Welcome to my talk page! Please feel free to leave a message here, or email me if you prefer; however, if you post here you I ask that you observe the following requests: Place new messages at the bottom of the page, not at the top. This preserves the chronological order for the page. Separate topic sections with a ==Descriptive header== Sign your posts with four tildes (~~~~). BE POLITE. I am a person, not a computer. I do have feelings, and they can be hurt. Solicitors are welcome here, but do not twist my arm to do something. It's my decision, not yours. If you need/want my input on a matter outside of this page then please leave a link to the page in question. Did I delete your page? For CSD, click here; for AFD click here and follow the instructions. Do not post in the archive(s). I will not answer any post placed on a page that is mothballed. Unless otherwise noted I will respond on your talk page, not mine.

Archives Master Archive Page

FACs needing feedback view •
Ednyfed Fychan	Review it now
Crusading movement	Review it now

Current Military history WikiProject discussions

No major discussions are open at the moment

Nominations for the upcoming project coordinator election have opened. A team of up to ten coordinators will be elected for the next coordination year. The project coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining our internal structure and processes. They do not, however, have any authority over article content or editor conduct, or any other special powers. More information on being a coordinator is available here. If you are interested in running, please sign up here by 23:59 UTC on 14 September! Voting will commence on 15 September. If you have any questions, you can contact any member of the current coord team. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:41, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2024).

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, there is a new criterion for speedy deletion: C4, which applies to unused maintenance categories, such as empty dated maintenance categories for dates in the past.
• A request for comment is open to discuss whether Notability (species) should be adopted as a subject-specific notability guideline.

Arbitration

• Following a motion, remedies 5.1 and 5.2 of World War II and the history of Jews in Poland (the topic and interaction bans on My very best wishes, respectively) were repealed.
• Remedy 3C of the German war effort case ("Cinderella157 German history topic ban") was suspended for a period of six months.
• The arbitration case Historical Elections is currently open. Proposed decision is expected by 3 September 2024 for this case.

Miscellaneous

• Editors can now enter into good article review circles, an alternative for informal quid pro quo arrangements, to have a GAN reviewed in return for reviewing a different editor's nomination.
• A New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in September 2024 to reduce the number of unreviewed articles and redirects in the new pages feed. Currently, there is a backlog of over 13,900 articles and 26,200 redirects awaiting review. Sign up here to participate!

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Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hog Farm looks at the bayou battles for Vicksburg

Voting for WikiProject Military history coordinators is now open! A team of up to ten coordinators will be elected for the next coordination year. Register your vote here by 23:59 UTC on 29 September! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:35, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

USS Texas (BB-35) has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Note: I have also requested MILHIST A-Class reappraisal. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:43, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2024).

Administrator changes

• Asilvering
• Significa liberdade

• Good Olfactory
• Hesperian
• I JethroBT
• TommyBoy
• Woody

CheckUser changes

• Barkeep49
• Izno

• Doug Weller
• Spicy

Guideline and policy news

• Administrator elections are a proposed new process for selecting administrators, offering an alternative to requests for adminship (RfA). The first trial election will take place in October 2024, with candidate sign-up from October 8 to 14, a discussion phase from October 22 to 24, and SecurePoll voting from October 25 to 31. For questions or to help out, please visit the talk page at Wikipedia talk:Administrator elections.
• Following a discussion, the speedy deletion reason "File pages without a corresponding file" has been moved from criterion G8 to F2. This does not change what can be speedily deleted.
• A request for comment is open to discuss whether there is a consensus to have an administrator recall process.

Arbitration

• The arbitration case Historical elections has been closed.
• An arbitration case regarding Backlash to diversity and inclusion has been opened.
• Editors are invited to nominate themselves to serve on the 2024 Arbitration Committee Electoral Commission until 23:59 October 8, 2024 (UTC).

Miscellaneous

• If you are interested in stopping spammers, please put MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist and MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist on your watchlist, and help out when you can.

