Help:Revision deletion

Revision deletion is a tool that administrators can use to hide individual entries in a page history or log. This can be used to quickly hide problematic content from public view. Revision deletion can be used to hide the text of a revision, the username or IP address of the author who made it, the edit summary or log summary, or any combination of the three.

On, use of the revision deletion tool is governed by the revision deletion policy. Administrators are not permitted to use the tool on edits outside of the policy.

Overview
All edits made to a page are publicly saved in the page's page history, and many actions will create a log entry. These are normally public and are not removable. Revision deletion is a method used for hiding the contents of these edits and log entries. Unlike page deletion, revision deletion only affects the entries in the page history and does not affect the current version of the page, meaning that the display of the page is not interrupted. Revision deletion is also the only way of hiding problematic log entries, since logs cannot normally be removed or deleted. Edits and log entries will continue to appear in the page history and log, but with one or more of their contents struck out, as shown below.

00:00, 1 Jan 1970      

 00:00, 1 Jan 1970    

Revision deletion remains applied to a page even if it is later deleted. If a deleted page is later undeleted, revisions previously hidden with revision delete will continue to remain hidden.

Usage
When administrators view the page history for a page or a log page, they will see a checkmark next to every entry, similar to what is shown below.

☐ 00:00, 1 Jan 1970  WikiUser     (Edit summary)   

☐ 00:00, 1 Jan 1970 WikiUser  protected " Page " [edit=sysop] (indefinite) [move=sysop] (indefinite) ‎ (Log summary)   

A  link is also shown on diff pages, or when viewing an older revision.

To perform a revision deletion, check off the revisions you want to hide and then select the ' or ' buttons at the top and bottom of the page, or click on the  button on the revision you want to hide in the diff page. You will be directed to the revision deletion interface and given the following options to choose from:


 * (for page edits) — this will hide the contents of the selected edit(s). The edit's actual content will no longer be available in the page history, and non-administrators will not be able to view diffs that includes the affected edit(s). You cannot use this option on the most recent revision of the page.
 * (for log entries) — this will hide the details of the selected log entries. This includes the action that was taken and the specifics of that action.
 * — this will hide the edit summary or the log summary.
 * — this will hide the username or the IP address of the user who made the edit/log entry.

Tick the checkboxes for the options you want to apply and then provide a summary in the "Log comment" field. Summaries are public. Click on "Apply" once you are finished to apply the changes to all selected revisions. Once a revision or log entry is hidden, it will still appear in the page history or log, but the contents you have chosen to hide will no longer be accessible to the public. Administrators can still view the hidden content by trying to view the revision or diff.

Unhiding revisions
Revisions can be unhidden later on by following the above procedure again: select the revisions you want to unhide, then uncheck the checkboxes.

Suppression
Suppression, also known historically as oversight, is a more aggressive version of revision delete that hides content from even normal administrators, and restricts access to stewards. Stewards will see an extra checkbox with '' that, when checked, will hide the contents from everyone except other stewards. Suppression can be reversed in the same way regular revision deletions can be reversed.

Suppression is usually done on content so problematic that even local administrators should not be able to have access to it. On Miraheze, the use of oversight is restricted to stewards and is governed by the oversight policy.

Revision deletion logs
Revision deletions are logged in the same standard deletion log as normal deletions, similar to what is shown below.

 00:00, 1 Jan 1970 WikiUser  changed revision visibility of Page ‎ (hid content, edit summary, username for 1 revision: Log summary) ( diff | change visibility ) 

 00:00, 1 Jan 1970 WikiUser  changed event visibility of ( Protection log ) ‎ (hid content, edit summary, username for 1 event: Log summary) ( change visibility ) 

The link on the left displayed leads to the visibility settings for that particular log entry, while the ( change visibility ) button on the right leads to the visibility settings for the page affected by that particular log entry.

Suppressions are not logged in the normal deletion log, but are logged in a special suppression log that only stewards can access.