Help talk:Minor edit

Is there an established guideline to link to instead? Should this become one?

I was about to link Help:Minor edit to explain a potential problem with an edit, which might have been incorrectly marked as a "minor edit", possibly to avoid scrutiny. Is there no established policy or guideline about this? ~ ToBeFree (talk) 14:48, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

It's reasonable to link here for that purpose, and it's true that misuse can be a way of trying to avoid scrutiny. However, the reason that this isn't a guideline, and I don't know of any guideline such as WP:DE that mentions it, is that the boundary between minor and not-minor is too subjective to be enforceable. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:28, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

That's a shame in my opinion, as the minor edit mark is quite extensively used and trusted. I think the guidelines for this feature could and should be made objective enough to be considered a policy. This feature has been around for so long that enough experience and information has been gathered on its use to be able to establish a clear line. If not I think this feature should be removed as it's just stupid to have it without regulations, since many misuse or even abuse it then. It seems to me to be fairly common. Particularly are there many who seems to believe that updating sports articles and statistics is considered minor, while I think it's clear from these informal guidelines – uhm, information – that that's not what the Minor edit function is intended to be. But it's not mentioned here, so I cannot say for sure and strike down on those who do it. Details like that can be worked out to form a clear and concise guideline. --Mango från yttre rymden (talk) 19:34, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm of the There Are No Minor Edits school –last time I clicked that button was when I'd accidentally published a page I was still working on– and furthermore not only they are counted in the ESU, they have the option of having summaries of their own (which are themselves counted). Edit is an edit is an edit. (talk) 13:57, 8 November 2021 (UTC) kencf0618 (talk) 00:21, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

what qualifies as a minor edit clarification request

what is the etiquette for adding tags. is this a minor edit or not? i'm assuming it is. but, it's not clear to me that is correct. can a moderation expert please update the what to/what not to sections of help:Minor edit page to clarify this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Seanmcd27 (talk • contribs) 08:16, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

This is not a minor edit, and the help page covers this where it says Adding or removing visible tags or other templates in an article. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:30, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

As an infrequent editor I wasn't aware of a topic about visible tags. Nearly all edits worth bothering to login and fix are going to be visible. Why is visibility relevant? I still think adding this to the prescriptive what is/is not section would be helpful. That's the obvious first place to look when questioning what is/is not a minor edit, especially when seeking clarification of a vague statement or unfounded assertion which is a weakness in reference material that is a common source of confusion. Seanmcd27 (talk) 08:43, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Usually for me I will consider typo or syntax error correction as minor edit. Chongkian (talk) 04:05, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

"Obvious factual errors" is not like the other things in 'What is a minor edit' .

I think we should remove this from the list, what is, or is not, an obvious factual error is highly subjective and contradicts the idea that minor edits shouldn't change the meaning of an article. JeffUK 20:34, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Minor edit as default setting is missing in Wikipedia

This feature exists as an option in the editing preferences of a Wikisource user, but not here. I think that manual selection should be done away using a simple rule. Any change of three printable characters or less, should be considered a minor edit. After looking at a summary of my contributions by Wikimedia, It's worth exploring what their definition is when calculating minor edits. — Ineuw talk 18:54, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

"This is not a minor edit."

Exchanging a plus sign for a minus sign involves only a single character. Paradoctor (talk) 19:05, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

I meant visible in read mode. Mia culpa.— Ineuw talk 19:26, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm puzzled. How do the examples not involve printables? Paradoctor (talk) 20:19, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

I am referring to viewable/readable text. Not everyone edits. In my mind, an edit change which displays three characters or less, is also more or less immune to be an offensive edit. I often make a minor visual adjustment to an article, by adding or removing an empty row for better clarity between paragraphs and sub-headings. These are minor and could be set by the save process automatically, making the checkbox unnecessary. Look at the summary of your Wikipedia contributions on Wikimedia stats, which breaks down edits considered to be minor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ineuw (talk • contribs) 22:04, 21 May 2024 (UTC)— Ineuw talk 22:22, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Your language is confusing. I have demonstrated that a change of a single viewable/readable/printable character can change the meaning of a statement. Which means counting characters cannot be the sole criterion to determine an edit as minor, so "three printable characters or less" is out. Paradoctor (talk) 22:25, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

You are absolutely right. I viewed the issue from a completely different perspective and I apologize. Wikipedia editing is not the same as Wikisource editing. We copy scanned text, essentially we are reading prepublished text for our leisure, interest and printing.— Ineuw talk 22:44, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

I'll admit to not understanding how this would not be the same on Wikisource, but hey, I'll take it. ;) Paradoctor (talk) 00:01, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

The rules should be the same. But, we don't care if this flag exists on edits, minor or major. If you compare the number of active users on en.wikisource to en.wikipedia, you'll walk away laughing.— Ineuw talk 02:28, 22 May 2024 (UTC)