Wikipedia talk:Oversight

• Revision history for m:Hiding revisions, which this page borrows heavily from.

View your edits that have been oversighted

Is there a straightforward, fast way to see all the edits you have made that have been oversighted? Now I don't mean for me to view the diffs themselves; I know that I can't because I'm not an oversighter. I just want to know if there's a way I can see the pages I made the edits to, when I made them, etc. Everymorning (talk) 01:47, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

I doubt it. As far as I know, the database will only acknowledge that an edit that was oversighted even exists if you're an oversighter. MereTechnicality ⚙ 01:53, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't believe there is a way without having oversight permission. Just some general info, you have five edits that have been oversighted. Three to articles that have since been deleted, one in user space and one in project source. Why are you interested? - GB fan 02:25, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Just wondering. I remember one of them, which was when I reverted a vandal edit to a page about an obscure painter that was so nasty it was oversighted soon afterward, but I don't remember any specifics. I was kinda interested in looking more into what the user whose suppressed edit I reverted did on some other pages (I kind of remember that too, but again, I don't remember many details, partly b/c this was at least a year ago). I know this user did similar stuff to the oversighted edit I reverted elsewhere that wasn't oversighted (at least not as soon). Everymorning (talk) 02:39, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

That is not one of your oversighted edits. Just from the general description that was more likely revision deleted rather than oversighted. If it was oversighted the reason it does not show up in your oversighted edits is that you removed the offending information with your edit and only the versions from where it was introduced through the one right before you removed it would need to be oversighted. Those would be the only versions of the article that had the information in them. - GB fan 12:06, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Now that I remember I think my revert wasn't oversighted (or revision deleted), but the original edit (which I reverted) was oversighted, so I think that's why it wasn't one of them. Everymorning (talk) 16:58, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

New RfC

Oversighters may be interested in WT:HA#RfC: Harassment of non-editors. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:23, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 4 June 2017

Please add class="sysop-show" to the <span style="font-size:90%">'''Wikipedia administrators:''' Due to the sensitive nature of this page and how easily it could be misused, you must not unprotect this page. Thank you.<p>The suppression team does not respond to threats of harm. Such emergencies are dealt with [[Wikipedia:Responding to threats of harm|as described here]].</span> span to hide it from non-admins. Pppery 00:48, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

 Not done @Pppery: Actually I think the first half of that should just be removed (it could be in the protection log instead) - the second half is useful to others. What do you think? — xaosflux ^Talk 01:27, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

I made a mistake in including the second half in the request in the first place, and have no opinion about removing the first half. Pppery 01:37, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Removed it and other misc cleanup. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:22, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Oversight revealing rev-del'ed material

This has absolutely nothing to do with WP:OVERSIGHT. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 02:26, 25 June 2017 (UTC) The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Should someone with oversight capacity readily supply off-wiki locations to find rev-del'ed material? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:11, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Are you referring to rev-dels that are oversight supressed (i.e. not just deleted)? — xaosflux ^Talk 22:39, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

The background is an interaction ban (archive), followed by a 160-KB discussion (archive). TRM has been invited to take any further concerns to ANI but has instead chosen to express dissent on other pages—pages where WP:BOOMERANG may not apply. As an onlooker who happened to notice the events unfold before deletion, it was obvious that the iban was necessary to avoid highly sensitive issues unrelated to the encyclopedia. The underlying issue did not involve a finding of fault, but TRM has a different view. Johnuniq (talk) 02:10, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Oversight policy regarding DOB

I'm starting to be confused. I first heard about oversight when I responded to a Teahouse question from a very young editor who had mentioned their age. That was maybe a year ago.

As I've been doing userspace NPP for a while, I have occasionally found user pages that disclose DOB, phone numbers, etc. Based on advice in WP:DOB, I had been quietly removing the information and reporting to oversight. The first several instances received very nice thank you notes from the oversight team.

But now I'm being told that the oversight team is not interested in DOB information for non-minors and, when directed to this WP:Oversight policy page, I don't even see anything about self-reported personal information for even very young minors.

To clarify, is a change needed at WP:DOB or here?

