Oversight policy

For documentation on the oversight extension, see mw:Extension:Oversight. This page describes Wikimedia Foundation policy.

Oversight or suppression refer to hiding revisions, user names in edit histories and logs, or portions of individual log entries. This access is available to oversighters (those in the 'oversight' or 'stewards' user groups). Oversighted data can only be viewed and restored by oversighters.

('Oversight' and 'suppression' are often used interchangeably; 'oversight' is derived from the older oversight extension, which is being deprecated in favour of the more flexible suppression feature in core MediaWiki.)

Policy

Use

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 libelous 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.

Local oversighters should generally handle local oversighting, when they're available. Stewards may perform local oversighting in emergencies, during crosswiki oversighting, or if there are no local oversighters available (see contact details).

About

At first, a MediaWiki extension called Oversight was used. Since it required database access to undo actions, a more complex system was written as part of the MediaWiki core code to replace Oversight. This software is called RevisionDelete and has mostly replaced the old Oversight extension by now.

Oversight is logged privately, visible only to oversighters and stewards through Special:Logs/suppress. Respective example log entries:

• 10:04, 15 May 2012 Oversighter (Talk | contribs | block) changed event visibility of Foobar: hid content, edit summary, username for 1 revision ‎ (diff | change visibility)
• 10:04, 15 May 2012 Oversighter (Talk | contribs | block) changed event visibility of (Global account log): ‎hid content (applied restrictions to administrators) for 1 event (hiding attack)
• 10:04, 15 May 2012 Oversighter (Talk | contribs | block) blocked User:EvilUsername with an expiry time of infinite (account creation disabled, username hidden) ‎ (unblock | change block)

The first action is a suppression of the content, the edit summary and the username of a revision (hiding any combination of those three is possible). The second one is hiding a log entry (suppressing any combination of log action, comment and username is possible). The third of type of oversight action is often referred to as hideuser as it hides a username on all public lists (e.g. Special:ListUsers, page history, logs). However, the username is not automatically hidden from edit summaries, e.g. in cases where the user's edits have been rolled back.

Oversight actions of the old Extension:Oversight are logged on Special:Oversight. A diff and the revision source is provided, but only Server admins can restore revisions. Example log entry:

• (details) (diff) 10:04, 15 May 2012 Oversighter removed an edit from Example page (removing personal info, etc)

Access

Oversight access is granted by stewards, using rules adopted from the CheckUser policy. This section just describes steward practice and the access to nonpublic data resolution.

Oversighters and stewards must be at least 18 years old, of legal age in their place of residence, and willing to provide identification to the Wikimedia Foundation. They must be familiar with the privacy policy.

Stewards have oversight access on all wikis, and a small number of editors listed below have access on individual wikis. On any wiki, there must be at least two local oversighters, or none at all. This is so that they can mutually control and confirm their actions. If only one oversighter is left on a wiki (usually when the other retires or is removed), the community must appoint a new oversighter immediately or remove the remaining oversighter.

On wikis without an Arbitration Committee, the community must approve oversighters by consensus. The candidates must request it within the local community and advertise this request to the local community properly (community discussion page, mailing list, etc). After gaining consensus (at least 70%-80% in pro/con voting or the highest number of votes in multiple choice elections) in their local community, and with at least 25-30 editors' approval, the user should request access on Steward requests/Permissions with a link to the community's decision.

On wikis with an arbitration committee elected with 25-30 editors' approval, users may also be appointed by the arbitration committee (unless the local community prefers independent elections). After agreement, a member of the arbitration committee should place a request on Steward requests/Permissions.

Local administrators may also delete the specific revision containing the personal information, but it will continue to be visible to administrators until it is oversighted.

IRC channel

There is a private IRC channel (#wikimedia-privacy) to which all stewards and oversighters who use IRC should have access. Contact any channel member to gain access; a channel manager will grant permanent access. Ask a steward if you need help gaining access.

Removal of access

Oversight access is revoked by stewards, using rules adopted from the CheckUser policy. This section just describes steward practice.

Any user account with Oversight status that is inactive for more than a year will have their Oversight access removed.

In case of abusive use of the tool, the Steward or the editor with the Oversight privilege will immediately have their access removed. This will in particular happen if actions are done routinely without a serious motive to do so (links and proofs of bad behavior should be provided).

