| Suppression (sometimes known as Oversight) is a form of enhanced deletion for the most serious issues, and material that should not be visible even to administrators. It covers privacy breach (i.e., highly non-public or identifying information) and defamation. Suppression is subject to extremely strict Wikimedia Foundation privacy rules and is only accessible by a very tightly controlled number of highly trusted users ("Oversighters"). -
- Routine requests are often processed very quickly, although this may vary.
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When suppression may be requested:
- Non-public personal information about an individual. This can be your own private information, or information about others, and may be posted by you or anyone else, on any English Wikipedia page.
- Including (but not limited to) phone numbers, location, workplace or school, other online and offline identities, date of birth, accidentally disclosed IP addresses, and (subject to oversighter judgment) other information of an identifying nature.
- Vandalism appearing to include non-public information, eg someone's details and a request to phone them.
- Clearly private/personal/non-public information at oversighter judgment, especially if highly sensitive and potentially harmful, even if it does not strictly help "identify" the person.
- Suppression has been used to remove excessive self-disclosure by minors, and individuals' medical information.
- Clearly (or very likely) libelous posts when there is no editorial reason to keep the revision.
- Certain gross vandalism that would normally be deleted if usual deletion tools could deal with it.
- In logs and in user names.(Interim until further notice, see main policy for more)
- Other exceptions. Very few exceptions will ever be made.
- An example of one instance where exceptional treatment was granted is where posts were made as part of a real-world stalking campaign, they had no project value, and no lesser measure (ignoring, deletion) was deemed likely to suffice. On that occasion police had also been involved.
Suppression is at Oversighter judgment. If the conditions are not met, suppression is unlikely to be granted. You may instead request speedy deletion which will delete the text from public view which usually suffices.
Deleted material is visible only to administrators.
What information we need: Oversighters will need the full URL (web browser address) which contains suppressible material, and (if not obvious) a brief description of what needs removal and why it needs to be removed. -
- Do include actual diff(s) (or from/to times) in your email, if you know how. It saves time.
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- Do delete or revert the relevant revision/s first (and let us know), if it will not draw undue attention. This will remove the material from public view until oversighted, and more important, it stop them being perpetuated in future edits. Don't use words like "awaiting oversight". Use a generic description/edit summary.
How to contact an oversighter:
Anyone, at any time, may report matters needing suppression. Choose whichever is fastest and easiest for you, -- or more than one if necessary: - Email:
If you have a Wikipedia account with email enabled(enabling email), then use this form to directly post a request. If you don't have a Wikipedia account with email enabled then email directly to: oversight-l lists.wikimedia.org. - This is probably one of the fastest ways to request oversight. Please use a descriptive subject line. Monitored 24/7.
- IRC:
If you use IRC(tutorial), then you can ask for an oversighter, or help finding an oversighter, in any of Wikipedia's official channels on Freenode - -
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- Stewards can also oversight, but will not usually do so as English Wikipedia has its own team of oversighters. In a true emergency there is almost always a steward on their IRC channel (Freenode #wikimedia-stewards) and they are extremely helpful and alert.
- If an oversighter is around, these can be very quick. Do not post the diff in a public channel; tell the oversighter in private. Fast if an oversighter is around and available.
- Direct personal contact:
If you know an oversighter and can contact one directly, by any means, you may do so. Requests do not have to be submitted via any given route. However if the oversighter is not available then the above (especially the mailing list) ensures someone will pick up your request. Users with Oversight access are listed here.
Other information:
More information can be found on Wikipedia's local policy page here. Suppression may also be used for copyright violations upon advice by Wikimedia Foundation counsel. Due to the nature of this page and how easily it could be abused, do not unprotect this page. |
