Wikipedia talk:Temporary accounts/Archive 1

Archive 1

Restructure

While a copy of Mz7's mass message is a start, I'm comparing it to fr.wiki's equivalent page, and in the long run we should probably move most of the detailed information on using TAIV, including the instructional video links on using it, to WP:TAIV. Even on Wikipedia:IP users we barely mentioned CheckUser and how that worked. Zzyzx11 (talk) 17:55, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Watchlist notices

Do you think it would be possible to place a notice regarding this new feature so that it will pop up on watchlists? I see it at the top of the Recent Changes page, but I was at first confused by what I was seeing when I first saw an edit made by a temporary account on my watchlist. TornadoLGS (talk) 19:32, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

There is one already: [1]. Mz7 (talk) 20:09, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

Ok, I somehow missed that. TornadoLGS (talk) 20:58, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

Notifications for temp accounts

Will notifications work the same for temporary accounts as for regular accounts? I pinged a temporary account as a test and it appeared to go through, but I just want to make sure that the notification will appear as expected for the temp user. Thanks. Zeibgeist (talk) 03:21, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

After skimming Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF)#Temporary accounts rollout, I see that notifications should work as normal for temporary accounts. The documentation at this page will need to be updated to better describe this and other features of the temp account rollout; a lot of nuances discussed at the Village pump thread are not described here. Zeibgeist (talk) 04:14, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Questions

I've had a few questions about temporary accounts:

1. Can temporary accounts be autoconfirmed?
2. Are IP blocks for public IP addresses (like schools or libraries) being phased out?

~2025-31416-56 (talk) 15:37, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

1. No. 2. No. IP blocks overall will probably become significantly less common, because if it's just a lone vandal most admins will stick to the temp-account block. But I'd expect that blocks on public networks won't decrease by that much, since they're the ones where you're most likely to have multiple TAs vandalizing on the same IP. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 15:49, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps I’m missing something

Doesn’t this new feature mean thst registered editors now can engage in sock puppetry? Make an edit as a registered editor, log out, edit a bit later by the temporary edit number, then log back in later and respond to their anonymous post as a registered editor?

Maybe I just don’t understand? Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 01:57, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Same, I don't understand this new feature. I am noticed this when I watching on my watchlist. ROY is WAR Talk! 02:33, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

It seems to give a registered editor all the advantages of bring registered, but to hide behind an anonymous number like an IP editor. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 03:30, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Is it bad? ROY is WAR Talk! 03:48, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. Very concerned about the potential negative impacts of this. Catgirlsreal (talk) 03:31, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

I don't really see this as much different from before, where a registered editor could log out, edit using their IP address (rather than a temporary account), and then log back in with their account. The relevant policy here is WP:EWLO: it would be a violation of the sockpuppetry policy to log out and pretend to be a separate person than your logged-in identity, or do any of the other prohibited activities mentioned in WP:ILLEGIT. Mz7 (talk) 06:04, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

From my understanding, it's not really that different than how it currently works, only with the temp account displaying instead of the editor's IP. In your example, if you suspected sock puppetry and reported it, they would be able to quickly ID both accounts as having the same IP address and it would be treated as it would have previously. DragonBrickLayer (talk) 10:22, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Protection to Wikipedia is the same as always. But what has happened is what should have happened when Wikipedia was set up - people's IP addresses are no longer revealed to all and sundry. Wikipedia has been operating illegally in the EU for some years by publicly revealing users IP addresses. We are now more legal and moral. Users' privacy and safety shouldn't have been compromised by revealing their IP addresses. It was an error that has taken a long time to fix. SilkTork (talk) 19:11, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

IP talk pages in my watchlist

If I understand this correctly, IP user talk pages should not be receiving any new activity (other than mundane cleanup or maintenance edits) going forward. This means I should be able to remove hundreds of IP talk pages from my watchlist. Before I do that and potentially regret it down the line, can anyone think of a reason one might consider keeping said talk pages in their watchlist? - ZLEA ^TǀC 02:54, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

I... think you should be fine to clear those now from your watchlist? Maybe back them up on your computer in a .txt file if you want, but yeah, I can't think of a reason they will be receiving any new activity going forward. Mz7 (talk) 18:52, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. My watchlist is now 343 pages less cluttered. - ZLEA ^TǀC 20:01, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

IP editors are not sent here

... instead they're sent to mw:Help:Temporary accounts. What gives?

