The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

In June 2008 the Arbitration Committee announced a request that the English Wikipedia consider allowing some non-administrators the ability to view deleted material. The summary of the announcement was

The activation of the passive "can view deleted" right, and a policy allowing its grant for good cause, would allow non-administrator users to gain wider participation in the English Wikipedia community. For details and discussion, see Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/June 2008 announcements/Activation of view-deleted-pages

Note that this is a request that the idea be considered, nothing stronger. The announcement led to this proposal. As this conversation has gone on for several months, the proposal has shifted around quite a bit. This makes it very unclear where editors are currently giving their support or opposition. For the sake of clarity, I am attempting to pick out the main proposals, and create a straw poll around them.

Anyone who has previously commented is asked to indicate their support below again. Everyone is asked to please read Proposal: Allow established/experienced editors to see deleted contributions, as well as Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/June 2008 announcements/Activation of view-deleted-pages. It's a lot of text, but it's a big decision. Note also that no version of this proposal would allow access to the "extreme deletion" cases currently covered by Wikipedia:Oversight; these would still only be viewable in the mentioned forums. The important thing is that we find out which direction the community would like this to go. Feel free to add options if I have missed any.

There are two groups of options. The first is Who can see deleted material? and the second is What types of deletions should be viewable? Please support one (and only one) option from both groups, along with a short (optional) comment. Please do not Oppose any option; instead Support the Oppose option (if that makes sense). Please do not respond to anyone's vote, and direct all discussion to the Village pump (proposals)/Persistent proposals page.

For the sake of keeping everyone's POV their own, I am not going to summarize the options below. The pros and cons have been thoroughly discussed in the forums mentioned above.

~ JohnnyMrNinja 08:48, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: JohnnyMrNinja has requested that someone from OTRS explain the argument of why this move would open the Foundation up to legal trouble. (Ticket#2008092710018301) On behalf of the OTRS legal queue, this is the reasoning. In response to many tickets we get, where a very upset or irate person has been subject to defamation, the appropriate solution is to remove the offending section and delete the revisions containing it from the history. Often times these requests come from the subject's attorney, typically in the form of "My client is horribly upset and at his wit's end, and wants this all to stop. He doesn't want anyone to be able to view a history that the page about him at one point said 'He also has penises growing out of his eyeballs and loves gay sex, oh and he cheated on his wife'. Make it go away, or we'll sue you to make it go away." The reason that we don't get sued by a lot more people than we do now, is because we can simply delete these revisions immediately. By modifying the present procedures to allow, even in a limited form (or with varying user rights levels) people to view these revisions, we now put the OTRS team's ability to respond to these complaints in jeopardy, because now we can no longer say "We hid this stuff from the public eye, and only trusted administrators will be able to see it". And that's just the limited version. If we open deleted revisions up to everyone, now anybody can see it, and thus there's no way to effectively solve these tickets that we get daily. On top of that, we'd then have to massively increase the amount of oversighter's we have, as well as expand the scope of the oversight policy beyond it's original form. This further hinders the legal queue especially, in that we would then require oversight access in order to ensure that we're effectively complying with subpoenas, because the number of oversighted edits would rise. Finally, there's the legal argument that can be made that by allowing the community to do this (or by having the developers implement this) the foundation is not doing all that they reasonably can do to protect those harmed by negative edits. There are just too many reasons why from a legal standpoint this is a dangerous move to make. For the OTRS legal queue, ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 14:32, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can confirm the existence of said ticket and support this response to it. Daniel (talk) 14:46, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've been asked to step in and give the Foundation's legal view on this question. My view as the Foundation's general counsel is essentially the same as that outlined by Swatjester above. Allowing non-administrator users to have access to deleted pages would vastly increase the frequency and volume of legal complaints. (It could have even worse consequences than that in the long term, up to and including corrective legislation by Congress, which would be a disaster.) It is difficult to overstate how much legal and practical difficulty this would cause the Foundation. To be frank, community adoption of such a disastrous policy would create an actual emergency that would likely require Board intervention. I normally favor and support community-driven initiatives, so please believe me when I say I am not raising this set of concerns lightly. The current system is not broken -- so the best advice is "don't fix it."MikeGodwin (talk) 13:47, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This poll will be open until 23:59 UTC, 17 October 2008 (three weeks).

vote below, in # comment ~~~~ format:

1. Easiest solution for now. There is no potential for abuse that isn't covered by existing policies (recreation of deleted material). See my full reasoning here. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 10:29, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
2. -- how do you turn this on 13:08, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
3. Second choice support, would prefer for all autoconfirmed (I have !voted below), but rollback permissions seem to me to have worked well, and this would be an acceptable compromise to me. DuncanHill (talk) 14:33, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
4. Tex (talk) 14:51, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
5. Support FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:08, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
6. Best of the solutions given, and I can't think of any good reasons not to support. WP:RFPERM can handle requests, as it does for rollback and AC permissions (and NPW and AWB). Giving it to all autoconfirmed (or lower) would likely cause too much recreation chaos. lifebaka++ 15:38, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
7. Seems to work for rollback --Rumping (talk) 17:15, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
8. Essentially per same logic as having a "custodian". See my remarks below. JoshuaZ (talk) 17:24, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
9. I read each of the opposes below and they all seem to pertain to untrusted users gaining rights. This is a good solution to that problem. I was granted rollback and use it when necessary; I will never be appointed an Admin because I edit mostly only in the Winter months, but if I had deletion review rights I know I would be able to handle them just as responsibly as an admin, and I think any Admin who has interacted with me would agree. Expanding openness is always a good thing.--CastAStone/^{/₵₳$↑₳₴₮ʘ№€} 17:31, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
10. First choice. Like adminship once was, this really is no big deal. Guettarda (talk) 18:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
11. First choice: No big deal.--Tznkai (talk) 18:44, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
12. Fine by me. Really, the risk is low; there will be nothing available which can't already be found at deletionpedia, and we have several rogue sysops who post deleted articles and IRC logs anyway, I have no problem at all with handing this out to any established user, if they make a dick of themselves then we just turn it off again, as we have with rollback in several cases. The near-mythical status accorded some deleted material beggars belief, when you actually see it, most deleted articles are banal and mundane! Guy (Help!) 18:52, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
13. Moving support from "Custodian" group to here. There needs to be access to deleted articles for trusted users but the Custodian group will create to much hierarchy and bureaucracy. We need to support the idea of "no big deal" for these rights. I also support the tiered deletion below. (I say this because it is important in my support for this. Potentially dangerous material should be left to admins and oversights but material removed on notability causes should be viewable by trusted editors.) If material removed for notability can be viewed by editors who have proven that they are here for the good of the encyclopedia and have put in the time and effort and quality needed it will only help make the content better. These editors can improve these articles and use their content for notable topics. Scottydude _review 19:02, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
14. First choice. I want to look at deleted articles to see if they can be salvaged, in the same way I look at articles tagged for speedy or proposed deletion. -- Eastmain (talk) 21:39, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
15. Support. It goes in the right direction of a less monolithic admin rôle. VG ☎ 22:00, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
16. Support, although I would also support the "Custodian" group before any of the other proposals. -- Imperator3733 (talk) 02:19, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
17. Rollback is much more prone to abuse and edit warring. Yet rollback has not cause too many problems. This new function would be good for research purposes. Will help the encyclopedia because serious writers can improve deleted articles without having to bother an administrator. How many administrators will agree to undelete 100 articles? None! A user can view 100 articles and choose the 2 that can be vastly improved. This will help Wikipedia. 903M (talk) 04:03, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
18. Support, yes, but with the caveat that there is some strong controls around who gets the right granted to them - only long-term trusted users should be given this, in my opinion. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 05:58, 27 September 2008 (UTC).[reply]
19. Support --Flewis^(talk) 09:06, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
20. Support in anticipation of an actual process for its distribution. Orderinchaos 10:49, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
21. Support. Sounds like a wonderful idea. It would allow wider participation in the DRV process and create oversight of deletion; in short, a step in the right direction of a less monolithic admin role, as others have stated. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 13:16, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
22. Support. Would prefer other options, but this would be a fine solution. --Alecmconroy (talk) 15:44, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
23. Support. I think Guy put it well. Haukur (talk) 16:48, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
24. First Choice NuclearWarfare ^{contact me}_{My work} 18:23, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
25. Support per the above arguments --Dreamspy (talk) 18:55, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
26. Support Seems the most logical. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 19:56, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
27. Qualified support - I see no reason why those with rollback privileges should not be given this right. But I oppose creating yet another user group, with the extra administrative work necessary to add people to the group. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:22, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
28. Oppose Seriously undermines OTRS ability to ensure libel is not public. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 14:08, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    A genuine concern. Thought on this: "It has been deleted and cannot be seen by the public. Only trusted users who have been granted access specifically for community tasks, can see it" or some variant, would probably be sufficient. We would need tight reins on "when should the right be granted", though. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 22:44, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

