Wikipedia:Oversight

Suppression on Wikipedia (also known as oversight for historical reasons) is a form of enhanced deletion that, unlike normal page deletion or revision deletion, expunges information from any form of usual access, even by administrators. It is used within strict limits to protect privacy, remove defamatory material, and sometimes to remove serious copyright violations, from any edit, revision, page, or log entry on the English Wikipedia.

On the English Wikipedia, "oversight" (the power to suppress information) is entrusted to a restricted number of users, who can suppress material if it meets the strict requirements below. Use of these tools is monitored by other oversighters who patrol the log, and by the Arbitration Committee. The fastest way to request oversight is to email the oversight team.

The permission is granted by Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee, after community consultation and vetting of the editor by the committee's members and the functionary team. While there is no formal requirement that oversighters also be administrators, the Arbitration Committee has traditionally restricted applications to users who are currently administrators. Oversighters must also be 18 years of age or older and have signed the Wikimedia Foundation's confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information before being appointed. The use of the Oversight tool on the English Wikipedia is monitored and controlled by the Arbitration Committee, and Oversighters may have their permissions revoked by the Arbitration Committee for misuse or abuse of the Oversight permission.

This policy supplements the global oversight policy and applies only to the English Wikipedia.

Nomenclature

The term "oversight" (for the function/tool) originally came from the Oversight extension, an old revision removal function whose log access was intended to allow oversight of its operation. The Oversight extension was only intended to be a temporary measure; the RevisionDelete system was enabled in 2009, fixed several problems with oversight (including causing misattribution of edits and its irreversibility), added features not originally present (including account and log hiding), and is the method used to this day in order to remove content. For historical reasons, the group of users with the ability to use the RevisionDelete and Oversight tools are still known as "oversighters", and suppression might still be referred to as "oversight". However, "oversight" might refer specifically to use of the old Oversight extension, while suppression will not.

Page revisions removed with the old Oversight extension did not leave a placeholder in the page history and could not be restored, and revisions that were hidden were logged at Special:Oversight; Oversight, however, was superseded by RevisionDelete with the new version and deployment of the MediaWiki software in 2009. With the replacement of the old extension with the updates and changes to the MediaWiki software, revisions suppressed with RevisionDelete (the new suppression workflow) leave a visible placeholder in the page history and can be restored if the situation calls for it. All visibility changes that were made on Wikipedia using the old Oversight extension were migrated over to the updated workflow and hence are visible and reversible.

Policy

Shortcut

WP:OSPOL

This feature is approved for use in these cases:

Removal of non-public personal information. Suppression is a tool of first resort in removing this type of information, including (but not limited to):
- Phone numbers, home addresses, ID numbers, passport numbers, credit card numbers, workplaces or other nonpublic personal data.
- Identities of pseudonymous or anonymous individuals who have not made their identity public.
- IP data of editors who accidentally logged out and thus inadvertently revealed their own IP addresses.
- IP data of editors without an account on request,^{[note 1]} provided that the edits were made recently and are relatively small in number.^{[note 2]}

In the following cases, revision or log suppression may be used when justified by the circumstances. However, consideration should be given to whether administrative revision deletion is an adequate response:

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.
Removal of copyright infringement, on the advice of Wikimedia Foundation counsel.
Hiding of blatant attack usernames 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.^{[note 3]}
Removal of vandalism. Suppression may be occasionally used to remove vandalism for which removal by normal administrative measures is insufficient. Such cases should be discussed in advance on the Oversight mailing list unless they are urgent or time-sensitive, in which case they should be discussed on the mailing list afterward.^{[note 3]}

The original meta:Oversight policy, containing only the first three criteria above, was adopted because the now-deprecated Oversight tool did not provide oversighters with the ability to restore oversighted revisions. The fourth criterion was adopted at meta:Oversight policy in November 2009. The fifth criterion was adopted after the implementation of RevisionDelete which allowed suppression actions to be easily reversed.

Privacy of account renames

Shortcut

WP:HIDERENAME

The suppression of any account rename logs, as well as any logs that are generated from any subsequent page moves, redirect placements, or other operations performed as a result of the account rename process, will not be granted. This is true even if the original username is the real name of the editor.

The Oversight team recommends to all users that they do not use or reference any kind of personal information to be part of their account's username. Users who have serious privacy concerns because of their current username, but who also wish to continue editing Wikipedia, should create a new account by following the clean start process. After this is done, the user may disclose the connection privately to the Arbitration Committee.

