Hello. This message is being sent to remind you of significant upcoming changes regarding logged-out editing.
Starting 4 November, logged-out editors will no longer have their IP address publicly displayed. Instead, they will have atemporary account (TA) associated with their edits. Users with some extended rights like administrators and CheckUsers, as well as users with thetemporary account IP viewer (TAIV) user right will still be able to reveal temporary users' IP addresses and all contributions made by temporary accounts from a specific IP address or range.
How do temporary accounts work?
Editing from a temporary account
When a logged-out user completes an edit or a logged action for the first time, a cookie will be set in this user's browser and a temporary account tied with this cookie will be automatically created for them. This account's name will follow the pattern:~2025-12345-67 (a tilde, year of creation, a number split into units of 5).
All subsequent actions by the temporary account user will be attributed to this username. The cookie will expire 90 days after its creation. As long as it exists, all edits made from this device will be attributed to this temporary account. It will be the same account even if the IP address changes, unless the user clears their cookies or uses a different device or web browser.
A record of the IP address used at the time of each edit will be stored for 90 days after the edit. Users with thetemporary account IP viewer (TAIV) user right will be able to see the underlying IP addresses.
As a measure against vandalism, there are two limitations on the creation of temporary accounts:
There has to be a minimum of 10 minutes between subsequent temporary account creations from the same IP (or /64 range in case of IPv6).
There can be a maximum of 6 temporary accounts created from an IP (or /64 range) within a period of 24 hours.
Temporary account IP viewer user right
How to enable IP Reveal
Administrators may grant thetemporary account IP viewer (TAIV) user right to non-administrators who meet thecriteria for granting. Importantly, an editor must make an explicit request for the permission (e.g. atWP:PERM/TAIV)—administrators arenot permitted to assign the right without a request.
It will be possible to block many abusers by just blocking their temporary accounts. A blocked person won't be able to create new temporary accounts quickly if the admin selects theautoblock option.
It will still be possible to block an IP address or IP range.
Temporary accounts will not be retroactively applied to contributions made before the deployment. OnSpecial:Contributions, you will be able to see existing IP user contributions, but not new contributions made by temporary accounts on that IP address. Instead, you should useSpecial:IPContributions for this (see a video about IPContributions in a gallery below).
Rules about IP information disclosure
Publicizing an IP address gained through TAIV access isgenerally not allowed (e.g.~2025-12345-67 previously edited as 192.0.2.1 or~2025-12345-67's IP address is 192.0.2.1).
Publicly linking a TA to another TA is allowed if "reasonably believed to be necessary". (e.g.~2025-12345-67 and ~2025-12345-68 are likely the same person, so I am counting their reverts together toward3RR, but notHey ~2025-12345-68, you did some good editing as ~2025-12345-67)
Hello, you were the last person to put a long-term schoolblock on this IP range (seeits block log). Would you consider re-blocking it, perhaps for three years or so? It went right back to the previous editing pattern; seethe recent contributions of the range andthe earlier ones before temporary accounts were introduced. The range appeared on my watchlist today and I went through all the edits it made since the last block's expiry. Some were OK but I'd say about 70 to 80% weren't; In particular, the fact that I had to dothis edit is particularly yikes. I might use that as an example when discussing expiry of IP information somewhere, because if temporary accounts had been implemented here two years ago, that edit might have been much more difficult to track down. Anyway, I know you're relatively busy, but this one isn't too urgent for now because it'll be the weekend for a while yet where those IP's are located. Thanks for your consideration.Graham87 (talk)12:03, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Enable theuser info card