Help:Dummy edit
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[edit] Dummy edit
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). Text messaging via the edit summary is a way of communicating with other editors. Text messages may be seen by dotted IP number editors who don't have a user talk page, or editors who haven't 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.
[edit] Null edit
- See also: w:Wikipedia:Purge
- See also: w:Wikipedia:Bypass your cache
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, make any entry in the page history, in Recent Changes, etc., and the edit summary is discarded.
[edit] Effects and purpose
The key purpose of null edits is that they update category pages for categories transcluded via templates.
If a transcluded template has added or removed a category since it was last transcluded then purge will not update the category page, but a null edit will – see Help:Category#Using templates to populate categories.
[edit] 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.
- Clicking the edit button and putting some text in the edit summary
- This is also a null edit.
[edit] See also
[edit] Links to other help pages
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