Help:Article history

Help:Page history on Wikipedia

File:USApedia History Page.png

Screen shot of the history page with pointers to key links. Click the image to see in larger format.

Every article in USApedia has an edit history that captures every edit and every version of the article. This history page is a powerful resource for understanding who has been editing an article, when those edits occurred, and identifying what has changed with each edit.

To view the article's history, simply click the "View History" tab near the search window on the right side of the page.

The components of the history page

The most recent edit is at the top of the list. Each subsequent row is an earlier version of the article. Like every other page in USApedia, a blue link means the page exists and a red link means the page does not yet exist.

From left to right, the elements of each row are:

• cur: "cur" stands for "current version" - This link will show you a "Difference view of every edit between that row's version and the "Current" version of the article.
• prev: "prev" stands for "previous version" - This link will show you a "Difference view" between that row's version and the version immediately preceding it.
• radial buttons: There are two columns of radial buttons. These buttons allow you to manually select a range of versions to compare with the "Compare Selected Versions" button near the top of the page. Select the starting version with the left radial button and the ending version with the right radial button. Click "Compare Selected Versions" to see the difference view of all edits between those versions.
• Time and date stamp: When a Time and date stamp link is clicked, USApedia will show you a permalink of the version of the article as it existed at that time and date.
  • By default, USApedia's server time is used. You can change Time offset/Time zone option under Time and Date on the My preferences page. Eastern Standard Time is -05:00.
• User name (Talk|Contribs): This link will take you to the user page of the person who made that specific edit.
  • The "Talk" link will take you to that user's "talk page".
  • The "Contribs" link will show you every edit made by that user in reverse chronological order
• m - you may sometimes see a bolded lowercase m after the (Talk|Contribs) links. This represents a "minor" edit. In USApedia, we recommend that you never flag an edit as being minor. A minor edit would be something like changing the spacing or minor grammatical changes but for our purposes, it is best to just not use that flag.
• (xxxx bytes) - this represents the total size of the article in bytes.
• edit summary - following the bytes count is the "edit summary". This is a short description about what was changed with this edit. It is manually entered by each editor before saving the page. It is like a newspaper headline for that change. Every editor should make it a habit to always add an edit summary just as our parents have taught us to say please and thank you.
• (undo) - The undo link will literally undo that edit and revert the article to the previous edit.

Breakdown from Wikipedia

Page history screenshot

Edits are shown from newest to oldest. Each edit takes up one line which shows; time & date, the contributor's username or IP address and the edit summary, as well as other diagnostic information.

Let's look at some of the functions of this page:

1. The "View history" tab is highlighted and "Revision history" is appended to the page name. Notice that you can't make wikilinks to this extended page name – to make a link to the history page, copy the URL from the browser address bar when viewing the history page, and paste it between single square brackets (external link format) to make the link. {{History}} can also be used.
2. The year and month fields allow a quick jump when the page has many revisions. After entering a year and/or selecting a month, click the "Go" button to the right.
3. The "Tag filter" restricts the display to show only those edits that have been tagged by an edit filter. For example, "references removed" may be entered here. After entering a tag name, click the "Go" button to the right.
4. The "Deleted only" checkbox is only shown to administrators and others with the deletedhistory user right. It displays RevisionDeleted edits.
5. A line of links to external tools. The available tools vary between wikis. The line is made by MediaWiki:Histlegend which can be edited by administrators.
6. These links take you to the most recent edits (latest), oldest edits (earliest) or the next or previous page of edits (newer n / older n). Note that the black text in brackets will become links, when applicable.
7. The blue numbers list the number of edits displayed on a page - 20, 50, 100, 250 or 500. A higher number increases the length of a page but reduces the number of pages. The number you select replaces n in the links to the previous or next pages e.g. (newer 100 / older 100).
8. (cur) takes you to a diff page, showing the difference between that edit and the current version. The current revision appears below the changes, so you can see how the page is now rendered.
9. (prev) takes you to a diff page showing the changes between that edit and the previous version. The most recent version (the one on the same line as the "prev" you clicked on) appears below the changes, so you can see how the page was rendered.
10. The two columns of radio buttons can be used to select any two versions on the page. The current selection is marked by a special background. The two most recent versions are selected by default when you first view the history (that is why they appear framed and have a different background, see horizontal area below 4). Let's say you want to compare the versions corresponding to numbers 10 & 11 on the image. First, click the left radio button next to number 11. The right column of buttons will then fill as far as number 11. Then click the right button next to number 10. Finally click Compare selected versions. This takes you to a diff page showing the changes between the two versions. The most recent version (in this case number 10) appears below the changes, so you can see how the page was rendered.
11. This gives the time and date of the edit. The time is UTC by default at the English Wikipedia. Registered users can choose date format and time zone at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering. The date and time contains a link to that version of the page. Thus the first line links to the version that was current at the time of loading this revision history, and therefore the result may differ from that of following the link on the page margin to the current version.
12. The username or IP of the contributor appears here.
13. m stands for minor edit.
14. The size of the page in bytes (roughly corresponding to characters)
15. The difference in size between this revision and the previous revision. A green number with a plus sign (+1,864) indicates that the edit added this number of bytes (roughly corresponding to characters) to the page, while a red number with a minus sign (-29) indicates removal. See more at Wikipedia:Added or removed characters.
16. This is the edit summary. It is the text the user wrote in the edit summary box (below the edit box).
17. This edit summary begins with an arrow link and grey text. This means the user has only edited a section of the page (named in the grey text). This text is automatically added when you edit a section. The arrow links to that section of the current version of the page, and not the version where the arrow was clicked. A standard edit summary can be added by the user. This appears in black text.

Not shown in this example: some edits may be automatically tagged by the abuse filter (example: (Tag: references removed)); any tags applied appear after the edit summary. Tags cannot be added or removed manually, and are intended to help editors identify potential problem edits for examination; they do not prove that an edit is problematic.

Also not shown in this example: you can thank a user for their edit by clicking the Thank button. see Wikipedia:Notifications/Thanks.

It is possible to restore an old version of a page by following the link to that version, clicking "edit" and then saving. This should be done with caution, as it means that all changes made to the page since the time of that version will be lost.

In rare cases all or part of a page history entry may be shown in grey, struck out by a horizontal line. This indicates that information has been hidden from public view by an administrator or bureaucrat. See Revision deletion and Oversight for more on this.

Edit summaries

Where to add an Edit Summary in Visual Editor

The field under the title "Summary" is where, in Enhanced editor (Edit source), that you can add an Edit Summary

An edit summary is a brief explanation of an edit to a USApedia page. When you edit a page, there is a small text entry field labeled Edit summary located under the main edit box and above the Save page button. Edit summaries are displayed in lists of changes (such as article histories and watchlists), and at the top of diff pages.

It is good practice to fill in the Edit summary field as this helps others to understand the intention of your edit. To avoid accidentally leaving edit summaries blank, you can select "Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary" on the Editing tab of your user preferences under Editing.

See Wikipedia's article about Edit Summaries for a complete description of this topic.

Always provide an edit summary

It is considered good practice to provide a summary for every edit, especially when reverting (undoing) the actions of other editors or deleting existing text; otherwise, people may question your motives for the edit. Edits that do not have an edit summary are more likely to be reverted, because it may not be obvious what the purpose of the edit was.

Accurate summaries help other contributors decide whether it is worthwhile for them to review an edit, and to understand the change should they choose to review it. When a major edit (e.g. deletion of a substantial amount of text, a significant addition, or a substantial rewrite) doesn't have an edit summary, there are fewer reasons to assume good faith and busy editors may be more inclined to revert the change without checking it in detail. Summaries are less important for minor changes (which means generally unchallengeable changes such as spelling or grammar corrections), but a brief note like "fixed spelling" is helpful even then.

