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I understand the appeal of not actually deleting questions and answers, but what can we do when we accidentally post confidential information?

For example, passwords or company names. Sometimes we forget to edit those out before posting a code snippet, and if we don't notice within the 5 minute grace period, it becomes permanent.

Is there anything we can do about this?

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    We encounter this from time to time on Genealogy & Family History where our privacy policy means identifying details of anyone potentially living must not be included under any circumstances.
    – PolyGeo
    Commented Jul 12, 2015 at 1:53
  • @PolyGeo I have flag this question to: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/107985/… as the answer given by Lasse V. Karlsen does covers the issue of permanent delete. BTW, I do agree with your answer too... +1 Is there any way we can merge these two answers?
    – HackerKarma
    Commented Jul 12, 2015 at 2:14
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    @HackerKarma Moderators of this site will be able to perform a merge .
    – PolyGeo
    Commented Jul 12, 2015 at 2:49
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    It's very similar, but this question asks about what to do if you spot your own mistake. The owner has different permissions than other users, and there's no need to "notify the owner" because you are him.
    – mpen
    Commented Jul 12, 2015 at 3:24
  • @Mark - The other part of that post talks about flagging the post for moderator attention so that the content can be removed from the revision history.
    – Lix
    Commented Jul 12, 2015 at 8:09

1 Answer 1

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What to do in this situation, unless you are a moderator, is to flag a moderator and explain the circumstances.

Moderators have the ability to Redact Revisions that include confidential information.

A moderator who submits a redaction must then have their redaction approved by another moderator or an employee.

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    I'm not a fan of this "solution". It requires someone else to actually look at your booboo and then decide if you screw up is bad enough. Your fate is in their hands. I do see the problem though; if users can delete their own posts without moderator intervention, then they can permadelete anything they want. But I really don't think peramadeleting a revision is really such a bad thing.
    – mpen
    Commented Jul 12, 2015 at 1:43
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    @Mark Your fate isn't "in our hands" - if it's confidential information it will be removed, no questions asked.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Jul 12, 2015 at 1:48
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    @Mark one can argue like then you should have been EXTREMELY careful in dealing data of that privacy... it's not SE's fault... and I do understand that accident can happen but you should be happy to see that there is some solution
    – HackerKarma
    Commented Jul 12, 2015 at 1:54
  • Thanks @JourneymanGeek - I had forgotten to update - the new functionality came in Feb 2016.
    – PolyGeo
    Commented Mar 13, 2018 at 1:37

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