Optional: write a lede — not necessarily a WP:LEAD. Interesting > encyclopedic.

The October 2026 administrator elections have concluded with all nine candidates being elected to serve as admins and eight of the nine receiving over 300 supports. This is the first election to not have any unsuccessful candidates, and it happens to also be the first election without any self-noms. Congratulations to TonySt, A412, Tenshi Hinanawi, Bridget, Dreamyshade, Ethnostigmus, Iseult, R Prazeres, and Bsherr on becoming our newest admins. - QJR

A well-known Russian Wikimedian has been arrested at a Moscow airport. The first arrest was for "petty hooliganism" and he was held for two weeks. As soon as he was released he was arrested again on the same charge. The third and most recent arrest was for treason, which would have a sentence of 10-15 years in a prison camp. The Wikimedian was accused of awarding stars on Telegram worth about $26 to Ukrainian websites which purportedly helps Ukrainians finance the war.

The story was first reported on a Russian-language Polish website, and then reported again on a Russian-language Latvian website. Several Russian Wikimedians have discussed these events on a Russian website. The most interesting topic was whether the story should be loudly reported in the international press to help persuade Putin to let him go, but this was not viewed as being an effective method given the current state of the Russian-Ukrainian war. But neither was doing nothing considered to be an effective method. The main purported facts of case are known, even if we can't independently confirm them, but this reporter has not decided yet which course to pursue. - SB

In one of the last RFCs from the August GAN mega-RFC to be closed (see previous Signpost coverage), consensus was reached to allow featured articles to be demoted to GA instead of fully delisted if they still meet the GA criteria and FARC consensus approves it. The RFC was very close, with the closer having to use strength of arguments to determine a consensus between two options (both of which would have allowed for demotions straight to GA, but with different processes). The implementation of this change is still pending as the details are worked out on the FAR talk page.

Other major changes made by the August RFC include mentioning an article's vital status on GAN (closed at the same time as the FAR RFC) and requiring certain accessibility measures, chiefly alt text, as part of the GA criteria (closed in September but looked over by previous Signpost issues). - QJR

Comment these items out if something happens.

• It's that time again: This year's ArbCom elections are starting up, with the Electoral Commission having been selected. Self-nomination for ArbCom candidates opens on November 1.
• Continental competition: The third in Dr. Blofeld's series of continent-based destubathons, The Asia-Oceania Destubathon will run through the entire month of November. Sign-ups are open at the linked page.
• Milestones: The following Wikimedia projects have reached milestones: TKTK
• Articles for Improvement: For the week starting October 26 the Article for Improvement is Mechanic. For the week starting November 2, the selected article is Frozen yogurt. Please be bold in helping improve these articles! Note that AFI is now being listed on the Main Page in an attempt to turn readers into editors (see previous Signpost coverage), so The Signpost may change our coverage or even eliminate this long time blurb on this page. Discussions are taking place at the idea lab and WT:AFI on how the Main Page section could be further improved, while reader feedback on how to handle this in this column is requested in the comments section.