29. Support Tie it with rollback. First choice. Pie is good ^{(Apple is the best)} 01:08, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
30. Viewing deleted revisions should have much higher requirements than being granted rollback. PERM-overhead isn't bad enough to be a hindrance, and for trusted users this can be very helpful (CSD tagging, private deletion reviews, ...). Amalthea^Talk 13:00, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
31. Support: I discount the libel issue. For one thing, what percentage of deleted pages are OTRS deletions? One percent? A tenth of one percent? More to the point, the libel premise suggests that a permitted list akin to rollbackers (which is just over 1900, right now) is unsafe and over the bounds, but implies that there's no legal issue inherent in every single one of the 1600 Wikipedia admins being able to see those OTRS pages ... which they can.  RGTraynor  14:52, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
32. Support Sounds good to me. I've seen some deletions were out of line, and the ability for non-admins to see deleted revisions might help form a clearer consensus at DRV. I could see many uses for this tool among non-admins. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP)} 22:01, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
33. Support. Malinaccier (talk) 01:41, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
34. Support. Would it be retrospective? Louiseann76 (talk) 01:51, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
35. Support - When I saw that view-deleted was being discussed, this was my first thought. Reyk _YO! 05:32, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
36. Support subject to proper selection process. This will allow users who don't feel ready for adminship to get a chance to be full participants in Deletion Review. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 10:44, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
37. Support Swat, if OTRS libel concerns are worrying, then the devs can just add a checkbox for OTRS admins deleting stuff to hide it from this class (so that only actual admins can see it). Alternately, shouldn't that stuff be Oversighted anyway? rootology (C)(T) 13:33, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
38. I support this common sense idea. 211.30.12.197 (talk) 13:36, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

vote below, in # comment ~~~~ format:

1. Inclined to support (separable proposal) Other than the name (which in typical wiki fashion is a bit obscure), the idea of an extra level between "anyone with an account and a dozen edits" and "admins", for users who have broadly gained a significant measure of reputation in their editing and actions, as endorsed by the community, and which anyone could be granted without the intense scrutiny of RFA (as rollback is granted), would probably be useful, and could have beneficial side effects in anti-vandalism and quality efforts. For me this would be separate and as well as the above -- I'd still be fine with the above rights being granted on an individual basis as well (eg for new users blocked by an anti-vandal IP block).
2. Yes I have to agree with this. A person that makes 10 edits and is on here for 4 days has the same rights as someone with 100K edits and 5 years? Just doesn't seem right to me. These users who have been on here long enough and have made edits have obviously proved themself need more rights. What those rights maybe i dont know but at least this is a start. When discussing this, hinderance will have to be made for people who only write articles so will have a low edit count. Im glad something like this is being discussed, wikipedia should never for one day stop to improve to make editors more inclined to edit and have a more pleasurable experience. One only has to look at some retired wikipedians including admins who have left because of the project and not because of other matters. 211.30.117.172 (talk) 15:33, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
3. As I see it we would likely need to have elections for such people. The criteria would be weaker than those for adminship (something like around 50% approval, adminstered by crats like RfA is adminstered (possibly by admins as well? Not sure there)). JoshuaZ (talk) 16:42, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
4. Second choice, per JoshuaZ. Guettarda (talk) 18:18, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
5. Second choice: This could easily lead to excessive bureaucracy, but its better than nothing.--Tznkai (talk) 18:45, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
6. I oppose this idea in general, but if it does gain support this is how I'd like to see it implemented. I'd like to see this as a flag that any admin can set on another user. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 21:44, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
7. Oppose. More arbitrary social stratification will attract the wrong kind of users. A "no big deal" admission process eventually becomes a big deal if it's perceived as a status symbol (see comments above by 211.30.117.172), so it's not a good idea. VG ☎ 22:06, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
8. Support as long as the bureaucracy needed to obtain it is not onerous, although I oppose "custodian" tag for reasons not far removed from VG's. Orderinchaos 10:51, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
9. Second Choice NuclearWarfare ^{contact me}_{My work} 18:23, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
10. Second Choice after the separate user right (above). -- Imperator3733 (talk) 22:21, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
11. Support I think this is a good idea. --Tadakuni (talk) 00:47, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
12. Oppose Seriously undermines OTRS ability to ensure libel is not public. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 14:09, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
13. Support But keep rollbacker as its own group, then put Custodian as both. Second choice. Pie is good ^{(Apple is the best)} 01:09, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
14. Second Choice: Following my comments above, if OTRS was serious about ensuring libel was not public, admins wouldn't be able to review their deleted pages either.  RGTraynor  14:55, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
15. Oppose - The rollback rights should be given out much more freely then we should allow view-deleted to be. Rollback doesn't give the user any extra abilities - only a button to do it faster and with less server usage. The view-deleted ability allows a user to do that which he/she can't do without it - view any deleted page, including those which are libelous. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 09:18, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
16. Weaker support than just creating the view ability as a separate user group. rootology (C)(T) 13:35, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Instead of creating a new "package", simply remove from the admin package: block/unblock/IPblockexempt (and other userrights related to block/unblock/IPblockexempt) to a separate package; and perhaps remove page protection as a single user-right.

All of those supporting these proposals seem to not be interested in "vandal fighting" or some such. Well, the admin package is mostly for "custodial" (janitorial) work. It's mostly the use of block and protect (and the trust thereof) that those supporting seem to feel that they don't wish (or don't seem to feel that they can attain) adminship. (Delete/undelete is another, but since that's part of what's under discussion here...) So let's remove them from tha admin package. We'll have more admin "janitors/custodians", since, presumably based on those supporting, they all would be interested in the remaining userrights. - jc37 10:11, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea, I agree with your point. (But I don't think that "Delete/undelete is another, but since that's part of what's under discussion here...", because here we are only suggesting to allow non-admins to view deleted pages, not to delete them or to recreate them — other than by copy&paste.) BTW, I would reserve the name "Administrator" for the full package, and call the "reduced" package something else. So my proposal is: take away (un)block/(un)protect/(un)delete rights from the "admin" user level; rename the "admin" user level; create an "admin" user level, with all the rights of the new level plus (un)block/(un)protect/(un)delete; automatically promote all users who were "admins" before the change to the new "full" admin level. -- A r m y 1 9 8 7 ! ! !  10:52, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is beyond the scope of the discussion. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 14:09, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

vote below, in # comment ~~~~ format:

1. Should be viewable by the entire editing community (basic matter of community trust and openness). Kotniski (talk) 09:45, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
2. This is logical. Most deleted material is already easily viewable (usually through Google Cache), by those who wish to see it; with that in mind the only reason I can see to prevent logged-in users from seeing deleted material is some strange sense that seeing deleted material should be a privilege for administrators. A minimal requirement (autoconfirmation) should serve to prevent vandals getting at it too easily. I would strongly support this or something similar, to increase and enhance openness and honesty. Anything that truly shouldn't be seen by a wide audience gets oversighted anyway. fish&karate 12:38, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   Autoconfirmation is 10 edits and 4 days, which is nothing. I often request Google clear their cached results when I have to delete something per OTRS, so the latter part of your rationale is equally faulty. Daniel (talk) 12:44, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   I don't understand - why does your having to request Google clear their cache make my rationale faulty? fish&karate 12:50, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   Because it refutes your assertion that deleted material is otherwise easily accessible. Daniel (talk) 12:53, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   "Most deleted material", I said. fish&karate 13:01, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   Moreover, allowing all auto-confirmed users to view deleted revisions opens a huge security hole allowing actual malicious, automated crawling of deleted revisions. --slakr^\ talk / 12:59, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   To what purpose? What issues would this cause? fish&karate 13:01, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   We delete things usually for one of several big reasons:

   1. We don't think they're worth our resources to host (e.g., it lacks encyclopedic importance),
   2. Someone else is trying to use our resources for their capital gain (e.g., it's advertising), or
   3. It is illegal for us to continue allowing use of our resources for a certain purpose (e.g., copyright violations or possible libel).

   There are other reasons, but those seem to be the big ones. Notice that they all have something in common: using our resources (e.g., bandwidth, perhaps the highest operating cost) for things neither we nor our donors want it used for. If we allowed people to freely crawl deleted contributions, we would be defeating the purpose of deleting it in the first place— that is, preventing our bandwidth from being wasted on the aforementioned crap we don't want it wasted on. --slakr^\ talk / 14:04, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   I'm not taking a position here, but your first argument seem largely moot because we are using our resources to store deleted contributions. And I'm unsure how allowing users to view deleted content will somehow be a boon to spammers. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 21:28, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

3. Support as my first choice, a minimal requirment that is in line with permissions to move pages or upload images. DuncanHill (talk) 14:31, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
4. Oppose deletion is by default not publicly accessible, and often for very good reasons. Would not wish access to previously deleted material to become available to anyone who makes a dozen typo fixes. (Note that autoconfirm viewing would be equivalent to "anyone can view" for all practical purposes, since old revisions are only accessible via history and not search engines, anyway.) Some significant measure of communal trust is needed. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 22:45, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   Has this been entered in the wrong section? Caulde 18:13, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

5. Oppose as would allow autoconfirmed users to view diffs which violate BLP, which almost defeats the purpose of having such policy. Orderinchaos 21:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't understand this argument. Any editor can currently view diffs that violate BLP as long as they are not oversighted and the article itself is not deleted. VG ☎ 22:49, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   Not if they're deleted diffs, which is a surprisingly common practice when dealing with these situations. To explain, we will sometimes delete an article then restore only those diffs which are not defamatory or illegal. The rest remain as deleted diffs, and are generally not oversighted unless there's a very good reason to do so. The techies are working on (and last I heard, close to unveiling) a mechanism which will delete diffs without the need to delete and undelete the article, as it slows the server way down. Orderinchaos 00:34, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

