View source for Help:Recent changes

The '''[[Special:Recentchanges|Recent Changes]]''' page allows you to see the most recent edits made to pages on OrthodoxWiki.  Using this page, users can monitor and review the work of other users, allowing mistakes to be corrected and [[OrthodoxWiki:Vandalism|vandalism]] to be eliminated.  For many of our users, this becomes the primary entry page into OrthodoxWiki. (A list of changes is also available via [[Special:Recentchanges&feed=rss|RSS]] or [[Special:Recentchanges&feed=atom|Atom]] feeds. <!--A RSS feed of recent changes is available here. ---> There is a link to the Recent Changes page at the top of each page and in the sidebar of each page. You can also create a link to the page as <nowiki>[[Special:Recentchanges]]</nowiki>.

== Understanding Recent Changes  ==

With the default [[OrthodoxWiki:User preferences help|preferences]], the bulk of the page consists of fifty lines, one for each edit, looking like this:
* ([[Main Page|diff]]) ([[Main Page|hist]]) . . [[Editing mathematical formulae]]; 10:06 . . [[Main Page|128.214.14.50]] ([[User talk:128.214.14.50|Talk]]) ''(Add examples)''
* (diff) ([[Main Page|hist]]) . . '''N''' [[User's Guide]]; 10:06 . . [[User:Brion VIBBER|Brion VIBBER]] ([[User talk:Brion VIBBER|Talk]]) ''(New page)''
* (diff) ([[Main Page|hist]]) . . [[Endnotes]] moved to [[Footnotes]]; 10:05 . . [[User:Goldenmount|Goldenmouth]] ([[User talk:Goldenmouth|Talk]]) 

This indicates three edits: the first by a user who is not logged in, to [[MediaWiki User's Guide: Editing mathematical formulae]]; the second by Brion VIBBER to [[MediaWiki User's Guide]]; and the third by Maveric149 to [[Endnotes]].

From left to right:
* "[[wikipedia:Help:Diff|diff]]" links to the diff-page for this edit; it is not available for new pages, or for page moves
* The [[wikipedia:hist|hist]] link corresponds to the ''Page history'' link on the edited page: it shows not just this edit but also older and newer ones. For page moves, the hist link leads to the history of the new page title
* A bold '''m''' indicates that the user marked the edit "minor". Only logged in users can mark edits minor, to avoid abuse.
* A bold '''N''' indicates that the page is "new", i.e., previously did not exist.  It is possible for a change to possess both the "minor" and "new" indicators; this is typically used for new [[MediaWiki User's Guide: Using redirects|redirects]].
* The next link is a link to the current version of the page in question.
* 10:06 refers to the time in [[wikipedia:UTC|UTC]]. You can change the time to your time zone using your preferences - see [[MediaWiki User's Guide: Setting preferences|how to set preferences]].
* For [[MediaWiki User's Guide: Logging-in|logged in]] users, the next link is a link to their user homepage (as usual with internal links, the view page if the page exists, the edit page if it does not, the two being styled differently). For users who are not logged in, the link is to their ''User Contributions''.
* Finally, there is a link to the user's talk page (the same remarks regarding existence apply).
* For page moves, a link is given to both the old and new title.

== Preferences ==
Logged in users can set preferences to adjust the way that Recent Changes looks.  For help in doing this, see [[OrthodoxWiki:User preferences help|how to set preferences]].  The options that affect recent changes are:

* '''Hide minor edits in recent changes''' - this hides all edits that have been marked as minor by logged in users;
* '''Enhanced Recent Changes''' - with this option enabled, multiple edits are grouped together. This option uses [[w:JavaScript|JavaScript]], and won't work in every browser (see [[Meta:Browser issues with MediaWiki]]). See [[Meta:Help:Enhanced recent changes]]
* '''Number of recent changes'''. You may select the number of changes which will be shown by default on the Recent Changes page. Once on that page, links are provided for other options. In the case of Enhanced Recent Changes this number of changes includes those that are initially hidden.

==Viewing new changes starting from a particular time==

If you have loaded the recent changes at, for example, 09:45 Feb 25, 2003, it gives a link "Show new changes starting from 09:45 Feb 25, 2003", giving you the changes you have not seen yet. In order to use this link later, after you have used the browser window for other things, or if you switch off the computer in between, you can instruct your browser to bookmark it (with [[wikipedia:Internet Explorer|Internet Explorer]]: right-click on the link and choose "add to favorites"). Alternatively, you can save the page with recent changes.

