In our example, it appears that someone has not only changed the text for one of our pages, but someone has vandalized it as well. While one edit may be a legitimate change, as the sysop we don’t want this page edited by the public, so we are going to revert to the previous page. In the case of vandalism, we have no other choice than to go back to the clean version of the page. The following screenshot shows the two changes made to the page. Following the screenshot, we will learn how to revert to the original page.
In the case of vandalism, it may be wise to check the contribution history of the user who vandalized the article by clicking on their IP address or user name. Clicking on their IP will often bring you directly to their user contribution page. If you are able to click on their user name, that will bring you to their user page. In the lower-left corner, there is a toolbox with a User contributions link. Click on this link. If this user is vandalizing many articles, you may need to take action.
When we noticed that our page had been edited and we did not approve of the changes, we used the page history to revert to an earlier version of the content that met our approval.In our example, we were able to revert from a legitimate change as well as an attack by a vandal. We also learned that when a vandal strikes our wiki, we may want to check their User contributions page to see what other articles they may have wreaked havoc on.
MediaWiki has quite a few more tools that the administrator can use to help monitor a multi-user wiki. While some of these have been mentioned already in the text, such as edit summaries and minor changes, they need further explanation.
We had a brief discussion about edit summaries in the last exercise when we were reverting to an earlier revision of a page. It is highly recommended that anyone editing a page fills in the Summary field because it makes it easier for you and your fellow contributors to understand what has been changed. It is also extremely helpful when going through the history of the page.
The edit summary box can hold one line of 200 characters. If you attempt to enter more than this, only the first 200 characters will be displayed and the rest will be disregarded. In the case of a small addition to an article, it is highly recommended the full text of this addition be copied to the Summary field, giving a maximum of information with a minimum of effort. This way, readers of the summary will be unlikely to check the page itself as they already know the extent of the edit. These kinds of summaries allow users to check Recent changes, page history, and User contributions very efficiently.
In addition to a summary of the change itself, the Summary field may also contain an explanation of the change. Note that if the reason for an edit is not clear, it is more likely to be reverted, especially in the case that some text is deleted. To give a longer explanation, use the talk page and make a note about it in the edit summary.
After saving the page, the summary cannot be edited, so try to avoid any errors.
If you look at the previous screenshot, you will see a check box labeled This is a minor edit.Minor edits have been glossed over in this article but now, we will give them a bit more attention.
When editing a page, logged-in users may mark a change to a page as a minor edit. Minor edits deal with changes such as correcting a type, changing the format of the content, or changing the presentation of the content. Minor edits usually do not involve changing the actual content of the page.
By contrast, a major edit makes the article worth reviewing for anyone who watches it closely. Therefore, any change that affects the meaning of an article is not minor, even if it involves one word.
The distinction between major and minor edits is significant because you may decide to ignore minor edits when viewing recent changes. Logged-in users can even set their preferences to not display such edits. No one wants to be fooled into ignoring a significant change to an article simply because it was marked minor, of course. So remember to consider the opinions of other editors when choosing this option.
Users who are not logged into the wiki are not able to mark changes as minor because of the potential for vandalism. The ability to mark changes as minor is another way you can entice your visitors to register.
It is always better to mark the edit as minor if you are doing the following changes:
We have to remember the following things when we are marking an edit as minor edit:
It is also good to remember the following terms since we are using them every now and then:
Dotted IP number editors are editors who are referred to by their IP address in the dotted decimal notation rather than a username, for example, 192.168.1.230.
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