that this page could use a tweak to represent this correction because adding an extra space between words makes my brain itch (despite not being displayed on the live version). ChompyTheGogoat (talk) 04:34, 28 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A brilliant question, why bother with marking an edit with a character like m ? Is not the number indicating the change sufficient? — Ineuw talk 03:42, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

So I remember a day ago seeing a new page marked as minor, and it was created in 2005 or 2004, years before Wikipedia's golden age. Even this latter of fact that the page creation was not marked in the logs, and I have to find out if this was real. - SimpleObjects-9ei 🌸/🌻/🌞 22:32, 12 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be curious to see a link to that page. I've been here since around 2007, and it's never been a minor edit to create a new page during all that time. Of course, the fact that someone might mark an edit as minor has never meant that doing so was the correct thing to do, because incorrectly marking an edit as minor does not prevent the edit from going through. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:27, 13 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]