Operation

Actions

Oversighters can perform the following actions:

Suppress and unsuppress elements of individual page revisions (revision text, username, or edit summary) using an extended option on the RevisionDelete function page.
Suppress and unsuppress elements of log entries (action / target user or page, log summary, or the username / IP of the user that performed the action) using an extended option on the RevisionDelete function page.
Suppress and unsuppress individual edit filter logs.^{[note 4]}
Suppress a target account's username from all edits and log entries when applying a block to it using the block function page.^{[note 5]}^{[note 6]}^{[note 7]}^{[note 8]}
Suppress all edits to a page when deleting it using the delete function page.^{[note 9]}
Review the suppression log containing a list of actions taken by all other oversighters involving suppression, as well as the material that was suppressed by that other user.
View all suppressed edits and log entries.

Logging

The RevisionDelete extension, as well as the delete and block function pages can be used by both oversighters and administrators. Oversighters have an extra option in the RevisionDelete extension that, when ticked, indicates that the visibility change is a suppression action that prevents administrator access, or (if left unticked) as an administrator action that any administrator can see and modify. The delete and block function pages also have an extra option available to oversighters that, when ticked, automatically suppress all revisions and information, or suppress the username from all edits and log entries, respectively. Administrators do not have access to these extra options. These actions are logged in the suppression log if the options are ticked, or the deletion log or block log if they are not.

Page revisions and logged events that have been suppressed by an oversighter by using the "also hide from administrators" checkbox are logged in the suppression log; no entry is added to the deletion log.^{[note 10]}
Page revisions and logged events that have been revision-deleted by an oversighter without using the "also hide from administrators" checkbox, or by an administrator, are logged in the deletion log.^{[note 11]}
Accounts that are blocked and with the "suppress user name from edits and lists" checkbox ticked are logged in the suppression log; no entry is added to the block log.^{[note 5]}^{[note 6]}^{[note 7]}^{[note 8]}
Accounts that are blocked without the "suppress user name from edits and lists" checkbox ticked (a normal block without suppression) are logged in the block log.
Pages that are deleted with the "suppress all edits" checkbox ticked are logged in the suppression log; no entry is added to the deletion log.^{[note 9]}
Pages that are deleted without the "suppress all edits" checkbox ticked (a normal admin page deletion) are logged in the deletion log.

Each entry in the log will list the account who made the visibility change, a timestamp of when the change was saved, the page, edits, or logs that the changes were saved to, and the summary that the performing user entered when applying the change. Log entries regarding the visibility of an edit include a diff link to compare the previous live revision to the modified one.

Oversight blocks

Oversighters can block accounts based on information which has been oversighted, and hence not accessible by the public or by administrators. They will make clear in the block log summary that they have blocked as an "oversight action", usually by including the {{OversightBlock}} template. It is customary for oversighters to submit their OS blocks to the oversight team's internal email list for peer review.^{[note 12]} These blocks must not be reversed by non-oversighters. Administrators must not undo nor loosen any block that is specifically called an "oversight block" without first consulting an oversighter.

Assignment and revocation

On the English language Wikipedia, access to the suppress function of the RevisionDelete tool is controlled by the Arbitration Committee. Permission is generally automatically granted to members of the Arbitration Committee and retained by them when they leave the committee. Non-Arbitrators may be granted the oversight user rights at the discretion of the Arbitration Committee, and are selected for trustworthiness and availability to handle requests. However, only a very few appointments are typically made per year. Users interested in obtaining access should add the Arbcom noticeboard to their watchlists for an announcement or contact the Committee, and proceed from there. Appointments that are confirmed by the Arbitration Committee will be posted on Requests for permission on Meta-Wiki, a Steward will assign the permission once the user has completed the necessary non-public information confidentiality document.

Beginning in 2009, the Arbitration Committee held periodic elections that allowed the community to have a voice in choosing oversighters. Candidates were vetted by Arbcom, and a list of pre-approved candidates was presented to the community for a vote. The May 2010 election then resulted in no new oversighters, and thereafter appointments were made directly by the Committee with community consultation. The Committee has since held "calls for applications", and sought community input among interested candidates before making the final selections, typically around once a year.

Oversighter status may be revoked by the Arbitration Committee at any time. Generally, permission is revoked only "for cause", such as abuse of suppression to remove items that do not qualify under the stated policy, or for unauthorized release of suppressed information. The Arbitration Committee has also ruled that permission will be revoked from oversighters who do not meet the minimum activity level.

