All The Tropes:Edit Reasons and Why You Should Use Them: Difference between revisions

There is a small box under each page in editing view that allows you to leave an (optional) edit reason. While edit reasons are indeed optional, they are often a very good idea, for both adding information and removing it.

 

* Citing the source of information from another source, either in whole or in part. Unless it is something you researched yourself or in the public domain, any information directly lifted from another source must have the URL cited in the edit reasons for attribution reasons.

* It clarifies why you chose to add the information, and what your rationale is for posting it. Of course, some edits adding information are self-evident (e.g. examples) and therefore don't need an edit reason. Others (especially those making major changes to a page's information via addition, adding recent information or information not widely known) are far less self-evident, and an edit reason is therefore a good idea.

* It points to exactly what you've changed on the page as a quick reference, especially if it is a major change.

 

* It says exactly why you've removed the information.

* It helps people to understand why the information was undesired in the first place. As in, if you are going so far as to remove information someone has taken time to share, it's only polite to tell them why. In the cases of things such as [[Natter]] and [[NSFW]] links, some new users may be genuinely unaware that [[Conversation in the Main Page]] or linking to a [[Image Board|Gelbooru]] pool (without labeling it NSFW) is unwelcome and unwanted. Leaving a polite edit reason linking to the page on the policy related to the removed material is a courtesy that may help them to become a productive editor.

* It prevents the information from being re-added, at least without a discussion. A removal without a reason (or with a rude or unrelated one) is an invitation to begin [[Edit War|Edit Warring]], especially for a newbie who doesn't understand how things work around here.

* It documents what has been removed.

 

* If the cleanup is something where all removals have the same reason, such as cleaning [[Natter]] and the only edits are the natter removals, it's probably not necessary to leave a reason for each.

* On the other hand, if your edit reason is "natter", but you've taken out ''one line'' of natter while you've also taken out a huge chunk of the main description of the work, several tropes that seemed to apply, and cut out non-lewd trope descriptions to leave several tropes with a near [[Zero Context Example]], your one reason edit may be seen as an excuse for nonconstructive editing.

 

 

* To leave a reason relating to a previous edit. This will only show up on the page history, not the actual page. These can be used to do things like explain someone else's edit (or your own, if you forgot to leave one on the last edit you made), e.g. if they deleted YMMV tropes off a main work page without moving them or saying they were going to, you could leave an edit reason noting that you had ensured they were all moved.

* Sometimes, you need a null edit to get indexing to kick in. This can happen if a page is [[Namespace|namespaced]] on an index, but isn't moved there yet, and the index bar doesn't show up at the bottom of that page. A null edit to the index page fixes this. An edit reason like "indexing trouble" is fine, though you don't really need one at all.

 

 

''Please be cool when you edit.''

* Hate speech, e.g. "You're all faggots" (homophobic slur), or "<nowiki>niggers</nowiki>" (racial slur)

* Trying to intentionally bait for an [[Edit War]], e.g. "Put that back I dare you"

* A [[Cluster F-Bomb]] not on [[Cluster F-Bomb]], or where not thematically appropriate.

* "Correcting" information with subjective opinion, e.g. "Actually, [[Final Fantasy VII|Cloud x Tifa is the OTP so I have removed your reference to the Aerith date scene, as it shouldn't have ever existed.]]"

 

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[[Category:Wiki Policy]]