Wikipedia:Watchlist notices

In order to place a notice at the top of every registered user's watchlist, an editor can make a request at Mediawiki talk:Watchlist-messages. Once a consensus forms to list a notice, it is added, and the notice counter (the cookie-ID) is incremented. Notices should be approved for a fixed length of time after which point they will be removed.

Adding the template {{Edit protected}} to a request will ensure that an administrator is aware of it. This is particularly useful for uncontentious changes, such as correcting a typographical error in an existing message.

About the notice

Shows to all users who use a watchlist. Appears above the horizontal rule on the watchlist. Controlled by MediaWiki:Watchlist-messages. Dismissable using JavaScript found in MediaWiki:Gadget-watchlist-notice-core.js.

Notice guidelines

In general, watch list notices should:

• Be neutrally worded
• Be fairly short (one or two sentences)
• Should contain only one bold call to action link. (The primary point of the notice should be to direct the viewer to click this part to read or participate in something)

Notice requesters and administrators should be wary of notice fatigue, as such the bar to entry for a watch list notice is typically higher than that for other notices such as a geonotice or adding a listing to Template:Centralized discussion, but lower than that required for a main page notice or site notice.

Notices are typically set to expire the sooner of two weeks or the usefulness of the call to action. Certain recurring notices such as arbcom election notices may have custom durations.

Standing notices

Certain announcements have been included in the watchlist notices without any need for discussion. These include:

• WP:RFAs and WP:RFBs
• Elections:
  • Arbitration Committee elections
  • Wikimedia Foundation trustee elections
  • Steward elections
• Notification of new issues of The Signpost

How to hide the notices

To hide all watchlist notices permanently, add this code to your skin.css:

.watchlist-message { display: none; }

This will also hide geonotices (location-specific notifications). To hide geonotices only, without hiding the other watchlist notices, you can disable it in your preferences.

If you hide notices, you may want to add MediaWiki:Watchlist-messages to your watchlist, so you can see if there have been updates.

Specific types of notices

To hide only notices about Wikipedia:Requests for adminship, use the code:

.watchlist-message-RfX {display:none;}

How to see notices recently dismissed

If the notice is still "live", it will be visible at one of the five bold-linked pages in the infobox above.

See also

• Wikipedia:Software notices