CapnZapp (talk) 13:01, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

It's because I just created this page from a redirect less than a week ago [2], so there might be a bunch of links scattered around from before this page existed that still refer to that old page. We should expect some teething troubles as we transition into this new era. Mz7 (talk) 18:43, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

Okay but I'm not talking "scattered links". I'm talking the popup you get when making your first edit, arguably the most crucial link re: getting an overview of the new system. A new editor has zero reason to suspect this page even exists. CapnZapp (talk) 19:10, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

After some poking around, I've found the right page, MediaWiki:Tempuser-helppage, and updated it. There was also MediaWiki:Temp-user-banner-tooltip-description-learn-more; @KHarlan (WMF): Should that be using the tempuser-helppage rather than separate hardcoding the link? -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 19:53, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

The page I was sent to when attempting to make a logged-out edit was mw:Help:Temporary accounts. Its talk page redirects to mw:Talk:Trust_and_Safety_Product/Temporary_Accounts. My point is, as an English-language Wikipedian my first reaction was "whoa, this is new, when did this start?" The MediaWiki page does not answer this (and it shouldn't since it's a landing page for many wikis), but your page, this page, does. Thus my question: "what gives?" 🙂 Why aren't English-language temporary editors directed to talk here? CapnZapp (talk) 15:00, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

@CapnZapp: I understand your question. The answer is "Because no one had done it yet". Are you still seeing things that point you to the MW page rather than here? If so, where? -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 15:04, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

I haven't attempted to make more temporary account edits since about ten minutes before my initial timestamp. If you guys are on the job of sorting this out, great, thanks! I thought maybe the links to MediaWiki was mandated by WMF or something... CapnZapp (talk) 15:07, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

A table I created to help explain blocking effects

Hi everyone! I wanted to give you a table that will help explain the effects of blocks that are made, and their effects on temporary accounts and IP addresses. Here it is:

Overview of block systems

Block applied	Affects TAs?	Affects PAs?
Soft IP block	All TAs	No
Hard IP block	All TAs	All PAs
Soft TA block	Only the blocked TA	No
Hard TA block	All TAs	All PAs
Soft PA block	No	Only the blocked PA
Hard PA block	All TAs	All PAs

If there are issues, questions, comments, or concerns, please let me know (ping me in your response so that I'm notified). ;-) Best - ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 00:55, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

@Oshwah So if we want to block an "IP vandal", we would just indef the temporary account? Or would that indef the underlying IP as well? EvergreenFir (talk) 22:17, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

EvergreenFir - Blocking the temporary account will typically take care of that. If you find that disruption is still continuing from other temporary accounts and find that it's from the same IP, block the underlying IP address. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 22:23, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

References

Arbitrary breaks in communicating with IP editors?

I tried to understand whether the following had been taken into consideration but didn't find anything:

Say you want to leave a message to a temporary user (or whatever IP editors will now be called).

But it's been 89 days since that IP editors first edit (after the introduction of the new feature).

Does this mean every message posted to that user is wiped and will go unnoticed by the IP if they log in the next day (and get assigned a brand new temp account)?

I understand the point is for temp editors to start with a clean break every 90 days to help them stay anonymous, so I assume the answer is "yes". This probably still should be explained and not taken for granted. CapnZapp (talk) 13:21, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

Right, if you leave a message for an unregistered editor on the last day of their temporary accounts' existence, and then on the next day they are assigned a new temporary account, then they might not see the message that you left them. For what it's worth, I feel like this is once again not a new problem with communicating with unregistered editors. IP addresses are often dynamically assigned, so even in the old system, if you left a message for an editor at their IP address's talk page, they still might not see the message because their IP address would have changed by the next day. In fact, I feel that temporary accounts might even have the effect of improving communication with unregistered users in some cases, as a temporary account can be valid for multiple IP addresses as long as the editor doesn't clear their cookies or switch devices. (Not every case, though: we've already started seeing cases where editors clear their cookies after every edit, causing many temp accounts to be created even for a single IP. To combat that, we might have to simply use WP:TAIV on a somewhat liberal basis and just get used to that.) Mz7 (talk) 18:50, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

Maybe I wasn't clear. I was less interested in getting a personal reply and more interested in "hey, maybe this needs to be explained on the help page". I think we should be clear about how everything for a particular temporary user is wiped every 90 days. This includes messages you got an hour ago, messages that likely are sent straight into the void without anyone ever seeing them. Yes, the IP of an anon user can change, but crucially a) the messages themselves remain and b) it's relatively easy to read messages directed toward your old IP (perhaps use browser history if you know you've visited your user talk before). As I understand the new system, messages get wiped, and they get wiped even if they're not even a minute old? CapnZapp (talk) 19:16, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

That's not correct – user talk pages of temporary accounts do not get wiped after 90 days. For example, I recently left this message for a temporary account. That talk page, User talk:~2025-31011-02, will remain visible and accessible indefinitely, even after the temporary account expires and the user switches to a new one. What does expire and get deleted after 90 days is the IP data for temporary accounts – temporary account IP viewers will no longer be able to query the database for the IP information if the relevant edit or log entry is more than 90 days old. However, messages left for temporary accounts do not get wiped. Mz7 (talk) 01:48, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

That is great! It also means our documentation probably should be massively clarified? Perhaps a fallacy but still - if I can misunderstand, so can others... CapnZapp (talk) 15:03, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

I added this new sentence which will hopefully help? [3] Feel free to propose other wording if you think it could be improved. Mz7 (talk) 01:31, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Related: was the idea to maybe delete the old temporary account after creating the new one ever discussed? That is, you get your new temp account, and you cannot "log in" to the old, but you can still read the messages posted to the old one's talk? Maybe not forever (I know what "temporary" means :) but for a week or two.

