Help:How to read an article history: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 06:18, 1 April 2019

Revision as of 12:24, 13 April 2019

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If the edit was made by a user who was not logged in, you can at least get a look at the other contributions made using the same [[IP address]], which are often, but not always, made by the same user. (Many Internet service providers issue temporary IP addresses to their users from a pool of addresses: when the user disconnects, the address is returned to the pool for allocation to someone else.) Also, it might be a fixed IP address for a computer in a public place such as a library or school; computers in such public settings can show an extreme combination of excellent edits and vandalism, but you still might be able to see that the particular edit came in the midst of a series of edits that help you gauge the character of who was at that machine at that time.

==Individual edits in the edit history==

Each edit in the article history will contain two links (''(cur)'' and ''(prev)''), the edit date, the editor, and sometimes an edit summary. Sometimes, there will also be an '''m''' to designate that a particular edit was [[Help:Minor edit|only minor]]. Clicking ''(cur)'' will compare the version in question with the current version, while clicking ''(prev)'' will compare that version with its previous version. The edit summaries will sometimes assist in explaining the purpose of or the actions within the edit. However, this is optional. Sometimes Wikipedians will often use shorthand to explain their edits. For example, ''npov'' and ''pov'' mean ''[[Wikipedia:Neutral point-of-view|neutral point-of-view]]'' and ''point-of-view'', respectively, ''cp'' means ''[[copy editing]]'', and ''rv'' and ''rvv'' both mean ''revert''. See [[Wikipedia:Glossary]] for a much longer list of Wikipedia shorthand.

==Identifying vandalism==