Wikipedia talk:Article alerts/Archive 4

Will we have to make new subscriptions?
Since this seems to be the one to replace the Article Alert Bot, will the projects have to resubscribe?  Nascar  1996   01:01, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi! This has not been finalized yet. For the trial period, no subscriptions will have to be resubmitted. However, not all projects will receive reports for the time being as we are still in testing. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 10:50, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * This is not replacing the project, but rather replacing the old bot, so you shouldn't have to. If something does happen, we will let everyone know (probably on the banner). Arlen22 (talk) 00:19, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * That said, the new bot is not restricted in delivery to "/Article alerts" pages and will not necessarily overwrite all the page contents. In principle, the report could be delivered to any page. This means that the actual subscription template does not have to be placed on the main project page. In fact, doing so requires the bot to read every project page each time it is run to get the subscription info. I have speculated on having all project subscriptions centrally, on a, for example, Wikipedia talk:Article alerts/Subscriptions page which will have to be read once per bot run. This, of course, is not final and comments are welcome. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:34, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Note for archive completeness: The method has been changed to centralized one. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 12:04, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

AAlertBot
ArticleAlertbot, the bot that historically generated article alerts, has been down since April 2010. A new bot, being developed by JoeGazz84 isn't online yet. Meanwhile, your bot, AAlertBot just went on a 14 day trial. My questions are this: 1) Are these both the same thing? 2) Will AAlertBot be using the same that came with the wikiprojects when they got created? 3) What do I need to do to make sure my projects are subscribed for AAlertBot?

Thanks,  S ven M anguard   Wha?  03:35, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi! The bots have different codebase, and different operators. 1) All the features have to be re-implemented anew without explicitly knowing how it was technically done before. 2) The method of subscriptions has not been finalized yet and may change. That said, for the period of trial we won't immediately change anything from the old system. 3) Currently, we are in testing and will select a batch of project ourselves. Further down the trial we will add more projects. If you really want to participate, you can just reply here. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 10:55, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Copied from User_talk:Sven_Manguard.


 * 1) ArticleAlertbot (old bot) and AAlertBot (new bot) are different bots, which use different code, etc... whose purpose are the same, i.e. that of delivering the Article Alerts to WikiProjects and Taskforces.
 * 2) The new bot should be backwards compatible with the old one. That is projects with existing alerts shouldn't have to do anything to accommodate the new bot, at least in theory. In practice a couple of features may be missing, so projects which used the fancier options (like the transclusion of deletion discussions, currently unsupported) might want to tune their alerts while these fancy options are being developed.
 * 3) Right now, Article alerts/Subscribing details the old way of doing things. As I said, this should still work (following bot approval). If it doesn't, documentation will be updated accordingly, and notices will be sent to WikiProjects.

Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 09:52, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi, you said: "If you really want to participate, you can just reply here." I'd be happy to be a guinea pig. WikiProject New Zealand/politics is the project that I'm a member of, and 'wgcat=New Zealand politics articles'. Does that help? I've bookmarked this page, so if you wish to discuss, there's no need for a talkback.  Schwede 66  03:08, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The category-based subscription (i.e. wgcat) is yet to be implemented, so you may have to wait a while longer. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm trying to understand how this works, but I haven't quite got my head around it. Our previous subscription was certainly category-based, as per the above. It was set up before we organised the project properly. We are now a taskforce (not sure what the exact definition is of a taskforce) under the banner of WikiProject New Zealand. The banner that relates to us directly is WikiProject New Zealand/politics. If I see this right, this could be used for a subscription. Am I correct?  Schwede 66  20:55, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * A banner is a template on the talk page that indicates the page is under a certain WikiProject. So WikiProject New Zealand is your project's banner. WikiProject New Zealand/politics is a semantic split of the project into a taskforce. This taskforce, however, does not have an individual banner template, such as, Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand/politics. Therefore, in order for the bot to determine what pages belong specifically to your taskforce, the bot would need to use page categorization instead – for example, Category:List-Class New Zealand politics articles for Talk:Mayor of North Shore. This still needs implementing in the bot's code. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 22:14, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Further discussion moved to Wikipedia_talk:Article_alerts/Feature_requests for clarity.

Missing GAC etc on WP:Somerset
Well done for all your work on getting this back up & running. The bot has just delivered an update to WikiProject Somerset/Article alerts however it has missed Worlebury Camp & Cricket at the 1900 Summer Olympics which are both at GAC & our recent DYKs etc.&mdash; Rod talk 20:00, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks! The DYKs are not implemented yet, see Article_alerts. The GAC report should be there once the bot gets to this project, see the reply below. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 20:35, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yep got em now + a peer review I didn't know about and a featured portal candidate I did.&mdash; Rod talk 20:47, 16 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I just wanted to add that for WP:RUSSIA the bot replaced the old report with an empty one. I very much doubt there was nothing to report, so it's probably either a bug (in which case consider this a bug report) or a feature (in which case I would appreciate learning what the feature is :)). Other than that, thanks much for reviving such a useful bot!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); December 16, 2010; 20:20 (UTC)
 * Yes, I am re-running the bot now. The previous run had a bug when I switched to "live mode" and the edits went through so quick I didn't realize until too late. Instead of mass-revert, I just fixed the bug and restarted the thing. The bot should now properly deliver the reports, WP:Russia included. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 20:35, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Both Somerset and Russia reports are now up. Do report any inconsistencies. Thanks! — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 20:47, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks great; thanks for fixing it so quickly!
 * Unrelated to the above, I have a question. The old bot was very particular about the banners which it processed to compile the report. For WP:RUSSIA, for example, only the pages tagged with were considered, while all these were ignored. Does this limitation still hold for the new bot? If so, can it be fixed? Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); December 16, 2010; 21:34 (UTC)
 * The bot automatically retrieves all the redirects to the main template at every run. So it should always be aware of the possible banner aliases. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 21:39, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Ëzhiki, the old bot picked all the articles that was tagged by the banner or its redirect, it just needed to know where the real banner was located. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:46, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmm, the creator must have fixed it at some point, because it sure wasn't the case originally. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); December 16, 2010; 21:55 (UTC)

