MediaWiki talk:Watchlist-messages: Difference between revisions

Wikipedia has five kinds of top-of-page messages that can be used to convey information or announcements to readers and editors. The “Sitenotice”, found at MediaWiki:Sitenotice, is displayed at the top of all pages for all logged-in users, and for anonymous users if the following message is empty. MediaWiki:Anonnotice can be used to display information only to anonymous/IP users, not logged-in users. Alternatively, by ‘blanking’ the anonnotice and replacing it with nothing (not even a space or empty paragraph!), then the sitenotice can be used as a “logged-in users only” notice to display information only to editors. When “Anonnotice” contains nothing, no notice is shown to anonymous users. When it contains “-” it disables the message in favour of Sitenotice. If it contains anything else, it will be rendered to anonymous users instead of the Sitenotice (including a “hide” button). MediaWiki:Watchlist-messages is displayed at the top of Special:Watchlist for all users who use this feature. The CentralNotice, found at meta:Special:CentralNotice, is an extension which can display banners at the top of a select group of Wikimedia sites simultaneously. Geonotice, at Wikipedia:Geonotice, allows location-specific notices – and is a candidate for integration into MediaWiki.

Archives

This page has archives. Sections older than 14 days may be auto-archived by Lowercase sigmabot III if there are more than 3.

See Wikipedia:Watchlist notices for documentation of how to add, maintain or hide watchlist notices.

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

The October edition is now out. ☆ Bri (talk) 22:40, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Request to post the following watchlist message as soon as possible:

Add citations, win points. Sign up here for the November backlog drive. Because every article should have references.

Cielquiparle (talk) 01:43, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Please post the following watchlist message from October 31 to November 7, 2025:

Sign up here for the month-long Guild of Copy Editors’ November copy-editing drive. Have fun, improve articles, and earn barnstars!

Note: I ask for the message to run to November 7, not because I want an eighth day but because the message hasn’t been running for 7 days recently. That may be because message is taken down at the *beginning* of the “until” date, not the end.

Thank you. Dhtwiki (talk) 23:11, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I’ll be grateful if you add something about the temporary accounts deployment. It will happen tomorrow, Tuesday, Nov 4th, shortly after 08:00 UTC/00:00 PST. More information and discussion: Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF) § Temporary accounts rollout.

I think the message might be scheduled to expire some time after the deployment, maybe 12 or 24 hours, to account for people who will only learn about it later tomorrow. Thanks! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 23:17, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think it running for days or a week would be fine. A day is a bit short for a watchlist message. Folks can click “dismiss” after they see it to permanently hide it.

I’d recommend having the watchlist message go live only after the actual deploy happens, in case the deploy is delayed. That is, I recommend against queueing it up and having it appear at a programmed time.

Draft wording for your consideration: Edits by logged out users will no longer display an IP address. Instead a temporary account such as ~2025-11111-11 will be created automatically upon making an edit. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:59, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I’m already getting a pop up explaining temporary accounts. Do we need a watchlist message too? Stephen 08:20, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I didn’t get the pop up? – robertsky (talk) 08:43, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Stephen. Where’d you see the popup? On login? On editing? On regular viewing? I haven’t seen it yet. I was going to action the watchlist message right now (because temporary accounts just deployed), but will wait for your response. –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:44, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Viewing Special:RecentChanges showed me the popup a minute ago. Johnuniq (talk) 08:47, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I got the popup as soon as I logged in today — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:06, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I got the pop-up twice when viewing TA diffs. CMD (talk) 09:09, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]