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-details. 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.
Contents
Standing notices
Certain announcements have been included in the watchlist notices without any need for discussion. These include:
- Arbitration Committee elections
- Wikimedia Foundation trustee elections
- Steward elections
How to hide the notices
To hide these 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.
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.