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Tech News: 2025-42

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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

  • Last week, improvements to account security and two-factor authentication (2FA) features were enabled across all wikis. These changes include user interface improvements for Special:AccountSecurity, the support of multiple 2FA methods via authenticator apps and portable security keys (previously users could only enable one method), and a new Recovery Codes module which facilitates fewer account lockouts due to lost two-factor apps and devices. As part of the Account Security project, work is continuing through the rest of 2025 on further user experience improvements, and support for passkeys as an alternate second factor.

Updates for editors

  • Another part of the Account security project is making 2FA generally available to all users. Along with editors with advanced privileges, such as administrators and bureaucrats, 40% of editors now have access to 2FA. You can check if you have access at Special:AccountSecurity. Instructions for activation are on the linked page. The plan is to continue increasing availability if it is determined that the user support capabilities are able to support global usage. [1]
  • This week, users at wikis where talk page Usability Improvements are already available by default (everywhere except the 12 wikis listed in T379264) will gain the ability to Thank a comment directly from the talk page it appears on. Before this change, Thanking could only be done by visiting the revision history of the talk page. You can learn more about this change. [2]
  • Users who have not verified their email address will soon be receiving monthly Notification reminders to do so. This is because users who have verified their email can more easily recover their account. These reminders will not be sent if the user is inactive or removes the unverified email from their account. [3][4]
  • Recurrent item View all 21 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, a fix was made for an occasional error with saving translated paragraphs in the Content Translation tool, and the related error messages are now easier to see. [5]

Updates for technical contributors

  • The Unsupported Tools Working Group has chosen Video2Commons as the first tool for its pilot cycle. The group will explore ways to improve and sustain the tool over the coming months. Learn more on Meta.
  • Recurrent item Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

MediaWiki message delivery 18:56, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

CVA Student?

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I'm interested in becoming your student for the Counter-Vandalism Academy - I'm extended-confirmed on english Wikipedia, and I have experience in AfD and Speedy Deletions, as well as using RedWarn to patrol recent changes. monkeysmashingkeyboards (talk) 18:31, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello @Monkeysmashingkeyboards! Unfortunately, I am not open to new CVUA students for the moment... ~ Tails Wx 22:24, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for letting me know. Cheers! monkeysmashingkeyboards (talk) 22:25, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2025-43

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Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Updates for editors

  • To optimize how user data is stored in our databases, the saved preferences of users who haven't logged in for over five years and have fewer than 100 edits will be cleared. When those users return, default settings will apply. [6]
  • Recurrent item View all 20 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, there was a broken link from the GlobalContributions interface message to the XTools GlobalContributions page which has now been fixed. [7]

Updates for technical contributors

  • The work to reroute all traffic to API endpoints under the rest.php route through a common API gateway is now complete. If any issues are observed, please file a phabricator ticket to the Service Ops team board.
  • Edits to Wikidata references or qualifiers will now be shown in RecentChanges and Watchlist entries on other wikis less often, reducing unnecessary notifications. This will reduce the overall quantity of 'noisy' entries. Wikidata's own pages remain unchanged. [8]
  • Recurrent item Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

MediaWiki message delivery 19:32, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

October thanks

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story · music · places

Thank you for improving article quality in October! My latest: Roberta Alexander, - listen. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:24, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Gerda Arendt!! Just checked out Alexander's article -- RIP...also looked at October 8 and wonder if Viola Concerto (Bartók) is something worthy to play someday (and Tabea Zimmermann's article I just checked out -- nice violist!) ~ Tails Wx 22:27, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for listening, and yes, both absolutely, concerto worthy of playing and she one of the greatest. Did you find her on the pic? She wore three outfits for the different pieces that night ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:31, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Today Sequenza III on Luciano Berio's centenary. You can listen with the score or to the first performer, Cathy Berberian (link in the work's article), - I couldn't decide ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:46, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 20 October 2025

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  • Traffic report: One click after another
    Serial-killer miniseries, deceased scientist, government shutdowns and Sandalwood hit "Kantara" crowd the tubes.
* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:43, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(This message was sent to User talk:Severestorm28 and is being posted here due to a redirect.)

