Wikipedia:Oversight

This page documents an official policy on the English Wikipedia. The main Wikimedia Foundation policy on Oversight has been decided on Meta (m:Hiding_revisions#Policy) and nothing here may override that policy without approval there.

If you are a user who has a request for oversight, please note that details should not be posted in public. See Wikipedia:Requests for oversight for the email address (monitored 24/7) or other ways to request Oversight.

Oversight on the Wikipedia is a form of extreme deletion, intended for privacy, defamation and copyrighted information which are to be expunged from any form of usual access. Oversighted edits differ from normal deletion performed by administrators, since once removed, they cannot be seen even by administrators, nor can they easily be restored to the database.

On the English Wikipedia, oversight is entrusted to a restricted number of users, who can both oversight material if it meets the strict requirements below, and monitor each others' use of the function.

The permission is granted (exceedingly rarely and only with good cause) by the Arbitration Committee, who handle many other privacy-related functions. Users authorized for oversight must be over 18 and must have provided personal identification to the Wikimedia Foundation.

Nomenclature

The term 'oversight' comes from the ability to review the "oversight log" containing a list of such removals. When the revision hiding feature was being designed, it was thought that permissions for revision hiding and viewing the log would be granted separately, and when they were coalesced into a single permission, the term "oversight" was used.

Policy

Oversight policy is documented at m:Oversight

This feature is approved for use in three cases:

1. Removal of non-public personal information, such as phone numbers, home addresses, workplaces or identities of pseudonymous or anonymous individuals who have not made their identity public.
2. Removal of potentially libelous information, either: a) on the advice of Wikimedia Foundation counsel; or b) when the subject has specifically asked for the information to be expunged from the history, the case is clear, and there is no editorial reason to keep the revision.
3. Removal of copyright infringement, on the advice of Wikimedia Foundation counsel.

Hidden revisions remain accessible to Oversight users through the log, and can be restored by a developer if a mistake was made.

Oversight removal is not used on usual vandalism—even egregious and offensive vandalism—unless it is one of the above. Oversight is for material that should not be available even to an admin.

Oversight operation

Usage

An example of the interface accessed from the "Hide Revision" tab.

An example of the initial interface accessed from Special:HideRevision. On clicking continue, the usual display and warnings (image above) will be presented before confirming the action.

A user with oversight privilege will get an extra "hide revision" tab when viewing an old revision, a diff, or a deleted revision. Click this tab and fill out a comment to remove the displayed revision.

If the revision number is known, then it can be entered manually at Special:HideRevision followed by clicking "continue". The revision will be looked up and the usual display and warnings shown, before the user then confirms the action.

Note that the most recent edit to a page cannot be hidden; revert the edit first. If a page has only one revision, blank it to make a second revision and oversight the first one, then delete the page. Consider using an edit summary that will not indicate when a previous edit has been removed, to reduce the risk of others probing for the deleted private information.

Hiding revisions can create inaccurate diffs. For example, suppose user A adds personal information, then user B adds vandalism, and then user C removes the personal information without removing the vandalism. Now a member of the oversight team, after verifying that the personal information meets the qualifications for oversight removal, hides revisions by users A and B, the minimum required to remove the personal information. The difference logs now show C as authoring the vandalism. In this example, the inaccuracies could be avoided by an ordinary revert to before user A and also hiding C's edits. However, in situations where good content is added, a simple solution may not exist.

There is a proposal to modify the oversight system to allow revision removal to be flagged in histories with a visible marker, which in our example would help avoid C's false contribution log.

If you believe that a page revision qualifies for hiding under this process, please e-mail a request per Wikipedia:Requests for oversight.

Logging

An example of the Special:Oversight log.

Revision hidings are logged privately, visible to other oversight-admins at Special:Oversight with a comment.

The log lists who made the removal, when, from which page, and a provided comment. A diff link to compare the previous live revision to the hidden one is available.

Oversighting of log entries

Private information that appear in user and page logs can be quickly oversighted by Wikimedia system administrators (also historically known as "developers"), until such time as the bitfield deletion flags proposal is decided.

Assignment and revocation

This section, in a nutshell; The process of achieving access to the Oversight permission is currently not set in stone. Those users who think that they have need of oversight must contact the Committee first and proceed from there. However, only CheckUsers and other current/former Arbitrators are likely to be considered.

Users who require the oversight permission are typically members of the Arbitration Committee and former Arbitration Committee members. For those users who are not, in order to be granted the oversight flag, a case should be made and sent to the ArbCom mailing list; you may do this by consulting an Arbitrator, or simply by emailing the Committee directly, using the details here. If confirmed by the Arbitration Committee to have a need for oversight, an Arbitrator will post a request on Requests for permission on Meta-Wiki and a Steward will assign the permission.

Just as easily as the oversight permission can be granted, it can be revoked. If the Arbitration Committee feels that an editor has abused oversight by hiding revisions which do not qualify under one of the above criteria, they will immediately request a Steward to remove the permission from the editor. This may be done by any of the usual ways, including email or a request on requests for permission on Meta.

Emergency requests based upon clear evidence may also be made in exceptional circumstances, the same way. In an exceptional case, and for good cause, a Steward may temporarily remove the permission, pending a decision by the Committee. The steward should check the matter is well founded, and make clear immediately that it is a temporary response only, since such an action could lead to controversy.

Users with Oversight permissions

An automatic list is available at Special:Listusers/oversight. Accurate as of 8 October 2008, the Oversight team is:

Current Arbitrators
Charles Matthews, Deskana, FloNight, FT2, Jdforrester, Jpgordon, Kirill Lokshin, Morven, Thebainer, Yellow Monkey.
Former Arbitrators
David Gerard, Fred Bauder, Jayjg, Mackensen, Neutrality, Raul654, Rebecca, Sam Korn, SimonP, The Epopt, UninvitedCompany.
Non-arbitrators appointed by Arbcom
Alison, Nichalp, Redux, Taxman.
Others
Cary Bass, Jimbo Wales, Wikimedia staff members.

Developers do not typically patrol the site for violations, but require occasional access for maintenance and enhancement purposes. "Others" includes users who require access for WMF reasons, and WMF officers.

See also

Oversight explanation

• wikipedia:User access levels: wikipedia page outlining the various user access levels, including Oversight;
• m:Hiding revisions: master copy of this page on Meta-Wiki;
• mw:Bitfields for rev deleted, a proposed revision deletion system to supersede Oversight (on MediaWiki.org);

Oversight requests

• wikipedia:Requests for oversight: for requesting that a page revision be hidden. Requests should be made by email, not on that page. Please read the instructions there, before proceeding.

Oversight access

• m:Requests for permission: the requests page on metawiki, where the arbitration committee will direct user rights changes.
• m:User rights log: shows Oversight assignments and removals. Enter User:USERNAME@enwiki in the "Title" box.

Technical

• mw:Hiding revisions - more detailed description of how the feature works and how to install the extension on one's own wiki.