Commons:Oversighters

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This page explains the role of oversighter on Wikimedia Commons.

• If you need oversighter assistance on Commons, please email oversight-commons@lists.wikimedia.org with the diff links or page history link that should be suppressed and a clear explanation for such action. In an emergency, and if no Commons oversighter is immediately available, please contact a steward. Stewards should also be able to help if you need assistance with a cross-wiki problem.

There are currently 4 oversighters on Commons.

Oversighters as of December 2023 [+/−]

Number of oversighters: 4

Minorax, en, zh, ko-1, ms-1, fr-1, nan-2, yue-1 odder, pl, en-4, de-2 (bureaucrat) Rama, fr, en-4, de-2, la-2, ja-1, es-1, it-1 Raymond, de, en-3, nl-1

What is an oversighter?

Oversighters are administrators with the technical ability on Wikimedia Commons to hide (suppress) data so that it can no longer be seen by normal editors. They are able to suppress revisions from a page or media file history, user names in edit histories and logs, and portions of individual log entries.

Suppressed data remain permanently inaccessible through the wiki. Therefore, it cannot be accidentally restored when a page is deleted and undeleted. Suppressed data can only be viewed and restored by oversighters.

According to the global policy, suppression is approved in four cases:

1. Removal of non-public personal information such as phone numbers, home addresses, workplaces or identities of pseudonymous or anonymous individuals who have not made their identity public, or of public individuals who have not made that personal information public.
2. Removal of potentially libelous information either:

   a) on the advice of Wikimedia Foundation Legal Counsel or;

   b) when the case is clear and there is no editorial reason to keep the revision.

3. Removal of copyright violations on the advice of Wikimedia Foundation counsel.
4. Hiding of blatant attack names on automated lists and logs, where this does not disrupt edit histories. A blatant attack is one obviously intended to denigrate, threaten, libel, insult, or harass someone.

Local oversighters will generally handle local oversighting, when they're available. Stewards may perform local oversighting in emergencies, during crosswiki issues, or if there are no local oversighters available (see contact details).

Meta policy on oversighters

Oversighters on Commons are bound by the meta oversight policy, the meta privacy policy and the WMF access to nonpublic data policy.

How do I become an oversighter?

First, read Commons:Oversighters/Howto.

When you are ready, make your request using the box below, replacing Username with your own user name.

For greater visibility, all requests made here are transcluded onto the central Commons:Requests and votes page.

Voting

Please note any registered user may vote here although those who have few or no previous edits may not be fully counted. It is preferable if you give reasons both for  Support votes or  Oppose ones as this will help the closing bureaucrat in their decision. Greater weight is given to argument, with supporting evidence if needed, than to a simple vote.

Purge the cache Use the edit link below to edit the transcluded page.

Requests for Oversight rights

watch

When complete, pages listed here should be archived to Commons:Oversighters/Archive.

• Please read Commons:Oversighters before voting here. Any logged in user may vote, although those who have few or no previous edits may not be fully counted.

Kadı

Related requests:

• Administrators/Requests/Kadı

• Oversighters/Requests/Kadı

Vote

Kadı (talk · contributions · deleted user contributions · recent activity · logs · block log · global contribs · CentralAuth)

Scheduled to end: 10:15, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Hello, I am Kadı. I serve as an administrator on Commons, also I am a global renamer and VRT agent. I am requesting oversight access in order to work on this area. Sincerely, --Kadı Message 10:15, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Votes

•  Oppose, I am not satisfied by your responses to Krd. ─ The Aafī (^talk) 18:27, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
•  Support. We currently have four oversighters. They are all trustworthy, and they do the job well, but they aren't always awake. Oversight can be a very time-sensitive task; two days ago, a Steward had to take an emergency action, self-assigning oversight rights on Commons in order to deal with an oversight request in a timely manner. Having more competent hands willing to do the work will improve our oversight response time and will thereby improve Commons. I trust Kadı with the tools, and I thank them for volunteering. Let's not look a gift horse in the mouth here. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 23:55, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
•  Oppose No experience shown at all, no need or occasion shown at all, plus strikingly wrong answer to simply policy question. --Krd 09:16, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Comments

• IMO not sufficient explanation why you need the flag. Did I miss something, was there any discussion that more oversighters were needed? Thanks, --A.Savin 11:36, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

  @A.Savin, thanks for the question. You didn't miss something because there was not a discussion about more oversighters were needed. I am requesting this flag, because I am working on renaming and VRT area. In this area, in some cases oversight access is needed for suppressing personal info, private location coordinates etc. I am an active user, so if I get this flag, I will have a chance to evaluate the requests and do whatever needed. Regards, Kadı Message 14:25, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

  I think for suppressing private coordinates usually admin's revdel is enough, but I may be wrong wrt some cases. --A.Savin 18:00, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

  @A.Savin, I requested suppression for this file's coordinates because the coordinates was private, that's an example. Kadı Message 18:04, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

  The mentioned example appears to be your own upload. Are you planning to oversight own edits? Are there other cases where you have requested oversight? Krd 20:45, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Krd, no that's an example. I am not planning to oversight my edits, I am requesting this flag for contributing to Commons in that area. For example, if someone mails to VRT about oversighting, I can evaluate the issue. Best, Kadı Message 21:46, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

  Excluding the example given above, how many times did you request oversight in the last 12 months? Krd 07:54, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

  I do not remember. But, I remember a suppress request in global rename queue. If I get this flag, I will have a chance to evaluate. Kadı Message 08:45, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

  what's the point, to suppress that photo's coords. it can be easily geotagged with the aid of satellite images. (it's already categorised to the village.) removing its coords only makes it a tiny bit more difficult to pinpoint the location of that photo.

  and like others have said, in that case isnt a revdel enough? what is the chance that out of the several hundred sysops someone might abuse that little piece of not-so-secret info? RZuo (talk) 12:09, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

  Agreed. Just for something like complete private data including street address, an oversighter is definitely needed. --A.Savin 19:21, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

  What's the harm in suppressing the coordinates if an uploader asks for them to be suppressed? I'd hate to think I'd be totally screwed if I accidently included the coordinates in an image of something in my backyard that I uploaded Commons. Sure, someone could technically find out where it was taken using satellite images, but so what? The same goes for any other private information. At that point why not leave addresses and phone numbers in file descriptions because both can easily be found using a Google Search? --Adamant1 (talk) 21:17, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

  I agree with A. Savin. A revdel of coordinates is sufficient. Abzeronow (talk) 23:18, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

• What is the appropriate situation to use OS versus using only revdel? GMG^talk 15:31, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

  @GreenMeansGo, Oversight is the term used to describe the removal of certain information from public view, including hiding it from administrators who are not oversighters. Such information includes, but is not limited to, non-public personal information, potentially libellous information, blatant attack names, and copyright violations. Kadı Message 07:36, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Current oversighters

• For an automated list of current oversighters, see Special:Listusers/suppress.
• To edit the annotated list of oversighters, click here.

See also

• Commons:Oversight
• Suppression statistics
• Oversighter's Handbook