To get the new changes without one of these preparations, use (in this case, if the time above is [[en:UTC|UTC]]+1):

<nowiki>http://orthodoxwiki.org/Special:Recentchanges&from=20030802064526</nowiki>

(format yyyymmddhhmmss, UTC time).

You can copy this [[wikipedia:URL|URL]] to the address bar and change date and time.

The "Number of titles in recent changes" set as preference is applicable.

This feature can not be used in conjunction with "hide logged in users" (see below) unless the URL is modified manually.

==Hiding logged in users from recent changes==

[[Special:Recentchanges/hideliu]] is a version of recent changes that only shows changes by users who have not logged in. This can be useful for those watching out for [[vandalism]]. Features such as viewing changes starting from a particular time can be used with the hideliu feature, but only by manually altering the URL to add <tt> &hideliu=1</tt> to it. For example, clicking the time (as described in the section above) may take you to the url
:<nowiki>http://orthodoxwiki.org/Special:Recentchanges&from=20030802064526</nowiki>
You would need to change this to read
:<nowiki>http://orthodoxwiki.org/Special:Recentchanges&from=20030802064526&hideliu=1</nowiki>
in order to view the recent changes without logged in users starting from this time.

==Restriction on number of edits; alternatives==

A maximum of 5000 edits can be obtained, currently on the English Wikipedia covering ca. 3 hours (use "limit=5000").

Checking changes for a longer period are restricted:
*watched pages: (use "My watchlist" in combination with "Revision history"). This runs less smoothly: on the English Wikipedia it often does not work ("database error" or "sorry, we have a problem").
*pages that are linked from a given page (use "Related changes" in combination with "Revision history")
*newly created pages (use "Newly created articles", then view the current version, or, if desired, also the revision history).
*individual pages (use "Revision history") and individual users (use "User contributions" in combination with "Revision history").
*namespace filter in the "Recent changes" (since [[meta:MediaWiki 1.5|MediaWiki 1.5]]) lets users see recent changes for the given namespace.

See also below.

==Edit records that are changed or lost==

After a page has been renamed (moved), earlier edits, including the original creation of the page, are shown in Recent Changes etc. under the new name.

After a page has been deleted, earlier edits, including the original creation of the page, are not shown in Recent Changes etc.

In this Recent Changes differs from a real log of editing events (the latter in the sense that something that has happened can not be changed afterwards). Compare [[w:Historical revisionism|Historical revisionism]].

However, some edit lines are in Recent Changes (as long as it lasts) but no longer in edit histories, watchlists, Related Changes or User Contributions: when [[Help:Renaming_%28moving%29_a_page#Moving_over_a_redirect|moving a page over a redirect]], the ''creation'' of ''that'' redirect is only in Recent Changes (and only if that was recent enough, of course). In particular this applies in the case of re-renaming a page back to its original name, and subsequent renamings back and forth.

==Bots==
Bots can be hidden from recent changes by adding <tt>&hidebots=0</tt> to the url. It is possible for sysops to mark some edits as bot edits, thereby preventing them displaying in the default recent changes. See [[:Wikipedia:revert]] for more information on this.

== Patrolling edits ==
See [[OrthodoxWiki:Vandalism#Patrolled Edits]].

==Other OrthodoxWiki features showing lines about edits==

(see also [[wikipedia:Edit_summary#Places_where_the_edit_summary_appears]]).

===Revision history (also called page history)===

Every line represents one edit to the given page and the version resulting from it
*"last" is similar to "diff", explained above
*"cur" gives the difference between this version and the current one (i.e., excluding the edit shown by pressing the "last" next to it), which is the cumulation of all later edits, including those which are not in this revision history because they were made after loading this page
*the date and time link to the version of that day and time, except that in the first line, which is about the latest edit at the time of loading this revision history, the date and time link to the current version, hence with the changes made after this revision history was loaded;

The "cur" and "last" features are similar to those in [[meta:Browser issues with MediaWiki|Enhanced Recent Changes]], except for "cur" in the first line: it is not linked in the revision history, while in the Enhanced Recent Changes it gives the differences corresponding to the last edit; just after loading the revision history this is the same as the "cur" link of the second line gives, but if there have been edits after loading it is different.

==Source==
This help text is based on [[wikipedia:Help:Recent_changes]].

[[Category:OrthodoxWiki]]
[[Category:Help]]