WickedGov:Revision deletion

Revision deletion is a procedure used by administrators to remove inappropriate content (revisions and log entries) from public visibility. It is a lower level of suppression.

Policy

Criteria

These criteria are based on the revision deletion criteria on the English Wikipedia.

In general, revision deletion shall only be applied in the following circumstances:

RD1: Copyright violations

Significant violations of the copyright policy should be revision-deleted after removal from a page. This criterion does not apply to appropriately licensed content that was simply missing attribution, nor does it apply to usernames.

RD2: Grossly insulting, degrading, or offensive material

This includes slurs, smears, and grossly offensive material of little or no encyclopedic value, but not mere incivility or personal attacks. This also covers severe unsourced negative statements about living people or extant organizations.

RD3: Purely disruptive material

This includes malicious code and links thereto, shock pages, and grossly inappropriate threats, attacks, and harrassment. Administrators should be especially careful to consider the content's usefulness to project administration. This criterion does not include mere spam links.

RD4: Suppressible material

This includes any content that an administrator reasonably believes may be eligible for suppression. After revision-deleting under this criterion, administrators should promptly notify the suppression team. Administrators must not use terms such as "RD4", "private information", or "hiding IP of logged-out user" in the public deletion summary. Also, the Streisand effect must be given due consideration when deciding whether or not to use revision deletion prior to suppression.

RD5: Other valid deletion

Deletions permissible under the deletion policy may, if necessary, be executed using revision deletion. The reason for deletion should be explained in the deletion summary.

RD6: Non-contentious housekeeping

This includes correction of errors in previous deletions, as well as (un)deletions based on specific consensus. Administrators should use common sense and avoid any usage of this criterion which is likely to be controversial.

Guidelines for use

Administrators should balance the need for transparency with the impropriety of the content. Some degree of inappropriate or disruptive conduct is inevitable on any wiki and does not necessarily require revision deletion.

Administrators should be especially judicious when deleting log entries.

Requesting revision deletion

There is no centralized place to request revision deletion. However, revision deletion requests (except for copyright violations) should generally not be posted on-wiki. Options for requesting revision deletion include:

• Emailing an active administrator.
• Emailing the suppression team.

For copyright violations, it is permitted to simply post a request on the administrators' noticeboard.