Wikipedia:Edit summary legend

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This is a list of commonly used edit summary abbreviations. This page does not lay down any official guidelines on how to fill out an article's edit summary. Wikipedians are encouraged to write accurate and detailed summaries. For more information, see Wikipedia:Edit summary.

A more concise list is available in the quick reference. You can find other Wikipedia terms in the glossary.

Contents

[edit] Addition of category

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

[edit] 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.
Examples:
As in cm ambiguity;
Or re or re:, meaning reply. Also used in emails.

[edit] 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

[edit] Addition of external links

xl, ext lk, ext lks, ext lnk, ext lnks, ext link, ext links, URL, http
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
Example: ext lk: filipino strategy guide

[edit] Addition of links

lk, lks, link, links, ln, wikilink
Added a link to another Wikipedia article.
In the summary, specify the link(s) between single apostrophes ('), or copy them from the edit box so that they are in double brackets.
This is especially useful when the link is to a new article: people watchlisting the current page are likely to be interested in the new page.
Examples:
link: 'Train'
[[train]]
lks: 'Article Name 1', 'Article Name 2'
link: 'Article Name'
links: 'Article Name 1', 'Article Name 2'
See also: Addition of external links (this page).

[edit] 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.

[edit] Addition of text

+, add, addition
Addition of text to the article.
Examples:
+official links
add: official links
addition: official links

[edit] Alphabetization

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

[edit] Break

See horizontal rule

[edit] 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.

[edit] Citation of a source

ack (acknowledge)
cite
ref (reference)

[edit] Cleanup

cl, cleanup
Used to indicate general "tidying-up" edits; may include reformatting, spelling and grammar fixes, markup fixes, and other such minor edits. Useful if you make many different kinds of small changes in a single edit.

[edit] Copy edit

copyedit, cpyed, c/e
Miscellaneous copy editing.
It is encouraged that you specify the changes.
Examples:
copyedit: major reorganization, left original text
cpyed: from 'Tell Joe and I to ...' to 'Tell Joe and me to ...'
'It took 4 years to build...' -> 'It took four years to build...'

[edit] 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

[edit] Disambiguation

dab, disambig

[edit] Divider

See horizontal rule

[edit] Edit that is explained on the article's Talk Page

see Talk, 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.

[edit] Fixing of typos

sp, tiop, tiops, tpyo, tpyos, tyop, tyops, typo, typos
Fixed typos.
There is no need to specify any typo corrections.

[edit] Formatting

fm, fmt, frmt, formatting, MoS, mos, MOS
Applied formatting, e.g. to adhere to Wikipedia's Manual of Style, or to make the look consistent, etc.
There is no need to specify the formatted text.

[edit] Grammar

gm, gr, grmr
Fixed the grammar of a sentence.

[edit] Headers

head, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6
Fixed header markup or changed header wording. Often seen when a page has been incorrectly laid out with level 3 headers at the top level (=== text ===) instead of level 2 headers (== text ==).

[edit] Horizontal rule

hr
Added or removed a horizontal rule (----).
Examples:
+hr
-hr

[edit] Merge

mrg, mrgd, merged in
Other articles have been merged into this article.
All the articles merged should be specified.
Example (for United States): mrgd: USA & United States of America

[edit] Miscellaneous

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

[edit] 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' (mrgd)
mv from 'America'

[edit] Null edit

null, nx, ø
The edit window has been opened and the page re-saved with no change of text (occasionally necessitated by non-automated changes, like those to templates included in the page).

[edit] Punctuation

punc, punct
An edit to rectify punctuation; elaborate as needed.

[edit] Re-categorization

re-cat, recat
Changed an existing category link or links.
If the change is specified, put the category link(s) between single apostrophes (') or double brackets (e.g., [[Category:Category name]]).
Examples:
re-cat
recat 'Old category' to 'New category'
recat [[Category:Old category]] to [[Category:New category]]

[edit] Redirect

REDIRECT 'Article Name', rd 'Article name', redir 'Article name'
Made the page redirect to Article name.
The page that the article redirects to should be specified.

[edit] Removal of ambiguity

disambiguation, disambig, disamb, 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.

[edit] Removal of duplication

dup, duplication, dupe
Removal of duplication.
Examples:
-dup
rm dupe

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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
rvv or rv/v = revert vandalism
rvs or rv/s = revert spam

[edit] 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.

[edit] Snap double redirect

snap dbl rdr, fix redir
Turned a double redirect into a single redirect

[edit] Spelling

sp, spelling, typo
Fixed spelling mistake(s).
There is no need to specify the spelling change, but editors often show the change like:
speling -> spelling

[edit] User experienced edit conflict

(ec)

[edit] Wikify

wikified, wikify, wfy, wky, wkfy, wiki
Created Wiki links or converted Wiki markup, especially of new articles.
There is no need to specify the wikified words.