Regarding CVUA

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hello, i would like to join CVUA, as you are the only other trainer that i have not requested Tankishguy 12:35, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello @Tankishguy! Unfortunately I'm not open to new CVUA members at this time, sorry. ~ Tails Wx 22:23, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
AAAAAA! only denials or no responses. Tankishguy 16:59, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2025-44

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Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Updates for editors

  • The Wikipedia iOS app has launched an A/B/C test of improvements made to the tabbed browsing feature for select regions and languages. The test, named “More dynamic tabs”, explores new tab experiences and includes “Did you know” and “Because you read” article recommendations. You can read more on the project page.
  • Autoconfirmed users on small and medium wikis with the CampaignEvents extension can now use Event Registration without the Event Organizer right. This feature lets organizers enable registration, manage participants, and lets users register with one click instead of signing event pages.
  • Recurrent item View all 31 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, the issue of flashing colors when holding or pressing the arrow keys under the dark mode settings in Vector 2022 has been fixed. [9]

Updates for technical contributors

  • The CampaignEvents extension will be deployed to all remaining wikis during the week of 17 November 2025. The extension currently includes three features: Event Registration, Collaboration List, and Invitation List. For this rollout, Invitation List will not be enabled on Wikifunctions and MediaWiki unless requested by those communities. Visit the deployment page to learn more.
  • The SwaggerUI-based REST sandbox experience is now live on all wiki projects. The sandbox can be accessed through the Special:RestSandbox page. Please report any issues to the MediaWiki Interfaces team board, or join the discussion on the project launch page. [10]
  • Transform endpoints with a trailing slash path in the MediaWiki REST API are now marked as deprecated. They will remain functional during this time, but removal is expected by the end of January 2026. All API users currently calling them are encouraged to transition to the non-trailing slash versions. Both endpoint variations can be found and tested using the REST Sandbox. See the MediaWiki REST API Deprecation page for more detailed information about the API deprecation policies and procedures.
  • A dedicated changelog now exists for the MediaWiki REST API. The changelog provides an overview of these changes, making it easier for developers to keep track of improvements and iterations. Announcements will also continue to flow through the standard communication channels, including Tech News and email distribution lists, but can now be more easily referenced from a central location. If you have feedback about the style, structure, or content of this changelog, please join the discussion.
  • Administrators can delete the tracking category which was previously added by the JsonConfig extension, as it is no longer used. See the categories linked from Q130635582. It is OK if there are still pages listed in the category as that is just a caching issue, and they will be automatically cleared out the next time each page is edited. [11]
  • Recurrent item Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

MediaWiki message delivery 19:28, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Women in Red - November 2025

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Women in Red | November 2025, Vol 11, Issue 11, Nos. 326, 327, 353, 354

Recognized as the most active topic-based WikiProject by human changes.

Online events:

Announcements:

Tip of the Month:

  • Verifiability is increasingly important as AI evolves. You should ensure that every statement made
    is adequately sourced. There should be no less than three independent reliable sources for each
    biography, including at least one source for each paragraph.

Progress ("moving the needle"):

  • Statistics available via various tools: previously, Humaniki tool; currently, QLever. Thank you if
    you contributed one or more of the 20,473 articles created in the past year.
  • 21 Oct 2024, 19.963% of biographies on EN-WP were about women (2,030,245 biographies; 405,305 women)
  • 28 Oct 2025: 20.23% of biographies on EN-WP were about women (2,094,677 biographies; 423,778 women)

Other ways to participate:

--Rosiestep (talk) 17:08, 30 October 2025 (UTC) via MassMessaging[reply]

Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment

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Your feedback is requested at Talk:Scientology on a "Maths, science, and technology" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

(replacing Yapperbot) SodiumBot (botop|talk) 15:31, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2025 November newsletter

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The 2025 WikiCup has come to an end. Our top scorers, based on the tournament point rankings (which can be seen here), are:

  1. Delaware BeanieFan11 (submissions) with 1,604 tournament points, will receive the 1st place award.
  2. English Island, South Australia Gog the Mild (submissions) with 1,075 tournament points, will receive the 2nd place award.
  3. Arconning (submissions) with 860 tournament points, will receive the 3rd place award.
  4. Canada History6042 (submissions) with 804 tournament points
  5. Sammi Brie (submissions) with 635 tournament points
  6. Oklahoma TheDoctorWho (submissions) with 386 tournament points
  7. AirshipJungleman29 (submissions) with 373 tournament points
  8. Thebiguglyalien (submissions) with 362 tournament points

Our high scorers in the final round were:

  • Delaware BeanieFan11 (submissions) with 1,035 round points, mostly from 19 good articles and 21 did you know articles about athletes
  • vigilantcosmicpenguin (submissions) with 819 round points, mostly from 13 good articles and 11 did you know articles about a wide range of topics from abortion topics to African cities
  • TheNuggeteer (submissions) with 508 round points from 9 good articles, 4 good topic articles and 6 did you know articles mainly about Philippines topics, along with 19 good article reviews

The final round was very productive, and contestants had 2 featured articles, 4 featured lists, 106 good articles, 5 good topic articles, 178 article reviews, 76 did you know articles, and 9 in the news articles. Altogether, Wikipedia has benefited greatly from the activities of WikiCup competitors all through the contest. Well done everyone!

