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The following request for comments is closed. The request was closed as being unsuccessful.

Servus, I propose to create a global group that allows to view deleted posts.

Purpose of the group

These Group will make the job easier for two things. To identify LTAs and Crosswiki vandals, it is often necessary to see deleted posts. Also, this would make it easier to write global filters. The right should only be used passively for the reasons stated, this group is not there to create some sort of global deletion review.

What rights should the group have?

  • Search deleted pages (browsearchive)
  • View deleted history entries, without their associated text (deletedhistory)
  • View deleted text and changes between deleted revisions (deletedtext)

Minimum requirement

A user requesting this permission must give sufficient reasons why he needs the permission. The permission can be granted only to users who have at least admin rights. (this is also due to a requirement of WMF).

Removal

This permission should be removed if the user has not made any edits to Wikimedia projects for 1 year.

โ€”ย The preceding unsigned comment was added by WikiBayer (talk)

Comments

[edit]
  • Is the wikiset for this all production wiki's with no opt-out? โ€” xaosflux Talk 18:51, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • What does it mean by have at least admin rights? For example, if an user can view deleted content at one wiki without being a sysop, can they be granted this flag, given that there is consensus to do so? NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 18:57, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose Hello! To be honest, I don't see the need for creating the new group. Either a wiki is too large to be in scope for global sysops, and then we would be inevitably stepping into local admins' area, without a really good reason to override a project's right to self-govern itself (including areas regarding access to deleted materials). Alternatively, a wiki can be in scope for global sysops. In that case, we already have a group for antivandalism which has the needed level of access, it's called global sysops. I believe looking into ways to improve/revise the GS policy would be much more cost-effective, than creating this group. --Martin Urbanec (talk) 19:29, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Martin Urbanec As it says above, it is about passive use, and not a control that touches self-government. By the way, there is already a similar permission that allows to see private filters.
    It makes no difference whether someone accesses a private filter log entry or a deleted page, the content is similar. Global sysops actively engage in communities and are therefore not comparable to the proposed group.
    @Xaosflux This should be global, similar to the Abuse Filter Helpers group. @NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh I would only allow admin rights to apply, since WMF also needs to approve this group, I don't want to keep the requirements too low. ๐–๐ข๐ค๐ข๐๐š๐ฒ๐ž๐ซ ๐Ÿ‘ค๐Ÿ’ฌ 07:05, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @WikiBayer I think it does touch self-government, because it makes it impossible for local admins to say "I don't want to share the deleted content with you". Safeguarding access to deleted materials is traditionally a part of admin's responsibilities, and this proposal suggests to centralize it (create a global authority sharing that responsibility with local admins). Passiveness of the right makes very little difference to me: if we started to require reason to view deleted content and logged it (similar to what CUs need to do when using checkuser), it'd become an active right, although it'll do the exactly same thing, serving the exactly same use-cases.
    Ad filter helpers) I believe that's different. Contrary to deleted content, abuse filters have a global element in them. Admins at meta can define filters that apply on most Wikimedia wikis. It makes sense to have a group to allow users to use abuse filter debugging tools (incl. private filter logs) to be able to maintain global filters better. Martin Urbanec (talk) 07:30, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Opposeย Oppose nope, if someone needs to be able to go digging through deleted content globally, including on large wikis, as part of some global investigation we already have a group for that: stewards. โ€” xaosflux Talk 10:06, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • To me it seems like there is no need for such a group for the time being. --MF-W 08:44, 30 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Opposeย Oppose I think there is no need to do this (viewing deleted content requires a RfA-like process - the only way is to reduce social impact of a failed RfA) However we should log the viewings of deleted content publicly. (File: Global file deletion review...) Thingofme (talk) 13:25, 30 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • No strong opinion on this, just a note that there have been numerous suggestions or proposals of this kind before, see e.ย g. w:Wikipedia:Viewing deleted content. Also ping @Cabayi per w:User:Cabayi/Global Admin View. ~~~~
    User:1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk)     18:45, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Opposeย Oppose per above. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs) 11:30, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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