Earlier today the MediaWiki devs slipped out Special:Nuke ("This tool allows for mass deletions of pages recently added by a given user or IP. Input the username or IP to get a list of pages to delete."), which allows the instant deletion of every page created by any given account. I'm sure there's a good reason why something this drastic is necessary, but I certainly can't think of it.

Amorrow?

Not like he created pages at such a rate that "click on page to see what's on it --> click delete button --> click confirm" is really going to waste so much time. I find it hard to think of a case where I'd want to delete everything someone had created without looking at any of it. Even with the hardcore vandals, chances are you want to keep their talkpage etc preserved in the history.

I note that it says "recent"; so if a talkpage falls outside of the recent criteria, it stays. As ever, of course, you can mass delete and selectively restore anything that may be needed, also.

Another little tool for the little tool 'pediots to power trip on.

Wow! and it's called Nuke, it must be a really powerful tool, do you get the impression someone is overcompensating for something.

When I first saw "Nuke," I figured that it was a way for Jimbo or the Foundation to wipe out the Community and start all over!

I sometimes see on wiki speculation if Jimbo has a "nuclear option" if the Community goes too far "astray" for his tastes. But no one's ever confirmed or denied that Jimbo or the Foundation has that power.

It's pretty clear: the Foundation definitely has that power. The Foundation can take Wikipedia down tomorrow, if it wants to. Jimbo has that power iff the Foundation either grants it to him or passively tolerates his use of it.

I have Nuke. I like it.

loldong.

You might want to check your sources: Extension:Nuke has been around for nearly four years.

And you might want to check your sources, as it was disabled on en-wiki until this afternoon.

I'm not sure what your point is: your initial post said that the MediaWiki devs (who ≠ WMF engineers) "slipped it out," with no mention of en-wiki. As it happens, Nuke has been in use on other WMF projects for quite a while. We use it occasionally on MediaWiki.org when somebody creates a bunch of pages that are unrelated to the project, and I imagine that's what it will be used for on en-wiki.

Cleaning up vandalism seems like the natural use for this, but I'm sure that there's other legitimate uses.

For example, the other day a MiszaBot configuration slipup caused the bot to create 12 archives for a user, one for each thread.

Sheesh, let's not miss the point (which surprisingly isn't about e-penis size or the semantics of the word "developer"). The problem isn't that it allows batch deletion of pages. Hackish JavaScript tools like Twinkle have allowed that for ages.

The issue is one of reversibility. Admins are fallible and undeleting pages is much more of a pain in the ass than deleting them. The extension doesn't include an "un-nuke" option, so you're stuck either doing it manually or manipulating Twinkle to do it.

Still, the extension only reads the recentchanges table (which is only up to 30 days worth of data on Wikimedia wikis). So it's pretty unlikely you'd be able to do any major damage.

I thought it was rather a silly idea, but it had wide consensus for implementation: Village Pump Discussion

No COI, obviously.

I just checked a few random names on WP and most didnt have any recent page creations or only one. Not going to be able to cause much havoc unless someone decides they MUST deleted all the pages created by one of the stub creation bots. (then I suspect it might cause the same kind of meltdown that deleting a huge page does/did)

This is excellent. Only a matter of time until a flaky "cabalist" decides to destroy a massive part of the entire database, and forces the WMF to restore from an old backup. I forsee much ugliness.

Suppose it were discovered or alleged that an editor was say Larouche himself? Obviously youd have to delete everything hed done without checking it.


Does this option oversite the page or only delete it? If just deletion, any admin could undelete though it would take time.

Not possible. It is limited to recently (dunno what recent is defined as but it doesn't stretch back too far) created pages, by a single contributor at a time. Of course it would make running amok a little easier but by no means is it a database destroying event. Besides, deletions only make the material non-visible to non-admins. Admins can still see and restore it. Given, it would be a PITA to go through and undelete if someone was at it for long enough, but I doubt they would get too far - someone is always watching on enWP.



Just delete.

For those of you who are interested, the 5 deletions currently at the top of this deletion log were me testing Special:Nuke.

Basically you enter the username and it comes up with a list of recently created pages. You can then deselect the pages you don't want to delete and delete the rest with a single press of a button. It gives a common deletion reason, which is editable. The default reason is Mass removal of pages added by Viridae.

Commons has the potential for constructive application. Other than that? Not really.

I don't understand the FUD over this tool.

If an admin really wants to cause mayhem, we've got twinklebatchdelete.js, which is actually a lot more functional and thus has the potential to cause greater destruction.

I think people are really scraping the bottom of the criticism barrel when they try to describe a tool for mass deletion as some kind of evil conspiracy or power trip.

There are legitimate criticisms to be made of Wikipedia, but I surely can't see where this is one of them. Get over yourselves.

This tool, as others have said, has been around for years, but due to enwiki's poor managment and structure there was no way it could have been installed without a bunch of people kicking up a fuss about something they know nothing about. It's a quick deletion tool for goodness sake, not access to the database.

Of course, nuke can cause damage more quickly than the regular deletion function – but everything is reversible.

Is there a tool that can do the opposite? Mass restorations?

twinklebatchundelete.js

Is there a magic button which will turn Wikipedia into an encyclopedia?

Good one John!