The top eight scorers will receive awards shortly. The following special awards will be made, based on high performance in particular areas of content creation. These prizes are awarded to the competitor who scored the highest in any particular field during the competition.

  • English Island, South Australia Gog the Mild (submissions) wins the featured article prize, with 12 featured articles total, and the featured topic prize, with 9 featured topic articles in total
  • Canada Hey man im josh (submissions) wins the featured list prize, with 10 featured lists total
  • AirshipJungleman29 (submissions) wins the featured picture prize, submitting the only featured picture in the entire contest during round 3
  • Canada History6042 (submissions) wins the featured content reviewer prize, with 127 featured content reviews. He will also share the ITN prize, with 20 in the news articles in total.
  • Delaware BeanieFan11 (submissions) wins the good article prize, with 100 good articles total, and the DYK prize, with 147 did you know articles in total. He will also share the ITN prize, with 20 in the news articles in total.
  • Oklahoma TheDoctorWho (submissions) wins the good topic prize, with 16 good topic entries in total
  • Arconning (submissions) wins the good article reviewer prize, with 68 good article reviews in total

A special mention also goes to these users who scored the highest in a particular category in a single round:

Next year's competition will begin on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate. The WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors, and we hope to see you all in the 2026 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement!

On behalf of the judges, Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email), Epicgenius (talk · contribs · email), Frostly (talk · contribs · email), Guerillero (talk · contribs · email) and Lee Vilenski (talk · contribs · email):

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:25, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send.

Tech News: 2025-45

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Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Updates for editors

  • Administrators will now find that Special:MergeHistory is now significantly more flexible about what it can merge. It can now merge sections taken from the middle of the history of the source (rather than only the start) and insert revisions anywhere in the history of the destination page (rather than only the start). [12]
  • For users with "Automatically subscribe to topics" enabled in their preferences, starting a new topic or adding a reply to an existing topic will now subscribe them to replies to that topic. Previously, this would only happen if the DiscussionTools "Add topic" or "Reply" widgets were used. When DiscussionTools was originally launched existing accounts were not opted in to automatic topic subscriptions, so this change should primarily affect newer accounts and users who have deliberately changed their preferences since that time. [13]
  • Scribunto modules can now be used to generate SVG images. This can be used to build charts, graphics and other visualizations dynamically through Lua, reducing the need to compose them externally and upload them as files. [14]
  • Wikimedia sites now provide all anonymous users with the option to enable a dark mode color scheme, featuring light-colored text on a dark background. This enhancement aims to deliver a more enjoyable reading experience, especially in dimly lit environments. [15]
  • Users with large watchlists have long faced timeouts when editing Special:EditWatchlist. The page now loads entries in smaller sections instead of all at once due to a paging update, allowing everyone to edit their watchlists smoothly. As part of the database update, sorting by expiry has been removed because it was over 100× slower than sorting by title. A community wish has been created to explore alternative ways to restore sort-by-expiry. If this feature is important to you, please support the wish! [16]
  • Recurrent item View all 31 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, the fixing of the persisting highlighting when using VisualEditor find and replace during a query. [17]

Updates for technical contributors

  • Since 2019 the Wikimedia URL Shortener at https://w.wiki is available for all Wikimedia wikis to create short links to articles, permalinks, diffs, etc. It is available in the sidebar as "Get shortened URL". There are 30 wikis that also install an older "ShortUrl" extension. The old extension will soon be removed. This means /s/ URLs will not be advertised under article titles via HTML class="title-shortlink". The /s/ URLs will keep working. [18]
  • On Thursday, October 30, the MediaWiki Interfaces and SRE Service Operations teams began rerouting Action API traffic through a common API gateway. Individual wikis will be updated based on the standard release groups, with total traffic increased over time. This change is expected to be non-breaking and non-disruptive. If any issues are observed, please file a Phabricator ticket to the Service Ops team board.
  • MediaWiki Train deployments will pause for the final two weeks of 2025: 22 December and 29 December. Backport windows will also pause between Monday, 22 December 2025 and Thursday, 2 January 2026. A backport window is a scheduled time to add things like bug fixes and configuration changes. There are seven deployment trains remaining for 2025. [19]
  • Recurrent item Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

In depth

  • In 2025, the Wikimedia Foundation reported that AI systems and search engines increasingly use Wikipedia content without driving users to the site, contributing to an 8% drop in human pageviews compared to 2024. After detecting bots disguised as humans, Wikimedia updated its traffic data to reflect this shift. Read more about current user trends on Wikipedia in a Diff blog post.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

MediaWiki message delivery 19:31, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment

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Your feedback is requested at Talk:Dead Internet theory on a "Maths, science, and technology" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

(replacing Yapperbot) SodiumBot (botop|talk) 13:31, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – November 2025

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News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2025).

Administrator changes

added Toadspike
removed

CheckUser changes

added asilvering

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:35, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Cookies!

