To edit or not within 5 minutes if sensitive material

Question

I've noticed that there is the 5 minute grace period where edits are not visible, Can Moderators See Edits Made to Answers Within 5 Minutes?.

The problem is, if I were to edit some one's post within that 5 minutes, the edit remains. I was not aware of this until now.

The issue was, someone has pushed up some login information, including user name and password.

When this happens what do we do?

1. Wait 5 minutes at which point it's well and truely visible (yes, it was their fault for posting it, but mistakes happen) but then edit it as it's going to be visible any way
2. Leave comments to request they remove it (we should do this)
3. Edit it immediately to remove it, but know it will be persisted in the history

Answer 1

If the question or answer contains a serious leak of Personal Information you can mod flag and ask for a redaction of the information. Redaction will remove it from the revision history.

If you have edit privileges you should edit out the information before mod flagging.

When to redact revisions?

General guidance is to do it when someone has flagged for excessive PII (Personally Identifying Information) so this can include real name, email address, physical address, employer etc. where it will have negative consequences.

Typically we see this where someone hasn't thought through a complaint about an employer, or disclosure of a security flaw, etc. and then realised they should not have done that, or someone else has pointed out the risk.

Source When to redact revisions?

Notes:

• I would add Server Names/IP Addresses and Passwords to the above list.

• Make sure it's really sensitive. Someone posting their email address in a post seeking a reply probably isn't sensitive; presumably they intended to do that, so just edit it out & tell them to not be selfish. (from another post by Shog9)