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User should be able to see the list of his deleted contributions
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Description

Author: alexsm333

Description:
Any user should be able to see at the list of his/her deleted edits.

Just the list, not the actual content (which was requested in [[bugzilla:12524]]).

This would make MediaWiki a lot more user-friendly for regular users:

  • users would be less frustrated when some of their edits seem to be lost
  • users who mark articles for deletion would be able to evaluate their past work
  • users who create articles would be less confused when the article is speedy deleted

Also, would it be a secutity concern if _any_ user would be able to see a list (not the content) of deleted contibutions of another user?


Version: 1.11.x
Severity: enhancement

Details

Reference
bz12667

Event Timeline

bzimport raised the priority of this task from to Lowest.Nov 21 2014, 10:03 PM
bzimport set Reference to bz12667.
bzimport added a subscriber: Unknown Object (MLST).

axel9891 wrote:

(In reply to comment #0)

Also, would it be a secutity concern if _any_ user would be able to see a list
(not the content) of deleted contibutions of another user?

No, I'd say not. But I still don't see why they couldn't see the content of their *own* edits.

alexsm333 wrote:

But I still don't see why they couldn't see the content of

their *own* edits
Please check the explanation in [[bugzilla:12524]], comment #7.

axel9891 wrote:

(In reply to comment #2)

But I still don't see why they couldn't see the content of

their *own* edits
Please check the explanation in [[bugzilla:12524]], comment #7.

That explanation still makes no sense.

I'd like to remind the copyright issues as well. Once something is deleted for copyright violation, it should never be visible again regardless if to the user who submitted it or to other users. (With exceptions to administrators of course.)

Also, would it be a secutity concern if _any_ user would be able to see a list
(not the content) of deleted contibutions of another user?

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~vvv/deletedcontributions.php that served such lists has been disabled due to legal problems. I believe that there is no difference between a Toolserver utility and MediaWiki special page with absolutely same purposes.

I'd like to remind the copyright issues as well. Once something is deleted for
copyright violation, it should never be visible again regardless if to the user
who submitted it or to other users. (With exceptions to administrators of
course.)

Edit summary field is 255 bytes long, so I think that there's nothing that can fit in it and violate copyright at the same time :) Revision contents will still be available only to admins.

(In reply to comment #5)

Edit summary field is 255 bytes long, so I think that there's nothing that can
fit in it and violate copyright at the same time :) Revision contents will
still be available only to admins.

I don't understand, where are you pointing to. Nobody was speaking about summaries or was? Besides you just verified what I said by the toolserver issue reminding.

WONTFIXing this bug exactly because of legal concerns.

Besides any user can ask any sysop to send him the content of deleted page.
Confusions caused by speed delete are easily solvable by sentence like "If you created this page before and don't see it, it was probably [{{fullurl:Special:Log/delete|title={{FULLPAGENAME}}}} deleted] in appropriate MediaWiki message.

OK, reopening due to discussion on MediaWiki-General for further discussion.

However I am not convinced this feature is useful enough to worth its implementing.

axel9891 wrote:

(In reply to comment #4)

I'd like to remind the copyright issues as well. Once something is deleted for
copyright violation, it should never be visible again regardless if to the user
who submitted it or to other users. (With exceptions to administrators of
course.)

Why is that then? What is the difference between non-admins seeing their own work and admins seeing it?

The same difference which allows admins delete and undelete revisions, while others cannot. Admins are supposed to be trusted people, aren't they. Now, what is the point in letting a user see the text (or even the edit summary) of a page (or revision) he created which was a violation of copyright? If an admin is allowed to se them, it is among the other things he can do as a *trusted* user; this cannot be generalized to the other users.

axel9891 wrote:

(In reply to comment #9)

The same difference which allows admins delete and undelete revisions, while
others cannot. Admins are supposed to be trusted people, aren't they. Now, what
is the point in letting a user see the text (or even the edit summary) of a
page (or revision) he created which was a violation of copyright? If an admin
is allowed to se them, it is among the other things he can do as a *trusted*
user; this cannot be generalized to the other users.

There would be a lot of point if the revision was not a copyright violation. If it was, they'd only be seeing what they'd written already.

alexsm333 wrote:

This request is about a _list_ of deleted contributions, visible to the editor who made them.

Majorly, if you still want bug 12524 (about revisions content) to be implemented, please discuss it there.

I don't see any problem with patching DeletedContributions to allow users (or even IPs) to look up a list of their own deleted contribs.

It'd be rather handy when you can't find your old pages that somebody deleted without warning.

(In reply to comment #4)

I'd like to remind the copyright issues as well. Once something is deleted for
copyright violation, it should never be visible again regardless if to the user
who submitted it or to other users. (With exceptions to administrators of
course.)

If the copyright thing is an issue, there are two possible ways to address this (in order of "security"):

  1. Make it so that non-admins cannot see the content of their deleted edits
  2. Make it so that only, say, rollbackers are the only non-admins who can see their own deleted edits, as a rollbacker would be a trusted user of sorts, but they still cannot see the contents
  3. Make it so that anyone can see their deleted edits, but only rollbackers can see the contents of those edits.

In all cases, however, a non-admin should only be able to see their own edits.

Many users only monitor Special:Contributions/TheirName.

Allow us to discuss Special:Contributions for a moment, independent of the rest of this bug:

Special:Contributions/YourNameHere is neat until one day the forces of
evil delete one of the contributions listed therein, whereupon it
becomes a co-conspirator in the cover-up, hoping you'll forget the
article ever existed.

Perhaps Special:Contributions/YourNameHere should be enhanced to still
show deleted articles, but with enclosed in <DEL></DEL>.

Not necessarily clickable or not, but at least still noted in the list.

It's relatively simple to open up the extension DeletedContributions to allow a user to view their own deleted history; much much harder to open up the actual revision (think: any place that uses the 'deletedhistory' permission would need a cleanup). That being said, I don't even believe the former is worth the effort to implement. Suggesting WONTFIX per bug 12524 and possible legal issues.

  • Bug 17962 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***