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Ten years ago, you were found precious. That's what you are, always. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:18, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I'm clearing up syntax errors on Wikipedia and ran across your userpage from this report of protected pages with syntax errors. Would you be willing to make the adjustments I've made here? This will correct the Missing, Misnested, and Obsolete tag issues. Your current version's on the left, and my corrections are on the right. If so, you can edit that version on the right, do a full page copy and paste into your userpage to make things easy for you. If you have questions, I'm happy to chat. Thank you! Zinnober9 (talk) 16:02, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello,

The Wikimedia Foundation is conducting a survey of Wikipedians to better understand what draws administrators to contribute to Wikipedia, and what affects administrator retention. We will use this research to improve experiences for Wikipedians, and address common problems and needs. We have identified you as a good candidate for this research, and would greatly appreciate your participation in this anonymous survey.

You do not have to be an Administrator to participate.

The survey should take around 10-15 minutes to complete. You may read more about the study on its Meta page and view its privacy statement .

Please find our contact on the project Meta page if you have any questions or concerns.

Kind Regards,

WMF Research Team

BGerdemann (WMF) (talk) 19:21, 23 October 2024 (UTC) [reply]

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on US Army divisions in the Pacific War, Nick-D on the First Indochina War

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2024).

Administrator changes

• Crisco 1492

• Babajobu
• Daniel
• Elf
• Jayron32
• Thue
• Wugapodes

CheckUser changes

Maxim

Oversighter changes

Maxim

Guideline and policy news

• Following a discussion, the discussion-only period proposal that went for a trial to refine the requests for adminship (RfA) process has been discontinued.
• Following a request for comment, Administrator recall is adopted as a policy.

Technical news

• Mass deletions done with the Nuke tool now have the 'Nuke' tag. This change will make reviewing and analyzing deletions performed with the tool easier. T366068

Arbitration

• RoySmith, Barkeep49 and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2024 Arbitration Committee Elections. ThadeusOfNazereth and Dr vulpes are reserve commissioners.
• Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate from 3 November 2024 until 12 November 2024 to stand in the 2024 Arbitration Committee elections.
• The Arbitration Committee is seeking volunteers for roles such as clerks, access to the COI queue, checkuser, and oversight.

Miscellaneous

• An unreferenced articles backlog drive is happening in November 2024 to reduce the backlog of articles tagged with {{Unreferenced}}. You can help reduce the backlog by adding citations to these articles. Sign up to participate!

---

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:World in Conflict USS Missouri (BB-63).JPG, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. 廣九直通車 (talk) 12:04, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello,

I recently invited you to take a survey about administration on Wikipedia. If you haven’t yet had a chance, there is still time to participate– we’d truly appreciate your feedback. The survey is anonymous and should take about 10-15 minutes to complete. You may read more about the study on its Meta page and view its privacy statement.

Take the survey here.

Kind Regards,

WMF Research Team

BGerdemann (WMF) (talk) 00:17, 13 November 2024 (UTC) [reply]

Nominations now open for the WikiProject Military History newcomer of the year and military historian of the year awards for 2024! The the top editors will be awarded the coveted Gold Wiki. Nominations are open here and here respectively. The nomination period closes at 23:59 on 30 November 2024 when voting begins. On behalf of the coordinators, wishing you the very best for the festive season and the new year. MediaWiki message delivery via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:21, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 looks at battles of Operation Veritable in 1945

Voting is now open for the WikiProject Military History newcomer of the year and military historian of the year awards for 2024! The top editors will be awarded the coveted Gold Wiki. Cast your votes here and here respectively. Voting closes at 23:59 on 30 December 2024. On behalf of the coordinators, wishing you the very best for the festive season and the new year. MediaWiki message delivery via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:00, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2024).