6. supportThe point of deleting is not to hide material, it is to remove it from the public encyclopdia. anyone is is actually interested enough in editing o be autoconfirmed should be able to view it--I can not see what harm can possibly come of it, except in the special cases to be discussed elsewhere in the poll. DGG (talk) 23:07, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
7. Will be used for scholarly purposes. Most people who research deleted material will be doing it for research. The vandal won't because it's too time consuming to do and much quicker to just blank pages or add a word like "&#%@!" 903M (talk) 04:01, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   What about material deleted from userspace for privacy reasons? It's not an uncommon practice to have one's userpage deleted and start again - we have people who started this project at 14 and 15 and had enough identifying information to track them down, and have subsequently decided this level of disclosure is not required or appropriate, and toned it down. Do we then need to bring in oversight - the ultimate heavy artillery and with some questions about whether there is any scrutiny over it - and nuke such pages off the database simply because some auto-confirmed user who has not been given any level of community trust can go back and read it? Also we have a shortage of oversighters, this sort of stuff would create a phenomenal amount of work for them. Orderinchaos 10:47, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

8. Strong Support per DGG. The primary purpose of a deletion is to say "not part of the encyclopedia"-- not to hide. If necessary, create a special class of deletions that are "double-secret" to be used in the tiny minority of cases where there's sensitive data we're trying to actively prevent from being transmitted. --Alecmconroy (talk) 15:51, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
9. Oppose That's pretty much allowing to anyone to see it. A non-wikipedian couldn't see it (needs to wait several days), but is allowing to free access to untrusted people to may delicate content, including some private information, goatses... Platonides (talk) 16:24, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
10. Strongest Oppose Then what's the point of deleting it? Personally, having over 10,000 edits, I've never found it that important to see them, and there's no reason for all autoconfirmed to use it. I'd accept the right, but there should be a high bar. Reywas92^Talk 00:58, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
11. Oppose: This is just an end-run around deletion policy which I doubt the community would support.  RGTraynor  14:56, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
12. Absolutely not per most opposes - particularly with BLP and Copyvio issues. Not that I'm opposed to expanding Oversight's role if necessary, but we'd be opening a real can of worms. A lesser concern would be the issue with copy-paste article creations from deleted articles (which includes further copyvio concerns). --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 09:23, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
13. Support The technical means to view all material are already being put in place as sites like Deletionpedia demonstrate. We should recognise this and facilitate access to the ordinary stuff while improving controls upon the legally-sensitive stuff. Colonel Warden (talk) 17:35, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
14. Oppose No way, too risky. rootology (C)(T) 13:35, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
15. Oppose. The bar is too low. It could be easily exploited for illegal file sharing and what not. VG ☎ 15:50, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

vote below, in # comment ~~~~ format:

1. Oppose Seriously undermines OTRS ability to ensure libel is not public. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 14:10, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
2. borderline idiotic Far worse than what Swat lays out. Many if not most or even the vast majority of libel deletions occur without OTRS being involved. And that doesn't count difs outing editors, difs with personal details, or many other cases. JoshuaZ (talk) 02:20, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
3. Oppose: As above.  RGTraynor  14:57, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
4. Oppose Obviously not. rootology (C)(T) 13:36, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
5. Oppose. The bar is too low. It could be easily exploited for illegal file sharing and what not. VG ☎ 15:51, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

vote below, in # comment ~~~~ format:

1. This should be available to anyone, whether registered or not. __meco (talk) 09:53, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   Comment - This would be redundant to the page history function; thus, those that support this would be supporting complete abolishing of deletion unless the material was oversighted. --slakr^\ talk / 12:49, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   Not exactly - a deleted page would still be removed from the article namespace, so it wouldn't be a hindrance to readers looking for genuine encyclopedic information (the basic underlying reason for deletion).--Kotniski (talk) 13:23, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   What difference does that make? So now it's in the "deleted" namespace rather than the "article" namespace. Big change. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 14:16, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   Well yes, very big change. If you recall, our main purpose here (apart from arguing) is to write an encyclopedia. Whether something is or is not in that encyclopedia is what matters to us most. Whether it appears somewhere in project space (where it won't show up on article-space searches, for example), and who can see it there, is a secondary concern. 'Note: no-one makes a big fuss about these hideous copyvios, attacks, gratuitous advertising and so on when they appear on pages that aren't being deleted - 99% of them simply get removed from the page, but remain in the history for everyone to see if they want. --Kotniski (talk) 14:38, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   Reply to comment. It wouldn't be exactly the same thing if deleted stuff is not searchable with Google and the search box. I think that a lot of spam happens because of the virtually guaranteed first page on Google for any topic (given how page rank currently works). VG ☎ 22:32, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

2. Oppose We really have to take BLP violations and copyvios into concern. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 19:59, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
3. Oppose Seriously undermines OTRS ability to ensure libel is not public. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 14:10, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
4. incredibly bad idea For all the reasons above and then some. JoshuaZ (talk) 15:12, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
5. Wow, that would let all the vandal IPs do whatever. Oppose. Pie is good ^{(Apple is the best)} 01:05, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
6. 20-Mule-Team Oppose: Delete: 1. To remove, get rid of, erase. From Latin deletus, past participle of delere "destroy, blot out, efface," from delevi, originally perf. tense of delinere "to daub, erase by smudging," from de- "from, away" + linere "to smear, wipe." Is someone proposing changing the word's definition?  RGTraynor  15:01, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
7. Oppose Obviously not. rootology (C)(T) 13:36, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
8. Oppose. The bar is too low. It could be easily exploited for illegal file sharing and what not. VG ☎ 15:51, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

vote below, in # comment ~~~~ format:

1. Should be viewable by all logged-in users with at least m edits in the last M days, at least n of which were done in the last N days. The count should be restricted to edits in the article namespace, and, if technically feasible, to edits which weren't reverted. (If that sounds too complicated, pick m = n and M = N.) -- A r m y 1 9 8 7 ! ! !  10:15, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   (Essentially I'm suggesting to create a new user level, except that it'd be granted automatically, as with Autoconfirmed.) -- A r m y 1 9 8 7 ! ! !  11:01, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

2. In some form, as long as it supports the restriction regarding BLP/attack/copyvio as set out in Part 2 below. 23skidoo (talk) 13:23, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
3. I like what 23skidoo is suggesting here, but I'm not sure how easy it would be from a technical perspective. Guettarda (talk) 18:20, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
4. I support that, but rather for the purposes mentioned here. →Christian.И 16:55, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

vote below, in # comment ~~~~ format:

1. Neither necessary nor helpful. If they can view it, they can recreate it. If this is implemented, expect oversight requests to go through the roof. Stifle (talk) 09:47, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
2. Per stifle. Potential harm outweighs the potential benefits. Garion96 (talk) 11:01, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   Not sure if we can reply to other comments, but the above seem to assume a great lack of good faith within the community. If good-faith editors can view a deleted article, they will know not to recreate it in that form. (Bad-faith ones will recreate it anyway; better if they do recreate it in the same form so it can be speedied.) And sometimes recreation is desirable, with suitable changes - for example, if someone who was not notable can now be shown to be so.--Kotniski (talk) 12:09, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   I am willing, as stated on my userpage, to provide text of an deleted article. I don't have any problem with "on request". But usually stuff gets deleted for a reason. And yes, I don't trust everyone in the community with text of deleted articles. Especially BLP violations, copyvio's and I really don't want more bureacracy by creating another class of users or a tiered-deletion system. Garion96 (talk) 13:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   So in fact when you get a request, you decide for yourself whether that user can be trusted. Effectively, then, there is "another class of users", except that it's not constant, it's defined on the fly by individual admins, and every time an admin gets a request, they have to investigate that user's history to see whether they're trustworthy or not. Would it not be easier, then, to allow users, once vetted and trusted, to be "flagged" with a privilege assignment, so they and other admins don't have to go through the process every time?--Kotniski (talk) 13:39, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   No, not really. I look more at the content than at the user, although I look at that as well. The solutions to that, see below, are to bureacratic. The way it is done now by DRV or by request are working fine. Garion96 (talk) 13:48, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

3. Indeed. No objection to temporary undeletion when needed for aDRV, or userfication for potentially notable subjects: but in general, it's best to keep things deleted and out of sight. Fram (talk) 12:01, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
4. By definition, articles are deleted when it is agreed they should not exist. The occasional case of someone wanting to salvage some of the contents from a deleted article is adequately covered by administrators userifying contents on request, and after having vetted that it was a reasonable thing to do. — Coren ^(talk) 12:32, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
5. There is too much risk of harm if non-admins gain the right to view deleted pages for the following reasons (1) Certain confidential information and/or vandalism is sometimes deleted from history; which should never be accessible by non-admins, but which falls outside the scope of oversight. (2) Redirects can be/are already used where there is potential that the information may be useful in the future. (3) Users can request temporary undeletion of pages if needed. (4) The administration of the options below will become too high/subject to the same argument as this one. (5) While there is the assumption that registered users will not recreate deleted material, there is a high risk of someone using an account in good standing to access this type of material and a sockputtet to exploit it. (6) I fail to see the use of this: Even where articles are recreated (e.g. when WP:NOTCRYSTAL does not apply anymore), the articles are recreated from scratch in any case. There is no reason to revert to the original material. (7) There is usually a good reason if a page was deleted. This would negate this in 90% of the cases. G.A.S 12:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   Brief replies: (1) Applies equally well to the edit histories of undeleted pages. (2) Huh? (3) So why put them through hoops? (4) Huh? (5) Risk of what significant harm? (6) Original material/sources will sometimes be of use - it should be made easy at least to check. (7) So let people see that there was a good reason.--Kotniski (talk) 13:04, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   (1) While that is the case, I have seen admins delete a page, restore revisions up to the edit before said vandalism, and readding edits after said vandalism manually. (2) WP:FICT; said non-notable articles are not deleted, but usually redirected to a list, even in the event of an AFD. (3) An admin should use his/her professional judgment in deciding whether said content should be viewed at all (But not at the event of deletion (1.2.1 below)—that is too much admin) (4) In providing the ability to view only certain "deleted" pages per 1.2.1 below, some users may start this argument all over again to view the other types of deleted pages as well. (5) —. (6) This is usually not necessary, as new information usually invalidate the original article. (7) That is what the AFD is for. G.A.S 08:58, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

