On mar, 2002-03-26 at 16:56, Jimmy Wales wrote:
The issue of deletion is that administrative deletion,
unlike deletion
by an end user who merely blanks the content of the page is (a)
irreversible, in that the history is deleted as well and
I've checked in the beginnings of the semi-permanent delete code to the
CVS repository; a deleted page will still be kept hidden in the history
(old) table until it is removed by a (not yet implemented) periodic
sweep of unlinked histories or restored by another trusted user using
the (also not yet implemented) page undeletion tool.
Jimbo, I'd feel better about all this if you could install that on the
running machine when you have a chance. I don't expect anyone to abuse
their delete priviledges deliberately, but there may be disagreements
over appropriateness or accidental deletions (I'm sure I'm not the only
one who's hit a "yes, I'm sure" button automatically before noticing
that I'd been asked about something other than what I had intended!).
There's also the possibility of vandals breaking into someone's account
(think of insecure passwords, or leaving the login cookie open on a
public machine...), and I'd prefer that potential damage be minimized.
(b)
beneficial, in that it turns the page back into a nonexistent state so
that links to it will not indicate incorrectly that the page exists.
Of course, it's even better to add actual content yourself. :)
Administrative deletes should be reserved for mere
uncontroversial
typos that don't serve any useful function, and for really awful
vandalism that shouldn't exist on the site. It should also exist for
copyright violations! If someone puts copyrighted material on the
site, we have to delete it bigtime.
Would it be useful to have a single-version delete? ie, the ability to
drop a single old version of a page from the database, leaving in its
place a notice of removal. That way, gross vandalism (copyrighted or
illegal material) put into an existing article could be cleanly removed
from the database without going so far as to delete the whole article
history.
-- brion vibber (brion @
pobox.com)