Administrator changes

• Ahecht
• DoubleGrazing
• Dr vulpes
• FOARP
• Peaceray
• Queen of Hearts
• Rsjaffe
• SD0001
• SilverLocust
• Sohom Datta
• ThadeusOfNazereth
• Voorts

• Ajpolino
• Fathoms Below
• Pppery
• Tamzin
• Worm That Turned

• Aervanath
• Christopher Sundita
• Dank
• Dennis Brown
• Dragons flight
• Fastily
• Graham87
• JaGa
• Kbh3rd
• Marine 69-71
• Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington
• Yamamoto Ichiro

Interface administrator changes

• SD0001
• Sohom Datta

Pppery

CheckUser changes

• Spicy
• TheresNoTime

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RFC, the policy on restoration of adminship has been updated. All former administrators may now only regain the tools following a request at the Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard within 5 years of their most recent admin action. Previously this applied only to administrators deysopped for inactivity.
• Following a request for comment, a new speedy deletion criterion, T5, has been enacted. This applies to template subpages that are no longer used.

Technical news

• Technical volunteers can now register for the 2025 Wikimedia Hackathon, which will take place in Istanbul, Turkey. Application for travel and accommodation scholarships is open from November 12 to December 10, 2024.

Arbitration

• The arbitration case Yasuke (formerly titled Backlash to diversity and inclusion) has been closed.
• An arbitration case titled Palestine-Israel articles 5 has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case will close on 14 December.

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Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D on the Franco-Prussian War Op-ed: Nick-D visits the Swiss Air Force Museum

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2024).

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RFC, Wikipedia:Notability (species) was adopted as a subject-specific notability guideline.
• A request for comment is open to discuss whether admins should be advised to warn users rather than issue no-warning blocks to those who have posted promotional content outside of article space.

Technical news

• The Nuke feature also now provides links to the userpage of the user whose pages were deleted, and to the pages which were not selected for deletion, after page deletions are queued. This enables easier follow-up admin-actions.

Arbitration

• Following the 2024 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been elected to the Arbitration Committee: CaptainEek, Daniel, Elli, KrakatoaKatie, Liz, Primefac, ScottishFinnishRadish, Theleekycauldron, Worm That Turned.

Miscellaneous

• A New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in January 2025 to reduce the number of unreviewed articles and redirects in the new pages feed. Sign up here to participate!

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Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Pickersgill-Cunliffe and Nick-D look at Germans in the Flanders Campaign and 50 years of Australian military history Op-ed: Hawkeye7 on the state of the Wikiproject

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2025).

Administrator changes

• Arcticocean
• Wugapodes

Euryalus

CheckUser changes

• Firefly
• L235

Oversighter changes

• Firefly
• Guerillero
• L235
• Moneytrees

Technical news

• Administrators can now nuke pages created by a user or IP address from the last 90 days, up from the initial 30 days. T380846
• A 'Recreated' tag will now be added to pages that were created with the same title as a page which was previously deleted and it can be used as a filter in Special:RecentChanges and Special:NewPages. T56145

Arbitration

• The arbitration case Palestine-Israel articles 5 has been closed.

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Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 looks at three aspects of World War II Op-ed: Matarisvan on ways to improve A-class reviewing numbers

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2025).

Administrator changes

• Jarry1250
• Lethe

CheckUser changes

• AmandaNP
• Drmies

Oversighter changes

AmandaNP

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment is open to discuss whether AI-generated images (meaning those wholly created by generative AI, not human-created images modified with AI tools) should be banned from use in articles.
• A series of 22 mini-RFCs that double-checked consensus on some aspects and improved certain parts of the administrator elections process has been closed (see the summary of the changes).
• A request for comment is open to gain consensus on whether future administrator elections should be held.

Technical news

• A new filter has been added to the Special:Nuke tool, which allows administrators to filter for pages in a range of page sizes (in bytes). This allows, for example, deleting pages only of a certain size or below. T378488
• Non-administrators can now check which pages are able to be deleted using the Special:Nuke tool. T376378

Miscellaneous

• The 2025 appointees for the Ombuds commission are だ＊ぜ, Arcticocean, Ameisenigel, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, Galahad, Nehaoua, Renvoy, Revi C., RoySmith, Teles and Zafer as members, with Vermont serving as steward-observer.
• Following the 2025 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: 1234qwer1234qwer4, AramilFeraxa, Daniuu, KonstantinaG07, MdsShakil and XXBlackburnXx.

