Every time a person edits a Wikipedia article, he or she can add a line of text that summarizes the edit in the Edit summary box that is provided underneath the edit window. Wikipedia has no formal etiquette governing the content of edit summaries, but a vast body of jargon has developed over the years. This jargon is useful because it makes describing common types of edits easy, but the jargon can also be daunting to readers who are unfamiliar with it. This cheat sheet lists common edit summary terms and explains their meanings.
See [[Wikipedia:Edit summary legend]] for more terms used in edit summaries. See "Edit Summaries and Minor Edits" on Edit Summaries and Minor Edits for a full explanation of edit summaries and "Major vs. Minor Edits" on Handling Major Editing Tasks for an explanation of minor edits.
cat, +cat, fix cats Categories have been added or altered.
cp or copyedit A minor rewrite occurred that doesn't affect the article's basic meaning.
copyvio Response to a copyright violation occurred. The editor may have removed the part of the article that violated copyright or just tagged the article as being a copyright violation. In extreme cases, the entire page might have been wiped blank.
lnk, lk, wfy, wikify, wik, wk The text was wikified by adding links to other articles and sometimes by formatting according to Wikipedia style.
merge The article was melded with another (see "Merge, Split, and Move" on Merging Articles). This summary usually appears alongside other supporting information, such as the names of the articles merged.
mv or move The page is being renamed by moving the entire contents and edit history to another (previously unused) page title. See Chapter 8.
NPOV or POV The article did not have a Neutral Point of View and the edit corrects this (or adds a tag pointing out this flaw).
rdr, redirect The page was turned into a redirect, taking readers to another wiki page automatically. See Chapter 8.
rv, rvv, rvt, or revert The page was reverted, which means restoring it to a previous version. Reverts are often used to reverse acts of vandalism. They can be carried out using automatic software or "by hand."
Spam or linkspam Spam or an unnecessary commercial link that had been placed in an article was removed.
Sp or spp, typo A spelling mistake or typographical error was corrected.
Tighten Inessential material was cut out or verbose wording was tightened.
+ro, +fr, +de:, and so on These language codes signify that interwiki links have been created to versions of this article written in other languages—in this case, versions on the Romanian-, French-, and German-language Wikipedias, respectively. See Chapter 15 for more.