KidzSearch Encyclopedia:Oversight

This is not the place to request oversight. Please send an e-mail to oversight-wp-simple@lists.wikimedia.org or contact one of the oversighters privately for help. Do NOT post oversight requests on-wiki.

Page revisions can be hidden or removed from the public history so they can only be seen by other oversighters, stewards and developers. The right is a sensitive one, and removes private data that can be legally problematic (examples are found below).

Contact oversight

Oversight is about sensitive topics, about removing personal information, or information that damages the reputation of an editor. For this reason, the reporting should be done outside this wiki, for example by sending an E-Mail. The safest bet is to send a mail oversight-wp-simple@lists.wikimedia.org. This mailing list is read by all local oversighters. It is also possible to directly contact an oversighter, they are listed below. You can also mail the User:Oversight via this link.

Under no circumstances should you put a request for oversight on-wiki - This will only make more work for the oversighters (as this page will need to be removed as well).

Policy

Use

From m:Oversight

This feature is approved for use in four 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, or of public individuals who have not made that personal information public.
  2. Removal of potentially libellous information either: a) on the advice of Wikimedia Foundation counsel or b) when the case is clear, and there is no editorial reason to keep the revision.
  3. Removal of copyright violations on the advice of Wikimedia Foundation counsel.
  4. Hiding of blatant attack names on automated lists and logs, where this does not disrupt edit histories. A blatant attack is one obviously intended to denigrate, threaten, libel, insult, or harass someone.

There are two types of oversight-level removal. Edits needing oversight are hidden through Special:RevisionDelete, and can be seen and/or restored by any oversighter. The old method was through Special:HideRevision, which is discouraged. Evidence of the edit is removed entirely from public logs, and can only be restored by developers if there is a mistake.

Logging

The hiding of revisions is logged privately, visible only to other oversight users in the Suppression log. The log lists who made the removal, when, from which page, and a provided comment. The contents may be reviewed by those with oversight rights, though the originally stated intention was that this will only be available for a limited time period.

Stewards

Sometimes there is no local oversighter available. In this case, the stewards are allowed to help out. They should wait at least 15 minutes before doing it. Stewards are always available on the freenode IRC network in the channel #wikimedia-stewards.

Users with oversight

The technical list can be found at Special:ListUsers/oversight.
Name Timezone Times active
(Days/Hours (UTC))
E-mail Notes
Barras (talkchangese-mailblocksprotectionsdeletionsmovesright changes) CEST/CET Varies greatly email Email or IRC
Djsasso (talkchangese-mailblocksprotectionsdeletionsmovesright changes) Atlantic Standard Time Zone 08:00 - 24:00 AST email E-Mail preferred, IRC when email isn't answered
Eptalon (talkchangese-mailblocksprotectionsdeletionsmovesright changes) Central European Summer Time Often about 21.00 to midnight email E-Mail preferred, sometimes on IRC.
Peterdownunder (talkchangese-mailblocksprotectionsdeletionsmovesright changes) Australian Eastern Standard Time Usually 7:00-13:00 email Always per email, often IRC

Do NOT post oversight requests on the wiki. Always use email or private communication for oversight requests.

Former Oversights

Process

Oversighters are elected by the community via a request for oversightship. Per Foundation policy, a user must have at least 25 supports and a 70% consensus to be elected.