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@Bbb23: The ip proposing the site ban is me, I’m out of my house at the moment and I do not log into my account when using the iPad for fear of my mobile device being jacked and someone using the admin tools my account has. “We” and “us” is a reference to the admin corps on Wikipedia, not to multiple users who are cycling through an ip address. TomStar81 16:24, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You really shouldn't be editing project space as an IP. Couldn't you have waited to when you can log in?--Bbb23 (talk) 16:32, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I know. I really ought to consider a new satellite account, but I haven.t gotten there yet. As to the computer, my tower is sitting in a dissembled state in the house because of work I have going on in the house to fix issues with my house. It’ll be a week or so - optimistically - before I can get it out back together again and this issue didn’t seem like one that would wait that long. TomStar81 17:14, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Bbb23: it occurs to me to ask, can these last few edits be Rev-deleted and/or oversighted? Best not to court trouble as it were with people who may be observing. TomStar81 18:04, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would e-mail the OS team and request suppression. That would also permit you to verify your identity (log in to your iPad and use your Wikipedia e-mail). I would also delete our conversation here and have that suppressed.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:40, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's my pleasure to invite you to Event:Wikicurious Pi Day SXSW 2025! Would also be glad to catch up with you before the event if you'd like. Pharos (talk) 19:38, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 looks at works on a female astronaut and a senior US Navy officer Op-ed: Adam Cuerden on his experiences with a recent featured picture Timeline: This month in military history

For all of my hopes for DaveAndersonSonyMusic, he posted this after our last exchange with EEng. Carrying on about some court order while already being blocked for WP:NLT. Do you think that warrants revoking talk page access? --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 21:19, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2025).

Administrator changes

• Giraffer
• Goldsztajn

Dennis Brown

• Cyclonebiskit
• Nohat
• Someguy1221

Bureaucrat changes

Barkeep49

CheckUser changes

0xDeadbeef

Oversighter changes

GB fan

Moneytrees

Miscellaneous

• Sign up for The Core Contest, a competition running from 15 April to 31 May to improve vital articles.

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Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D looks at the Borneo campaign of 1945 and warfare the South African way Timeline: This month in military history

Oi mate, I just wanted to give a big thanks for your contribution to the TomTom7474 ANI discussion. Your first comment there explaining the difference between rights and privileges was not only very much needed, but very enlightening. I think all new editors should take a look at that to better understand just what editing Wikipedia means. Shovel Shenanigans (talk) 17:48, 29 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi TomStar81, it's good to see you around taking care of the issues that get reported at AN/I and whatnot. I just wanted to provide one suggestion: that users shall not have their e-mail access disabled when blocking them for regular editing abuse and not email abuse. I'm not an administrator, but the massive majority of blocks that I see done by other admins do not have the email disablement option included from the start. I believe this is so the user can e-mail the Arbitration Committee or ask the blocking administrator for questions regarding their block. Also it even says on the blocking policy page This option is not checked by default and should not be enabled when blocking an account except in cases where either the blocked user abuses it, or uses it in order to harass, threaten, intimidate, or cause disruption toward other editors.

Thanks, — AP 499D25 (talk) 10:21, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@AP 499D25: I’m aware of this, but I routinely disable email by default for two very good reasons: first, I rarely if ever check my email, so emailing me doesn’t usually get you a rapid response (if it gets you any response at all). Disabling email therefore ensures someone blocked isn’t waiting eternally for me to get back to them. The other reason I disable email my default is to ensure that a subsequent record of the account that has been blocked can be tracked by those who would consider unblocking. If the unblock requests are made publicly as opposed to being through email then the community can track the requests on the talk page, deferring to any relevant policy, discussion, or AE enforcement related pages that cover the matter(s) that resulted in the block. Keeping email open, by contrast, removes this public information, which can create problems for the community in the future if parts of the unblock were not publicly available. Finally, in this day and age, and in particular since the India court case debacle that resulted in accounts being compromised for foreign nations who should have no legal standing on this site whatsoever, I personally feel the need to disable email to prevent anything that could be construed as a threat - or worse, a tell for someone to track down the irl me - by removing the option to email and therefore risk obtaining that info.

