Help:Dummy edit

This is an information page. It is neither an encyclopedia article nor one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines; rather, its purpose is to explain certain aspects of Wikipedia's norms, customs, technicalities, or practices. It may reflect differing levels of consensus and vetting.

Shortcuts WP:DUMMYWP:DUMMY H:DUMMYH:DUMMY

A dummy edit is a slight change in a page's wikitext that has no effect on the rendered page, but allows an editor to save a useful edit summary. By contrast, a null edit—clicking "Publish changes" without changing anything—does not modify the wikitext, does not create an edit summary, and does not appear in the page's edit history. The simplest method of making a dummy edit is to add a space at the end of the first line in the page's wikitext; if the space already exists, remove it. Note that dummy edits should not be used to hold content discussions; that should be done on talk pages.

Through a dummy edit, an edit summary can be provided, aimed at:

• Sending messages regarding editing issues. Sending a message via the edit summary is one way of communicating with other editors where it appears there is no need to create a new talk page thread for the message. Such "text messages" in a page's history may also be seen by users who otherwise would not be informed. For example, users who do not have accounts may edit from a dynamic IP address, and thus communication through the IP's talk page may not be well suited to reach that person. Such messages may also be useful to reach an editor who might not see a talk page thread, if a discussion was opened there. When raising some issue in the edit summary, it may be useful to provide a link in that message to the talk page and state that further discussion is taking or should take place there. Each edit summary can hold 500 characters.
• Correcting a previous edit summary, such as an accidental marking of the edit as minor or fixing a spelling mistake.
• Addressing an accidental or improper-and-rethought use of rollback for a good-faith edit or, at least, an edit that was not clearly vandalism.
• While logged in to your Wikipedia user account, noting that a previous edit posted by an IP address was you, but editing while you were accidentally logged out.
• Providing proof of activity from time to time by a user who does not wish to contribute but does not want to be seen as entirely inactive (such an edit is normally made to a user's own user or user talk page).

Repairing insufficient or absent copyright attribution under Wikipedia's free copyright licenses (CC BY-SA 4.0 and in some cases the GFDL) – that is, for content copied and pasted from a compatibly-licensed source, but without an edit summary that stated the copying taking place and provided the necessary attibution. The use of dummy edits for such repair is explained at Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia; see specifically its sections on proper attribution and on repairing insufficient attribution. Such essential repair using dummy edits presents in a number of contexts, non-exclusively described below, with suggested dummy edit, edit summaries for each context listed:

1. Shortcut

   • WP:RIA-COPYWP:RIA-COPY
   Content copied and pasted from one English Wikipedia page to any another (this may just be generic copying, but also may be from a more formal but improperly done merge or split)—

   The previous edit as of 11:33, December 15, 2025, copied content from the Wikipedia page at ]; see its history for attribution. This may be supplemented by adding {{copied}} to the talk page.

2. Shortcuts

   • WP:RIA-WMWP:RIA-WM
   • WP:RIA-SISTERWP:RIA-SISTER
   Content copied from another Wikimedia project. Using Wiktionary as the example—

   Content in the edit as of 11:33, December 15, 2025 is copied from the existing Wiktionary definition at ]; see its history for attribution.

3. Shortcut

   • WP:RIA-TRANSLATEWP:RIA-TRANSLATE
   Content copied or translated from another language Wikipedia. Using the French Wikipedia as the example—

   Content in the edit as of 11:33, December 15, 2025 is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at ]; see its history for attribution. This may be supplemented by adding {{Translated page}} to the talk page.

4. Shortcut

   • WP:RIA-OTHERWP:RIA-OTHER
   Content copied from a compatibly licensed (non-Wikimedia) source. Using a Fandom.com site source as the example—

   Content in the edit as of 11:33, December 15, 2025 is copied from http://insert.fandom.com/insert_rest_of_url, licensed under CC BY-SA; see its page history for attribution For this example, attribution should be coupled with adding a filled-out {{Fandom content}} template to the article's references. For equivalent templates for other types of sites, see Category:Attribution templates. (Be aware also that though most Wikia sites are compatibly licensed, not all are.)

The template {{attribution repair}} is available, and may assist in formulating proper wording for a compliant repair of insufficient attribution statement.

While other methods will work, the simplest method is to add a space at the end of the first line in the page's wikitext. Or, if a space already exists, remove it.

This page is referenced in the Wikipedia Glossary.

• Help:Edit summary
• Help:Minor edit
• Help:Null edit
• Help:Editing – How to edit a page
• Help:Related changes – List related changes