This help page is a how-to guide. It details processes or procedures of some aspect(s) of Wikipedia's norms and practices. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus and vetting.

Shortcut WP:WLN

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 ^[1]

This is not encouraged—these notices often include community announcements.

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;}

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

• Wikipedia:Software notices