6. I'm inclined to put my name here; not really worth the hassle, in my opinion, but if it has to go ahead, I placed a vote below anyways. Daniel (talk) 12:37, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
7. Agree with Stifle, Coren, G.A.S., Daniel. Cirt (talk) 12:42, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
8. Too much problematic material is already far too exposed. A much, much broader oversight policy would be needed before we could start giving everyone access to libel, copyright violations, personal contact information of private people, comprimising photographs of private people, et cetera. WilyD 12:48, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
9. Per above. As much as it would be fun to violate the law and keep copyvio images and text available for public viewing, I really don't think it would work out all too well for Wikimedia, so I'm gonna have to oppose this. --slakr^\ talk / 12:55, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   The above two objections are already dealt with by option 1 in the second section of the poll.--Kotniski (talk) 13:06, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   Then tack that onto it as well: a 4-tiered "deletion" system (page history, someNewGroup, admins, oversight) is, in my opinion, unwarranted and excessive. If you truly endeavor to explore the steaming mound of deleted crap in all its glory, go through RFA like the other 1600 people. --slakr^\ talk / 13:51, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

10. The only reason admins are allowed to look at deleted material is because they have gained community trust to do so via RFA. Contrary to what some people here seem to think, Special:Undelete is not the same as [rollback]. Undeleting pages is a very powerful right, and anyone with access to it should have to demonstrate that the community trusts them to use it properly. The only practical way I see to do this would be to force people to have some sort of a pseudo-RFA, which is redundant since if you could pass that, why not just stand for regular RFA and get Special:BlockIP and the other buttons too? J.delanoy^gabs_adds 14:11, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    This doesn't allow undeletion, and restoration may be low risk. In its original form the proposal was for communal consensus to agree a given specific user was trusted to view deleted revisions if they had good cause, as there are many well trusted non-admins for whom this would be helpful in improving the project. That would be similar to IP block exemption, rollback, etc. Subsequent misuse, such as improper restoration, would lead to removal of the right, as easily as if they misused rollback. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

11. Good idea in theory... but can of worms on closer inspection. --Dweller (talk) 14:18, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
12. The ability to view deleted contributions should remain limited to those who have demonstrated that they have the community trust by going through the RFA process. Non-admins who would like to see specific deleted content can easily request this information when appropriate from an admin. These types of requests can be quickly and easily accomodated, so there is little need for this additional level of user rights. -- Ed (Edgar181) 14:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
13. Comment. I find it interesting that all of the above voters are themselves adminstrators. HiDrNick! 15:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I am not an admin. G.A.S 08:58, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Oh, sorry about that; I should have looked closer. No offense intended. HiDrNick! 22:39, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Non taken;) G.A.S 05:40, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Vote below, but I'm also not an admin. -- Jeandré, 2008-09-28t09:49z

14. This, unlike rollback, is not a tool needed by editors dealing with articles. Its only purpose is behind-the-scenes administrative work, which is what administrators are for. If we have a lack of them I suggest we promote more. BJ^Talk 16:06, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
15. It is not that difficult to become an admin. If an editor wants the tool to view deleted revisions, they should be required to submit themselves to the RfA process. — Satori Son 16:24, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    What about those of us who would like to be able to contribute more effectively to DRV and the like, but who have absolutely no wish to be able to block editors or to delete anything? I suspect an RfA on the lines of "I need the tools to view deleted material, so that I can form my own judgement about the propriety of deletion, or to see if it is salvable" would fail resoundingly. DuncanHill (talk) 16:28, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    You can become an admin and choose to use the tools as little as you like. If you don't have the trust/experience to pass RfA though, you don't have the trust/experience to access the millions of pages of Very Bad Things in the deleted pile. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 17:03, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Well, if copyvios and BLP/attack pages are excluded (as proposed above) then I can see no possible harm from non-admins being allowed to view them. I would also note that there are admins who have never passed an RfA, who by your logic should not be allowed to see deleted material either. DuncanHill (talk) 17:07, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    And who exactly is volunteering to sort through the millions of deleted revisions and sort out thousands of BLPs, libel, copyvios, and other nasty that have been deleted since day one but never oversighted? And who exactly are these users who are trustworthy enough to have the keys to the kingdom but not trustworthy enough to pass an RfA? Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 17:31, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Thank you for your assumption that those of us who wish to work on improving and resurrecting wrongly deleted pages, but do not wish to be admins, are not trustworthy enough to pass RfA. DuncanHill (talk) 17:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    If a user wants perhaps the most "dangerous" aspect of being an admin, but doesn't want the scrutiny by the community that happens during RfA, there's definitely something fishy there. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 17:45, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Really? Take for example the many people who get a majority but not a consensus at RfA. The vast majority of those people are likely trustworthy enough to have access to deleted revisions. And if one wants other obvious cases, consider the (ok small number) of peope who were admins but are no longer due primarily to issues about how they used the tools for blocking. I don't think there's any serious claim that we should give this right to everyone. If we had a similar vote for giving this right where the threshold was less than that for adminship that should handle your objections. JoshuaZ (talk) 17:55, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I disagree that former admins who have lost adminship should be re-granted partial admin rights without going through another RfA. And while an RfA-like voting process for deletion-viewing rights makes sense, the format and standards would be virtually the same as RfA, so there's not a whole lot of cause to create a seperate process. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 18:09, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Well, there would be some form of communal approval process (as I discussed, it would likely just have lower criteria than RfA). The key point here is that say someone was desysoped becuase they were using the block tool badly. There's no reason then we wouldn't almost certainly still trust that person to be able to see deleted edits. If I can name names, I see no strong reason why we wouldn't for example give this ability to User:FeloniousMonk,User:Ed Poor, and User:Geni. Obviously they should get confirmed in the same way that other individual editors would get confirmed to have this ability, which is to ask in some form whether the community trusts them enough to let them do this. In at least three cases which I was able to name off the top of my head we have productive former admins who could be more helpful if they had this ability. JoshuaZ (talk) 19:06, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I see your point, Duncan, but the reason some of us are hesitant is that the trustworthiness of non-admin editors has not been established. That's the sole purpose of the RfA process: To confirm the trustworthiness of editors who want access to tools which have the potential for abuse. Why should we not avail ourselves of that already established process? To your question of me, I encourage you to go ahead and become an admin, but just don't "block editors or delete anything". Simple as that. I disagree that an RfA candidate who expresses no desire to use the deletion or block tools would “fail resoundingly”. Nothing says you are required to use every new button you'll get. — Satori Son 17:52, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Thanks Satori Son, I don't even want the ability to block anyone though - or at least not unless that ability was strictly time-limited and there was an effective way for the community to remove it from me if they felt fit. I am a human being, and human beings are far too error-prone and emotionally led to have such powers indefinitely. DuncanHill (talk) 17:59, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    If you're self-admittedly "far too error-prone and emotionally led" (your words, not mine) to weild the block tool, then you're unquestionably unsuitable to view deleted revisions. Viewing deleted revisions is far more potentially harmful than blocking or other admin tools. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 18:14, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Are you deliberately misrepresenting what I said? Or just not up to understanding straightforward English? I didn't say that I was "far too error-prone and emotionally led" to wield the block tool, rather that all humans are far too error-prone and emotionally led to have such powers indefinitely. DuncanHill (talk) 18:18, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    For what it’s worth, I find the idea of admins having to be reconfirmed every couple years or so a very appealing idea. There is a small number of long-time admins who think certain rules do not apply to them anymore, but that is a discussion for elsewhere. For this issue, I still think it’s best to keep these tools bundled together under our existing RfA confirmation process. — Satori Son 18:21, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    How is viewing deleted articles more dangerous than blocking users? This right would only be given to experienced editors who know what they're doing. Also, I do not feel that wanting to view deleted articles is a valid reason for an RfA. Admins should be willing to take part in some admin activities (but not necessarily all of them). I, for example, would like to help with checking the notability of various deleted articles, but I'm not really interested in adminship right now (for a variety of reasons). -- Imperator3733 (talk) 14:20, 28 September 2008 (UTC)\[reply]

    Because if abused, it can't be undone. A bad block, bad deletion, or bad protection can be undone instantly if necesssary. But if deleted information is misused, by initiating a lawsuit, using it for criminal/harassment purposes, or posting it on a forum for others to play with, there's no way to recork that bottle. Allowing all users access to the block tool would obviously be a very very bad idea, but the damage for that is less. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 14:32, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

