Help:User contributions

User contributions pages list the edits that a particular user has made.

Checking your contributions is useful to refresh your memory about which pages you have worked on (and to easily access these again), but can also be used to find out whether there have been any subsequent edits (see below).

This makes it possible to "watch" pages even if you haven't put them on your watchlist>Special:MyLanguage/Help:Watching pages|watchlist.

Other users' user contribution pages can also be accessed and are useful for seeing how other users have contributed.

They can be used to track down vandals, copyright violations, etc.

These pages are project specific, so a user contributions page for the English Wikipedia will not show the edits the user has made to the German Wikipedia, or to Wikimedia Commons, or to any other project.

Accessing your own user contributions page
This is displayed either at the top of the page, or on the left hand side.
 * To access your own user contributions page if you are a logged-in user, click my contributions.


 * If you are not logged in and want to access the user contributions page of your current IP address, type "Special:Mycontributions" into the search>Special:MyLanguage/Help:Searching|search box and press go>m:Special:MyLanguage/Help:Go button|Go.

Accessing another user's contributions page
This works even if the user page has not been edited yet (i.e. an edit box displays).
 * If the user has an account (username): bring up the user page and click Toolbox and then User contributions on the left hand side.


 * If the user has no login name, two methods are:


 * Click on the IP address in rc>Special:MyLanguage/Help:Recent changes|Recent Changes or history>Special:MyLanguage/Help:Page history|Page History


 * Put the IP address in the search box and press go>m:Special:MyLanguage/Help:Go button|Go

Using a user contributions page
Below is an example of a user contributions page using the default skin:



Edits are shown from newest to oldest.

Each edit takes up one line which shows; time & date, the page name and the summary>Special:MyLanguage/Help:Edit summary|edit summary, as well as other diagnostic information.

Here are some of the functions of this page:


 * 1) The username or IP  of the contributor appears here.

For example, to see only templates select Template from the drop down list and press Go.
 * 1) You can select a ns>Special:MyLanguage/Help:namespace|namespace to filter your results.


 * 1) This gives the time and date of the edit.

This can be useful if someone has updated a page you have worked on, and you want to see their changes.
 * 1) (hist) takes you to the page history, so you can see all edits made to that page.

The revision after the edit appears below the changes so you can see the result of the edit.
 * 1) (diff) takes you to a diff>Special:MyLanguage/Help:diff|diff page showing the changes between that edit and the previous revision.

These help you understand the type of changes that have been made.
 * 1) m stands for minor>Special:MyLanguage/Help:minor edit|minor edit (small corrections to a page).

The current page name is used, so if the page has been renamed the name displayed will be different.
 * 1) This is the name of the page the edit took place on.

It is the text the user wrote in the edit summary box (below the edit box).
 * 1) This is the summary>Special:MyLanguage/Help:edit summary|edit summary.

The page is as the user last saved it. This can be used to watch pages (if your last edit to the page does not display (top) the page has been changed). Sysops also have a rollback link here, see meta>m:Special:MyLanguage/Help:Reverting|m:Help:Reverting.
 * 1) (top) signifies that the edit is the current revision.

This means the user has only edited a section of the page (named in the grey text). This text is automatically added when you edit a section. The black text is a standard edit summary and is added by the user.
 * 1) This edit summary begins with an arrow link and grey text.

When their edits span more than one page, the black text in brackets will become links. These links take you to the users most recent edits (Latest), oldest edits (Earliest) or the next or previous page of edits (Next n / Previous n).
 * 1) This user has few edits, so all their edits fit onto one page.

A higher number increases the length of a page but reduces the number of pages. The number you select replaces n in the links to the previous or next pages e.g. (Next 100 / Previous 100).
 * 1) The blue numbers list the number of edits displayed on a page - 20, 50, 100, 250 or 500.

If the page is newly created the mark N is also shown.

But the following information does not appear:

If the revision concerned has been restored but not the previous one, then the fact that the user has edited the page is preserved, including the time and the edit summary, and the resulting revision, but not the change. A sysop can use deleted>Special:DeletedContributions|Special:DeletedContributions to see revisions that have not been restored. However, applying a diff is not directly possible.
 * Edits from a page that has been deleted afterwards (unless the page, including the revision concerned, has been restored).

Use log>Special:Logs|Special:Logs for this.
 * The deletion or restoration (undeletion) of a page (if the user is a sysop).

User styles
The page body has selector body.page-Special_Contributions, so we can e.g. use the CSS   to number the backlinks.

URLs and links
A user contributions url>m:Special:MyLanguage/Help:URL</>|URL looks (for this wiki) like this: http://

or http://

where XX is the user name or IP address, and "Contributions" can be abbreviated to "Contribs": http://

or http://

Change the sub-site to view your contributions on that particular subsite. (www.wikipedia.org, meta.wikimedia.org, etc.)

To link to a user contributions page you can also use this shorter form: <tvar|1>Special:Contributions/XX</>.

Interwiki links work as normal e.g. <tvar|1>w:Special:Contributions/XX</>.

You can view edits from only one namespace.

Each namespace has an associated number.

Restricting to one namespace can be done with the long form URL only (in this example the namespace is number 4):

Privacy
Your contributions can be viewed by anyone - please be mindful of this.  Check the privacy policy, if any, of the site you use; for meta: meta>m:Privacy policy</>|m:Privacy policy

First edit
When using the user contributions feature to determine when a user starting editing on a wiki, note that edits may have been made in another wiki, while later the page has been import>Special:MyLanguage/Help:Import</>|imported.

Also, until ca. 2004 there was a bug, which has been fixed but not retroactively, as follows:



If a moved page is moved back, the edit history of the page with the intermediate title shows the latest move only, with the corresponding user name, but with the date and time of the first move(!). ''

Therefore, if the oldest entries in the user contributions list are moves, they most likely do not represent any activity of the user on the stated dates.

Footer
The page has as footer the <tvar|footer>MediaWiki:sp-contributions-footer</> or the <tvar|footer-anon>MediaWiki:sp-contributions-footer-anon</>.

Number of edits
The pref>Special:MyLanguage/Help:Preferences#User_profile</>|user profile shows the number of edits.

The number is based upon an editcount field that is stored for each user, incremented each time the user makes an edit, but not decremented when a user's edit is deleted.

Therefore the count includes deleted edits.

It does not include moves.