How to summarize

• Summarize. Summarize the change, even if only briefly; even a short summary is better than no summary.
• Explain. Give reasons for the change, if there is a reasonable chance that other editors may be unclear as to why it was made.
• Abbreviations. Abbreviations should be used with care. They can be confusing for new contributors.
• Talk pages. When editing talk pages, consider copying your comment to the edit summary, if it is brief; this allows users to check Recent changes, Page history and User contributions very efficiently. It also reduces the load on the servers.
• Expand on important information. Readers who see only the summary might not get the entire picture. Prevent misunderstanding: If an edit requires more explanation than will fit in the summary box, use the Talk page to give more information, adding "See Talk" or "See Discussion Page" to the summary.
• Avoid misleading summaries. Mentioning one change but not another one can be misleading to someone who finds the other one more important; add "and misc." to cover the other changes.
• Avoid vagueness. While edit summaries can be terse, they should still be specific as to what was done. For example, "I made some changes" is functionally equivalent to no edit summary being provided.

How to link to a specific edit(s)

Main article: Permalinks

File:USApedia Permalink Infographic.png

The URL for an article never points to a specific version. It points to the most recent version of the article. However, there are many situations within USApedia in which it is desirable/necessary to link to specific versions of an article. USApedia provides Permalinks for linking to a unique version (or series of versions). A permalink is a link that never changes. The two most common locations to find these permalinks are from the article history and recent changes.

Learning to view and understand the USApedia URL is the easiest way to know when a link to USApedia is a permalink. When browsing around USApedia, users will only see the base URL, https://saintapedia.org/wiki/, plus the article name (e.g. Cheat sheet). However, when you someone provides sends you a USApedia permalink or you are viewing a permalink within USApedia, there will be additional components in the URL, including:

• The base URL: https://USApedia.org/
• Server/database specific information and article name:
  • e.g. /w/index.php?title=Help:Cheat_sheet
• The ampersand (&): The ampersand is a special character that tells USApedia that additional parameters follow. There are numerous commands that can follow the ampersand but for the purposes of this article, the thing you want to look for is the term "oldid". Anytime you see oldid in the URL in any form, you are viewing a USApedia permalink. Examples forms that oldid can take include:
  • oldid=53930 - indicates you are viewing a specific version of an article.
  • diff=53930&oldid=53929 - indicates you are viewing a difference view between two or more versions.
  • action=historysubmit&diff=53058&oldid=51530 - another form indicating you are viewing a series of edits between two versions.

When viewing the page there will be additional information beginning with "Revision as of...". This also indicates you are viewing a permalink. Below that are tools that enable you to click to the previous version, the next version, the latest versions or to get a difference view ("Diff") between the version you are viewing and any of those options.

Difference view

See Wikipedia's article about the Difference View for a complete description of this topic

A diff shows the difference between two versions of a page. A particular version of a page is called a "revision"; each revision has a unique date and time of creation which can be seen in the article history.

• Links to diffs are used on various special pages, including the History tab of pages, the User contributions page which every user has, Recent changes, Related changes, and watchlists.

• Using the history of a page, it is possible to generate a diff between any two versions – select the left radio button for the older version, the right radio button for the newer version, and click Compare selected revisions.

• While editing a page, the Show changes button displays the changes you are about to make.

How it looks

This example shows the top of the diff page (some of the links are dummies). The older version is shown on the left, the newer version on the right.

Revision as of 22:32, Aug 03, 2003 (edit) Tim Starling (talk | contribs) (Edit summaries in diffs are great) ← Previous edit		Revision as of 00:10, Aug 18, 2003 (edit) (undo) Angela (talk | contribs)    [rollback] m (correction, + MediaWiki User's Guide)
Line 8:		Line 8:
	For sysops and those with the rollback flag, a [[en:Wikipedia:revert|rollback]] button is shown allowing them to revert from the new version to the old one.		For sysops and those with the rollback flag, a [[en:Wikipedia:revert|rollback]] button is shown allowing them to revert from the new version to the old one.
−	This is only shown when viewing the diff between the current version and the one immediately preceding it.	+	This is only shown when viewing the diff between the recent version of a page and the last version by an author other than the one of the most current version.
	This example shows the top of the diff page, with links the described above.		This example shows the top of the diff page, with links the described above.
Line 25:		Line 25:
	</table>		</table>
		+	[[MediaWiki User's Guide]]
		+

Explanation of colors

Unchanged text is dark grey on light grey (only parts before and after changed text are shown). Paragraphs which have changed are black on white, with an orange border on the old version side and a blue border on the new version side. Inserted and removed text is highlighted with the border color and bolded. Where whole paragraphs have been removed or inserted, no highlighting or bolding is applied and the other side is blank.

