CategorizedEdit

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Many of the ideas on this page are implemented in a user-friendly way by EditCategories.

A generalization of MinorEdit. In addition to MinorEdit, there are conceivably a few other categories that might prove useful (useful meaning the reader my wish to filter some of them out of RecentChanges, or at least not read them if they see them, or skim though them). If this were done, it would make sense to have CategorizedEdit flexible a la FileReplacement (have a wiki page with a list of all EditCategories). May as well let an edit be placed into multiple categories at once (so that, say, a RefactoringEdit? might also be a TrivialEdit? if the editor thinks it's especially unimportant).

Here are some category ideas that i think may be useful:

TrivialEdit?

For those times when you feel your edit is more than a MinorEdit but just doesn't need to call everyone's attention by its presence on RecentChanges. This has happened to me but i can't remember the examples right now; i'll add some next time i notice it, though. (if this were done, maybe this would end up being called MinorEdit and what is now called MinorEdit would be PunctuationEdit?)

RefactoringEdit?

When you have not added any content, but have refactored. Perhaps many would disagree with any easy way for people to filter RefactoringEdit?s out of their RecentChanges, though. One other benefit would be this: it is slightly annoying when looking through a diff of a page to not know whether you are looking for new content or looking at a RefactoringEdit?. Often when looking at a RefactorEdit? i get the drift of the refactoring almost immediately, but then i go and read every word just to make sure i didn't miss any new content

ReplyEdit?

When you are not adding a new thread of discussion but just replying to an old one. Personally, I would never filter this out of RecentChanges, but it would guide which pages I actually looked at. For example, if I know that the current thread of discussion on a page is one that doesn't interest me, i would skip over a ReplyEdit? on that page. But, if I was interested, I would probably be particularly drawn to read ReplyEdits? over other form of edits.

ListEdit?

Many edits that i've seen add an item to a list of something or other. Most of the time I would have liked to skip over these (I am usually interested in the topic being listed but not so interested that I follow the ListEdit? at the time its posted; maybe some other time i'll go through the list one by one. As I am not usually an expert on what is being listed, there is no change that I will edit the edit anyhow, so there's really no point at me looking at those edits on most pages. But I do anyhow, wondering if the new addition is a list item or new content of some other form)

AnnouncementEdit?

This would be used when the editor wants most people who see RecentChanges to read the edit. A related idea would be ImportantEdit?, but that might overly discourage its use.

An alternative is to have an AnnouncementPage? which is automatically on everyone's SubscribedChanges and FilteredRecentChanges, and also shows up highlighted in RecentChanges itself. On wikis with lots of RecentChangesJunkies, editing RecentChanges also has this role. --MartinHarper

: Yes, actually now that you mention it, I think an AnnoucementPage? would be better than an AnnouncementEdit? type -- BayleShanks

Seems to me there are three kinds of editing: Adding, Changing, Deleting. There is also the degree of the edit, such as Minor, Normal, Major. In terms of Adding, there are perhaps two types of things which may be added: Information and Comments. Also, coupled with Deleting, could be Moving. That is, removing content and giving it it's own page. Changing could be a fix (i.e. correcting a mistake), reworking, or updating to reflect newer information.

As complex as I am making the simple act of editing seem, there are two things to look at. Is the information useful? I say that all information is useful, even if you don't yet know why. The second is the ease for the user. Nobody is going to fill out five checkboxes and selection boxes and an edit summary every time they edit a page. On the other hand, the software itself seems to be fairly good at detecting whether something is an Addition, Change, or Deletion. So, what to do? -- MichaelFagan

: Yeah, we'd have to guard against letting it become too much of an annoyance. I propose a rule of thumb: CommunityExpectations for proper scoring of edits should be constructed so as to never require no more than one mouse click onto edit categorization controls. That prevents the worst-case number of clicks required from becoming greater than it is when all you have is MinorEdit. So, for example, if someone makes a trivial refactoring edit, they shouldn't be required to mark both the TrivialEdit? and the RefactoringEdit? boxes (although they can if they are feeling especially altruistic). (by the way, I would say in this case, the TrivialEdit? would be the one they should click).

: Any system along these lines makes wiki more complex, though. Hmmm.

 -- BayleShanks

I love this kind of thing. Ages spent simplifying, reworking, and renaming an idea, only to find the seed of it worded in a different grammatical form, and unchanged in over a year. Proof that AccidentalLinking doesn't exist?