Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 08:50:34 -0500
From: charlottethewebb(a)gmail.com
To: wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Most useless edit summary ever?
On 10/16/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 16/10/2007, RLS <evendell(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
On 10/15/07, Ron Ritzman
<ritzman(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 10/15/07, Gwern Branwen
<gwern0(a)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&ol…
—C.W.
In all fairness, this is probably a consequence of RFA's culture of "must use 100
percent edit summaries before passing"! People quite often write entirely useless
edit summaries, aided by the prompt in Preferences, simply to pass RFA. I know I did. Post
RFA, however, I realized that updating articles with edit summaries such as
"+info" is beyond banal, so I turned the damn prompt off. Now most of my real
contributions are without edit summaries. This is, I think, a good thing. Tasting the
forbidden fruit labelled "No edit summary" keeps Wikipedia exciting.
Moreschi
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