All of that being said, you are correct though: this is not something I should be doing be default. I suppose I’ll have to learn to live with the risks if I want to continue holding on to the privileges, policy and guideline pages apply to all of us after all, and that includes me. Thank you for the message.

Sincerely,

TomStar81 (Talk) 15:33, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I see! — AP 499D25 (talk) 04:09, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2025).

Administrator changes

Rusalkii

NaomiAmethyst (overlooked last month)

• Master Jay
• Orderinchaos
• Roger Davies
• Tinucherian

Interface administrator changes

Galobtter

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, administrator elections were permanently authorized on a five-month schedule. The next election will be scheduled soon; see Wikipedia talk:Administrator elections for more information. This is an alternate process to the RfA process and does not replace the latter.
• An RfC was closed with consensus to allow editors to opt-out of seeing "sticky decorative elements". Such elements should now be wrapped in {{sticky decoration wrapper}}. Editors who wish to opt out can follow the instructions at WP:STICKYDECO.
• An RfC has resulted in a broad prohibition on the use of AI-generated images in articles. A few common-sense exceptions are recognized.

Miscellaneous

• A New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in May 2025 to reduce the backlog of articles in the new pages feed. Sign up here to participate!

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Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 and Nick-D look at aspects of World War II Review essay: Nick-D on Osprey Publishing Timeline: This month in military history

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2025).

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC is open to determine whether the English Wikipedia community should adopt a position on AI development by the WMF and its affiliates.

Technical news

• A new feature called Multiblocks will be deployed on English Wikipedia on the week of June 2. See the relevant announcement on the administrators' noticeboard.
• History merges performed using the mergehistory special page are now logged at both the source and destination, rather than just the source as previously, after this RFC and the resolution of T118132.

Arbitration

• An arbitration case named Indian military history has been opened. Evidence submissions for this case close on 8 June.

Miscellaneous

• Voting for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) election is open until 17 June 2025. Read the voting page on Meta-Wiki and cast your vote here!
• An Articles for Creation backlog drive is happening in June 2025, with over 1,600 drafts awaiting review from the past two months. In addition to AfC participants, all administrators and new page patrollers can help review using the Yet Another AFC Helper Script, which can be enabled in the Gadgets settings. Sign up here to participate!
• The Unreferenced articles backlog drive is happening in June 2025 to reduce the backlog of articles tagged with {{Unreferenced}}. You can help reduce the backlog by adding citations to these articles. Sign up to participate!

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Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 looks at the Antonine Plague and cryptographic security Timeline: This month in military history

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2025).

Administrator changes

NuclearWarfare

Interface administrator changes

L235

Guideline and policy news

• Following a talk page discussion, speedy deletion criterion G13 has been amended to remove "Userspace with no content except the article wizard placeholder text."
• WP:Manual of Style/Superscripts and subscripts was upgraded to a guideline following a RfC discussion.

Miscellaneous

• The 2025 Developing Countries WikiContest will run from 1 July to 30 September. Sign up now!
• Administrator elections will take place this month. Administrator elections are an alternative to RFA that is a gentler process for candidates due to secret voting and multiple people running together. The call for candidates is July 9–15, the discussion phase is July 18–22, and the voting phase is July 23–29. Get ready to submit your candidacy, or (with their consent) to nominate a talented candidate!

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Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 looks at an overview of war history and the biography of a war historian Review essay: Simon Harley critiques a work from Osprey Publishing Timeline: This month in military history

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2025).

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, a new speedy deletion criterion, G15, has been enacted. It applies to pages generated by a large language model (LLM) without human review.
• Following a request for comment, there is a new policy outlining the granting of permissions to view the IP addresses of temporary accounts. Temporary account deployment on the English Wikipedia is currently scheduled for September 2025, and editors can request access to the permission ahead of time. Admins are encouraged to keep an eye on the request page; there will likely be a flood of editors requesting the permission when they realize they can no longer see IP addresses.

