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A check to the minor edit box signifies that only superficial differences exist between the current and previous versions. Examples include typographical corrections, corrections of minor formatting errors, and reversion of obvious vandalism. A minor edit requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute. An edit of this kind is marked in its page's revision history with a lowercase, bolded "m" character (m).
By contrast, all concerned editors should review a major edit for its acceptability. Any change affecting an article's meaning is not minor, even if it concerns a single word.
Because editors may choose to ignore minor edits when reviewing recent changes, the distinction between major and minor edits is significant. Logged-in users can set their preferences not to display minor edits. If there is any chance that another editor might dispute a change, the edit should not be marked as minor. (If an editor considers a change to be minor yet conceivably controversial, one option is to include the word "minor" in the edit summary without ticking the "minor edit" box.)
Users who are not logged in to Wikipedia or are in mobile mode are not permitted to mark changes as minor because of the potential for vandalism.[a] The ability to mark changes as minor is among the many reasons to create and use an account on Wikipedia to edit.
A good rule of thumb is that only edits consisting solely of spelling corrections, formatting changes, or rearrangement of text without modification of the content may be flagged as minor edits.
It's acceptable to never mark a single edit as "minor". If other editors complain about your use of the "minor" edit flag, then it's likely a good idea to stop using it.
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