16. G.A.S and Coren sum up my thoughts very well, further, if a user can view the full history and wikitext of a deleted page, restoring it in a way that fully satisfies the GFDL, without actually using the "undelete" button would be trivial. The amount of possible harm that could come from abuse of rollback and IP-block-exempt is trivial, not so for this. Mr.Z-man 16:39, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
17. Hell no. This may well be the most misguided proposal in Wikipedia history. Potential benefit is minimal bordering on non-existant, and harm/abuse is absolutely certain and potentially catastrophic. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 16:55, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
18. I think this is suspect to abuse. Even the most prolific editor shouldn't be allowed to view this kind of material. It's not about your contributions, but your trustworthiness. The only standard we have in place to measure that trust is the RFA process. So until someone can find an alternative threshold for Wikipedians to pass, only administrators should have access to this material. Randomran (talk) 17:08, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
19. I agree with the above comments. Whatever benefit would be minimal, and there are too many potential problems with lessening the degree to which anything is deleted—such content, if viewable by anyone, would essentially just be segregated, not deleted. Postdlf (talk) 17:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
20. People complain we have too many administrators one minute, the next we don't have enough. Leave the job to them, they have the technical ability to view that information and are obliged to release all non-BLP material etc. if asked in an AfD, if there is a debate over what the article actually stated. I do not see a pressing need for this tool to be created, nor to be administered. Caulde 17:49, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
21. Never. east718 // talk // email // 17:51, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
22. I guess I'm not dead against a rollback-like system, but I don't see a big advantage. If there's something with potential value that we want the public to be able to view, we can just not delete it--move it to a user or talk page or something. This basically seems like a way of weakening deletion, which we do for a reason. I'm against the creation of a new "sub-admin" user group, which would be more bureaucracy and more drama. delldot ∇. 18:27, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
23. --Moved from the VP. If we are revisiting this to make things clear then I'll just say that I haven't seen anything to change my mind about it. Some comments on the list above. #1 is false. Deleted material has nothing to do with the license. It isn't overwritten purposefully but it can at any point bcome unrecoverable. As long as extant material on the wiki isn't derived from deleted material, there is no license issue. #2 is closer to being true but meaningless. We aren't on the verge of being sued for BLP pages or for copyvio. However what keeps us from being on the verge of that is clear and scrupulous enforcement on policy and the fact that "deleted" material is obscured from public view. #3: deletion (for many issues) serves a practical purpose: it stops the easy cycle of recreation of unacceptable content. The issue here isn't the severity of the offense but the added likelihood of it occuring (with more people given access to deleted revisions) and the nuisance of dealing with restored deleted material. I don't care about 4,5 either way. #6 is problematic. What is objectionable? What percentage of the G11 deletion done every day contain objectionable material? what is the workload expected on oversighters? Honestly, I still see this as a solution searching for a problem. Sure, non admins (like me), can't see the article deleted in a DRV. There are, on average, less than 5 DRV's filed per day. Of those, I would say 1-2 would benefit even marginally from having the deleted revision visible. But most of those are just restored for the DRV by an admin. And honestly, with Deletionpedia, it is a solution competing with another solution. Why not just let them deal with the negative consequences and use that as a resource? Protonk (talk) 16:38, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
24. There are a lot of admins who are more than happy to e-mail the contents of deleted articles to people who are interested, or move them into userspace if they're not problematic. As noted above, this could become a major problem if we allow everyone to look at deleted material - we're sure to see the G4 level rise substantially. If this does in fact take place, I'm also weighing in below, but at the moment, I feel it's not a good idea. Tony Fox (arf!) 20:14, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
25. If people can see them what's the meaning of "delete"? My gut feeling is that the reason people want to see them is so they can be recreated under new titles. Redddogg (talk) 20:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
26. Articles are deleted for very good reasons... libel, copyvio, etc. If deleting an article doesn't actually remove it from view then what recorse do I have to prevent a bad situation from getting worse? If we oversight everything then we have no way to track user behavor, so thats not a good solution either. There are a few different suggested implementations being offered up here... all of them are flawed for this one reason: If we trust the user - make them an admin. If we don't, then they shouldn't get this tool. If we are taking the "sysop" flag too seriously, then lets fix that. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 21:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
27. Too much risk of abuse. Maxim_(talk) 23:08, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
28. What is this? The fourth iteration of this proposal?? I oppose now as I opposed all the other times this came up. The tiered idea seems to be a good one, but there is so much potential for problems (not to mention the thousands of articles already deleted which would have to be left out of the proposal unless someone is willing to go back and put them in tiers) that it's not worth it. There's also the potential that pages would be deleted under the wrong tier. Plus more bureaucracy, and another userright for editors to view as a trophy. Administrators are willing to provide copies of deleted articles. I see so little application for the proposal. There is just too much potential for problems with nowhere near enough balancing benefit. seresin ( ¡? )  23:23, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
29. I'm surprised that the arbitration committee proposed something like that. I see very little benefit and I do not trust someone who hasn't undergone a major review process by the community, which only RFA can offer, for the least, to access deleted content. We all know what kind of information it can provide and how a bad-faith user could take profit of it. For example, investigate on the previous identities of a user, access deleted personal information (deleted but not oversighted, there's plenty of them). Some administrators have already proved unworthy of our trust, so giving access to sensitive information to more users in a non-thoroughly reviewed way would be unwise. Now for deletion review matters, I don't think it justifies such a drastic step: history view only undeletions and other tools exist to help with this. I add that we need to draw a clear line on this matter, administrators and only administrators have access to deleted content, it's important to reassure copyright holders, victims of libel, etc. Furthermore, I suppose that deleted content has a legal status, and people who can access it also, inherently. I'm not even sure that the community has the power to break it. Finally, except in a few obvious cases, or when it is already too late, we cannot know if this right is abused. Cenarium ^Talk 23:53, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
30. This is not a good idea in my view. It would force us to completely change the way we handle RTV cases, just as an example, and somehow implement that change retroactively (which I suspect the oversighters would not want to help us do). We should in general be quicker to temporarily undelete at DRV--maybe even every time except for copyvios and BLPs--and of course fix RFA if possible, but I get shivers just thinking about the range of things to be found in deleted material. Chick Bowen 00:02, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
31. It needs to be assured that those viewing deleted content are doing so only for useful purposes. The current system—where an editor requests an admin to provide a deleted copy of an article to improve it—enforces this pretty well. That won't always be the case if everyone had this ability (given the possibilities for abuse). Spellcast (talk) 00:50, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
32. No. I could list reasons, but they're already mentioned above. - Rjd0060 (talk) 01:34, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
33. No. Just no. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 03:27, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
34. Oppose - Too many reasons to list. Xclamation point 03:43, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
35. This is not necessary. I haven't noticed any overload on requests for admins to userfy deleted articles, which the vast majority of us are happy to do upon a reasonable request if the material in question was not libelous/copyvio/otherwise inappropriate to restore under any circumstances, and the user asking is in good standing. But that check is essential. If someone asks me to restore potentially libelous material or a copyvio, I can refuse to do so and explain why. Without that check, anyone could view such material, and even if we used some type of "totally delete" option on such material now, there's a ton of old material that's problematic still deleted but not oversighted. I see this as greatly increasing the burden on our limited number of oversighters, many of whom also have other critical responsibilities, to solve a "problem" that doesn't exist—if you think you can salvage something deleted, either here or by moving it elsewhere, just ask someone to userfy it for you, and generally, someone will. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 07:43, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
36. There are so many great arguements here that I would fill up several lines typing "per so-n-so". So I'll just say "per Seraphimblade", since their comments are directly above, and convey the thoughts well enough for me. - jc37 10:11, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
37. Although two of the proposals seem reasonable, I am not seeing an urgent need for this. I think also that the risks associated with giving this right to people other than those trusted by the community - given that it is "all or nothing", there is no hierarchy of deleted content - is somewhat dangerous. As an admin I have always honoured requests to userfy or otherwise supply deleted content provided that no critical issue (BLP, attack, illegal content, privacy etc) is involved - even to users I have not necessarily considered trusted. This gives me the ability to dishonour requests where key deletion policy issues and not simply poor assertion of notability is involved. To create a hierarchy is not only too much work but poorly justified - those who might do it are busy. Orderinchaos 11:01, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
38. I came here planning on supporting this proposal. However after thinking about it, the potential benefits of this are very small and the potential problems are very large. Captain panda 12:52, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
39. Having marked for speedy deletion quite a bit of crap that shouldn't be widely accessible and considering negative effects on the right to vanish and on biographies of living people, etc. I think these things outweigh the minor advantages. Deli nk (talk) 13:38, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Question. A lot of people above have warned of the "catastrophic" consequences of this proposal. However I can't seem to find any statement as to what these actually are. The worse thing anyone's suggested might happen is that someone might restore deleted material. Well so what, we can just delete it again. If they plan on warring about it then it might just occur to them to save a copy for themselves. In fact, if someone's planning on recreating a deleted article, we want them to recreate it using the deleted material, so it can be speedily deleted. If they write the article anew, we may need to go through another deletion process. Problems of copyvios, privacy vios, defamatory stuff etc. are dealt with by the first proposal in the second part of the poll. The strongest argument I can see is that it would simply be too much trouble for admins to determine whether an article they're deleting is in that category or not (but then, past versions of existing pages are regularly kept on view despite being in those categories, so it obviously isn't felt to be very important). Can someone predicting the collapse of the world as we know it fill us in on any other of the possible dire consequences?--Kotniski (talk) 15:42, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    The short answer is that to open such a pandora's box of libel and copyrighted material to bulk of Wikipedia's millions of users would be a legal nightmare for Wikimedia foundation. In addition to the simple copyvios and "so and so killed Kennedy" type stuff, there's an absolute insane amount of sexual details about underage teenagers and children. All it would take would be one sleazy lawyer digging through the muck and sending out letters like "Dear Mrs. Jones, You may not be aware of this, but Wikipedia, presently the 9th most-visited website in the world, is publishing contact information as well as sexual details about your 12-year-old son. We take libel cases very seriously, Mrs. Jones, and you may be entitled to a large cash settlement..." and so on. As someone who's dealt with deletion issues on WP for more than four years, believe me, this is one door the Wikimedia foundation can not open. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 16:06, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I take your point, but surely the "tiered deletion" proposal below would basically deal with this? Even if admins took a conservative approach and placed the vast majority of crap in the restricted category by default, it would still leave a lot of issue-free stuff available, and would improve the impression given to members of the community (particularly newish ones), many of whom I'm sure are driven to leave the project or to harm it due to deletion-related pique. Even getting a message that "unfortunately we cannot display the deleted content of this page because it may contain... if you believe you can make use of this material please contact an administrator..." would be better than just seeing a red link and a curt deletion log summary. And having access to the content (in the minority of cases where the content is safe and conceivably of use) would be better still.--Kotniski (talk) 17:28, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Not at all. Wikipedia has been around for years now, and there are millions of deleted edits, most of which predate the concept of oversight. Somebody would have to slog through years of crap and oversight all the worst ones... and while we're on the subject, oversight is just a handful of people... are they really prepared to go from a few requests per day to thousands? There would also be a huge burden on anyone deleting anything to check every revision for legal problems, sometimes thousands of edits worth. Besides, very few admins (if any?) are lawyers and aren't really qualified to make the judgement call of what constitutes libel or not. The result? A legal timebomb, a beaurocratic nightmare, and a huge mess all around. Again, the risks outweigh the benefits by a huge margin. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 17:43, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Again, you may have a point, but you mask it with unnecessary hyperbole. All existing deleted pages would automatically be restricted - I think that's implicit - no-one's going to slog through them. Oversight is not what's proposed (under the option I referred to). The deleting admin would make the call in each case, and if a particular case is too difficult or time-consuming or clearly not worth it, she's just going to play safe and place it in the restricted category. No timebombs, nightmares or messes, just a smidgin more work for admins in return for a smidgin of benefit to the community. The only issue to debate seems to be which of these smidgins is greater. --Kotniski (talk) 18:36, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    If all presently-deleted pages are to remain hidden, and the vast bulk of future deletions are to remain hidden as well, there's really not too much leftovers to justify the additional beaurocracy and effort this would require. Most admins are already willing to post deleted articles into userspace or email them to interested users if there's reason to believe they're being used in good faith. This is just a complicated and difficult approach to something we already have an excellent (and low-risk) solution for. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 18:46, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't see it as either complicated, bureaucratic (your spelling looks nicer though;) ) or difficult - once implemented, it would just mean ticking a box. And the solution we have is far from excellent if it confuses, angers and alienates potential contributors. But since I don't have a strong opinion about which of the aforementioned smidgins is actually greater, I'm not going to argue the point any more.--Kotniski (talk) 19:00, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    It's not just ticking a box. It's a legal choice that could have major consequences for Wikipedia, the Wikimedia foundation, and perhaps even the admin themselves. Most present admins aren't qualified to make that decision, nor should they be expected to be. And of course it would create beaurocracy, with an RfA-like process for assigning the new rights as well as some method for removing them. All the potential good-faith uses are already covered by existing procedures, and the bad-faith possibilities are endless. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 19:20, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