That is, on day 90 you're assigned a new temporary account. On day 104 (or so) and not on day 90 the old one's talk disappears. The only way anyone would connect the two accounts would be if the IP editor chooses to engage in discussions related to the old account. But plenty of temp accounts will still obviously be previous accounts simply because they edit the same articles and/or in the same style, so I'm presuming that achieving total anonymity between temporary accounts isn't a primary driver here. Only that a given IP editor no longer clearly displays their ip address.

CapnZapp (talk) 19:21, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

attributing edits

While there hasn't been a system to let users merge histories of different accounts for a looong time, it's still not uncommon for editors to manually (on their talk pages, say) note any edits they made while logged out, as a kind of voluntary attribution system.

Any thoughts on this considering the switch from IP edits to tempacc edits?

If I understand the system correctly if you can't recall the tempacc username, the only way you could find it out if you remember what pages you edited while using that tempacc, so you could browse through page history to find your edits and note that account name.

But unlike IPs (which can stay the same for years) the new system *will* create new usernames every 90 days, so keeping track is going to be a pain for the user who mostly edits while logged in but maybe makes one IP edit every other month or so (for whatever reason). Nearly every such edit will be from a new account. Right?

CapnZapp (talk) 10:29, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

I imagine the small number of editors who keep lists of these sorts of things will be able to keep track of what TAs they use. If they don't, that's up to them; there's no general obligation to disclose logged-out edits as long as you have otherwise complied with policy. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 10:59, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

I did not mean to imply any such obligation. I wanted to point out how this magnifies a hassle beyond any reasonable bounds. Previously your IP edits might have used just a couple of "accounts" over, say, the last decade. Now that's likely dozens and dozens. Say you edit while logged out on one other personal device (or browser) at your home, and at two other locations (such as offices or libraries). Each makes only 3 edits a year. Also assume each of these three sources of IPs change once each every 10 years. Before this change you would need to track contributions made using 6 entries. Now you will need to track, what, 90 entries. And that's the theoretical minimum assuming no browser or OS reinstalls, computer breakdowns or replacements, or just cookie corruptions. Several hundred is more likely. Basically, the editors that liked to do this can basically now give up entirely. I would have liked to see WMF conceding that this was a sacrifice they made, rather than something nobody thought of. CapnZapp (talk) 12:05, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

I don't think any of those assumptions are correct. Most people's IPs change somewhere between once every few minutes and once every few days. Tracking one's own logged-out edits has either gotten a bit easier than before, or is just as hard. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 12:13, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Please assume I am not bringing up hypothetical white room extremes. In my case, three ip numbers cover most if not all of my logged-out edits during the 2013-2025 period. CapnZapp (talk) 12:20, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

I'm sure that's true for some people. I don't think it is very common. For the most part that's only true on a few North American and European residential ISPs that assign a static IP for each connection, or for people who only edit on a work IP at a workplace that owns its own subnet. Checking my recent-IP log in Gmail just now, I've used at least four IPs while we've been having this discussion, and that's without changing my WiFi network. With all of the things we have to adapt to with TAs, I don't think that a minor inconvenience for the small subset of users who 1) frequently edit logged out, 2) log all those edits publicly, 3) are in the minority of people whose IP changes less than once every 90 days, is a priority. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 12:36, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

You keep calling this a "minor inconvenience" for a "small subset" so I don't think it's worthwhile to discuss further with you. The answer is clearly "no, nobody bothered to consider these users, and the drawbacks of the new system keeps getting downplayed." Got it. CapnZapp (talk) 23:28, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

I have no idea what anyone considered. I wasn't involved in the decisionmaking process on this. I remain undecided on whether any of this should have been done. But as it has been done, I'm doing my best to help see it implemented well. And so I'm just being realistic about which changes pose significant problems, and which don't. This is one of the ones that don't. Let's focus on the things that do. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 08:11, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

the devil is in the details

Reading and comparing to the MW help and FAQ. I'm asking here and not there because we need the answers to provide correct info here.

