Help:Change Explanations

Categories: WikiTree Help | Profile Editing Help | Styles and Standards

Change explanations are edit summaries.

Including Change Explanations with Edits

When editing a profile you will notice a field near the saving section of the page labeled "change explanation."

The text you enter here will be included in activity feeds (aka change logs) and help other members quickly understand your changes. It can facilitate friendly collaboration.

WikiTreer Tommy Buch explained change explanations and their value with these analogies:

• "I look at the change log like a filing cabinet of file folders with tabs. If I don't write on the tab what is in the file folder, then I have to look in each file folder to see what is in it.
• "Or I might look at the change log like an email list. If I don't display the subject line, then I have to open each e-mail to see what the e-mail is about."

Examples:

• Minor edits. Fixing typos.
• Clean-up after merge of duplicate.
• Adding source for birth location.
• Moving middle name to Middle Name field.

There are preset examples that you can enter with one click by selecting them.

Change explanations are required for saving changes to a profile or merging it with another profile.

No Editing of Change Explanations

Unfortunately, change explanations cannot be changed or removed. Once entered, they become a permanent part of a profile's change history, just like the profile edits themselves. (The profile can be edited, but its history of edits cannot.)

Never enter anything private in a change explanation.

This page was last modified 19:23, 8 October 2021. This page has been accessed 18,747 times.