40. Oppose - this could open up way too many problems, it's way too much of a risk.   jj137 (talk) 16:27, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Do you oppose the opposition, or support the opposition of letting non-admins view deleted material? -- Jeandré, 2008-09-28t09:49z

41. I concur. There can be serious BLP issues as well. As it is, articles are often userfyed on request for people serious on working on the deleted articles. Deleted articles and versions should remain hidded; that's why they were deleted. -- Avi (talk) 03:11, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
42. I strongly oppose this suggestion for more reasons than I can go into at this time because I'm about to fall asleep. DS (talk) 05:20, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Do you oppose the opposition, or support the opposition of letting non-admins view deleted material? -- Jeandré, 2008-09-28t09:49z

43. Just a bad idea to begin with. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:26, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
44. Per G.A.S; and we should be moving towards an encyclopedia with notable subject matter, not Usenet like the inclusionists want. -- Jeandré, 2008-09-28t09:49z
45. Oppose, since this removes some of the ideas behind deletion, and some of the deleted material should not be viewed (attack pages, copyvio, libel, etc.) However, administrators can be liberal in providing the deleted articles upon request if the material was merely useless for the encyclopedia but otherwise harmless (i.e. non-notable, essay-like, crufty, etc.), but the admin takes on a responsibility by doing so. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:57, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
46. oppose allowing non-admins to view deleted material Seriously undermines OTRS authority. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 14:06, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
47. Comment -- Are these "oppose" votes opposing people opposing this proposal, or simply opposing the proposal? Currently some of these "oppose" votes are a bit confusing. -- Imperator3733 (talk) 14:24, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
48. Oppose - I agree with Swatjester and others that there are serious privacy issues. We already have the RFA process for giving out rights to trusted users for view deleted material, and that is sufficient. --Aude (talk) 17:35, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
49. The fact is that libelous material is often available within deleted revisions, because the criteria for having material oversighted are very specific. As an OTRS correspondent, I can think of at least one case where I deleted revisions with information that probably wouldn't be considered "personal" for the purposes of oversight, but that was specific enough that it needed to be removed. The problem with opening this information up is that administrators are much more vetted than any other method we would implement for the "view deleted" right, and it is much more comforting to be able to tell an article subject that the personal information "has been removed, and only administrators can access it". As an aside, I'm one of many administrators who will provide deleted content that doesn't contain libel or personal information to any non-admin upon request. Ral315 (talk) 04:52, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
50. I can see no really good reason to support allowing non-admins to see deleted material. If its "salvagable" having it userfied is a very easy process. As per Stifle, Coren, G.A.S, Ral315, et al, this would open up far too many concerns with regard to libelous material and personal information, and would make it even easier for those who like to spam/advertise to just keep recreating their ads from the deleted archives. Non-admin viewership of deleted material is neither a need nor would it address any actual existing problem. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 20:11, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
51. Oppose, as above, and since this is a poll. Fee Fi Foe Fum (talk) 07:20, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
52. Comment: I discount the legal argument, as given above. The qualifications for seeing this secure material involve getting 75% or better in an opinion poll, nothing more, and sooner or later some attorney whipsawing a defamation suit will pick on just that point.  RGTraynor  15:07, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
53. I don't discount the legal statement. WP makes a strong effort to protect BLP content and that keeps most issues at bay. Loosening the current restrictions on deletion view would only create more problems and little benefit. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 18:48, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
54. Oppose more trouble than its worth. If there is a particular reason to view deleted content just ask a friendly admin or at DRV and you can see it unless it is particularly problematic. Eluchil404 (talk) 23:51, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
55. I am against expanding the categories of people who can view deleted articles. There must be thousands and thousands of attack pages that have been deleted, some of which are extremely libelous. We should not make such material more broadly accessible. That said, we should continue to make non-problematic deleted material available upon request, by which I mean material deleted because the subject was deemed non-notable or things like that. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:04, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
56. Am I allowed to put in my bit, since I didn't participate earlier? Please remove this entry if I'm not. Anyway, I oppose because, frankly, what's the point of deletion if it's still highly visible? As the previous two voters note, a non-admin can easily ask an admin for a copy of the text. Nyttend (talk) 04:44, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
57. A list of deleted contributions seems reasonable in order to be able to track past contributions to the project. But accessing deleted page text is a bad idea for the reasons stated above. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:59, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
58. Oppose expanding access per the can of worms allowing access to copyright violations and BLP violations expanding access would open. Also noting legal opinion from Foundation general counsel Mike Godwin above. Frankly, given the legal concerns and Jimbo's well-noted opposition to BLP violations, I would not be surprised if the Foundation at least limited - or reversed - any decision expanding access to these types of deleted material. Even setting aside legal concerns, however, I still oppose this because of the moral implications of Wikipedia expanding illicit access to other people's work (copyright violation) and allowing expanded access to (often defamitory) BLP violations. I would, however, Support allowing widespread access to a list of deleted contributions (as at Special:DeletedContributions). --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 19:44, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
59. Oppose expanding access. Allowing non-admins to view the deleted material is likely to cause more problems than it solves. I don't see a particularly compelling reason to do that, while the risks of abuse, and of problems (including legal ones) in the BLP and copyvio area are substantial. I agree with the previous comment that allowing a wider group of users to see the list of deleted contributions is in fact helpful. Nsk92 (talk) 23:33, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
60. Of course - Giving the right to all and sundry (and not just admins) to view deleted articles defeats the whole object of deleting an article, and gives people greater ease to restore deleted material. Ohconfucius (talk) 12:09, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1. I agree, non-admin can never be trusted with viewing deleted materials, but there should actually be a group between auto-confirmed and administrators which should be called trusted. Not all auto-confirmed users cannot be trusted, there are a few non-admins that you can trust more than admin, this user comes to mind, anyone can get auto-confirmed after 4 days and 10 edits, but not many auto-confirmed users last longer than 1 year unless they are admins or are committed to the project. I disagree with the notion that auto-confirmed users cannot be trusted with delete material, since the gap between auto-confirmed and administrators is too big to comprehend or judge. A new user level will be a great idea but disregarding long-time contributors who are not admins but have been beneficial to the project for a long time is just stupidity ..--Cometstyles 02:59, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Trusted users would include users that are trusted by the community and admins alike and/or is a member of the OTRS and/or is an admin on another major project but not on English Wikipedia and is thus trusted enough to view the deleted revisions.--Cometstyles 03:35, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Beyond the scope of the point of this discussion. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 14:11, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not really, the point here is that admins don't really want to trust anyone with the ability to see deleted revs, and instead of coming with a better option, you guys are piling up opposition for this idea, this is a better option. since auto-confirmation happens with 10 edits/4 days, why not have a new user-class "trusted" which will include users which and I quote "::Trusted users would include users that are trusted by the community and admins alike and/or is a member of the OTRS and/or is an admin on another major project but not on English Wikipedia and is thus trusted enough to view the deleted revisions. " and like any other user permission like accountscreator and IP-Block exempt, admins can give users the "trusted" right if they meet any of those those requirements. The current policy we have is unless you are an admin, your opinions don't matter which is exactly whats' happening right now (irony). I know in a few months, 'someadmin person ' will come up with this idea and you guys will be kicking yourself for not thinking about it before and yes you are correct in saying this has nothing to do with what happening right now, since looking at the oppose section, I don't see too many non-admins opposing this idea. If you are trying to disregard the non-admins who have been here here for ages and probably have contributed more that the admins, then congratulations, you have succeeded ....over & out ...--Cometstyles 21:32, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Viewing deleted material isn't like rollback, where it's relatively harmless, easily undoable, and non-admins can do the effective equivalent anyway. If you have a need to view deleted material on a regular basis, you can apply to do that right here, and the community will decide whether it's appropriate for you to do so. If you are not trustworthy enough to be given admin tools, you shouldn't be given them—any of them. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 01:05, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, you just proved me right, if you are not an admin, you are not trustworthy, thanks for the clarification, i bet other non-admins will be glad to know that....--Cometstyles 01:51, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That comment just isn't helpful. Just because an editor may not have certain tools, doesn't have anything to do with whether they specifically are currently "trusted". It simply means that they haven't gone through the "screening process" of the communty determining whather to trust them with usage of the tools (and associated responsibilities). To misconstrue usage of the word "trust" in broad form" when "narrow form" is rather clear, is not helpful, and honestly near malfeasant. - jc37 01:59, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

