[WikiEN-l] Most useless edit summary ever?

Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb at gmail.com
Tue Oct 16 13:50:34 UTC 2007


On 10/16/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 16/10/2007, RLS <evendell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 10/15/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 10/15/07, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Now now. Let's be fair: it *could* have been a null edit.
> > >
> > > If a "null edit" is what I think it is then shouldn't the summary be
> > > "didn't make a change"?
> >
> > I think the point is "made a change" tells us it *wasn't* a null edit. :)
>
> Indeed. The summary contained 1 bit (as in, binary digit) of
> information. Not completely useless, but as close as you can get
> without being.

I think "minor edit"[1] is beyond useless. I mean, there's a check-box
for saying that.

[1] e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rypin_County&diff=prev&oldid=162173174

—C.W.



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