Wikipedia:Revision deletion/Oversighter

RevisionDelete is a software feature that allows individual entries in a page history or log to be removed from public view. RevisionDelete can hide the text of a revision, the username that made the edit or action, or the edit or log summary.

On the English Wikipedia, criteria exists to govern the use of RevisionDelete, which are outlined below. Use of RevisionDelete by Oversighters in "Suppression" mode is covered separately by the Oversight/suppression policy.

Overview of RevisionDelete

RevisionDelete allows selective redaction of posts and log entries by oversighters, as well as peer review by any oversighter of the correct use of the tool. Hidden entries still appear in redacted form on the public wiki, and any user may request that an oversighter review a RevisionDelete action, to determine whether their hiding was reasonable.

RevisionDelete, as a deletion tool, is capable of removing material from the wider community's view. Because of this, the tool should only be used within strict guidelines. Barring rare exceptions, RevisionDelete should not be used outside the criteria outlined on this page.

Oversighters should consult as usual if uncertain that a revision meets criteria. In time-sensitive situations, an oversighter may redact and then immediately bring the matter to the oversight mailing list for wider discussion.

Criteria for redaction

A certain low degree of inappropriate or disruptive posting is normal within a large community. In general, only material that meets the criteria below should be deleted. Users should consider whether simply reverting would be sufficient in the circumstances. If deletion is needed, only redact what is necessary (i.e. leave non-harmful fields visible), and give a clear reason for the removal.

General criteria

1. Blatant copyright violations. This does not include revisions on the same page that contain non-violating content that were posted in good faith by users not associated with the copyright violator.
2. Grossly insulting, degrading, or offensive material against a person, group or organisation that has little/no encyclopedic or project value. This includes slurs, smears, and grossly offensive material of little or no encyclopedic value, but not mere factual statements, and "ordinary" incivility or personal attacks.

   Or possibly:

   Purely offensive material, where the revision or log contains (and is apparently posted to promote) blatant defamatory, privacy breaching or grossly offensive material. This might include log entries, edits, usernames, uploads, pagemove vandalism, attack usernames, attack filenames and the blocks of attack usernames.

3. Purely disruptive material, for example where the entry contains (and is apparently posted to promote) blatant provocation, warring, or perpetuation of an off-wiki battleground within the project, including allegations, grossly inappropriate threats or attacks, browser-crashing or malicious HTML, and the like, being of little or no relevance or merit within the project. This is distinguished from G2 in that although the material is not necessarily grossly offensive, it is clearly harmful to the project, has little or no project benefit, is usually not posted by established respected editors, and merely encourages the hostile use of the project as a battleground.
4. Personal and non-public information according to usual criteria. This includes actual facts, speculation and allusions as to places of residence, name, sexual orientation, contact, work, family, or home information, intimate relationships, and the like, that have been posted in breach of usual privacy norms. This also covers likely privacy breaching material where suppression will be promptly requested. (Note that it does not matter for this item whether it was posted by the user themselves or a third party, nor whether in good or bad faith)
5. Links to "bad faith" sites of a malicious or grossly inappropriate nature. This includes pornographic websites (when used out of any context), shock sites, phishing sites, known virus proliferating sites and websites that promote activity that is considered illegal in the United States (where the English Wikipedia servers are primarily located), but not mere spam.
6. Valid deletion under Deletion Policy or Speedy Deletion, executed using RevisionDelete. There are four main reasons why a matter that falls under deletion policy may be better handled by using the RevisionDelete tool. It is important that the underlying reason for deletion is made clear in the log summary.

   • Long page history - the page may have a long history so that deletion using other tools is difficult or impossible
   • Log redaction required - material that would be deletable on any page cannot be deleted if in a log entry without RevisionDelete
   • Minimizing harm - e.g., a post that is deletable under normal deletion policy or CSD may only need some data such as the revision text removed; leaving other fields such as the username of the poster visible in the page history and contributions may be both harmless and at times, positively desirable
   • Avoiding mass delete + undelete activity - other administrator tools require full deletion and selective undelete to selectively delete revisions. This may inadvertently expose past deletions to the public on some pages with significant deletion history. RevisionDelete can avoid this risk.

Other uses

The following specific uses may occasionally be required or agreed:

1. Deletion mandated by a decision of the Arbitration Committee. At times the Arbitration Committee may determine that a logged item was sufficiently improper that the record should be formally deleted in the public log. The deletion reason should clearly link to the decision. Deletions under this criterion are considered to be Arbitration Enforcement matters and should not be overturned improperly; they may however be appealed.

Notes on use

Grossly insulting or offensive comments against a person, group or organization:

It is not necessary that the target is identifiable. It is sufficient that it appears to refer to some real person, organization or group, or could be intended to suggest a specific target to the right reader. For example a smear could target a person known locally by a nickname or other allusion that no Wikipedia administrator has heard of, but that is instantly recognizable to people in that school, town or social community. It is therefore not necessary to be able to identify the target/s in order to treat it as if a target exists. Typical use might include a (purported) name, nickname, first name and phone number, label, or any combination of information that to the right reader might suggest a specific identifiable person, group or organization.