if gaining trust means to be an admin, then thats just pathetic, as I mentioned above, the gap between auto-confirmed and admins is very wide and bringing in new ideas and making sure it stays with the higher group will just widen the gap further, why do that?..not every good editor is interested in becoming admins unless they have something to gain from it..no use fighting over this, this is probably one of the few decisions the arbcom nade which I agree with but it seems the admin-driven community will fail another good proposal ....--Cometstyles 02:07, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's not what jc37 said at all. All he was saying was that without some sort of process like RFA, whether or not someone has community trust is just someone's guess. Rollback does not require community trust, so its handed out widely. "the gap between auto-confirmed and admins is very wide" - And this wouldn't close that gap, it would just put another group in the middle. "not every good editor is interested in becoming admins unless they have something to gain from it" - Besides the fact that that's an incredibly selfish attitude, if they have nothing to gain from being an admin, then by extension they would have nothing to gain from the ability to view deleted material, as that would be one of the things they could do as an admin. Mr.Z-man 17:48, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was actually coming with a better option since I know how hard the devs work and this > "(Create a tiered-deletion system, with copyvio/Biographies of living persons/attack material viewable only to admins)" will be actaually be much of a headache for the developers and may take months to eventuate, thus delaying the rev-del idea for enwiki. A new userclass which you don't get after 4 days and 10 edits is a better idea. there are some other proposals on the plate which should benefit all members of the wikipedia community and not just one and this straw poll will fail anyways, I'd rather think far ahead than just a few months ahead, and this idea will benefit people a lot in the long run. We already know that RfA is flawed and to be a good contributing member of the community, you don't need to be an admin, but denying these contributors which may help them benefit the project is just wrong ... --Cometstyles 02:15, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Even if you vote to Oppose in part 1, please vote here as well (just in case).

vote below, in # comment ~~~~ format:

1. Makes sense, and would answer practically all the objections I've seen so far to the idea. Material in these categories needs to be restricted for legal or ethical reasons; other material is harmless and should be accessible to the community. Kotniski (talk) 09:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
2. Daniel (talk) 12:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
3. Cirt (talk) 12:48, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
4. -- how do you turn this on 13:09, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
5. I'm not sure how this would work, but that would be my preference. Anons should be able to view deleted material especially if they contributed said material (if for no other reason than it might help newbies learn the ropes as to what's allowed and what isn't), however out of legal concern if nothing else, access to material removed as attack, BLP/libel or copyvio should be restricted. I could live with copyvio being excluded from this as it could also fall into the "lessons learned" category; at the same time, however, it might not resolve the copyvio issue itself if the material remains publicly accessible. 23skidoo (talk) 13:21, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
6. The only problem with this is that all previous deletions would need to be flagged as admin-only since there's no way to sort out why an admin deleted a particular bit of content. –xeno (talk) 14:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
7. I am in favour of the widest possible access to deleted material, and I am also not usually one for giving admins any more privileges than the rest of us, but for copy-vio, BLP concerns and attack pages restricting access protects the integrity of the encyclopædia, so support this proposal. DuncanHill (talk) 14:29, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
8. Scottydude _review 16:15, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
9. If this tool is to be implemented, this choice would compliment my views which have been expressed above. Caulde 17:51, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
10. I think this is a good idea, but I don't know how easy it would be to implement. Guettarda (talk) 18:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
11. Perhaps this would be difficult to implement, but it would also be my preference. Lazulilasher (talk) 19:12, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
12. Easy enough to implement for copyvio--blp would be a little trickier with the present setup, but not this could be modified. DGG (talk) 23:10, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
13. Provided that it is not an undue burden on the technical team to implement. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 06:00, 27 September 2008 (UTC).[reply]
14. As long as it isn't too difficult to categorize the currently deleted pages, this would be the best choice to minimize any risks. As far as how to categorize the pages, perhaps uncategorized pages would have to only be visible to admins, who would then categorize the pages. It would take a while, but that's the only way that I can think of. -- Imperator3733 (talk) 06:28, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
15. Oppose As others have stated (in the several sections), we'll now have petitions and revert wars over tagging. How bad does it have to be to be called a "BLP violation", etc. Just too many problems, without strong benefit. - jc37 10:11, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
16. Support but share concerns about technical and cultural difficulties in implementation. Orderinchaos 15:28, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
17. Support. This would work. --Alecmconroy (talk) 15:53, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
18. This is workable if we leave all previously deleted material hard-deleted and inaccessible to non-admins and whoever hasn't gone through some approval process to see it (sorting millions of previous deletions is an unnecessary nightmare, but selectively restoring some of it to a soft-deletion is OK). I think deletion ought to default to traditional hard-deletion, so only admins can view the content. If we can create a soft-deletion system such that admins can click a box that says "This article doesn't contain any copyvios, BLP-offending material (including libel), personal info, etc.", then this is workable. Of course, such should be directly upgradable to hard-deletion in the event we later discover copyvios, etc. Assuming deletions default to hard and admins have to affirmatively state that no bad content exists to soft-delete, I don't have any problem with even IPs seeing the material. But if a pure-wiki deletion system is any less conservative, it'll have to be restricted and the right to view distributed sparingly.--chaser - t 20:13, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
19. First choice Makes sense. Pie is good ^{(Apple is the best)} 01:10, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
20. Strong support This more than adequately deals with all but the most arbitrary "but the status quo is so very good" arguments, and has long been something I would have liked to see. The only content that we have a legitimate need to disallow access to is that which potentially creates a legal issue. We have the right to create an encyclopedia that's free of spam and fancruft, but no particular need to disallow access to it, barring the arbitrary and elitist policies endorsed by those who hold the tools. Given this and rollback, we might see a 20-30% drop in RfA rates, as the tools just simply wouldn't be necessary for any regularly performed action other than protections and bans. MrZaius^talk 02:31, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
21. Support This seems a sensible way of addressing the legal objections. Colonel Warden (talk) 17:22, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
22. Support - Any admin should be trusted to determine these types of edits; lower tiers should be used in cases where the "red lines" are less clear, and there may be more reason to expose for Deletion Review. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 10:50, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

vote below, in # comment ~~~~ format:

1. If question 1 is passed, then access to articles in DRV would be proportionate. Implementation could be by an admin flagging the deleted article as "viewable", perhaps limited to autoconfirmed users. This question could, and probably should, be subdivided out. Stifle (talk) 09:49, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
2. -- how do you turn this on 13:09, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
3. I like Stifle's proposal - certain things that are important that everyone see (dRV, edits of RFA candidates, or a user's own edits) should be able to be viewed. Karanacs (talk) 18:06, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
4. Stifle's proposal is a good one letting non-admins view deleted versions in particular circumsatnces (such as DRVs) and where an admin specifically flags it for the necessary period. Davewild (talk) 18:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
5. If this proposal passes, non-admin editors should only be permitted to view their own deleted contributions. — Satori Son 18:27, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
6. If question one is passed, I would prefer this. Protonk (talk) 18:55, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
7. While opposed to the idea in general, if it goes forward, I would prefer this. It would provide a level of control to the process. Tony Fox (arf!) 20:16, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
8. I support Stifle's proposal as well. This question needs to be broken in sub-questions. Viewing DVR articles should be easy to implement, and makes sense. For the other proposed types, it's not clear to me what the proposal even is (view your own diffs even in deleted article but not the diffs of others? — that doesn't sound practical or of much use.) VG ☎ 22:26, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
9. A "viewable" flag might be OK, depending in part on the way the community responded to it. Certainly it would be less trouble than undeleting things at DRV. It would have to be used very carefully and without drama--that is, we'd have to get it into our heads that if one admin tags something viewable and another reverses, that the second one probably has a decent reason. If it leads to endless discussion and wheel wars, no good, but I think we're grown up enough that we could avoid that. Chick Bowen 00:09, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
   1. How is this any less trouble than restoring things at DRV?--chaser - t 20:58, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
10. Per Stifle. G.A.S 09:01, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
11. Oppose - I understand the thought. And was at first going to suggest it just be "my contributions". But it occurred to me that "my contribution" is not all I would see. I would see the edits of every other person who edited the page if such contributions was still on the page when I contributed "my contribution". In addition, imagine a bot which makes contributions to every page on Wikipedia. Now let's presume one of those pages is deleted. The bot owner would be able to see every page which was deleted at the time of contribution. Now imagine that that bot runs continually, in order to make updates to every page. Now imagine that more than one person has such a bot. And that's just one example. Either we allow them or not. If not (and there seem to be valid reason why not), then "partial access" is probably not a good idea. - jc37 10:11, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
12. Support At least implement it for DRV, as without it, DRV's can be tedious for non-admins. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 21:12, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
13. Second choice as someone should be able to access both. Pie is good ^{(Apple is the best)} 01:11, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
14. Broadly Support - particularly for the case of articles deleted for not being sufficiently notable, or not meeting quality criteria. If such an article is subsequently recreated (eg, if the subject gains notability in the meantime), then the pre-deletion revisions should become part of the new article's revision history. MarkSG (talk) 20:11, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
15. Second choice - it would cover the issues above, but would require a higher level of overhead for RfAs and DRs. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 10:53, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
16. Very limited scope of articles Do not support right to view 'my contributions' - that's leaving iut wide open to restore deleted material; maybe for RFA, but there could be problems to ring-fence those relevant edits. The only instances I can think of where I wish I could view an article is to determine if it had been justifiably deleted, so DRV would be about the only one I would support. Ohconfucius (talk) 12:23, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    How does support for a user viewing his/her own deleted contribs make it any easier than, say, for a user to create a local file on their computer and repeatedly copy it to Wikipedia? עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:42, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

vote below, in # comment ~~~~ format:

1. BLP deletions would be covered by oversight would be a routine procedure, if need be retroactively implemented on individual requests. __meco (talk) 09:56, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   This is factually incorrect; most harmful material which is deleted does not qualify as libelous (and hence for oversight), yet still shouldn't be viewable by non-administrators. Daniel (talk) 12:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   A query - why should it be visible to administrators? fish&karate 12:39, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   Because it falls outside of the oversight policy, a userright which was established by the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees? Daniel (talk) 12:40, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   You misunderstand. Why should it be visible to administrators and not non-administrators? fish&karate 12:48, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   Administrators have been trusted by the community via an election process. Daniel (talk) 12:49, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   In general, it shouldn't. But the oversight policy is enforced extraordinarily rigidly with no application of good sense at all. You would be positively livid to know the things that they've declined to oversight. WilyD 12:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

2. There is no potential for abuse that isn't already covered by existing policies, and no real legal liability as long as only some people can see it, not everyone. Also separating deletion types would make all previous deletions switched "off" by default. See my full reasoning here. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 10:32, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
3. Many pages are deleted for multiple reasons; I've seen plenty of cases where the deletion log rationale was A7 but I thought G10 (BLP) applied. And we regularly have DRV cases where we discover a page deleted for other reasons was a copyright violation. So it won't be possible to separate the various types using coding. While I can see some reasons for "my contributions", I can't support it as 90%+ of our contributions also would include the work of others, even in diff only form. GRBerry 11:16, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
4. Yes - stuff that shouldn't be visible to 1600 admins already should be oversighted. fish&karate 12:39, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   And each one of those admins has been trusted by the community to handle that deleted information. ffm 12:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   It is clear from websites such as Wikitruth that you cannot trust every member of a large group of people 100% of the time. Deleted material usually gets out eventually, one way or another (see Wikitruth, Deletionpedia, Google Cache, Web Citation). fish&karate 13:03, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

5. If this new class is going to have reasonably strict rules about who has access this isn't unreasonable. Frankly, the whole thing worries me as being overly bureaucratic but if had an election procedure or something similar to decide who would be in this category (as I imagine it, 50% would be pass, borderline cases decided by crats, transclude it on RfA, promotion by crats ) then this would be fine. There are a very large number of users I'd trust being able to see deleted content but would not want to give them the ability to delete/undelete or to block. JoshuaZ (talk) 14:04, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
6. copied from section above to make it more poll-friendly – a 4-tiered "deletion" system (page history, someNewGroup, admins, oversight) is, in my opinion, unwarranted and excessive. If you truly endeavor to explore the steaming mound of deleted crap in all its glory, go through RFA like the other 1600 people. --slakr^\ talk / 14:15, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
7. If we split Special:Undelete into Special:Undelete_admin and Special:Undelete_nonadmin or something, every time an admin deletes a page, he or she will have to decide whether or not to check a box "Allow nonadmin undeleters to view this page". That would be incredibly annoying and it adds too much bureaucracy for far too little gain. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 14:21, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
8. "As is". Works well at the moment, no need for the extra complexity and bureaucracy per J.delanoy. A means to allow some "trusted non-admins" access would be sufficient. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:13, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
9. Hell no. Splitting will add lots of confusion and more possibilities for mistake. For example:
   1. How should we classify all deletions prior to the introduction of this system? Making them all unaccessible to non-admins makes the new system almost useless for a considerable time, while making them viewable will uncover lots of libel/copyvio/personal information.
   2. There will always be some level of page mistakedly deleted the wrong way. While we can live with harmless texts being unaccessible, the other kinds of mis-deletions where people will be able to see stuff they're not supposed to canbe overkill. MaxSem^{(Han shot first!)} 15:11, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
10. Splitting would be horridly complicated and not of much value. Besides things which get oversighted, there isn't really that much interesting in the deleted revisions anyways; mostly it's just a whole ton of ex-speedies and non-notable AfD'd things (and of course every "... in popular culture" article :P). If we only give it to trusted users what is and isn't there to see shouldn't be a problem. As a special permission it wouldn't be too difficult to revoke if people abuse it, too. Cheers. lifebaka++ 15:42, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
11. This is just a blatantly bad idea. BJ^Talk 16:10, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
12. Needless complications to help make a mediocre proposal more palatable? I don't think so. Mr.Z-man 16:44, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
13. Unhelpful and unneeded complication --Rumping (talk) 17:31, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
14. This would overly complicate things, seems like it would create a lot more work without much benefit. delldot ∇. 18:15, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
15. This is a solution in desperate search of a problem to solve. — Coren ^(talk) 03:16, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
16. Too complicated and bureaucratic to categorize. Would have to begin an appeal process for miscategorized deletions. Can always revisit the issue later but getting rid of a classification system is very difficult.903M (talk) 03:58, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
17. Creating a process to create a process so we can have what we could have anyway. WP:BURO immediately springs to mind. - jc37 10:11, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
18. This seems to be the best idea of the pile. Anything that could cause harm to the subject of an article shouldn't be visible to anyone, administrators included, unless they have the oversight bit. If that isn't the case, then it isn't being implemented correctly, and there are other problems that need to be examined. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 14:04, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
19. Once again, this seems the most logical. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 20:01, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
20. Explained above. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:26, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
21. This tier here creates an additional difficulty when deleting articles, and it can lead to bad things if an admin doesn't tick the "delete and hide" button. If a specific request comes to just view a deleted article, then that can be provided if admin reviews the material and deems it to be harmless. This review prior to provision gives the differentiation between "useless but harmless" and "harmful" which this proposal intends to address. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:03, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
22. Too much potential for abuse. Maintain the status-quo, there currently is no problem that needs to be solved. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 14:13, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
23. If someone wants to view deleted material, they can go through RFA. Adding another layer and exposing deleted material to more users is not a good idea. --Aude (talk) 22:15, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
24. More work, to solve...what? Plenty of admins will userfy a deleted article upon request after checking if it's appropriate. That's not much work as it only requires doing so when someone asks. On the other hand, this proposal would add an extra layer to every deletion, every time. There is not a problem at all, let alone one large enough to merit that additional workload in an area that already often backlogs. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 01:10, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
25. Again, several good coments above, and again saying "per Seraphimblade" : ) - jc37 01:48, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
26. I don't see anything wrong with the system as-is, and the possibility of admins using the wrong method concerns me. Ral315 (talk) 04:55, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
27. Too much work and potential harm outweigh the potential benefits. Garion96 (talk) 21:34, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
28. Would be alot of work and is only necessary if the first question passes which it doesn;t look top be doing at the moment. Eluchil404 (talk) 23:52, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
29. Per Garion96, et al. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:57, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
30. Per Garion96, et al. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 09:25, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.