Colour key

Old version	New version
unchanged	unchanged
paragraph changed	paragraph changed
paragraph removed
	paragraph added
removed text	added text

Visual differences

Visual difference

A visual diff compares and shows differences between rendered (or displayed) documents, as opposed to showing the text (or markup) that is used to format such documents.

Since 2017, the main approach for visual diffs in MediaWiki is the visual diffs system (pictured) provided by the Extension:VisualEditor  extension, which compares the HTML of two documents. It provides visual diffs in VisualEditor's editing preview, as well as (still as a beta feature) in MediaWiki's standard diff display.

• https://diff.wikimedia.org/2018/02/20/visual-diffs/
• https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Diffs
• https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Visual_diffs

How to contact someone who made an edit

The following steps will allow you to identify the person(s) who added the link or who are actively working on the page.

1. Click the "View history" tab near the search box in the upper right corner of the page.
2. Click on one or more of the username links to see who is editing the page.
   • If the username is blue, that means the user has created their user page and their user page will likely have their name and email address on the page.
   • If the username is red, that means the user has not yet created their user page. That's okay. Follow these steps to find their email address.
     1. Click on their username anyway
     2. Open the "Toolbox" on the left hand column by clicking it.
     3. Click on "User contributions" link
     4. Below the bolded "User contributions" there will be a list of options that look like "For <Username> (talk | block log | logs | Look up user info)". Click the "Look up user info" link. You will then be able to get the email address for that user.

Reverting to an earlier version

For a complete description of the reverting process, see the Wikipedia article on reverting

"Reverting" is a process by which users can easily return an article to a previous state. There are two primary ways to revert an article for the average users:

1. Manual
2. "undo" button can be used to undo an edit.

The following information was derived from Wikipedia's page on this topic.

Manual

In some cases, the easiest way to undo past edits may simply be to edit the current page, deleting wrongly added text or restoring wrongly deleted text (this can be copied and pasted from a past version of the page). However it may be more convenient to restore a particular old version of the page from prior to the changes you wish to revert. To do this:

• Click the "view history" tab at the top of the page to display the page history.
• Click the time and date of the earlier version to which you wish to revert. You will see a phrase similar to: "This is an old revision of this page, as edited by ***.***.***.*** (Talk) at 15:47, January 24, 2025. It may differ significantly from the current revision."
• Click the "edit" tab as you normally would to edit a page. (Above the edit box, you will see a warning similar to: "You are editing an old revision of this page. If you save it, any changes made since then will be removed.")
• Complete the edit summary field. Please include some version of the word "revert" in your edit summary.
• Save the page.
• If constructive edits had been made after those that you wished to revert, return to the page history to find those edits, and redo them by hand if reasonably possible.

Undo

The MediaWiki software sometimes enables editors to easily revert (or "undo") a single edit from the history of a page, without simultaneously undoing all constructive changes that have been made since. To do this, view the page history or the for the edit, then click on "undo" next to the edit in question. The software will attempt to create an edit page with a version of the article in which the undesirable edit has been removed, but all later edits are retained. There is a default edit summary, but this can be modified before saving.

It is also possible to undo several consecutive edits, even if they conflict among themselves: view the diff to be removed (by selecting the two extremal revisions in the history and clicking "compare selected revisions"), and click the "undo" link.

This feature removes the need to manually redo useful changes that were made after the edit that is being reverted. However, it will fail if undoing the edit would conflict with later edits. For example, if edit 1000 adds a paragraph and edit 1005 modifies that paragraph, it will be impossible to automatically undo edit 1000. In this case, you must determine how to resolve the problem manually.

Related

• Breadcrumbs
• Cheat sheet

External links

• Wikipedia's help page on article history
• Video tutorial