The recent changes page lets you see the most recent edits made to pages on Memory Alpha. Using this page, users can monitor and review the work of other users, allowing mistakes to be corrected and vandalism to be reverted.

There is a link to the recent changes page in the header shortcuts at the top of each page and in the navbar under Memory Alpha > Watchlist > Recent Changes. The recent changes page can be found at Special:RecentChanges.

Activity on Discussions is listed in the Social Activity Feed, not recent changes.

Understanding recent changes

The bulk of the recent changes page consists of a bullet list, where each line corresponds to an edit, with the most recent at the top. Here is an example:

• (diff | hist) . . Scott Bobbitt; 16:44 . . (+60) . . Archer4real (talk | contribs | block) (Tag: VE: Source) [rollback]
• (diff | hist) . . m Warp factor; 16:38 . . (+1) . . RockRob2040 (talk | contribs | block) (I've changed ".5" to "0.5" in the "warp-factor-list" to let the value appear more correctly.) (Tag: VE, Mobile edit, Mobile web edit) [rollback]
• (diff | hist) . . N! Talk:Nibia; 14:33 . . (+185) . . Shisma (talk | contribs | block) (New page) (Tag: VE: Source)

This indicates three edits: the first by User:Archer4real, to Scott Bobbitt; the second by User:RockRob2040, to Warp factor; and the third by User:Shisma, to Talk:Nibia.

From left to right:

• diff links to the diff-page for this edit; it is not available for new pages, page moves, (un)protections, (un)deletions, (un)blocks, or (re)uploads.
• hist links to the page history for the edited page, which includes not just this edit but also older and newer ones.
• A bold m indicates that the user marked the edit as a "minor edit."
• A bold N indicates the creation of a "new page" that did not previously exist in the Memory Alpha database.
• If an N is accompanied by a red !, the new page has not yet been patrolled.
• A bold b signifies that the edit was performed by one of Memory Alpha's bots.
• The next link goes to the current version of the page in question. If the page is on your watchlist, the link will appear in bold.
• The timestamp refers to the time in UTC. You can change the time to your time zone using your preferences.
• The next value indicates the degree to which the size of the page (in bytes) was affected by the edit. Positive values are given in green, while negative values are given in red. If the difference is greater than 500 bytes, the value is given in bold. The overall page size after the edit is given in a tooltip which can be accessed by hovering over the number.
• The next link goes to the user page of the user who made the edit.
• Next, there is a link to the user's talk page. This will appear red if the page doesn't exist, blue if it does.
• Next comes a link to their user contributions page.
• The block link allows admins to block the user who made the edit.
• Next comes the edit summary, which is defined by the user when submitting an edit. Page creations in which the user does not give an edit summary are automatically given the edit summary New page. Otherwise, not giving an edit summary simply results in this portion of the line being omitted on recent changes.
• Tags provide some basic information about the edit, such as which editing interface was used or if the edit reverted a previous edit.
• The rollback link allows admins to rollback all consecutive edits by that user to that page, restoring the final revision performed by a different user.

Interface

Default

Above the recent changes list, there is a box labeled "active filters," allowing you to filter results by namespace, tags, and other options. By default, all edits are shown except those made by bots. You can save a particular group of filters and then use it later through the "saved filters" drop-down above the active filters.

Under the active filters, there are 2 buttons.

• If you select the "live updates" button, the recent changes list will automatically update when a new edit is made.
• Opposite the live updates button is a button which opens a modal allowing you to set how many edits to be listed and the time period to search. The modal also allows you to group results by page.

Non-JavaScript interface

In the recent changes preferences, under the "advanced options" header, there is an option (disabled by default) to use a non-JavaScript interface. If this option is selected, the active filters box described above is replaced by a box labeled "recent changes options."

• The first line of text in the box provides links allowing you to adjust the number of edits shown and the time period to search.
• The second line allows you to hide or show edits by registered users, edits by anonymous users, your own edits, bot edits, and minor edits. Each of these is helpful for different kinds of editing tasks.
• The third line provides a link that will only show edits that were made after you opened the tab. If you were to open recent changes right now, the link would go to https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Special:RecentChanges?from=20260605233501, where the format is YYYYMMDDHHMMSS, UTC time.
• The fourth line includes a drop-down box which can be used to limit results to a particular namespace. You can also select "invert selection," which excludes results from the selected namespace, or "associated namespace," which includes the selected namespace's associated "talk" namespace as well.
• Finally, there is an option to filter results by tag.

Grouped recent changes

In the recent changes preferences, under the "advanced options" header, there is an option (enabled by default) to group edits by page. This feature groups edits per day by page and orders the groups by last edit date from old to new. This feature is especially useful if many edits are likely to occur to a single article over the course of a day, as that article will only show once on the list, with all changes to it grouped together.

Pages for which there is only one edit

The line shows:

• timestamp
• linked page title
• diff link
• hist link
• page size difference (in bytes)
• user, linked to their user page
• talk, linking to the user talk page
• contribs
• block (for admins only)
• edit summary
• rollback (for admins only)

Pages for which there are multiple edits

The top line, which is the only one shown before clicking on the arrow, shows:

• the timestamp of the last edit
• the linked page name
• the number of edits during the day, linked to the diff from the version at the start of the day to the current version
• the link the page history
• the page size difference (in bytes)
• the users, linked to their user pages

The lines per edit show:

• the edit time, linked to the page reversion
• cur, linked to the diff from this edit to the current version of the page
• prev, linked to the diff from this edit to the previous revision
• the page size difference (in bytes)
• the user, linked to their user page
• talk, linking to the user talk page
• the contribs link
• the block link (for admins only)
• the edit summary
• the rollback link (for admins only, and only for the final edit in the group)

Recent changes patrol

The recent changes patrol is a feature that tracks which edits have and have not been checked by a member of the patrol for validity and conformity to Memory Alpha's policies and guidelines, preventing excessive duplication of effort. The patrol log displays all edits that have been patrolled.

All users with administrative or content moderator rights have the ability to patrol edits. Edits made by admins, content moderators, and bots are automatically marked as patrolled.

Unpatrolled edits are preceded by a red exclamation mark on the recent changes feed. Unpatrolled pages are highlighted with yellow on Special:NewPages. To patrol an edit, navigate to the edit's diff and click the "[Mark as patrolled]" link that can be found directly below the edit information near the top of the page. If the edit is not acceptable, fix the problem and then mark the edit as patrolled to show that the issue has been resolved.

Patrolled edits can be hidden from recent changes, as can patrolled pages from new pages. To do this, select the "Hide patrolled edits from recent changes" or "Hide patrolled pages from new page list" option under the "Changes shown" section of your recent changes preferences.

See also

• Recent changes preferences