Latest comment: 11 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion
The administrator elections process has officially started! Qualified editors are encouraged to find at least one experienced nominator. Self-nominations are also allowed. Please review instructions at Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2026/Candidates.
Here is the schedule:
September 29–October 5: Nominations phase (we are here)
October 8–12: Discussion phase
October 13–19: SecurePoll voting phase
Please note the following:
The requirements to run are identical to RFA—a prospective candidate must be extended confirmed. However, in practice, few candidates succeed without ~10K edits, some content creation, no recent behavioral issues, and a nominator.
The process will have a seven day call for candidates phase, a two day pause, a five day discussion phase, and a seven day private vote using SecurePoll. Discussion and questions are only allowed on the candidate pages during the discussion phase.
The outcome of this process is identical to making a request for adminship. There is no official difference between an administrator appointed through RFA versus administrator elections.
Ask any questions about the process at the talk page. Later, a user talk message will be sent to official candidates with additional information about the process.
If you are interested in the process, please make sure to watchlist the appropriate pages. A watchlist notice will be added when the discussion phase opens, and again when the voting phase opens.
You're receiving this message because you signed up for the mailing list. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the list.
The administrator elections process has officially started! Qualified editors are encouraged to find at least one experienced nominator. Self-nominations are also allowed. Please review instructions at Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2026/Candidates.
Here is the schedule:
September 29–October 5: Nominations phase (we are here)
October 8–12: Discussion phase
October 13–19: SecurePoll voting phase
Please note the following:
The requirements to run are identical to RFA—a prospective candidate must be extended confirmed. However, in practice, few candidates succeed without ~10K edits, some content creation, no recent behavioral issues, and a nominator.
The process will have a seven day call for candidates phase, a two day pause, a five day discussion phase, and a seven day private vote using SecurePoll. Discussion and questions are only allowed on the candidate pages during the discussion phase.
The outcome of this process is identical to making a request for adminship. There is no official difference between an administrator appointed through RFA versus administrator elections.
Ask any questions about the process at the talk page. Later, a user talk message will be sent to official candidates with additional information about the process.
If you are interested in the process, please make sure to watchlist the appropriate pages. A watchlist notice will be added when the discussion phase opens, and again when the voting phase opens.
You're receiving this message because you signed up for the mailing list. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the list.
Latest comment: 9 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I am wondering if my proposed paragraph has been reviewed. It is not yet on the active page and I have not been informed that it was not approved. My paragraph is intended to provide a careful counterpoint to the previous paragraph which is quite tendentious --CuriousPussycat (talk) 17:32, 29 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 8 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Thank you for taking the time to reply regarding my edit on the entry for Sally Hemings. I believe I can fortify my arguments with proper citations. Upper level editors should review the blatant tendentiousness of the paragraph to which I was offering a counterbalance. The unsubstantiated imputed allegations against Jefferson are outrageous. As the president of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation noted, "We really can't know what the dynamic was" I also did not think that my writing was insufficient. I had to bullet point my arguments. --CuriousPussycat (talk) 11:12, 30 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
@CuriousPussycat, I suggest you discuss this at Talk:Sally Hemings. You say the allegations are unsubstantiated, but there are two references, whereas your paragraph had none. Also, don't you think that the president of the Thomas Jefferson may have some kind of bias? Qwerfjkltalk17:16, 1 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 5 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion
?There is NOTHING wrong with my citation. It's the exact citation that the original creator(s) should have consulted!It's the freaking CENSUS BUREAU!
This robotic nanny app is gibberish and poisonous. Wikipedia should get rid of it or fix it. As things now stand, it appears to exclude all official publications as citations because they are not published as work that is the product of a single author. W.t.h. was Wikipedia thinking???
Following an RfC, late signatures added to administrator recall petitions after 720 hours from opening are reverted or struck and do not count towards the threshold, even if the petition has not yet been formally closed.
The post-May 2026 administrator elections RfCs concluded with consensus for election monitors to curate blatantly inappropriate questions after posting, and to remove or merge true duplicates, clearly marking merged questions. Calls for candidates will include advisory guidance that users with less than one year’s experience or 5,000 edits generally lack a realistic chance of success.