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Cookies!

BumblB645 has given you some cookies! Cookies promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. You can spread the "WikiLove" by giving someone else some cookies, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend.


To spread the goodness of cookies, you can add {{subst:Cookies}} to someone's talk page with a friendly message, or eat this cookie on the giver's talk page with {{subst:munch}}!

BumblB645 (talk) 17:35, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 10 November 2025

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* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:54, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(This message was sent to User talk:Severestorm28 and is being posted here due to a redirect.)

Tech News: 2025-46

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Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Updates for editors

Screenshot of the visual improvements made on talk pages
Example of a talk page with the new design, in French.
  • Starting November 12, users will see a change in the appearance of talk pages on some Wikipedias. Almost all wikis have received this design change; English Wikipedia will get these changes later. You can read more on Diff. Users can opt out of these changes in their user preferences in "Show discussion activity". [20]
  • MediaWiki can now display a page indicator automatically while a page is protected. This feature is disabled by default. It can be enabled by community request. [21]
  • Using the "Show preview" or "Show changes" buttons in the wikitext editor will now carry over certain URL parameters like 'useskin', 'uselang' and 'section'. This update also fixes an issue where, if the browser crashed while previewing an edit to a single section, saving this edit could overwrite the entire page with just that section’s content. [22][23][24]
  • Wikivoyage wikis can use colored map markers in the article text. The text of these markers will now be shown in contrasting black or white color, instead of always being white. Local workarounds for the problem can be removed. [25]
  • The Activity tab in the Wikipedia Android app is now available for all users. The new tab offers personalized insights into reading, editing, and donation activity, while simplifying navigation and making app use more engaging. [26]
  • The Reader Growth team is launching an experiment called "Image browsing" to test how to make it easier for readers to browse and discover images on Wikipedia articles. This experiment, a mobile-only A/B test, will go live on English Wikipedia in the week of November 17 and will run for four weeks, affecting 0.05% of users on English wiki. The test launched on November 3 on Arabic, Chinese, French, Indonesian, and Vietnamese wikis, affecting up to 10% of users on those wikis. [27]
  • Recurrent item View all 27 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example the inability to lock accounts on mobile sites has been fixed. [28]

Updates for technical contributors

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

MediaWiki message delivery 20:36, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Concern regarding Draft:Pluragrotta cave dive disaster

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Information icon Hello, Tails Wx. This is a bot-delivered message letting you know that Draft:Pluragrotta cave dive disaster, a page you created, has not been edited in at least five months. Drafts that have not been edited for six months may be deleted, so if you wish to retain the page, please edit it again or request that it be moved to your userspace.

If the page has already been deleted, you can request it be undeleted so you can continue working on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. FireflyBot (talk) 21:07, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2025-47

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Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Updates for editors

  • The Reader Experience team is experimenting with reading lists on mobile web, allowing logged-in readers with no edits to save private lists of articles for later. The experiment is running on Arabic, Chinese, French, Indonesian, and Vietnamese Wikipedias since the week of 10 November, and will begin on English Wikipedia the week of 17 November.
  • Users who can’t receive their email verification code during login can now get help by submitting a form on a new special page. This update is part of the Account Security initiative. If your account has an email address, please make sure you still have access to it. When logging in from a new device or location without 2FA, you may be asked to enter a 6-digit code sent by email to finish logging in. Learn more.
  • One new wiki has been created: a Wikisource in Minangkabau (s:min:) [35]
  • Recurrent item View all 23 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Updates for technical contributors

  • As part of the Parser Unification project, the Content Transform Team rolled out Parsoid as the default parser to many low-traffic Wikipedias and is preparing the next step to high traffic ones. This message is an invitation for you to opt-in to Parsoid, as described in the Extension:ParserMigration documentation, and identify any issues you might encounter with your own workflow using bots, gadgets, or user scripts. Please, let us know through the "Report Visual Bug" link in the Tools sidebar or create a phab ticket and tag the Content Transform Team in Phabricator.
  • Unsupported Tools: Several issues with Video2Commons have been fixed, including filename-related upload failures, black-video imports, and retry handling. AV1 support has also been added. Ongoing work focuses on backend stability, ffmpeg errors, subtitle imports, metadata handling, and playlist uploads. To track specific tasks, check the Phabricator board.
  • Recurrent item Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

Meetings and events

  • Save the date for the next Wikimedia Hackathon happening in Milan, Italy from May 1–3, 2026. Registration will open in January 2026. Scholarship applications are currently open, and will close on November 28, 2025. If you have any questions, please email hackathon@wikimedia.org.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

MediaWiki message delivery 17:24, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2025 Elections voter message

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Hello! Voting in the 2025 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 1 December 2025. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2025 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:49, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]