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Candi Since: Aug, 2012
2016-10-19 20:31:28

You don't need a note for each and every edit, but "rewriting the whole page" gives a perception of completely redoing the page from the ground up. "Full page cleanup" might sound better. :)

Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. -Terry Pratchett
Fighteer MOD (Time Abyss)
2016-10-19 20:44:02

If you want to comprehensively list out your changes and the reasons for them, the Discussion page is a great place to do it.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
PaulA Since: Jan, 2010
2016-10-19 21:05:32

For what it's worth, and not saying this is necessarily a better way, what I usually do in these situations is edit the page in multiple passes, with each pass sticking to one type of edit: one pass fixing up formatting problems, one pass deleting misapplied tropes, one pass adding new examples, and so on. If I notice something that needs doing that doesn't fit the task at hand I make a note and come back to it in a later pass. It makes more reading for somebody looking at the edit history, but I like to think it makes up for it by being easier to see what I actually did.

MasoTey Since: Jan, 2001
2016-10-20 00:15:52

Edit reasons are seldom actually mandatory. Usually in a case like this I use a broad phrase like "general cleanup" or "miscellaneous fixes."

SeptimusHeap MOD (Edited uphill both ways)
2016-10-20 07:47:19

You can also copy the page text into a sandbox page, apply the changes there, copy over intermediary edits and then replace the original page with the sandbox.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
HeraldAlberich (Before Recorded History)
2016-10-20 19:21:03

^ Seconded; that's what I usually do. If I have specific edit reasons for some changes, I'll write them into the sandbox, then aggregate them.

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