Forum:Does Wikia have an Oversight power/tool like Wikipedia?

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I have been reading with concern about the Wikipedia:Oversight power/tool and its high potential for (and actual documented) abuse and was wondering if Wikia has anything similar.

From my experience, if this exists it is not as commonly used as on Wikipedia, but I'd still like to know. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 4:27 PM PST 20 Apr 2009

They do have the oversight tool, however to the best of my knowledge it's restricted to staff. List of group abilities.--Azaz129 (talk)

23:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

That makes sense. I still think this tool is a bad thing. It should leave some evidence of its use. Even a history entry like, "This revision removed by the Oversight tool." would be satisfactory. Otherwise the abuse of power and lack of accountability and auditable trail make it ripe for abuse. Wikipedia is even extending these powers along with CheckUser (which I have less problems with) to even more users and seems to have no concept of the need for separation of powers.

I say this as a bureaucrat over at WoWWiki. I'm glad I've rarely had to use those powers there. I mostly remain a bureaucrat to maintain an independent voice (if you know anything about WoWWiki's politics, you would understand). -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 5:11 PM PST 20 Apr 2009

As said its only staff once remove only devs can access that (that was what i read on irc long time ago when tool was new to wikia), and its used mainly to remove stuff that violates the TOS in terms of sensitive material like for example personal info of a minor of 13 years --Cizagna ^{(Talk) Dofus} » 03:00, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, without any real audit trail, you really can't tell what it's used for. All I know is that on Wikipedia it has been abused, but no real steps have been taken to stop the abuse, just steps to give the impression that abuse will be harder. I have a sense that Wikia staff are not nearly as intrusive as Wikipedia folks, but I don't want to see that day come either. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 12:26 PM PST 23 Apr 2009

It's not relevant here, but I'm going to challenge your repetition of urban myth. It's a big world, and there are a lot of interesting people in it. Some of them will claim (without evidence) that oversight has been abused, but commonsense tells us that it's much more likely that yet another ugly post has had to be removed by patient administrators. JohnBeckett 02:04, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Here's a list of some articles:

• Wikipedia self-flagellates over vanishing 'farmsex'
• Wikipedia black helicopters circle Utah's Traverse Mountain
• Permanent removal of edits from history
• Oversight (Or Lack Thereof)

Please give some examples of where oversight was used, but it was clearly not abuse... oh wait, you can't because that's how oversight works.

So much for "commonsense". I have some actual examples, how do you defend your propaganda? -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 4:59 PM PST 24 Apr 2009

About your example... here at wikia as its where its concern if you want examples from wikipedia it would be best if you open a debate there not here... Going back to the point, as it has been told its about sensitive material so that means even showing that the material is sensitive its still falls into the same issue that it has to be remove outside regular view (includes IP and users), but i do agree that devs of this extension should create log page with where at least it says what page and what it is the revision number hidden and by who was oversight. Here at wiki unless staff find something that would be oversight must be request to them, there is talk pages here at central or individual wikis, there is special:contact where wikia keeps track internally and there is the mail list for the lost ones --Cizagna ^{(Talk) Dofus} » 00:58, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Fandyllic: My main purpose in responding was to not allow unsupported rumours to go unchallenged, however, after this I'm happy for you to have the last word.

Bear in mind that I could give you a list of 100 wonderful looking web sites that prove no moon landing occurred, Big Foot is alive and well, no plane crashed on the Pentagon, UFOs regularly visit, and more. Therefore, it is no suprise that you can find a handful of sites that don't like Wikipedia.

Wikipedia allows anyone to edit! Just think about that for a moment. Of course there will be hundreds of kooks posting nonsense every day, and some of it will be at least potentially illegal, or just sick, and has to be permanently removed ("oversight"). And of course the kooks will complain, and set up web sites where they chat about how terrible it is that their page was deleted – an important page that revealed how [name of US public figure] performs [list of libellous assertions].

I took the trouble to read the pages you posted from The Register. Pathetic! If you calm down and read just the headlines of those stories you will realise that they are simply gloating about how wikidrama occurs, in the same way that a Hollywood gossip column would rejoice in the latest marital problems of some film star. One of the Register's stories you quoted says that some posts about sex with animals was permanently deleted. OMG how terrible! Let's hope that no one at Wikia would be so nazi-like as to delete stories about kids having sex with animals!

The other story concerns an extremely complex issue of conflict-of-interest with people trying to make money by editing articles to promote various points of view. There is no assertion of the abuse of oversight in the article, so it is not relevant to your claim. JohnBeckett 08:19, 25 April 2009 (UTC)