We claim As long as the cookie exists, you will be automatically logged into this temporary account but mw:Help:Temporary_accounts states It is impossible to log in to a temporary account. There are no passwords for temporary accounts. Is this because you are technically not "logged in" to a TA, but edits are "attributed" to them? Or does this mean the cookie can log you in, but "manual" login (through, well, the log in procedure) cannot happen (because the password is not accessible)? We need to adopt precise language here.

TA talk pages get locked (but remain in read only mode) when accounts expire, yes or no?

Mediawiki says they will eventually delink from the person who made the page What does "delink" mean? It goes on to say In general, a temporary account and a (subsequent) regular user account could be linked. What does "linked" mean? But because of the possible delink, it is technically not allowed in some projects to edit the user page of a temporary account after it has expired or was permanently blocked. A possible delink? Does this mean there are exceptions to the delinking, or should "possible" simply be replaced with "eventual"? Will expired TA user pages remain unlocked at English Wikipedia? Why? (If yes) Why will talk pages be locked but not user pages?

CapnZapp (talk) 11:29, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Regarding "it is impossible to log in to a temporary account", that just means that if you end up "logging out" of a temporary account (e.g. by using the logout button or by clearing your cookies), you cannot manually log back into the specific temporary account.

On the English Wikipedia, TA talk pages do not get "locked" when the accounts expire. This is a wiki – you really can edit pretty much any page, even the talk pages of expired temporary accounts.

I think "delink" in that context just refers to the fact that after the TA expires, you will no longer be able to contact the person using that TA's user talk page. I don't think that refers to a technical thing. Mz7 (talk) 19:45, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

My point is we should be precise in our choice of terminology. There is no log out button for temporary accounts. There is "exit session" but clearly somebody has gone to certain lengths to not use login/logout language.

Thank you

We should probably avoid terms such as "delink". They probably confuse more than help, at least if we do not define their meaning before use. Regards, CapnZapp (talk) 22:58, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

If your concern is with the wording of the MW page, you'll need to take that up at mw:Talk:Trust and Safety Product/Temporary Accounts. This page does not use the word "delink", and only uses the phrase "log out" once, in a footnote talking about both named and temp accounts. That could be changed to "log out or exit session", although I don't know if that'd make things clearer or less clear. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 08:14, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

Typo in "Impact for Administrators" Section

The target account *canot* create new named accounts while logged in — Preceding unsigned comment added by ~2025-32326-86 (talk • contribs) 09:11, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks. Johnuniq (talk) 09:16, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

A reminder: Please consider having two distinct and separate articles, one newcomers land on that only discuss the immediate basic stuff, and one containing technical details, including the arcane requirements for wiza... admins. Being linked to a page containing admin-level concerns as your very first wikipedia help page is decidedly not the way. Thx CapnZapp (talk) 10:37, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

Watchlist

Is there a way to stop temporary accounts from being highlighted on my watchlist? Jessintime (talk) 20:43, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

@Jessintime: If I understand your question correctly: yes, you can filter for only "Registered" editors if you use the search box at the top of your watchlist, and that will filter out temporary accounts if you don't want to see watchlist changes from logged-out editors. See the screenshot I provided. Mz7 (talk) 01:58, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

I would like to see the unregistered editors' edits, but without the gray shading in my watchlist. Jessintime (talk) 02:53, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

I second that. Except my issue is more with recent changes. When I sort the rc feed by the "Likely have problems" filter[4] the highlighting makes it difficult to distinguish the TAs from each other. Back when the IP addresses where visible, you could click on one and the link would change from blue to purple (or dark blue, I may have slight color perception problems contributing to this). This made it easier sort through IPs you've checked and haven't. Now it still darkens the visited links now of course, but with the new shading it has become very difficult for me to tell that it has. --DB1729^talk 15:17, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

@Jessintime, DB1729: I just played around with some CSS, and I think you can hide the gray shading behind the temporary account name on your watchlist by adding the following to your Special:MyPage/common.css page:

.mw-special-Watchlist .mw-tempuserlink {
	background-color: transparent;
	outline: transparent;
}

If you want to hide it from Special:RecentChanges as well, you can also add:

.mw-changeslist .mw-tempuserlink {
	background-color: transparent;
	outline: transparent;
}

And if you want to hide it everywhere, it seems this would work:

.mw-tempuserlink {
	background-color: transparent;
	outline: transparent;
}

Mz7 (talk) 01:06, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

I'll also note there is some discussion related to this at Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF)#Distinguishing individual accounts, where a couple editors have provided some other technical solutions for differentiating between different temporary accounts. Mz7 (talk) 01:10, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Hey, thank you Mz7, that seems to have worked perfectly!:) I'll check out the discussion also. --DB1729^talk 11:36, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

It works for me too. Thank you. Jessintime (talk) 21:19, 10 November 2025 (UTC)