On Dec 17, 2007 10:08 AM, Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/10/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
If oversight just deleted the text and the summary, and left the rest of the information, that'd also accomplish this.
Alternatively we could give the "oversighters" the ability to retroactively edit the old revisions (and the corresponding edit summaries) replacing strings of offensive text with "[redacted]", or "[redacted by [USER]], or a long black streak, or whatever.[2]
Well, if all you let the oversighters do is replace text (including summaries) with "[redacted]", they wouldn't be able to make the kinds of oversights they have made in the past. I'm not sure how much detail I'm allowed to get into when explaining what I mean by that, but for instance you can't hide the fact that User X made an edit to Article A at Time T by simply deleting or redacting text or summaries.
Hmm, let me bring up a hypothetical. Say I edit the article for my old high school and insert that the bathrooms often overflowed. Then a bunch more edits get made, keeping my text in there. Then I decide that my old high school is private information and that by inserting that the bathrooms often overflowed I've revealed that I went to that high school. Should the oversighters be allowed to remove this edit of mine? And if so, how would they manage to do that by inserting [redacted]s?
Now, if you let the oversighters actually edit the old revisions freely, they could do what they've done in the past even more effectively. They could change my edit into a spelling fix, my summary into "fix spelling", and then change the following person's edit into a reversion of the spelling fix and the insertion of the bathroom overflowing statement. But that'd be way way too much power and ability for abuse. Not to mention unfair to the poor person making the subsequent edit.