[WikiEN-l] Oversight or RevisionDelete

A quick answer. I have no idea which dispute or real-world issue this was about, nor when. I'm assuming following a quick search the page concerned is "David S. Rohde". When oversight or revision delete are used, it's almost without exception for serious reasons, for example where there is a concern over potential defamation or breach of privacy policy in the post. Not mere offensive comments, and not mere undesirability. A significant number of users cross-check each other on it, and there is an audit committee on english wikipedia to investigate any concerns as well. Privacy issues are taken extremely seriously. When oversight or suppression are used, it's book policy that oversighters almost never discuss or disclose anything, beyond what can be seen openly in the public logs. The trust required is why oversighter selection is a big deal. The underlying reason for the policy is that sometimes just having confirmation that a person or topic was targeted can be enough to do serious harm, when genuine cases such as stalking and serious harassment etc are intended by someone, if you think about it. (And if some were answered and others weren't then things might be read into a non-answer.) So the standard answer to all inquiries of this kind by any oversighter is "we don't discuss such matters, but we will look and check nothing untoward has happened, if you would like" However in this case I have discussed the inquiry and can confirm, that no material was or has ever been oversighted or suppressed (using revisiondelete) from the article I think you're referring to, "[[David S. Rohde]]". Hopefully that's enough to put your mind at rest. Don't count on such confirmation another time -- it's exceedingly rare to get it :) FT2 On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 7:41 PM, Joseph Reagle <reagle(a)mit.edu> wrote: