Help:Page history

Each editable page on Wikia has an associated page history, which consists of the old versions of the page text, as well as a record of the date and time of every edit, the username or IP address of the user who wrote it, and their edit summary.

You can access a page's history via the 'Edit' button's dropdown menu. It can also be viewed via a link in toolbar when visiting a page.

Quick overview:
 * The newest changes are shown at the top
 * To view a specific version, click a date
 * To compare an old version with the current version, click cur
 * To compare a version with its predecessor, click last
 * To compare to specific versions, select the left-column radio button of the older version and the right-column radio button of the newer version, and then click "Compare selected versions"
 * Minor edits are denoted as m
 * Edits by bots are denoted as b

Step by step
Below is an example of a page history:



Edits are shown from newest to oldest. Each edit starts on a new line and shows the time and date, contributor's name or IP, edit summary, and other related information for the edit.

Let's look at some of the features of this page:
 * 1) The page name and namespace.
 * 2) (cur) takes you to a 'diff' page - any page showing the wikitext difference between that edit and another version of the page history. In this case the diff page is comparing the selected version and the current version. The current revision appears below the changes, so you can see how the page is now rendered.
 * 3) (prev) takes you to a diff page showing the changes between that edit and the previous version. The most recent version (the one on the same line as the "last" you clicked on) appears below the changes, so you can see how the page was rendered.
 * 4) The two columns of radio buttons can be used to select any two versions on the page for comparison. The most recent version is shown below the comparison.
 * 5) The time and date of the edit, expressed in the local time according to user preference setting, which links to that specific revision.
 * 6) The username or IP address of the contributor appears here with links to their message wall or talk page, and contributions.
 * 7) This is the edit summary - the text the user wrote in the editor's edit summary box.
 * 8) * Some of these begin with an arrow link and grey text. This means the user has edited a specific section of the page (named in the grey text). This text is automatically added when you edit a section. A standard edit summary can still be added by the user, which appears in black text.

If a page has been renamed in the past, the entire edit history of the article, before and after the move, is shown. The old title becomes a redirect and loses its edit history.

Edits made to deleted pages are not kept in contributor's User contribution pages. However, the revision history is kept and can be retrieved by an administrator, who can also undelete the page.

Creating feeds
Feeds (RSS and Atom) for the history of a page are available - you can use a feed aggregator or other tool to monitor changes to the page.

The RSS extension will allow you to include the RSS feed into another wiki page.

Linking to a specific version of the page
If you want to link to a specific revision of a page, click on the related date for the version on the page history. The resulting URL is suitable for use as a permanent reference to this version.

Note:
 * If a page contains any time-based variables, its rendered content will use the current date/time, not the time as it was when the revision was saved.
 * The latest versions of templates and images are used; if they have been revised, the page may look different than it was at the time the version was saved.

Exporting page history
You can export a page's history using the export tool.

Image history
An image or other media file can be replaced by a different image, by uploading a new image file with the same name. All versions are kept. The image history listing forms part of the image description page, which appears when you click on the image. From here, the image history can be viewed, and older versions can be deleted or restored.

Further help and feedback
de:Hilfe:Versionsgeschichte es:Ayuda:Historial fi:Ohje:Muutoshistoria fr:Aide:Historique it:Aiuto:Cronologia ja:ヘルプ:ページ履歴 ko:도움말:문서 역사 nl:Help:Paginageschiedenis pl:Pomoc:Historia i autorzy ru:Справка:История страницы vi:Trợ giúp:Lịch sử trang zh:Help:頁面歷史