As on all Wikimedia Foundation wikis, the technical assignment of the permission to the user account is made by a steward, acting on instructions from the Arbitration Committee as posted at requests for permission on Meta-wiki. 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 that the matter is well founded, and make clear immediately that it is a temporary response only, since such an action could lead to controversy.

Complaints

Complaints or inquiries about potential misuse of the oversighter user permissions should be referred to the Arbitration Committee.

Users with oversight permissions

An automatic list of users with this permission is available at Special:ListUsers/suppress. There are currently 41 users with the Oversight permission on the English Wikipedia.

As of 6 October 2024, the following editors comprise the Oversight team on the English Wikipedia:

Appointed community oversighters: Amorymeltzer, Anarchyte, Dweller, GB fan, Lofty abyss, LuK3, Mz7, Oshwah, Ponyo, Richwales, Stwalkerster, The Blade of the Northern Lights, Vanamonde93, Xaosflux
Current arbitrators: Aoidh, Cabayi, CaptainEek, Firefly, Guerillero,^[1] HJ Mitchell,^[1] L235,^[1] Moneytrees, Primefac,^[1] Sdrqaz, ToBeFree, Z1720
Former arbitrators: AmandaNP, Barkeep49, Bradv, Callanecc,^[1] Doug Weller, Drmies, GorillaWarfare,^[1] KrakatoaKatie,^[1] Ks0stm,^[1] Mailer diablo,^[1] PhilKnight, RickinBaltimore, Risker, Salvio giuliano,^[1] Thryduulf
Others: Some Foundation staff members

^ a b c d e f g h i j Held prior to appointment to Arbitration Committee

The list above is served from Template:Functionaries.

Notes

^ 2015 addition of editors without an account
^ Generally within the last three months and fewer than 20 edits in total
^ a b Criteria #4 and #5 were implemented as an interim solution to certain serious vandalism and grossly disruptive abuses that administrators would expect to address, but could not with their tools (due to previous software limitations). Since tools have since been developed so that administrators can apply deletion norms to all public logs and data fields on the wiki, these criteria might be considered for removal.
^ At this time, edit filter logs cannot be revision deleted. They can only be suppressed, and only users who are oversighters can suppress them.
^ a b This option will also remove the username from the Wikipedia list of users page. Oversighters who view this page can see all users in the list, including those who were hidden by the suppression block. Non-oversighters will only see users in this list that are not hidden by a suppression block.
^ a b This option is only available when applying an indefinite block to a Wikipedia user account.
^ a b Setting a block with the suppress option ticked triggers a script that executes and performs the suppression of all affected edits and logs automatically. These actions are not logged in the suppression log as individual changes to each edit or log entry; instead, the block event itself is logged in the suppression log noting that it was applied with the suppression option ticked.
^ a b The automatic changes to edits and log entries are not undone automatically by unticking the suppress option and updating the block; doing this will do nothing other than to update the block to a normal block (which does nothing functionally). This is stored as a block event in the public block log, not the suppression log. To undo the actions and visibility changes that were automatically performed from blocking an account with the suppression option ticked, you must modify the visibility settings on each affected edit and log entry manually.
^ a b Deleting a page with this option ticked triggers a script that executes and performs the suppression of all information from each revision automatically. These actions are not logged in the suppression log as individual changes to each revision or a mass change to all revisions; instead, the page deletion event itself is logged in the suppression log noting that it was applied with the suppression option ticked. This action can be reversed by restoring the page and with the "remove restrictions on restored revisions" option ticked. This restoration event is logged in the deletion log, not the suppression log.
^ This includes any visibility changes that untick the suppression option and change the edit or log entry to no longer be a suppression; these changes are recorded in the suppression log, not the public deletion log. Any subsequent visibility changes made afterwards that do not re-enable suppression are logged in the public deletion log.
^ RevisionDelete is configured to allow administrators to restrict the visibility of revisions and logs by non-administrator accounts only. Oversighters are given an extra option to restrict the visibility of revisions and logs from non-administrator users and designate the visibility to also be restricted from administrator view as well. Only when an oversighter designates the visibility of material as also being restricted from access by administrators is the action referred to as "suppression"; all other visibility actions performed that are not restricted from access by administrators are referred to as "revision deletion" or "RevDel". Admin revision deletions are logged in the deletion log and are viewable and reversible by other admins, while revisions and logs that are suppressed from administrator view by oversighters are logged in the suppression log.
^ Temporary OS blocks of IP addresses do not require self-reporting. (2022 discussion)