Thanks, — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 22:03, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Neither. WP:DOB is clearly about protecting the privacy of article subjects, not about policing what editors put on their userpages. Editors can disclose as much or as little information about themselves as they wish, with the exception of children, who are more vulnerable and less able to asses the risks of posting personal information. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:18, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I understand that this is the policy "in practice", but this policy page as written says nothing about minors and the WP:DOB page still includes the words "or anywhere on Wikipedia". I don't intend to continue to pester you on this issue, nor file reports on items where there is apparently no need to act, but I still think these issues should be clarified in the written policy documents. — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 22:45, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

In context, the WP:DOB section is clearly not (but admittedly not explicitly) not talking about self-disclosure. It might make sense to add "self-disclose by apparent minors" explicitly to this policy (it's one of the standard reasons we can use when suppressing something), but I've been an oversighter for nearly 3 years and this is the first time anyone has had an issue with this afaik. Risker has been on the team much longer and typically has a very good memory for this sort of thing though so it's worth getting their input to this. Thryduulf (talk) 22:59, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

• The tendency of minors to publish their personal information, which with the original oversight tool was almost impossible to oversight, was an important motivation in the development of the suppression and revision-deletion tools. Back in the day, it was not possible to oversight the very first revision of a page, which was usually where that personal information was included. I suspect it was simply well-understood by the communities of the time that the user pages of minors that contained personal information (which I will note frequently includes the personal information of other people, too) was a clear-cut situation that called for suppression-deletion. The WMF's position, when I asked several years ago, was that the Meta oversight policy outlined the minimum situations in which oversight should be offered, and that communities could add other criteria as they saw fit; that position was developed after revision-deletion was installed in early 2009. Avi and I are probably the last active oversighters who used the actual oversight tool; the rules were so stringent then because old-school oversighting actually had an impact on the databases and "corrupted" histories and just plain made a mess of everything. We were also dealing with a culture that, in its idealistic way, believed that Wikipedia should retain a publicly-accessible akashic record of every edit that ever had been made. I think we have gotten over that, and there are not very many people who feel that publicly accessible trolling and BLP violations are required for the "integrity" of the encyclopedia - not to mention phone numbers, home addresses, etc. There are also historical issues that highlighted the need to take special care with the personal information of minors (see Wikipedia:Child protection and Wikipedia:Guidance for younger editors) - these policies and guidelines were written based on actual experience. Simply put, Wikipedia cannot be seen as a vector for inappropriate activities related to its younger editors.

  Adult editors are a different story, as they're assumed to be informed enough to realize that publishing such personal information has a very big downside. And WP:DOB comes in to play for everyone else in the world who isn't an adult editor who published his or her own personal information. It's rather shocking how often we will see people publishing the personal information of friends, family, family of article subjects, and so on.

  I hope this is helpful. Risker (talk) 03:44, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Wow, Risker, that's a more complicated history than I ever knew before. Even when the written policy may not be entirely clear, I'll try to follow in the spirit of what's been talked about here. — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 04:17, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

I've found two things to contribute to this discussion in regards to trying to answer your question:

• "The BLP policy also applies to user and user talk pages". - WP:BLPTALK
• "3) Users who appear to be children editing in good faith who disclose identifying personal information may be appropriately counseled. Deletion and oversight may be used in appropriate cases to remove the information." - Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Protecting children's privacy#Counseling.

WP:CHILD failed to materialize and WP:CHILDPRO eventually formed in 2010. I believe the Arbitration remedy remains in effect. I could not find any documentation indicating that it had been rescinded or replaced. I am fairly leery about how old it is so perhaps others have more recent information. Mkdw ^talk 05:02, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

As I see it, the relevant quote from WP:BLPTALK for this discussion is The single exception is that users may make any claim they wish about themselves in their user space, so long as they are not engaged in impersonation, and subject to what Wikipedia is not, which deals with self-disclosures. It goes on to mention minors, but only with the word discouraged. — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 22:42, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Logging of Revdels

According to the Logging section: Revisions that have been suppressed using Oversight were logged at Special:Oversight; however, this has been superseded with Special:RevisionDelete.

Based on an IRC discussion I think this is incorrect and they are included in the deletion log. If that is correct we ought to fix this sentence.--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:46, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

There was some ambiguity to the wording of that sentence. "This" was referring to Special:Oversight rather than RevDel logs, so I reworded it. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 16:53, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. --S Philbrick(Talk) 17:05, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Special:Emailuser link inactive

It looks like the top contact method listed - the link to Special:EmailUser/Oversight - is turned off. Is that a temporary thing, or a permanent one?

Either way, there should be a modification/notification to this page's instructions so that people know that they can't contact Oversight through Special:EmailUser. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:40, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

This was definitely working a few days back and over the course of the past few months.I have no idea what the issue is but it ought to be fixed ASAP.Winged Blades^Godric 17:17, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

This is phab:T182541/phab:T178842. Since User:Oversight does not have any edits/logged actions, it can only receive emails from crats, stewards, global renamers, and WMF Support and Safety. Someone needs to make a dummy edit with the account. @Risker, Alex Shih, Callanecc, DGG, Doug Weller, Euryalus, KrakatoaKatie, Ks0stm, Mkdw, Newyorkbrad, Opabinia regalis, Premeditated Chaos, RickinBaltimore, or Worm That Turned: do you have the credentials for this account? — JJMC89 (T·C) 17:47, 4 January 2018 (UTC)