Help:Edit summary

An edit summary allows you to give a brief description of the changes you have made when you edit a page. They should generally be used for every edit, except when creating a new entry, as they are quite useful. (Do not use them when creating a new page: the software will fill in a useful edit summary automatically.) They are limited by the software to 255 characters.

• … those who are looking at the page's history to work out how the page has changed over time.
• … people who have the page watchlisted to see whether they are interested in your change.
• … anyone watching Recent changes to get an impression of what sort of edits are going on.

• contains a brief description of all the changes that were made.
• may include a brief reason for making the edit.
• does not include excessive justification for the edit (if necessary, use the talk page).
• does not include irrelevant or off-topic information

• ISO 639-1 or ISO 639-2 language codes.
• the name of any templates used.
• shortcuts to relevant policies or guidelines.
• any abbreviation listed at Wiktionary:Glossary or Appendix:Glossary.
• other abbreviations, including those listed below.

Some edits have automatic edit summaries.