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Nudge temporary users who have hit the rate limit to create an account
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Description

Motivation

Users who hit the temporary account limits may not understand that they can still edit if they create an account. This task is to inform them about this option exists when they see the message telling them they have reached the temp account limit.
A more elaborate solution for this problem will be worked out through T410386: Prompt user to create a regular account after temp account creation rate limit trip. This task is to simply update the message that users see.

Acceptance criteria
  • Adjust the rate limit message to include text and an instrumented link (can use the ?campaign parameter) to take the user to “Special:CreateAccount”. Note that we need to introduce a new message specifically for temp account creation rate limits, since it is currently shared with the regular account creation message, but this is a very small amount of work.

Current message:

Visitors to this wiki using your IP address have created 1 account in the last 10 minutes, which is the maximum allowed in this time period. As a result, visitors using this IP address cannot create any more accounts at the moment.
If you are at an event where contributing to Wikimedia projects is the focus, please see [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mass_account_creation#Requesting_temporary_lift_of_IP_cap Requesting temporary lift of IP cap] to help resolve this issue.

Updated message

There have been too many temporary account creation attempts from your IP address recently. Please [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CreateAccount?campaign=temp-rate-limit create an account] to proceed with your edit, or try again later.

If you are at an event where contributing to Wikimedia projects is the focus, please see [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mass_account_creation#Requesting_temporary_lift_of_IP_cap Requesting temporary lift of IP cap] to help resolve this issue.

Event Timeline

Niharika triaged this task as Medium priority.
mszwarc changed the task status from Open to In Progress.Dec 9 2025, 12:06 PM
mszwarc claimed this task.

Change #1216788 had a related patch set uploaded (by Mszwarc; author: Mszwarc):

[mediawiki/core@master] Add acct_creation_throttle_hit equivalent for temp. accounts

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1216788

Change #1216790 had a related patch set uploaded (by Mszwarc; author: Mszwarc):

[mediawiki/extensions/WikimediaMessages@master] Add 'acct_creation_throttle_hit-temp'

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1216790

Change #1216788 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@master] Add acct_creation_throttle_hit equivalent for temp. accounts

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1216788

Change #1216790 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/WikimediaMessages@master] Add 'acct_creation_throttle_hit-temp'

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1216790

Isn't the rate limit based on the number of successful temp account creations, and not on "creation attemps" which would suggest it includes also failed attemps (e.g. blocked by the rate limit)? Or maybe I'm wrong?

kostajh subscribed.

Revised wording (Slack) for WikimediaMessages

We are temporarily limiting logged-out editing from your location. Please [{{fullurl:Special:CreateAccount|campaign=temp-rate-limit}} create an account] to edit, or try again later.

Change #1217457 had a related patch set uploaded (by Mszwarc; author: Mszwarc):

[mediawiki/extensions/WikimediaMessages@master] Update `wikimedia-acct_creation_throttle_hit-temp`

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1217457

Change #1217457 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/WikimediaMessages@master] Update `wikimedia-acct_creation_throttle_hit-temp`

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1217457

Change #1218220 had a related patch set uploaded (by Kosta Harlan; author: Mszwarc):

[mediawiki/core@wmf/1.46.0-wmf.5] Add acct_creation_throttle_hit equivalent for temp. accounts

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1218220

Change #1218221 had a related patch set uploaded (by Kosta Harlan; author: Mszwarc):

[mediawiki/extensions/WikimediaMessages@wmf/1.46.0-wmf.5] Add 'acct_creation_throttle_hit-temp'

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1218221

Change #1218220 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@wmf/1.46.0-wmf.5] Add acct_creation_throttle_hit equivalent for temp. accounts

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1218220

Change #1218221 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/WikimediaMessages@wmf/1.46.0-wmf.5] Add 'acct_creation_throttle_hit-temp'

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1218221

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2025-12-15T11:36:08Z] <kharlan@deploy2002> Started scap sync-world: Backport for [[gerrit:1218220|Add acct_creation_throttle_hit equivalent for temp. accounts (T412105)]], [[gerrit:1218221|Add 'acct_creation_throttle_hit-temp' (T412105)]], [[gerrit:1217744|Add experimental temporary account creation rate limits (T412222)]]

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2025-12-15T12:31:31Z] <kharlan@deploy2002> kharlan, tchanders: Backport for [[gerrit:1218220|Add acct_creation_throttle_hit equivalent for temp. accounts (T412105)]], [[gerrit:1218221|Add 'acct_creation_throttle_hit-temp' (T412105)]], [[gerrit:1217744|Add experimental temporary account creation rate limits (T412222)]] synced to the testservers (see https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mwdebug). Changes can now be verified there.

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2025-12-15T12:48:32Z] <kharlan@deploy2002> Finished scap sync-world: Backport for [[gerrit:1218220|Add acct_creation_throttle_hit equivalent for temp. accounts (T412105)]], [[gerrit:1218221|Add 'acct_creation_throttle_hit-temp' (T412105)]], [[gerrit:1217744|Add experimental temporary account creation rate limits (T412222)]] (duration: 72m 23s)