Technical news

• Administrators can now restrict the "Add a Link" feature to newcomers. The "Add a Link" Structured Task helps new account holders get started with editing. Administrators can configure this setting in the Community Configuration page.

Arbitration

• The arbitration case Indian military history has been closed.
  • South Asia (WP:CT/SA) is designated a contentious topic. The topic area is specifically defined as All pages related to the region of South Asia (India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal), broadly construed, including but not limited to history, politics, ethnicity, and social groups.
  • The contentious topic designations for Sri Lanka (SL) and India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan (IPA) are folded into this new contentious topic.
  • The community-authorized general sanctions regarding South Asian social groups (GS/CASTE) are rescinded and folded into this new contentious topic.
• The arbitration case Article titles and capitalisation 2 has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case closed on 31 July.
• The arbitration case Transgender healthcare and people has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case will close on 11 August.

Miscellaneous

• Wikimania 2025 is happening in Nairobi, Kenya, and online from August 6 to August 9. This year marks 20 years of Wikimania. Interested users can join the online event. Registration for the virtual event is free and will remain open throughout Wikimania. You can register here now.

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Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 looks at four works spanning ancient to modern times Timeline: This month in military history

Nominations for the upcoming Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history coordinator election have opened. A team of up to ten coordinators will be elected for the next coordination year. The project coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining our internal structure and processes. They do not, however, have any authority over article content or editor conduct, or any other special powers. More information on being a coordinator is available here. If you are interested in running, please sign up here by 23:59 UTC on 14 September! Voting will commence on 15 September. If you have any questions, you can contact any member of the current coord team. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:03, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2025).

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC is open on whether use of emojis with no encyclopedic value in mainspace and draftspace (e.g., at the start of paragraphs or in place of bullet points) should be added as a criterion under G15.

Technical news

• Administrators can now access the Special:BlockedExternalDomains page from the Special:CommunityConfiguration list page. This makes it easier to find. T393240

Arbitration

• The arbitration case Article titles and capitalisation 2 has been closed.
• An RfC is in progress to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the Arbitration Committee election and resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.

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Voting for the Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history coordinators is now open! A team of up to ten coordinators will be elected for the next coordination year. Voting closes at 23:59 UTC on 29 September. If you have any questions, you can contact any member of the current coord team. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:26, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 and Nick-D look at recent works Timeline: This month in military history

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2025).

Administrator changes

• Billinghurst
• Crisco 1492
• DarkFalls
• Spike Wilbury
• Valereee
• Ergo Sum

CheckUser changes

Vanamonde93

Arbitration

• After a motion, arbitration enforcement page protections no longer need to be logged in the AELOG. A bot now automatically posts protections at WP:AELOG/P. To facilitate this bot, protection summaries must include a link to the relevant CT page (e.g. [[WP:CT/BLP]]), and you will receive talk page reminders if you forget to specify the contentious topic but otherwise indicate it is an AE action.

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Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Three Wikipedia editors review five books Timeline: This month in military history

Hello, TomStar81. This message is being sent to remind you of significant upcoming changes regarding logged-out editing.

Starting 4 November, logged-out editors will no longer have their IP address publicly displayed. Instead, they will have a temporary account (TA) associated with their edits. Users with some extended rights like administrators and CheckUsers, as well as users with the temporary account IP viewer (TAIV) user right will still be able to reveal temporary users' IP addresses and all contributions made by temporary accounts from a specific IP address or range.

How do temporary accounts work?

