MediaWiki should provide a feature to selective delete a revision from page history (the effect equals to delete the whole page and then restore some of the revisions). This can be used to hide vandalisms from page history, where https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:RevisionDelete will keep vandalism displayed in page history.
To do this, while not affecting existing behaviour, a new page action is needed, that would delete only that specific revision. The name revisiondelete is already taken by another action, so the new one would need to be named to avoid any potential confusion. Suggest deletesinglerevision would make some sense. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?&oldid=1226465489&action=deletesinglerevision would only delete https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?&oldid=1226465489
If no revision is specified, this probably should default to deleting the last revision of a page.
You'll also need:
- A special page at [[Special:DeleteSingleRevision]] where one can enter the number of the revision to delete, and then delete it.
- Logging of actions in the deletion log.
- Links saying "delete revision" in various places, e.g. in the page history, where they can be easily accessed by admins, but incremental build-up of the steps above is probably possible.
The following would then also be likely needed...
- A similar way to undelete a specific revision, as well; i.e. &action=undeletesinglerevision plus a special page.
- A similar way to suppress specific revisions, i.e. &action=suppresssinglerevision
Most of this can probably be achieved by copying existing code for &action=delete, with minor alterations. However, it would be a medium-sized project to implement.
See also: T23312: Request for feature: RevisionMove (to move individual revision to another page)
Notes
- Possible page actions are specified in: includes/actions/ActionFactory.php.
- There is a specific delete action: includes/actions/DeleteAction.php which can form the basis of the new action.
- You'll need a new special page in includes/specials/ for [[Special:DeleteSingleRevision]].
Original (vague and waffly) request:
Status: enhancement
Currently admins can delete a page with all its edits, and also can undelete all or some of an article's deleted edits.
Often when history-merging I have had, as a preliminary, to temporarily delete late edits (often a bot edit) that had been added to the source after the cut-and-paste event, and to temporarily delete early edits (redirects and miscellaneous) that were at the destination's name before the cut-and-paste event which caused the need for the history-merge.
To do that, I must delete the file with all its edits, and then to undelete most of its edits. That wastes administrator time and internet time and Wikipedia server time. It would be easier if, when deleting a page, if I could select which of its edits to delete.
The history display of non-deleted edits already has a column of small square clickables, one per edit; this column could also be used to select edits to delete.
That column of clickables should have controls for "unmark all" and "invert the selection". (Selective undeleting already has an "invert the selection" feature.)