Civilians wearing armor : is it new ? Edit dumb mistake on my part

[Jeza]

I used to play a lot of DF a couple of years a go and I know for a fact that civilians didn't use to grab and wear armor pieces. I know because I had made myself a mod to create leather items that classified as armor so that civilians wouldn't use them and they were available for military dwarves.
Yet here I am trying to make some steel armor for my military and every single piece of armor I make like gauntlets is immediately grabbed by civilians.
Is it a new feature or a bug or did I miss something ?

[pezenwever]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Only my military grab armor. I wish my civilians would take some armor without having to put them in a squad. I'm tired of selling hundreds of worn cloths everytime a caravan comes. Mass dumping them makes my leathercrafter and clothier sad pandas

[Crytek]

Well at least your civilians are extra safe now.

[Eqqsquizitine Buble-Schwinslow]

I'm experiencing something similar where my squads will sometimes equip their armor/weapons while having "off duty" set and no forced activities.

[LastChime]

They might just like them and want to keep them as personal possessions, are you making other handwear?

[Jeza]

Ok so I found the issue, it was pretty dumb on my part

Civilians are not wearing the armor as I thought, I was sure they did because I was finding it used in the stockpile even though I had 0 soldiers yet (showing wear or even in tatters)
As it happens I had designated that stockpile to accept all and was using a minecart route to fill it and that route was what was filtering the items I was placing in the stockpile.

I just learned that if you designate a stockpile to accept refuse all items placed there will decay very fast, as in a new masterful steel armor decaying in a couple of days.
that's why I was finding them used in the stockpile, not because they'd been used by civilians.