Technical news
Interface administrators no longer need to specify the ResourceLoader option in the definitions for gadgets on MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition as gadgets are always loaded through ResourceLoader. (T298199)
The list=abusefilters API module now supports formatversion=2 and includes breaking changes to its responses. In particular, the actions property is now a JSON array rather than a string, regardless of the format version. Maintainers of user scripts and other code using this module should check compatibility and update their code as needed. (T435828)
Doug Weller passed away on 30 September 2026. Doug Weller began editing Wikipedia in 2006 and became an administrator in 2008, making nearly 275,000 edits over two decades. He served on the Arbitration Committee from 2015 through 2018 and was also a longtime CheckUser and Oversighter.
Given that "|editor-first2=" is shown on Template:Cite book in the "Full parameter set in horizontal format" section, this should not be an "Unknown parameter". The report would be a false positive.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Weekly highlight
The process for this year’s Community Wishlist has been published, incorporating community feedback. The wish submission process will end on November 8. This year, a working group (open for volunteering) that includes community members familiar with the technical aspect of our wikis alongside Wikimedia Foundation staff, will take care of the triage process. The triage is expected to be completed by late November. Votes for wishes will start in January.
Updates for editors
Editors using the visual editor will now see a warning when they paste text that is likely to have initially been copied from one of five external generative AI chatbots into Wikipedia. This feature is known as LLM Paste Check. It is a type of Edit Check that is community configurable. The check looks for markers in the copied HTML and is not using content watermark detection. Edits will also be tagged so that patrollers can review them more closely. The feature helps newcomers add content that respects Wikipedia’s policies and makes it easier for experienced editors to identify problematic edits. Communities with local policies about LLM usage can adjust the wording and policy that is linked. The team apologizes that this was rolled out without a delay for translations.
Editors can now easily access the web visual editor directly from the iOS and Android apps. When opening the editor, users will be given a choice between visual editing and source editing. If they choose visual editing, they will be sent to a mobile web window in their phone's browser. After completing their edit, a banner will give them the option to return to the app. This enables readers to make quick contributions while casually reading.
Users of the Wikipedia Android and iOS apps will now see a one-time account creation prompt after they have used the app for two consecutive weeks. This prompt explains the benefits of having an account. It is intended to help more casual readers become logged-in users who return to the apps regularly.
Editors on group1 wikis, including Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, Wikivoyage, and Wikisource, will no longer see notifications on Recent Changes and Watchlist when a link to another language version of a page is added, removed, or changed in its Wikidata item. This change will begin on October 5 at 07:00 UTC as a two-week trial to reduce high-volume, low-value notifications and make important changes easier to identify. Editors who rely on these notifications can read more on the project page and share feedback or concerns on the talk page.
View all 36 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, an issue where mentors who removed themselves from the mentorship program could still have mentees assigned to them and receive questions, has now been fixed. Mentees will now be reassigned when a mentor leaves the program.
Updates for technical contributors
Wikimedia Brasil has published its Development Best Practices Framework (ABPD). It is a guide for staff, contractors and volunteers building technical tools and projects. It covers the project lifecycle, security, accessibility, personal data protection and responsible AI use, and explains how movement-wide guidelines were adapted to a local context. They encourage other affiliates to reuse it and adapt it. Read more in the Diff post.
A new, canonical base URL for Wikimedia APIs will soon be introduced. The new canonical route follows a {projectName}/api/ pattern and will act as an alternative path for current REST APIs (for example: {projectName}/w/rest.php/). Both versions will be callable for all existing APIs, but the new structure will be the preferred path for newly created API modules. This change will be non-breaking for most users. The existing pathways will remain available for all existing endpoint requests. However, some endpoints may return URLs following the new pattern in response bodies. Changes will be available on test wiki first, with the rollout expected to cover all wikis by the end of October.
On 13 Oct, we will start the voting phase. The candidate subpages will close to public questions and discussion, and everyone will have a week to use the SecurePoll software to vote, which uses a secret ballot. You can see who voted, but not who they voted for.
Any questions or issues can be asked on the election talk page. Thank you for your participation. Happy electing.
You're receiving this message because you signed up for the mailing list. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the list.
On 13 Oct, we will start the voting phase. The candidate subpages will close to public questions and discussion, and everyone will have a week to use the SecurePoll software to vote, which uses a secret ballot. You can see who voted, but not who they voted for.
Any questions or issues can be asked on the election talk page. Thank you for your participation. Happy electing.
You're receiving this message because you signed up for the mailing list. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the list.
