The suitable initial group seems clear enough: every administrator. Beyond that, the censored log should be available to everyone. Administrators often have more than enough to do and any assistance non-administrators can do in the way of oversight is a good thing. Removing the page isn't close to sufficient - it conceals what is perhaps the most significant part of what is being overseen: who is doing what, where and still concealed from most, why. It's worth remembering that a few million pages with things not vanishing completely have not brought the encyclopedia or Foundation down. Making sure we have ample oversight so that people actually look hard at what is being done and mention problems is important to our process. Without broad oversight, the capability to make thing silently vanish should also be vanishing. James Day

Of course, but oversight from the broadest practical group is still required. I'm not expecting much in the way of trouble from admins abusing their capability and in the event that there is some, the admin concerned can be dealt with in other ways. What I don't want to see is us making it sufficiently interesting that people start routinely publishing differences between database dumps to highlight what is removed, or start routinely capturing and comparing "hot" pages to look for such things. So much oversight that it's obviously being looked after is one way to do that. James Day

On 22/06/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo(a)gmail.com> wrote: An idle thought vaguely prompted by this... you know what would be nice? After a normal deletion, for the history to go from * 12:13 2006-01-01 User:Adam m. (Fixed typo) * 12.54 2006-01-01 User:Bill (Expanded biographical section) * 13.17 2006-01-01 User:Vandal (...) * 13:22 2006-01-01 User:NotAdmin (Remove defamation) to * 12:13 2006-01-01 User:Adam m. (Fixed typo) * 12.54 2006-01-01 User:Bill (Expanded biographical section) * 13.17 2006-01-01 User:Admin [Revision deleted (Defamatory material)] * 13:22 2006-01-01 User:NotAdmin (Remove defamation) rather than * There is one deleted revision. * 12:13 2006-01-01 User:Adam m. (Fixed typo) * 12.54 2006-01-01 User:Bill (Expanded biographical section) * 13:22 2006-01-01 User:NotAdmin (Remove defamation) -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote: <snip> Sorry, I thought you were still talking about oversight. My mistake. Yes, I agree with you. -- Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

Okay, I appreciate that listing the article name may prompt investigative types to go searching for the deleted revisions on dumps. But to close off all public record of this potentially GFDL-violating tool is very worrying to me. Is there *any* reason not to have a bare log of oversight actions? Even without the page title, I'd like to see who removes an edit and when, with a reason (like "Personal Information"). Perhaps with some sort of unique tag (in the style of the autoblocks). This information would in no way give away the version removed or from what page it was removed, and it would reveal who was using the tools the most. Like: 22:17, 23 June 2006 Jimbo Wales removed a revision (ID #123456789). Reason given was: "Personally identifiable information" Any reason why that is unacceptable? ~Mark Ryan

On 6/23/06, Mark Ryan &lt;ultrablue(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Or to the many mirrors of Wikipedia, as has happened. How would it violate GFDL, and what would the "worrying" consequences be? Of what benefit would that information be, and to whom? What would the subsequent action be, some editor saying "why did Jimbo remove that revision on June 23"? He's already said why, Personal Information. This suggestion would just turn the log into a fishing expedition for distrustful editors. Jay.

On 6/23/06, Mark Ryan &lt;ultrablue(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I'm looking for someone who will state what they believe the likelihood of this happening, and what the practical consequences might be. I'm a little concerned that you are trying to turn this into a discussion about me, rather than a discussion about the practical consequences of using the "Oversight" capability. I'm not under any "mistaken delusions". :-) Nevertheless, the community has shown significant support for many of the members, particularly in the recent elections. Of course, every member elected also got oppose votes, so distrust (at least by the opposers) is inevitable. How were the developers elected, and what made you trust them? Hmm. For a while there someone was doing 95% of the CheckUsers, because they were willing to put in the hundreds of hours of volunteer time required to do it. Is that suspicious in some way? Are content implications more serious than privacy implications? Jay.

On 6/23/06, Mark Ryan &lt;ultrablue(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: It still hasn't been explained why the If anyone can suggest a bunch of people who as a body have sufficient respect and trust among the community who could replace the ArbCom in this role, I for one would be completely happy to pass it up. I agree that the Arbitration Committee should be primarily about resolving disputes. What is /de facto/ true, however, is that the Committee is a collection of editors whom Jimbo knows and trusts and therefore, to some degree, some expansion of the remit is bound to occur. It's not great, no, and in an ideal world it would not be to the Arbitration Committee that these powers were granted. I have no great desire for them. Yet purely from a practical standpoint (i.e. only so many hours in a developer-day), the delegation of these powers to editors is necessary, and the Arbitration Committee is the only current body that can fill the role needed. -- Sam

jayjg wrote: Yes. I would find it suspicious, at any rate. And then I (or someone else, actually, since I haven't paid much attention to CheckUser stuff) would go around asking "hey, how come User X is doing 95% of the CheckUser stuff?" and get various answers from various people amounting to "because it's a big hassle to do and he's the only one willing to volunteer the time." That would allay my suspicions. The fact that suspicions are raised is not necessarily a slight on the person under suspicion, IMO. It's good to be able to get these things out in the open and _confirm_ that nothing untoward is going on. Wikipedia's goal is to produce content. Protecting the privacy of its users is only a means to that end - an important means, IMO, but not the _most_ important. Otherwise why allow CheckUser to be used at all?

On 6/22/06, James &lt;user_jamesday(a)myrealbox.com&gt; wrote: Do you mean the complete log that is now available to those with oversight permissions (including details of the hidden revisions)? Making that public would really defy the point of hiding revisions in the first place; oversight has been used almost exclusively (if not exclusively) so far for hiding revisions with personal information in them, and they were hidden because noone should be able to view them. If you mean the incomplete log that was available publically before the complete log was developed (which merely indicated who had been using the tool, and when), then I would support that being restored in parallel to the complete private log. -- Stephen Bain stephen.bain(a)gmail.com

TK: "Unfortunately this means that the log itself has to be kept private. Those people with oversight can view it. No one else can." What people seem to disagree with is with the notion that the log "has to be kept private" due to someone's claim of 'legally problematic revisions.' Is Google facilitating the "damage of Starbucks' reputation" by not removing "consumer whore" from its Image searches? Understanding that legal systems are not always reasonable, WM cant reasonably be responsible for everything in the history of its articles. And to say the risk is great is simply to court the clique of privelege who think they can simply make a phone call and get things deleted through a privileged legalistic and back-door process -- for what everyone else does with the edit button. Stevertigo __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

On Jun 22, 2006, at 1:00 AM, stevertigo wrote: You say you understand that "legal systems are not always reasonable". But you do not connect the dots. We can take steps to reduce the chance we will be the victim of judicial unreasonableness. As to the clique of privilege, there is a small stratum in society which has the money, power and prestige to use the legal system (or effectively publicize their distress). We do not court them, they are simply more confident that a complaint will be responded too, so are more likely to complain. A complaint from anyone would hopefully receive equal consideration. Fred

On 6/22/06, Jimmy Wales &lt;jwales(a)wikia.com&gt; wrote: Since the problem existed pre oversite the odds are quite a few admins know exactly how serious the problem is. -- geni

On 6/22/06, Jimmy Wales &lt;jwales(a)wikia.com&gt; wrote: I am curious as to what situations could have happened here. Coming from almost 20 years experience in Usenet, having trolls and kooks show up and sometimes post people's home addresses and phone numbers and work contact info including boss and so on... most of these blow over without any notable harm other than people's sensitivity. I would be less happy with my Social Security Number or Drivers License going up somewhere, but I've had my home address and phone number spammed by nuts. -- -george william herbert gherbert(a)retro.com / george.herbert(a)gmail.com

On 6/23/06, Fred Bauder &lt;fredbaud(a)ctelco.net&gt; wrote: I certainly don't intend to stand for the proposition that we should encourage or stand passively by in cases of harrassment. Deleting it when inappropriate personal info is inserted somewhere is clearly good policy. Taking action against chronic abuser accounts is fine by me, too. What worries me is the apparent prevailing opinion that this is such a terrible, serious problem. I don't see it that way, based on my prior internet experience. I don't see it that way, based on the cases I have seen on Wikipedia in the last year. I don't see it as necessary to exaggerate how serious a problem it is, to justify continuing to remove the material and block or ban accounts which post it. The responses are justified to end attempts to cause serious harrassment of WP editors, whether those attempts are ultimately successful or not. As a rule I would expect them not to be successful, based on prior experience. They should still be responded to as a legitimate attempt to harrass someone, and all such attempts should be taken seriously, ineffectual or not. -- -george william herbert gherbert(a)retro.com / george.herbert(a)gmail.com

On 6/22/06, Andrew Gray &lt;shimgray(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Person A vandalizes a biographical article, replacing believable claims to notability with unbelievable ones. Person B, not realizing that the article was vandalized, lists it for deletion. Person C reverts the vandalism. Person A's edit is vanished. At this point, to anyone looking through the article history, it appears that person B is attacking the subject of the article, trying to get that article deleted. -- Mark [[User:Carnildo]]

Andrew Gray wrote: Sometimes people do, presumably by accident. I've cleaned up after one instance, which I could detect and fix since that was a case of ordinary deletion. -- Ilmari Karonen

On 6/22/06, James &lt;user_jamesday(a)myrealbox.com&gt; wrote: Wow, so thousands of people can now see the libellous or personal information that the tool was intended to remove in the first place? Sounds completely self-defeating. Great, thousands of queries constantly coming in now, from any of the tens of thousands of Wikipedia editors, so that we can further spread the damage. "Oh, turns out X removed information stating that politician Y is a serial rapist. Pass this on to anyone else who wants to know." What is likely to happen is a regular pattern of querelous and tendentious questioning of any deletion done, followed by inevitable leakage of whatever damaging stuff was deleted in the first place. Jay.

On 6/22/06, James &lt;user_jamesday(a)myrealbox.com&gt; wrote: All admins should *not*, _not_, NOT have access to all of this, because, frankly (and this is sad to say), I don't trust every admin. Why do you think some people voice their opposition to their RfAs? There has been some shady business, and I think those that were initially given the rights to oversight are plenty to ensure nothing is abused. Sorry. --LV

On 6/22/06, James &lt;user_jamesday(a)myrealbox.com&gt; wrote: No. Apart from anything else see wikitruth. -- geni

On 6/22/06, James &lt;user_jamesday(a)myrealbox.com&gt; wrote: 1000 people? That's an absurdly large group. As it is there are administrators digging up deleted articles and posting them on other websites. No, the log should not be available to everyone. I can't see what possible good that could come from it, and the log itself could be used to reveal the very kinds of things it is intended to conceal (e.g. personal information). What's the danger here? What horrible thing will happen if some edit disappears from the history? Um, not yet. The past is not a good predictor of the future in these kinds of things. And that's bad because? Jay.

On 6/22/06, James &lt;user_jamesday(a)myrealbox.com&gt; wrote: No, it's about reliability of admins when it comes to deleted information. Right, and that group consists of around 20 highly trusted editors. That's the largest *practical* number. 1000 is a completely impractical number that will significantly raise the risks of doing damage. And what harm will happen if the actions are not in accord with policy? Huh? You mean in an article about themselves? And how could they make the project look bad in a news story? I've seen no evidence anyone has even contemplated using it that way. And why would they? It seems completely farfetched. Jay.

On 21/06/06, Theresa Knott &lt;theresaknott(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Listusers/oversight?limit=500 for the list of users with "Oversight" access, which are, at of this moment: 1. Brion VIBBER <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Brion_VIBBER>(oversight, Sysop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>) 2. Charles Matthews<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Charles_Matthews>(oversightrsight, Sysop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>) 3. Dmcdevit <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dmcdevit> (oversight, Sysop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>) 4. Essjay <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Essjay> (Bureaucrat<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats>ts>, checkuser, oversight, Sysop<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators> ) 5. Filiocht <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Filiocht> (oversight, Sysop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>) 6. Fred Bauder <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fred_Bauder>(checkuser, oversight, Sysop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>) 7. Jayjg <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jayjg> (checkuser, oversight, Sysop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>) 8. Jdforrester <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jdforrester>(oversight, Sysop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>) 9. Jimbo Wales <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jimbo_Wales>(developer, oversight, Steward, Sysop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>) 10. Mindspillage <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage>(oversight, Sysop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>) 11. Morven <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Morven> (checkuser, oversight, Sysop<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators> ) 12. Neutrality <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Neutrality>(oversight, Sysop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>) 13. Raul654 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Raul654> ( Bureaucrat<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats>ts>, checkuser, oversight, Sysop<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators> ) 14. Sam Korn <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sam_Korn> (checkuser, oversight, Sysop<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators> ) 15. SimonP <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SimonP> (oversight, Sysop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>) 16. The Epopt <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Epopt>(checkuser, oversight, Sysop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>) 17. Theresa knott <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Theresa_knott>(oversight, Sysop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>) None of these were appointed in any way by the community, they just seem to have been privileges handed out to friends as individuals see fit... Now... If no one knows what exactly was deleted, not even the oversight people themselves, how is abuse of this ever going to be detected? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-06-05/Oversi… - "For legal reasons, revisions deleted through oversight are not visible to anyone, including oversight members. The only way to retrieve such revisions is by manual restoration by a developer." Ok, so developers can see it, but developers will not check unless there's already a claim that there may have been abuse of it - the thing is, when no one knows what's deleted, no one ever knows, not even the supposedly trusted users in Oversight. I think that probably needs to be changed. If there are certain people who cannot be trusted with information from Oversight they shouldn't have it in the first place. Either that or create a separate usergroup for "viewOversight" maybe....? -- Selina - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mistress_Selina_Kyle?oldid=55639088 / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mistress_Selina_Kyle?oldid=41845454 http://wikipediareview.com/?showuser=1 "I *do* think criticism is good for Wikipedia [...] Good quality criticism is valuable, and Wikipedians should listen to it, and actually make changes based on it. Are there corrupt administrators, then we should get rid of them." --Jimmy Wales ( http://wikipediareview.com/?showtopic=1693 )

On 6/21/06, Selina . &lt;wikipediareview(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: You could look at "friends" as being a nepotistic conspiracy by which cronies evilly band together to take control of what was supposed to be a public, open project. Or, you could look at it as people selecting only the Wikipedians they trust the most - as demonstrated by experience and time with the project - to give access to confidential information which could be used to hurt the project. Pick whichever you prefer. Steve

On 6/21/06, Steve Bennett &lt;stevagewp(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I'm pretty sure Selina didn't say anything about evil crony nepotistic conspiracies, so maybe you should tone down your rhetoric. History has shown us that when power is concentrated among the few without any formal regulation the long-term result is pernicious.

On 6/21/06, Selina . &lt;wikipediareview(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Now, I'm going to assume good faith in that you really *don't* know why this selection of people was chosen. Let's have a look. We have Jimbo (he gets most complaints, so fair enough), Brion (he could already do this, so fair enough), the 14 AC members (community appointed to a great degree) and Essjay (respected, bureaucrat, already has checkuser privileges). Now, we cannot do this like an RFA election, as there is potentially sensitive information. Matching the Checkuser requirements seems logical to me. There's no reason why this couldn't potentially be expanded in the future. Let's see how the current team does first. -- Sam

On 6/21/06, geni &lt;geniice(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I'm not sure. I myself was elected, and still don't quite know how. Oh aye, there's that too... -- Sam

On 6/21/06, Mark Wagner &lt;carnildo(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: It was a retorical question (I was heavily involved in setting up the darn thing). I was trying to make the point that those who had got oversightship due to arbcomness has been aproved by the community. Admitedly in an election system which had it's final detials hashed out in the minutes leading up to midnight. Incerdentaly could we have some disscussion at [[Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Elections/December_2006]] so we don't have to do things that way again? -- geni

I'm not sure we want to create a list of targets. Also as people who have inserted private information or libelous material are likely to do it again at the same place we are creating a security hole. Fred On Jun 21, 2006, at 6:20 AM, Phil Boswell wrote:

On 6/21/06, Fred Bauder &lt;fredbaud(a)ctelco.net&gt; wrote: I don't know whether you still can't, Fred, but I can, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Oversight -- Sam