On 8/6/07, Raphael Wegmann <wegmann(a)psi.co.at> wrote: They haven't been. This http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/SlimVirgin goes back thousands and thousands of edits. I got bored clicking on "next 500" so many times.

Perhaps you are thinking about her many archives? It would be crazy to remove that much of someone's contribution history for any reason. The devs would absolutely throw a fit! :-P

On 8/7/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca> wrote: to reason. The devs Whose copyright would be violated? If the long-time editor gives you permission, then I don't see how it could constitute a copyright violation. I actually think it'd be a good idea to oversight all but the last 500 edits of any user upon request. But only if it's a service available to everyone equally. I feel similar about all this courtesy-blanking stuff. The top google hit for my name still contains an undeserved hate-fest by various Wikipedians from over 3 years ago. I've talked to OTRS, I've talked to arb com members, I've talked to some of the people making the malicious statements, and what courtesy do I get? So far none. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Become an admin, then you can oversight your user page at will.

On 0, K P <kpbotany(a)gmail.com> scribbled: Stock admins don't get the Oversight power. (And for good reason!) Are you guys saying 'oversight' where you really mean 'delete'? -- gwern L34A1 Uziel Razor Avi AOL ISI Delta MI-17 B-52h/g garbage

On 0, K P <kpbotany(a)gmail.com> scribbled: Uh, yes, I do. That's what deletion means. It's not just page blanking, but rendering inaccessible to admins all past revisions/page history. That's what it has always meant; courtesy deletions aren't sinister at all. I've requested and done them many a time. Oversight is deletion for admins; deletion where they aren't allowed to see what was deleted. The only 'courtesy oversights' I can think of is the usual OTRS and "personal information" stuff. (Well, that and embarrassing stuff like the original Seigenthaler article. That was deleted and moved and oversighted so many times I'm not sure it can be recovered even with oversight.) -- gwern L34A1 Uziel Razor Avi AOL ISI Delta MI-17 B-52h/g garbage

3. Oversight --> [[m:Hiding revisions]] revisions are *permanently* removed from the database by those with the "oversight" permission, can only be re-added by developers (I think root). However, there is a private log that shows a *little* information. Oversights (people with the oversight permission) are assigned by ArbCom.

I am almost positive it is detailed there... yup, on http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Oversight, but it will likely be replaced soon by the new system being developed by VoiceOfAll (and others): http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Bitfields_for_rev_deleted. But what you said is detailed on the meta page I linked to, http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hiding_revisions. On 8/8/07, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- Casey Brown Cbrown1023 --- Note: This e-mail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to this address will probably get lost. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

There are three "levels" or types of deletion: 1. Blanking --> simplest, anyone can do this and view the blanked content in the history 2. Deletion --> admins can do this easily, other admins can see this and it is shown in a public log 3. Oversight --> [[m:Hiding revisions]] revisions are *permanently* removed from the database by those with the "oversight" permission, can only be re-added by developers (I think root). However, there is a private log that shows a *little* information. Oversights (people with the oversight permission) are assigned by ArbCom.

-- Casey Brown

On 0, Casey Brown <cbrown1023.ml(a)gmail.com> scribbled: in it removed Don't forget level 4: "Deleted off the hard disks completely." IIRC, everything that was deleted (#2) before something like March 2004 was accidentally completely deleted (#4) by the devs, and of course we only comparatively recently got true #2 deletion for images (that is, allowing for admins to undelete). -- gwern

Here's what it is. Basically, you have normal editorial process, the way a wiki always works. You can add material, you can remove it; anything removed shows up in the edit history. You can blank a page completely in the current version, but you still have an old copy to fall back on. Now, sometimes, just removing the offending text and letting people find it in the history is undesirable; you want shot of it properly. MediaWiki has a "deletion" feature, which takes the page (strictly, all revisions of the page) and marks them as not being visible. They're still there in the database, but are no longer visible unless you have the specific rights; it's reversible by undeletion. Deletions and undeletions are logged, and you can see - I think - how many revisions of a given page are currently deleted. You can't tell where those deletions "came" in the history - I think simply through the fact that this never got coded rather than any deliberate decision - which is faintly irritating. There *used* to be the ability to view the timestamps and edit summaries of deleted revisions, but this was removed due to abusive use of edit summaries; there's a patch being worked on to try and get round this, but I'm not clear what happened to it. The rights to delete, undelete, and view deleted revisions are handed out to admins; essentially, whilst we don't particularly want to *publish* this material, we see no reason not to have it "on file" to help us do various editorial roles. It's given only to admins because we have no actual mechanism (or community standing) for any kind of actively-determined user rights below that, and we don't want to give it out automatically for reasonably clear reasons! "Oversight" is essentially *actually* deleting a revision; going out and nuking it from the database (or the next best thing to it). Replacing it may or may not be possible, and certainly isn't very practical. MediaWiki doesn't tell people there was an oversighted revision because, effectively, as far as it knows that revision never existed - unlike deletion, where it knows the revision existed, just got flagged "removed". There is an oversight log, which records the time and reason for oversighting, and what the revision was; this is kept private because the content is presumed sensitive. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Oversight is deletion for admins; deletion where they aren't allowed to see what was deleted. The only 'courtesy oversights' I can think of is the usual OTRS and "personal information" stuff. (Well, that and embarrassing stuff like the original Seigenthaler article. That was deleted and moved and oversighted so many times I'm not sure it can be recovered even with oversight.)

On 8/8/07, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: But if a particular edit made on 17 June shouldn't be available to the general public, and an admin just deletes it and partially restores the page, but the edit isn't oversighted, and then on 19 July, another inappropriate edit is made, the admin who deletes and partially restores the page the second time is extremely likely to accidentally restore the edit from 17 June. Is that not the case? ~~~~

I feel similar about all this courtesy-blanking stuff. The top google hit for my name still contains an undeserved hate-fest by various Wikipedians from over 3 years ago. I've talked to OTRS, I've talked to arb com members, I've talked to some of the people making the malicious statements, and what courtesy do I get? So far none.

Well, they have been removed, but someone obviously restored the history.