Suspicion of abuses of Oversight should be discussed by each local wiki. On wikis with an approved ArbCom, the ArbCom can decide on the removal of access. On wikis without an approved ArbCom, the community can vote removal of access. Removal can only be done by Stewards. A Steward may not decide to remove access on their own, but can help provide information necessary to prove the abuse (such as logs). If necessary, and in particular in case of lack of respect towards the privacy policy, the Board of Wikimedia Foundation can be asked to declare removal of access as well.

Users with oversight rights

All Wikimedia projects

• Stewards can have oversight access on all wikis by granting themselves temporary local oversight access.
• Please do not put your request on the wiki or broadcast it on the public IRC channel. All requests should be made privately.
• Please check if the wiki has their own local oversighters before approaching a steward; the list is below. See also the contact details for oversighters on all projects.

IRC

Editors can contact stewards in the IRC channel #wikimedia-stewards^connect. Please ask for a steward in the channel, then make your request in a private message to that steward. Do not broadcast the request in the public channel.

Email

Send an email to the steward OTRS queue at stewardswikimedia.org

Send an email to any steward privately using Special:EmailUser/Steward's username goes here

Update list

English Wikipedia

Automatically generated oversight list
oversight-en-wpwikimedia.org

Appointed by Arbcom

1. Aaron Schulz
2. AGK
3. Alison
4. Avraham
5. Beeblebrox
6. Casliber
7. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry
8. Courcelles
9. Daniel Case
10. David Fuchs
11. Deskana
12. Dweller
13. Elen of the Roads
14. FloNight
15. Fluffernutter
16. Fred Bauder
17. Hersfold
18. Jclemens
19. Jdforrester
20. John Vandenberg
21. Keegan
22. Kirill Lokshin
23. LessHeard vanU
24. MBisanz
25. Mailer diablo
26. Newyorkbrad
27. PhilKnight
28. Ponyo
29. Risker
30. Roger Davies
31. Salvio giuliano
32. SilkTork
33. SirFozzie
34. WilliamH
35. Wizardman
36. Xeno

Office

1. Jimbo Wales

English Wikinews

Automatically generated oversight list

1. Bawolff
2. Cspurrier
3. ShakataGaNai

German Wikipedia

Automatically generated oversight list
oversight-de-wpwikimedia.org

1. Nolispanmo
2. Ra'ike
3. Stefan64

Finnish Wikipedia

Automatically generated oversight list
oversight-request-fiwiki-llists.wikimedia.org

1. Harriv
2. Jniemenmaa
3. MikkoM

French Wikipedia

Appointed by Arbcom

Automatically generated oversight list
privacy-fr-wpwikimedia.org

1. Arkanosis
2. David Berardan
3. Gribeco
4. Guillom
5. Kropotkine 113
6. Ludo29

Indonesian Wikipedia

Automatically generated oversight list

1. Hayabusa future
2. Meursault2004

Japanese Wikipedia

Automatically generated oversight list
oversight-ja-wpwikimedia.org

1. Ks aka 98
2. Vigorous action
3. アイザール

Norwegian (Bokmål) Wikipedia

Automatically generated oversight list

1. Harald Haugland
2. Haros
3. Jon Harald Søby
4. Laaknor

Persian Wikipedia

Automatically generated oversight list

1. ظهیری
2. Kamix

Polish Wikipedia

Automatically generated oversight list
rewizor.plgmail.com

1. Elfhelm
2. Maikking

Russian Wikipedia

Automatically generated oversight list
Via e-mail user, see list

1. Kv75
2. Blacklake
3. Levg

Simple English Wikipedia

Automatically generated oversight list
oversight-wp-simplelists.wikimedia.org

1. Barras
2. Djsasso
3. Eptalon
4. Fr33kman
5. Peterdownunder
6. The Rambling Man

Swedish Wikipedia

Automatically generated oversight list

1. Höstblomma
2. SweJohan

Spanish Wikipedia

Automatically generated oversight list
oversight-eslists.wikimedia.org

1. Humberto
2. Lucien leGrey
3. Magister Mathematicae

Turkish Wikipedia

Automatically generated oversight list

1. Eldarion
2. Elmacenderesi

Commons

Automatically generated oversight list
oversight-commonslists.wikimedia.org

1. Avraham
2. Odder
3. Rama
4. Raymond
5. Tiptoety

Meta

Automatically generated oversight list
meta-oversightlists.wikimedia.org

1. Courcelles
2. DerHexer
3. Magister Mathematicae
4. Mardetanha
5. Pathoschild

See also

• Documentation (this page is about the deprecated extension Oversight. In most cases, the MediaWiki-Core-Feature mw:RevisionDelete should be used)

• Mirrors
  • Wikibooks German
  • Wikipedia English