• When a logged-out user completes an edit or a logged action for the first time, a cookie will be set in this user's browser and a temporary account tied with this cookie will be automatically created for them. This account's name will follow the pattern: ~2025-12345-67 (a tilde, year of creation, a number split into units of 5).
• All subsequent actions by the temporary account user will be attributed to this username. The cookie will expire 90 days after its creation. As long as it exists, all edits made from this device will be attributed to this temporary account. It will be the same account even if the IP address changes, unless the user clears their cookies or uses a different device or web browser.
• A record of the IP address used at the time of each edit will be stored for 90 days after the edit. Users with the temporary account IP viewer (TAIV) user right will be able to see the underlying IP addresses.
• As a measure against vandalism, there are two limitations on the creation of temporary accounts:
  • There has to be a minimum of 10 minutes between subsequent temporary account creations from the same IP (or /64 range in case of IPv6).
  • There can be a maximum of 6 temporary accounts created from an IP (or /64 range) within a period of 24 hours.

Temporary account IP viewer user right

• Administrators may grant the temporary account IP viewer (TAIV) user right to non-administrators who meet the criteria for granting. Importantly, an editor must make an explicit request for the permission (e.g. at WP:PERM/TAIV)—administrators are not permitted to assign the right without a request.
• Administrators will automatically be able to see temporary account IP information once they have accepted the Access to Temporary Account IP Addresses Policy via Special:Preferences or via the onboarding dialog which comes up after temporary accounts are deployed.

Impact for administrators

• It will be possible to block many abusers by just blocking their temporary accounts. A blocked person won't be able to create new temporary accounts quickly if the admin selects the autoblock option.
• It will still be possible to block an IP address or IP range.
• Temporary accounts will not be retroactively applied to contributions made before the deployment. On Special:Contributions, you will be able to see existing IP user contributions, but not new contributions made by temporary accounts on that IP address. Instead, you should use Special:IPContributions for this (see a video about IPContributions in a gallery below).

Rules about IP information disclosure

• Publicizing an IP address gained through TAIV access is generally not allowed (e.g. ~2025-12345-67 previously edited as 192.0.2.1 or ~2025-12345-67's IP address is 192.0.2.1).
• Publicly linking a TA to another TA is allowed if "reasonably believed to be necessary". (e.g. ~2025-12345-67 and ~2025-12345-68 are likely the same person, so I am counting their reverts together toward 3RR, but not Hey ~2025-12345-68, you did some good editing as ~2025-12345-67)
• See Wikipedia:Temporary account IP viewer § What can and can't be said for more detailed guidelines.

Useful tools for patrollers

• It is possible to view if a user has opted-in to view temporary account IPs via the User Info card, available in Preferences → Appearance → Advanced options → Enable the user info card
  • This feature also makes it possible for anyone to see the approximate count of temporary accounts active on the same IP address range.
• Special:IPContributions allows viewing all edits and temporary accounts connected to a specific IP address or IP range.
• Similarly, Special:GlobalContributions supports global search for a given temporary account's activity.
• The auto-reveal feature (see video below) allows users with the right permissions to automatically reveal all IP addresses for a limited time window.

Videos

• How to use Special:IPContributions
• How automatic IP reveal works
• How to use IP Info
• How to use User Info

Further information and discussion

• For more information and discussion regarding this change, please see the announcement from the Wikimedia Foundation at Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF) § Temporary accounts rollout.

Most of this message was written by Mz7 (source). Thanks, 🎃 SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 02:47, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Starting on 1 November, the month-long 2025 Article Improvement Drive will target a number of content improvement areas and backlogs. Participating editors will be in line for barnstars and other awards; articles from all aspects of the project will be eligible so there will be something for everybody. Interested editors are encouraged to sign up now! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:18, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sincerely,

2600:1011:B1CB:2F9B:BD1F:5FA4:7445:6124 (talk) 17:17, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2025).

Administrator changes

Toadspike

• Elahrairah
• Juliancolton
• Magnus Manske

CheckUser changes

asilvering

Guideline and policy news

• The speedy deletion criteria U5 has been repealed, with U6 and U7 replacing it. See the FAQ for more clarifications.
• Community-designated contentious topics may now be enforced and appealed at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard (AE) as a result of an RfC.

