This is because we're using {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}}, which will always update to the current month/year. As discussed at RTL just now, could we simply substitute those templates? (e.g. {{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}})

From my testing, it looks like {{subst:CURRENTMONTH}} is being substituted by 09, the current month's number. This will not solve our problem because every time we add a new message, the magic word will be interpreted again (whether substituted or not).

Change #1074312 had a related patch set uploaded (by Scardenasmolinar; author: Scardenasmolinar):

[mediawiki/extensions/AutoModerator@master] Fix dynamic month in talk page message header

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1074312

In T375121#10162498, @Scardenasmolinar wrote:

From my testing, it looks like {{subst:CURRENTMONTH}} is being substituted by 09, the current month's number. This will not solve our problem because every time we add a new message, the magic word will be interpreted again (whether substituted or not).

I have seen the error of my ways (I tested on {{subst:CURRENTMONTH}} instead of {{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}}) and can now see that this is a great solution. Thanks, @Samwalton9-WMF! This is ready for review.

Change #1074312 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/AutoModerator@master] Fix dynamic month in talk page message header

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1074312

Just noting that the last patch inadvertently caused the old message to break (showing the month where it used to show the username, because the definition of $1 changed) until the new translation is merged.

noting that we're waiting on idwiki translations to be deployed.

I still see the old translated version of the talk page message header. I will check on Friday once the new translations are pushed.

note that idwiki still has versions from 2024-10-07

Just noting that the translation still needs fixing on Turkish Wikipedia (@Dogu) but should now work as expected on Ukrainian (@Renvoy).