When you edit a wiki page, there is a small text entry field below the main editing window labeled “Edit summary”. Before saving changes to a page, you should always enter a short message there, describing briefly what you changed. When you create a previously non-existing page, DokuWiki will automatically insert an appropriate message in the current language of the wiki.

The edit summary will be shown next to each revision in the list of old revisions for each page, in the RSS and ATOM feeds, and also in the list of recent changes for the whole wiki. In the default installation of DokuWiki, users aren't required to enter summaries when they submit changes. To require summaries, see summary enforcement.