This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
Mass editing is editing that occurs when a single editor makes the same change to a large number of articles, typically employing the assistance of a tool such as the AutoWikiBrowser. Although mass editing can be carried out by a bot, it is also possible (and sometimes necessary) for such edits to be carried out manually, so that the editor can see the pages being edited and make a judgment call as to whether a particular page should be skipped or edited differently from others in the group. For example, an editor may generate a list of articles containing a common misspelling or typographical error, but may find that in some instances the misspelling or other error is intentional because it is contained in a quote or as part of a URL or filename, and therefore should not be changed.
Some kinds of mass edits are presumptively correct to undertake. For example, when a title with a large number of incoming links is made into a disambiguation page, editors commonly use mass editing tools to correct the incoming links, although they must be careful that in each instance they choose the right disambiguation target.