Wikipedia talk:Revision deletion

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Previous discussion at Wikipedia talk:Selective deletion

Wording change in "Misuse" section

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The wording of this section was a bit impenetrable, due to some grammatical errors (most likely convoluted language by a well-intentioned but not-native-English-speaking writer, but maybe not). In the spirit of being bold, I've edited it [1]. I *think* I remember enough about RevDel's genesis to be reasonably confident I didn't misrepresent the intended interpretation. However, since wording of this policy more broadly has been a bit contentious, I'm highlighting it here for review by others. Feel free to revert or modify if I got the gist wrong or introduced some bias. Martinp (talk) 18:36, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Edit summaries for RD2

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In the spirit of WP:DNFTT, I was wondering if there has been discussion about cutting the edit summary for RD2 revdels (currently "RD2: Grossly insulting, degrading, or offensive material") down to just the link, or at least something less explicit. If someone is trying to be grossly offensive, this seems like it might provide validation. For those who are interested, clicking through to the link would still provide the relevant information. CMD (talk) 07:33, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I think the deletion log is obscure enough for this not to be a huge issue. You'd have to be relatively experienced in order to know how to find it (which most of us reading this page probably are, but the common-variety vandal probably isn't). Mz7 (talk) 00:53, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RevDel log visible to non-admins?

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Stupid question time - why is the RevDel log visible to non-admins and why does it appear on watchlists? I've several times seen people ask about the contents of deleted revisions, which is the result of a streisand effect that allowing non-administrators to view RevDels on watchlists makes. The point of RevDel is obviously to suppress or "hide" the contents of a revision, yet in doing that just makes us peasents more curious as to what was hidden. Why is it viewable to everyone, then? — EF5 18:20, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@EF5: I guess I'll toss in my two cents here since you never got an answer, and I think you raise an important issue. I'll start by pointing out that the oversight log (Special:Log/suppress) is non-public and only visible to oversighters—that takes care of the really serious cases where privacy is critical, where even the fact that something got hidden is something that needs to be obfuscated.
For revision deletion, I think we have to balance the desire for the broader community to be able to review administrator actions when needed. Revision deletion is for offensive or disruptive material that should be hidden from the general public, but isn't so bad that we would need to hide even the explanation for why the content was hidden from non-admins. I think you are correct that this may lead to Streisand effects when the log entry appears on watchlists, but I think for revdel-level content this is a trade-off that we are willing to accept (unlike oversight). If the revdel log was hidden, that might even cause yet another Streisand effect of people who watch a page asking why content was suddenly hidden because they can't see the reason for it in the log (sadly, we see this sometimes for oversightable content and is something oversighters have to constantly think about when deciding whether to suppress). Mz7 (talk) 02:59, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What's the deal with the changes to MediaWiki:Revdelete-reason-dropdown?

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Hi everyone. I noticed on MediaWiki:Revdelete-reason-dropdown that "BLP violations" have changed from being listed under the RD2 criterion and is now under RD5, but no changes to the policy page were made to reflect the changes to the drop-down list ("BLP violations" are still mentioned under RD2). I really think we should be discussing these changes first before modifying them on the drop-down lists. Aside from that, I do understand why this is being modified. So, I ask, "what criterion should BLP violations be listed under?" On the rev del policy page, it's listed under RD2. However, within RD5, the list that it links to here does include BLP violations there. Naturally, I believe that this would fall under RD5 instead of RD2, since RD2 is reserved for "grossly insulting, degrading, or offensive material". But another thing that begins to bother me is how RD5 is described as "other valid deletion under deletion policy" on the drop-down, or "valid deletion under deletion policy, executed using RevisionDelete" - which can be seen as a pretty ambiguous or loosely defined criterion.

Here's where I see issues: RD5 also includes copyright violations, which is covered under RD1. RD5 would also include "vandalism", which one might argue could coincide with RD3 as "purely disruptive material". Really, with everything listed on the deletion page, it looks like many things could fall into RD5. The real solution here would be to have each criteria clearly defined and, if something is missing that should be there, propose an addition. I'm talking out loud here, so please forgive me in advance if my rambling doesn't make sense. I just wanted to start a discussion about this so that others can provide input. So, here's the question:

What are your thoughts regarding all of this? Any input, opinions, proposals, etc are welcome. :-) Best - ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 02:25, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have reverted the recent changes and restored the longstanding version. [2] Courtesy ping JBW, who initially made the change. "Serious BLP violations" should fall under RD2, not RD5. The text of WP:RD2 states: RD2. Grossly insulting, degrading, or offensive material that has little to no encyclopedic or project value, or violates our biographies of living people policy. I added emphasis to the relevant portion here. "RD2: Serious BLP violations" simply refers to "grossly insulting, degrading, or offensive content" that is related to a specific living individual and is unsourced or poorly sourced. For example, claims that a living subject engaged in grossly offensive conduct (but not to the extent that would require WP:OS) would generally fall under RD2.
As far as RD5 goes, I would generally avoid using WP:RD5: it's not supposed to be a catch-all for any miscellaneous deletion reason, and I'm not sure if in 2025 there is a bona fide reason for using it. It's an incredibly ambiguous criterion, and I think at some point we should have a community discussion on what exactly it means. Its best and most common use might be to obfuscate that the real reason for the revdel is RD4 (see: Wikipedia:Revision deletion#Hiding oversightable material prior to Oversight, which states If RevisionDelete is used, avoid obvious suggestive terms in the reason (e.g. don't use "RD4" ...)). I doubt there is community support for using RD5 to revdel just any BLP violation, for example, or to revdel ordinary spam or vandalism. It needs to be a severe case as specified in RD2 to qualify. Mz7 (talk) 07:09, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Mz7 - Thanks for reading through the discussion I started, for responding, and for making both the drop-down items and the policy page align consistently. The only time that I can remember using RD5 to redact information was to remove the username from edits where it clearly impersonated a notable person or impersonated representing a large notable company, and where the edits involved were to the actual article of that person or company. It was done so that any implication of association between the accounts and the edits to the article being "official" would be broken, keeping the foundation out of any kind of legal or other liability, as well as to prevent other users from believing that the accounts were legitimately those notable people or created on behalf of said companies, which would likely cause other liabilities and problems with future edits with the article.
Other than that, I agree that RD5 has a very broad and loose definition. We should be proposing additions to the list of criteria if numerous redactions are performed under RD5 and to the point where it should just be one on its own, and consider having RD5 either redefined to be more specific or retired completely from use. Also, why have "oversightable material" listed as a criterion to use? It should be removed as being usable when choosing a redaction option, and instead detailed below the list that oversightable material is a legitimate use. ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 07:28, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]