Help:RevisionDelete

Screenshot of a page's history showing two entries revision-deleted. The first has the revision text, edit summary and username deleted, the second just the revision text. Deleted items appear struck through, greyed out, and in italics.

The RevisionDelete feature makes it possible to hide individual entries in a page history or log (for example, when a user has mistakenly published their private information). This feature can be used by users who belong to a user group with the deleterevision user right. By default, this right is assigned to the suppress group. Using this function, administrators can hide (and later show) the content of the revision, the name of the user who made the edit, the edit summary, or any combination of those three. Other administrators will still be able to view the hidden information, but it's possible to give certain users the "suppressrevision" user right , which allows them to hide the content even from administrators. Hiding content even from administrators in this way is often called "suppression" or "oversight".

This feature was added to the MediaWiki core codebase in version 1.16, release in 2009. For developer information, see Manual:RevisionDelete .

Overview

When enabled on an installation and viewed by a user with the appropriate permissions, every page revision and log entry has a checkbox ☐ displayed next to it, as shown in the normal revision and protection log entry below.

• (cur | prev) ☐ 00:00, 1 January 1970 WikiUser (talk | contribs | block) (X bytes) (Edit summary) (undo)
• ☐ 00:00, 1 January 1970 WikiUser (talk | contribs | block) protected "Page" [Edit=Allow only administrators] (indefinite) [Move=Allow only administrators] (indefinite) ‎ (Log summary) (hist | change)

When you click the button labeled Change visibility of selected revisions or Change visibility of selected log entries at the top and bottom of the page, you will be asked to fill in the reason for the change before the selected revisions/entries will be hidden or shown.

When a revision or log entry is hidden from view in its entirety, it is displayed like that shown below, with the elements hidden from view stricken and greyed out. Once a revision is hidden, the contents of the revision (if hidden), cannot be viewed by any usergroup without the deletedtext right. Trying to compare the revision with other revisions or access its &oldid= page will result in an error stating that the revision has been removed from the public archives. Similarly, trying to search for a hidden log entry by the users involved, when they have been hidden, will turn up no results.

• (cur | prev) 00:00, 1 Jan 1970 (username removed) (edit summary removed)
• 00:00, 1 Jan 1970 (username removed) (log details removed) (edit summary removed)

Revision deletion remains applied to a page even when deleted. If a page is undeleted, revisions that were previously hidden with RevisionDelete will remain hidden to the public.

Using RevisionDelete

Hiding a revision

The RevisionDelete dialog. The suppression option is included for completeness, although this is only visible to users with the suppressrevision right.

To show/hide a revision, click the small (change visibility) button next to the relevant revision or log entry that you wish to show/hide. Depending on your permissions, there may be between 3 and 4 different options to choose from:

• show/hide revision text
• show/hide edit comment
• show/hide editor's username/IP
• Apply these restrictions to Sysops and lock this interface (only available to users with the suppressrevision right)

Tick the checkboxes next to each of the items that you wish to apply to the selected and then provide an informative summary in the "Log comment field". Once this information has been filled in, click the "Apply to selected revision" button to submit the information. If this has been done correctly, Revision visibility successfully set should be displayed on your screen.

Unhiding a revision

To show/unhide a revision, click the (change visibility) button for the revision or log entry and simply untick all the boxes, provide your summary and click the "Apply to the selected revision" button. Success should be marked by the display of the Revision visibility successfully set message.

Changing the visibility settings

This is quite similar to unhiding a revision; click the (change visibility) button and tick/untick the options that you wish to modify and click the apply button.

Log entries

Normally, hiding a revision or page history item will produce a log message in the public deletion log or the private suppression log (if "Apply these restrictions to Sysops and lock this interface" is ticked). Log entries created in the public deletion log look like those displayed below for page revision and log entries visibilities respectively.

• (change visibility) 00:00, 1 Jan 1970 WikiUser (talk | contribs | block) changed revision visibility of Page ‎ (hid content, edit summary, username for 1 revision: Log summary) (diff | change visibility)
• (change visibility) 00:00, 1 Jan 1970 WikiUser (talk | contribs | block) changed event visibility of (Protection log) ‎ (hid content, edit summary, username for 1 event: Log summary) (change visibility)

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