Technical news

• You can enable a handy user info card next to usernames, which when clicked displays edit count, blocks, thanks, and other information. To enable this feature, visit Preferences → Appearance → Advanced options → Enable the user info card

Arbitration

• The arbitration case Transgender healthcare and people has been closed
  • Uninvolved administrators may impose an AE participation restriction on any thread at the Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard.

Miscellaneous

• An unreferenced articles backlog drive is happening in November 2025 to reduce the backlog of articles tagged with {{Unreferenced}}. You can help reduce the backlog by adding citations to these articles. Sign up to participate!

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Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 and Nick-D look at four works Op-ed: Nick-D on 20 years with Wikipedia Timeline: This month in military history

Nominations now open for the WikiProject Military History newcomer of the year and military historian of the year awards for 2025! The top editors will be awarded the coveted Gold Wiki. Nominations are open here and here respectively. The nomination period closes at 23:59 on 30 November 2025 when voting begins. On behalf of the coordinators, wishing you the very best for the festive season and the new year. MediaWiki message delivery via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:43, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Correction: nominations are open until 23:59 (UTC) on 14 December 2025. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:21, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2025).

Administrator changes

• Chaotic Enby
• Rjjiii

Valereee

• Fathoms Below
• Tamzin

CheckUser changes

Spicy

Technical news

• Starting on November 4, the IP addresses of logged-out editors are no longer being publicly displayed. Instead, they will have a temporary account associated with their edits.
• Administrators will now find that Special:MergeHistory is now significantly more flexible about what it can merge. It can now merge sections taken from the middle of the history of the source (rather than only the start) and insert revisions anywhere in the history of the destination page (rather than only the start). T382958

Miscellaneous

• The December 2025 administrator elections are scheduled from Nov 25 – Dec 15.
• An Articles for Creation backlog drive is happening in December 2025, with over 1,000 drafts awaiting review from the past two months. In addition to AfC participants, all administrators and new page patrollers can help review using the Yet Another AFC Helper Script, which can be enabled in the Gadgets settings. Sign up here to participate!

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Voting is now open for the WikiProject Military History newcomer of the year and military historian of the year awards for 2025! The top editors will be awarded the coveted Gold Wiki. Cast your votes here and here respectively. Voting closes at 23:59 on 30 December 2025. On behalf of the coordinators, wishing you the very best for the festive season and the new year. MediaWiki message delivery via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:55, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Editnotices/Page/Prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been nominated for discussion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 23:41, 24 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hog Farm and Hawkeye7 review five recent releases Timeline: This month in military history

   Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

Volten001 ^☎ 07:29, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2025).

Guideline and policy news

• All general sanctions imposed by the community may now be enforced at the Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard (WP:AE) as a result of a recent RfC.
• Due to the result of a recent RFC, the administrator recall process is amended to extend the deadline for a re-request for adminship to 30 days or the next administrator election, whichever is later.
• Changes to the Access to Temporary Account IP Addresses Policy's disclosure rules include broadening the consecutive-blocks exception to cover all admin actions and removing the requirement to revision-delete permissible disclosures once they become unnecessary (instead requiring only their removal). See WP:TAIVDISCLOSE for more information.

Arbitration

• Following the 2025 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been elected to the Arbitration Committee: Aoidh, Asilvering, Girth Summit, Guerillero, HJ Mitchell, HouseBlaster, Izno, Sdrqaz, SilverLocust.
• The arbitration case Pbsouthwood has been suspended.

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Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 and Peacemaker67 review four books Op-ed: Nick-D on the Stanley Military Cemetery in Hong Kong Timeline: This month in military history

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2026).

Arbitration

• Due to the result of a recent motion, a rough consensus of administrators at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard may impose an expanded topic ban on Israel, Israelis, Jews, Judaism, Palestine, Palestinians, Islam, and/or Arabs, if an editor's Arab-Israeli conflict topic ban is determined to be insufficient to prevent disruption. At least one diff per area expanded into should be cited.

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2026 Steward elections started on 06 February 2026 at 14:00 (UTC) and will end on 27 February 2026 at 14:00 (UTC). The confirmation process for current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.

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