Deletion of privacy breaching or defamatory material prior to requesting suppression:

An administrator who notices material that in their view might require suppression, may delete the information from public view, and then promptly contact an oversighter to request its removal from administrator view. This may be needed in serious cases, since Oversight can sometimes take a little time. For this reason, even if the material is ultimately found not to be suppressable, it is permitted to provisionally delete the material and err on the side of caution, provided it is immediately passed to an oversighter and the deletion is in good faith. If the oversighter decides suppression was not appropriate, then the material can either be restored or left as admin-deleted as required.

Hiding revision text: (Requires review - not checked)

Hiding page text should only be done on pages that contain non-violating material either before the violating material was placed, or interspersed between the violating revisions. Cases in which the entire page is a violation, or the violating makes up the start of the page history, full and selective deletion should be utilized in both cases respectively. For example, pages that are pure copyright violates should be deleted under the speedy deletion criteria and pages in which the first five revisions are copyright violations should have the page deleted, and the later non-offending revisions restored.

Hiding usernames: (Requires review - not checked)

Hiding usernames responsible for edits can pose a potential problem as it breaks the chain of attribution. Only edits that cannot be licensed under the GFDL or CC BY-SA should have their usernames hidden.

Appeal and discussion of actions

Actions performed using this tool remain visible in the public logs. They are subject to review by other administrators (who can see redacted material), and reversal upon clear wider consensus. In common with other administrative tools, good judgment and appropriate use are expected; improper use can lead to sanctions or desysopping.

Technical details

The effects of two different visibility combinations on a page history. Redaction is shown to all users. RevisionDelete (del/undel) link on page history and logs (administrators only). The same option is also added to diff pages and old revisions (example).

The revision deletion feature is available when a usergroup is given the deleterevision user right.

Functionality

Once enabled for administrators on Wikipedia and viewed by an admin or oversighter, every page revision and log entry has a small (del/undel) button displayed next to it, as shown.

When a revision or log entry is hidden from view in its entirety, it is displayed as shown to the right, with the elements hidden from view stricken and greyed out. The struck-out elements cannot be viewed by any usergroup which do not have the deleterevision right. A user who cannot access the relevant revisions and tries to compare the revision with other revisions or access its &oldid= page will receive an error stating that the revision has been removed from the public archives. Similarly, looking up log entries by username will not show log entries where the username has been redacted.

The (del/undel) link can usually be clicked by an administrator to view the diff. It will appear in bold if suppression has been applied, in which case both the redacted material and its deletion settings cannot be accessed by administrators or users who lack access to the oversight tool.

Revision deletion is retained even when the revision or page is deleted. If a page is later undeleted, data that was deleted with RevisionDelete will still remain deleted.

Changing visibility settings

The RevisionDelete dialog. The suppression option is included for completeness, although this is only visible to users with Oversight access.

To hide or unhide a revision or a log entry, click the small (del/undel) button next to the relevant revision, diff, or log entry that you wish to show or hide. Depending on your permissions, there may be between 3 or 4 different options to choose from:

• Delete revision text
• Delete edit comment
• Delete editor's username/IP
• Suppress data from administrators as well as others (only available to users with the suppressrevision right, namely oversighters)

Tick the checkboxes next to each of the items that you wish to apply to the selected and then provide an informative summary in the "Log comment field". Once this information has been filled in, click the "Apply" button to submit the information. If this has been done correctly, a success message should be displayed on your screen.

To unhide a revision or log entry, or amend the data that is hidden, click the (del/undel) button for the revision or log entry and simply untick the boxes, provide a reason or summary and click the "Apply" button. Success should be marked by the display of a success message.

RevisionDelete's own log entries

RevisionDelete's own log entries in the public deletion log.

Use of RevisionDelete produces an entry in the public deletion log, or the private suppression log if used by an Oversighter and "Suppress data from administrators as well as others" is checked. Log entries created in the public deletion log look like those displayed to the right, for page revision and log entries visibilities respectively. The options (diff | change visibility) provide an easy link to view or redact the underlying page revision referred to by the log entry.

See also

• tools:~fl/revdelete/ — A tool to filter the English Wikipedia deletion log to just display RevisionDelete actions.
• mw:Help:RevisionDelete — MediaWiki Help page.
• mw:RevisionDelete — Technical page discussing the function.
• mw:Bitfields for rev deleted — Largely outdated technical discussion.
• User:Fl/Reports/RevisionDelete — Essay on RevisionDelete.
• Wikipedia talk:Oversight#Usage of RevisionDeleted — Stats on current oversight usage of the function.