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It's not exactly subtle.
Revision Deletion is a function now built into the MediaWiki software that allows individual lines to be deleted from both logs and page histories. This deletion is simple to accomplish and is highly flexible, with options to hide all of the line, or just parts of it (like the summary, user and revision text itself) and unlike the currently utilized administrative method of hiding revisions, it does not remove the revisions from the history, merely greying and striking through them.
Special:RevisionDelete (RevDelete) is currently being used by the oversight group as an alternative to the Special:HideRevision feature (the old oversight), which is very destructive to page histories and near irreversible. Oversighters also received the ability to suppress the normal revision deletion log message that normally accompanies a RevDeletion action and to prevent non-oversighters (admins, in this situation) access to the deleted revision, features that would not be provided to the admin community.
This report details the pros and cons of the Revision Deletion function, as well as some bugs and usability issues found while testing the function. All these issues have been found on the Wikipedia testing website, http://test.wikipedia.org/, and have taken place on various sandbox pages I created to test these functions.
RevDelete and Delete/Undelete comparison
This is a purely hypothetical (but entirely possible) scenario that I created on testwiki with the help of testwiki:User:Nifky?.
A vandal vandalizes a page and another user reverts it (page history):
Removal using Delete/Undelete method
A passing admin deems the content bad enough to remove from the page history, and does so by deleting the page and then undeleting all the revisions except the vandal edit.
The page history now:
A diff of the most recent edit and the edit previous to that:
As you can see, this can potentially be very confusing for the new user (or any user who becomes interested in the page history) as it appears the user reverted their own edit, but nothing has changed. The delete/undelete method is very destructive for page histories and removes the (presumed, by the user) guaranteed continuity and accuracy of edit history.
Removal using RevDelete
A passing admin deems the content bad enough to remove from the page history, and uses his/her brand new revision deletion power.
The page history now:
A diff of the most recent edit and the edit previous to that:
Now this method of deletion is much clearer to the end user as to what has occurred, and gives an explanation as to where the edit as gone, and also preserves the correct history of the page.
Issues
Flagging Deleted Revisions
Notice the successful "Review complete!" message at the bottom of the page, and the error message at the top.
Currently, there is a clash between the FlaggedRevs extension and the RevDeletion functionality. When a revision is hidden, if an admin accesses it, there is an option to sight the page (as per normal revisions). The problem is that when this is attempted, the sighting fails and turns up an error.
Recommendations: Add code to disable this box when dealing with deleted revisions.
Superfluous log links
Notice the (hide) on the left, and the (change visibility) on the right.
Both (hide) and (change visibility) options are available on some log entries. While only a (hide) link is present in history related entries. (hide) and (change visibility) both lead to the same link, and such, are really quite pointless.
Recommendations: Decide which one to use, and get rid of the other one. Having two is just confusing and pointless. I would suggest keeping the (hide) links, as they are present in every type of log entry already. Although, they do conflict with the MediaWiki design.
NOTE: It appears that the (change visibility) and (hide) options have different functionality, the (hide) hides the log entry (when applicable) and the (change visibility) option effects the page effected by the log entry.
The (hide) button within the installation acts as both a hide AND a show button, as it does not change depending on the status of a revision. This can be confusing at times.
Recommendations: Change the link to something status neutral (i.e. "show/hide"), or make it update dynamically.
Recommendations: Change the MediaWiki text effecting that button to "show/hide"
Large page deletion logs
Notice it displays both "deleted" and "revision visibility" entries.
When a page is previously deleted, the page deletion log is displayed on the "this page does not exist" page. Because hiding revisions exists in the deletion logs, they are all displayed also. This is unhelpful to the user, who would be primarily using that box to find out why the whole page has been deleted, as that is the only time that box appears. Instead, they can be confronted by a multitude of confusing log entries that don't apply to them.
Recommendations: Filter the deletion log displayed on that page, or move RevDelete entries to a different/new log.
Deleting log entries
Notice the uninformative "changed the event visibility of (Deletion log)" description.
Bugzilla status: bug 18335 is currently being discussed.
When deleting entries from a log, the description provided by MediaWiki is not very informative, only suggesting which log the event is contained within. On sites like the English Wikipedia, where the logs span years, such summaries are extremely unhelpful in tracing back a log entry to the page involved.
Recommendations: Have a more informative log entry, such as; User (talk | contribs | block) changed event visibility of logid 4958 in the Move Log, or, as suggested in the below usability problem, include the log id in the edit summary.
Deletion summaries
Bugzilla status: bug 18335 is currently being discussed.
The log summaries added by RevDelete are not very informative, and should trace back to which revision or log entry was affected by the deletion. The current summary follows the format (hid x for 1 event: summary) which is unhelpful for anyone inspecting the logs for these functions.
Recommendations: Change the summary to include the revision/log id; (hid x for revid 3284: summary) or (hid x for logid 2923: summary).
&action=delete, &action=protect and the like all have a Mediawiki:*-dropdown page, providing presets for the most commonly used deletion and protection reasons, I see no reason why RevDelete should be any different.
Recommendations: Add a Mediawiki:revdel-dropdown page and a drop-down menu on Special:RevisionDelete.
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