Wikipedia:Oversight

This page is a policy on the Simple English Wikipedia.
Many people agree with it. They see it as a standard idea that all users should normally follow. When changing this page (except for minor errors like typos), please check that other people agree with your changes. Use the talk page when you are not sure or when you want to suggest a change.

Shortcuts

This is not the place to request oversight. Please send an e-mail to oversight-wp-simplelists.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 way is to send a mail to oversight-wp-simplelists.wikimedia.org. This mailing list is read by all local oversighters. It is also possible to directly contact an oversighter, they are listed below.

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:

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.
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.
Removal of copyright violations on the advice of Wikimedia Foundation counsel.
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 no longer works; edits hidden using the old method were permanently removed from public logs, and could only be restored by system administrators.

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 Libera.chat IRC network in the channel #wikimedia-stewards ^connect.

Users with oversight

The technical list can be found at Special:ListUsers/suppress.

Name	Timezone	Times active (Days/Hours (UTC))	E-mail	Notes
Enfcer (talk • changes • e-mail • blocks • protections • deletions • moves • right changes)	Eastern Standard Time	Varies	email	Always per email, sometimes IRC
Eptalon (talk • changes • e-mail • blocks • protections • deletions • moves • right changes)	Central European Summer Time	Often about 21.00 to midnight	email	E-Mail preferred, sometimes on IRC.
Fehufanga (talk • changes • e-mail • blocks • protections • deletions • moves • right changes)	Western Indonesia Time	22:00–14:00	email	Both email and IRC are OK
Peterdownunder (talk • changes • e-mail • blocks • protections • deletions • moves • right 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

Majorly (talk • changes • e-mail • blocks • protections • deletions • moves • right changes) - resigned on 27 March 2010
Kansan (talk • changes • e-mail • blocks • protections • deletions • moves • right changes) - resigned on 27 June 2011
EVula (talk • changes • e-mail • blocks • protections • deletions • moves • right changes) - removed for inactivity 1 January 2012
Fr33kman (talk • changes • e-mail • blocks • protections • deletions • moves • right changes) - removed for inactivity 1 January 2014
The Rambling Man (talk • changes • e-mail • blocks • protections • deletions • moves • right changes) - removed for inactivity 1 January 2014
Barras (talk • changes • e-mail • blocks • protections • deletions • moves • right changes) - removed for inactivity 1 January 2019
Djsasso (talk • changes • e-mail • blocks • protections • deletions • moves • right changes) - removed for inactivity 25 February 2025

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.