Minor Edit

WardCunningham has now disabled the MinorEdit function on WikiWiki. For specific discussion of that (BTW, should it be merged into here?), see MinorEditsDisabledDiscussion.

Many edits here by VolunteerHousekeepers are minor, for example -

While such a minor edit may not be worth reading by itself, it is instructive to note that a page worth editing is often a page worth reading. The EditPage now offers an option to redirect the logging of such edits to an alternative log called RecentEdits which leaves RecentChanges to record and recall useful content.

Feature suggestion

The part of the WikiWikiWeb script that adds the entry to RecentChanges could add a meter similar to what you get with the diffstat utility. Big changes would have a large bar and minor edits would have almost nothing. -- PierrePhaneuf

My first reaction, now that it's been implemented, came unbidden, it was: "Oh no, now I have to check in two places to see what's been edited." -- PhilGoodwin (RecentChangesJunkie)

That was perhaps my third reaction. However now I am concerned. RachelDavies was just subject to some moderate-to-heavy (in my judgment) editing, but the author apparently thought it was a MinorEdit and not worthy of RecentChanges. I think most would agree that anything beyond spelling, grammar, and categories does not constitute a MinorEdit; but of course we do trust the author to make the right decision.

I guess the obvious Wiki answer is to edit RecentEdits and move the change to RecentChanges. :-) -- MattBehrens (RecentChangesJunkie)

Nope. That would break QuickDiff...

Hmm, I fail to understand why. QuickDiff is already just showing the last change to a page, whether it be a change or a MinorEdit.

Junkies use QuickDiff. If you truly do make a minor edit the page to push it onto RecentChanges/QuickChanges, QuickDiff will only show that minor edit. Bummer.

You can always make any non-minor edit to the page to make it show up on RecentChanges. If you *really* care, you could copy the current version, restore the author-copy version, then reapply the current text as a non-minor edit.

On the other hand, if someone explicitly says "I'm just doing minor edits.", I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. I'd only override a minor edit decision if you know better (than the minor-editing author) which changes should be considered minor. The quick-edits script (like http://c2.com/cgi/quickEdits?days=.8) may be useful for quickly checking all the minor edits for abuse.

Note that diffs can't always be trusted, since they show the difference from the prior author (which is not always the prior edit). For instance, RachelDavies was edited by 193.132.120.73. Now, suppose the previous edit was 3 months ago, also from 193.132.120.73. The diff would then show all the changes from 3 months ago. (The old version in the diff (the author-copy) is not changed unless the page is edited by another user or host. Diffs are rarely useful for personal home pages that are edited mostly by one person.) -- CliffordAdams

This is old news, but a recent MinorEdit of my own made me remember something that was confusing as a newcomer. In case any of you were wondering why QuickChanges returns pages 'out of order' occasionally; pages on QuickChanges are not reordered after a MinorEdit, but the displayed age of the edit is updated.

At least one WikiGnome considers the use of "--" (as an EmDashInAscii) to be an "error", and accordingly changes it to "-". I find this both wrong and irritating when applied to my contributions. If MinorEdit is restored, the effect will be to make it even more tedious to find these changes. I prefer leaving RecentChanges just as it is, tolerating a small amount of noise in it as part of an ongoing FixBrokenWindows community value, and rely on the tension between that noise and the desired content to mitigate over-gnoming such as the HyphensAreNotDashes minor tempest. -- TomStambaugh

It would make it easier rather than more tedious. Once one is used to "-", "--" seems a bit ugly, especially if not preceded and followed by a space. It would be interesting to know just how inconvenient the UniCode em-dash U+2014 "—" would be. -- Anon

Removed an experimental method of posting response via a link (no longer exists) to an existing page on a Personal Web Site. -- DonaldNoyes

Donald, that seems a peculiar way to post a response, or are you linking to something intended for another purpose? -- DaveVoorhis (yes, elaboration on your home page -- deleteWhenRead)

CategoryWikiEditing

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