Scribe is doing well as the obvious 'most trusted candidate'. To his credit, he answered my question. I'm not sure what to make of the answer.
QUOTE
[Question from The Land Surveyor (Damian)]
User:Smith, who has edited prolifically since the beginning of the project and is generally well-respected as an editor, makes an apparently serious allegation against a member of the Arbitration committee (Jones), regarding edits that (according to Smith) are highly slanted, and are of such a nature as are likely to bring the project into disrepute. You ask Smith for diffs to these supposedly slanted edits, which he sends. You look at the diffs, which (to you) seem of a relatively harmless nature and unlikely to offend. However, the next day Smith contacts you by email and claims that the edits in question have been 'oversighted' i.e. deleted from the Wikipedia server. When you look again, indeed the edit indeed seem to have disappeared. What do you do?
(A) Ignore the whole issue. The deletion of evidence you found utterly unpersuasive does not concern you much and others are better placed to investigate the matter.
(B) Take the matter up with Jimbo and other checkusers, to find out why the edits were 'oversighted'.
© Other (please specify).
QUOTE
Before dealing with your hypothetical scenario, I will comment on the incident that inspired you to ask it. I realise that at the time it was the single most important thing that concerned you. With respect, it wasn't for me. I have to prioritise how I spend my time like anyone else and had plenty of other things - both connected to Wikipedia and not - occupying my time. For me to look into a possibly inappropriate use of oversight was not to my mind a good use of my time. Without the right, I was not in a position to even confirm that an edit had indeed been oversighted. I could only speculate as to this. I did not have a particularly clear recollection of the edit in question. I recalled that I had not thought it to be persuasive evidence of the misconduct you then were alleging and did not remember thinking that it contained material that should oversighted. However, sometimes the privacy implications of a post are not apparent to someone without an additional piece of information. In my opinion, there were others in a far better position to look into the matter. I had contacted Jimbo Wales and he had indicated a willingness to look into what you were alleging. I had made him aware that an edit which you had previously cited no longer appeared to be in the database and therefore appeared to have been oversighted. Given he was ultimately responsible for appointments to ArbCom, he seemed the best person to hear you out. It was your choice not to avail yourself of that opportunity. Each of the people who had oversight at the time (or have obtained it since) have been far better placed to look into the matter than me, as they would have been in a position to consult the oversight log. You had yourself advised me not to involve myself further in the matter in a email sent at 11:49 on Saturday 8 December 2007.
Now the above being said, I would approach the matter differently were I an arbitrator for two reasons. Firstly, because as an arbitrator I would have a duty to look into possible misuse of access such as oversight. And secondly, because I would have that right myself, I would be able to access the log. The person who oversighted the edit would be more able to explain the situation to me, rather than feeling constrained by the privacy policy in discussing it with someone not trusted with that right.
So to turn to your hypothetical question. Were this to happen now, I would recommend that they do (B) - assuming you meant other oversighters not other checkusers - as they are better placed to explain their concerns. Once I knew they were in touch with someone able to investigate the matter for them, I would leave it in that person's hands. In particular, I tend to assume that edits are oversighted for good cause and don't routinely second guess such actions. Were I an arbitrator, I would opt for ©. I would review the oversighting of the edit myself. Were I to have concerns about the use of oversight in that case - taking into account the nature of the material deleted and the reason given in the summary - I would take them up with the person who performed the oversight. Were I to remain unsatisfied, I would raise the matter with other arbitrators for further investigation. If it were agreed that the oversight had been improper, I would then contact a developer to have the edit restored and propose action be taken against the oversighter - up to removing the access were there to have been previous problematic instances or an unwillingness to agree that the action was wrong and agreement not to oversight similar edits in future.
This post has been edited by Peter Damian: 
Election results, Voting has begun
