Manual talk:RevisionDelete

How to enable?
"a feature (that is disabled by default)" is useful information. But the page doesn't explain how to turn this feature on. That would be really nice info to have. -- Shakata Ga Nai ^_^ 18:25, 9 July 2008 (UTC)


 * It can be enabled by setting user rights in LocalSettings.php. I'll document it on the page. SPQRobin 11:52, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I added a screenshot to make it visually clear that RevisionDelete is accessed from a wiki page's 'View History' tab and emphasizes the 'show/hide' functionality. --SomaticJourney 15:16, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

real deletion of revision
Hi, i want reduce the size of my Database because some Users edits the same Articel in less minutes. Is it possible, to use the extension, to delete and not only hide a revision ? --Starwhooper 07:34, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I also want to a) keep the actual article but b) delete some revisions (made one after another in minutes) to clean the database. Maybe this should be called RevisionMerge(ByTimeDistance)? Is this possible in the Actual MediaWiki? -- Chris R., 8 October 2011

Why is this function called "delete" when all it does is hide?
Why is this function called "delete" when all it does is hide?

How do we permanently delete revision history without deleting the original document?

In MW1.16.2 'supress' does equal 'oversights'
When using the example commands found in DefaultSettings.php like:
 * $wgGroupPermissions['suppress']['hideuser'] = true;

MediaWiki ignores the group name suppress and instead creates a group named Oversights (displayed in the plural but the actual name is oversight as evidenced by the :Oversight page it links to). This is not special to Wikimedia wikis like the Manual page says. Any MediaWiki 1.16.2 (possibly others but I only use 1.16.2) based wiki will encounter this oddity and see an Oversights group on their Special:ListGroupRights page. This should be noted on the front page as such so people aren't expecting to find a suppress group. Plus mediawiki.org defines a different group altogether named Oversighters seen on Special:ListGroupRights though this new name could be a MW1.17 change.

If you were to use a couple commands like:
 * $wgGroupPermissions['suppress']['hideuser'] = true; #MediaWiki creates the Oversight group
 * $wgGroupPermissions['oversight']['suppressionlog'] = true; #SHOULD add a right to the Oversights group

you would expect the Oversights group created by MediaWiki to show the two rights. This is not the case. The second command creates an entirely new group named oversight and assigns the second right to it. You will now have two groups with the same name listed on Special:ListGroupRights. BUT these two groups point to the same group page (oversight).

MediaWiki should either create a suppress group or the default needs to be changed to oversight. Then MediaWiki has to be fixed so that it treats 'oversight' as the same group it creates with 'suppress'. Perhaps this is simply a display issue with Special:ListGroupRights but I think it's deeper since that page finds two different groups which the core has to have created. ~ 05:37, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, this is not true and things cannot be assumed this way. By your logic, you would be able to use $wgGroupPermissions['sysop'] and $wgGroupPermissions['administrator'], which isn't the case. "Oversights" is just an interface message - the actual group name is still the same. —  Waterfox ~talk~  21:33, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Restoring suppressed information
Does the suppress part of this feature include the ability to restore oversighted material?Jasper Deng (talk) 01:23, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Is there any reason to use Oversight if you don't have any legacy oversights?
If I am starting a wiki from scratch and have never used Extension:Oversight before, is there any reason to install Oversight rather than just using RevisionDelete? Leucosticte (talk) 03:54, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
 * It's a tough call, because I don't really know if Oversight really is used on Wikipedia anymore. It wouldn't hurt nor give you any substantial benefits, other than the default name of the usergroup.Jasper Deng (talk) 03:57, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

broken
[12:34] hello all - i am interested in deleting the database entries of the deletion log - so it does not appear in the special:log i have done it before - but it was years ago. [12:36]  anno1404, so go and revdel all the entries which are supposed to be private [12:36] so i just want to remove the stuff in the special:log [12:36]  No need to deliberately break your database [12:36] revdel? [12:36]  revision delete [12:37]  It's used to hide revisions and log entries [12:37]  Since 1.20 you should be able to select multiple entries and press the button to go to the hide form [12:42] hello krenair, http://xxxx.com/w/index.php/Special:RevisionDelete does not show up [12:42] i added    $wgGroupPermissions['user']['deleterevision']  = true; to localsettings.php [12:43]  .. Um yeah I wouldn't let every user revdelete if I were you [12:43] yes [12:43] i agree [12:43] i am just trying to get it to work now [12:43]  Anyway, you're getting an error on that page? [12:43] nothing shows up page is blank [12:43]  That's my fault lol. It should be fixed in the latest version of the code though [12:44] oh you created the program? thats cool [12:44]  No, I broke the program [12:44]  All it's hiding is an error telling you that you need to specify the entries though [12:44]  You'll need this: $wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['deletelogentry'] = true; [12:44]  Then go to Special:Log and select the entries you want to hide [12:45] ok :) [12:45] i will try [12:45]  For some reason a change I made to that area of the code (which hadn't been approved into master) got out in the 1.20 tarball [12:45]  It was slightly broken though [12:46] ok [12:46] <Krenair> Then when you've ticked the checkboxes next to each entry you want to hide, hit "Show/hide selected log entries" [12:48] so cool kenair, thank you [12:48] <Krenair> you're welcome [12:48] <Krenair> I prefer this so much more than removing entries from the DB tables Igottheconch (talk) 17:53, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Did you read the chat log? This is fixed in master, but for some reason the broken code made it out into the 1.20 tarball release. It doesn't matter much though, because all it's hiding is this error: "You have either not specified a target revision(s) to perform this function, the specified revision does not exist, or you are attempting to hide the current revision." You won't see the issue if you use it correctly. -- Krenair (talk &bull; contribs) 14:16, 22 December 2012 (UTC)