Help:Dummy edit

Shortcuts: WP:SMS WP:DUMMY

A dummy edit is a change in wikitext that has little or no effect on the rendered page, but saves a useful dummy edit summary. The dummy edit summary can be used for text messaging, and correcting a previous edit summary such as an accidental marking of a previous edit as "minor" (see Help:Minor edit) or for a note by a logged in account that a previous edit made by an IP was that user editing while unintentionally logged out. Sending a short message via the edit summary ("SMS") is one way of communicating with other editors if there is no need to create a new thread for the message. Text messages may be seen by dotted IP number editors who do not have a user talk page, or editors who have not read the subject's talk page, if it exists. Each edit summary can hold 250 bytes; the input box for an edit summary is limited to 200 characters. A dummy edit should be checkboxed "minor" by logged-in editors (except when the purpose of the dummy edit is to correct a previous edit accidentally marked "minor").

Examples:

• Changing the number of newlines in the edit text. Changing a space to a line break in running text or vice versa, for example, or adding or removing a single blank line after a header. Adding an extra blank line where there was none may add a paragraph break, which is not a dummy edit. Adding newlines to the end of the article will not save as a dummy edit (see below).
• Changing the number of spaces. Changing one space character to two or more (or vice versa) also has no effect on the rendered page. Multiple space characters always render as a single space, unless the line begins with a leading space.
• Adding an HTML comment. Text between <!-- and --> is always ignored by the browser though it will appear when viewing the page source or editing the page. For example, adding <!-- dummy edit --> to a page will not affect its presentation, though it will show an edit summary.

Note that dummy edits may sometimes affect the appearance of a page if done incautiously – for example, excess blank lines can result in inadvertent paragraph breaks. It may also make the page more difficult to edit if dummy edits make the text poorly spaced (for example, between two words in a sentence).

Null edit

Shortcuts: WP:NULL WP:NULLEDIT

A null edit occurs if a page save is made when the wikitext is not changed, which is useful for refreshing the cache. A null edit will not record an edit, nor make any entry in the page history or in Recent Changes, etc. The edit summary is recorded in the user's autocomplete record, but not saved to Wikipedia.

Examples:

• Opening the edit window and saving. A section edit save is sufficient, but can sometimes result in a dummy edit.
• Adding newlines only to the end of the article and saving. This is also a null edit.

If a transcluded template has added or removed a category since it was last transcluded, the purge function will not update the category page, but a null edit will.

When a page is moved or protected, the summary will be saved, along with a null edit.

See also

• Adding a category by using a template