Shameless begging:
Hi there. This is a message to inform you that I'd like to request WikiProject East Asia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_East_Asia) be included in the new bot. WikiProject North America, which was created by the identical people (an IP from Montreal and I) and went up only a week earlier was included automaticly, but Wikiproject East Asia does not seem to be. Can you help? Thanks,  S ven M anguard   Wha?  03:24, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Headbomb added it. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 10:26, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Slovenia
Hi, first all thanks and praise for the new coding of the Bot! I am a member of WikiProject Slovenia and would like to request for adding our project to the alert bot list as I haven't found it nowhere (neither here nor here) although it has already subscribed (see WikiProject Slovenia/Article alerts). Thanks in advance and have a nice day! --Eleassar my talk 11:20, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks and added. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:36, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Please
Stop making empty edits that clogs the watchlist of some of us. There is no need to make a change every 6h in which only the timestamp is changed. Nergaal (talk) 21:10, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The run is once a day, not every 6h. This relates to Wikipedia talk:Article alerts/Feature requests and needs implementing a way to track which projects had which pages in which workflows. It is currently done the other way around due to performance, so a per-project list is necessary. I'm working on this, but can only manage so much at a time. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 21:22, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. You have done a great job, and I just wanted to point out an inconvenience that others probably have. Isn't it possible to read the Alert page of the project first to see if any new entries are added, and if not, cancel the edit? Nergaal (talk) 00:49, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The problem is that users can (and have already) edited the page to add or correct entries, so the bot cannot really rely on this. Instead project-specific lists can be kept, but that takes a little coding, but would also add new functionality and options. In any case, non-changed reports should now not trigger page rewrite. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 10:39, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Need Help
Not sure how to subscribe but WikiProject Oklahoma could really use this If some one could do this for me or tell me how it would be wonderfull.-- Steam Iron  21:56, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Added your project on the subscription list. The report should arrive at WikiProject Oklahoma/Article alerts. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 22:03, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you I will add the page project wide.-- Steam Iron  22:05, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Oklahoma Nav bar
Is there any way that we can put are Nav bar at the top of are Article alerts page if not its ok but it would be nice.-- Steam Iron  20:56, 24 December 2010 (UTC)


 * You can put any content before and after  . —  HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 21:08, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
 * ok thanks-- Steam Iron  21:10, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you!
Thank you for all your work for making the article alerts work again!! And Happy Holidays! --Funandtrvl (talk) 16:56, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiltshire
The article alert bot template has recently been added to WikiProject Wiltshire but it doesn't seem to have been picked up by the bot - is a new template needed or other action required to get this up & running?&mdash; Rod talk 19:09, 30 December 2010 (UTC)


 * That was the old method. See Article alerts/Subscribing for the new one. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:20, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks - hopefully done now.&mdash; Rod talk 20:35, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

The bot doesn't seem to pick up everything for WikiProject United States
It doesn't appear that Alertbot is picking up some things for WPUS and I am not sure why. I have noticed that ther ehave been a couple of US related Featured list candidates and Images for deletion that didn't show up on the notification list. Im not sure how its set at the moment but is it possible to get all notifications? Thanks. --Kumioko (talk) 18:14, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Images for deletion (WP:FFD) is not implemented yet. Which Featured list candidates have not been picked up? Can you give at least one example? At a quick glance over WP:FLC, I don't see any from WP:US. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 18:24, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the quick reply. The FLC was a couple weeks ago but at the moment I can't think of what it was. I will keep an eye out and let you know if I see it again. Could I ask which ones are implemented currently and when do you plan on the rest being available? --Kumioko (talk) 19:28, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Closed (i.e. promoted/not promoted FLC) would only appear if the bot had seen it while it was active. Regarding implemented workflows, you can see Article alerts/Workflows or the "Quick links" at the top of reports (e.g. WikiProject United States/Article alerts). — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 10:32, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Page size?

 * Moved from User talk:AAlertBot.

I'm not sure if this is a bug or not and I didn't see it mentioned elsewhere so I'm reporting it here: Unlike ArticleAlertbot, this one appears to be massively increasing the size of the report page in at least the case of http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography/Article_alerts&action=history. Obviously a pretty hefty WikiProject, but it makes the page impossible to view directly on some systems. VernoWhitney (talk) 23:09, 10 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, I am aware of this, and am currently implementing archiving, which, with 3 day limit of BIO, should make it stay around 200-300 KB. I know 1.5 Megs is a bit ridiculous. And when I say a bit, I mean that page has gotta be setting some kind of record. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 23:23, 10 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Okay, glad you're aware of it then. Cheers! VernoWhitney (talk) 23:25, 10 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Archiving is now implemented, so the BIO size should drop down. That said, the archive page creation crashed :) — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 21:41, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks; very good bot!
Been meaning to post here to thank those involved in getting an AABot running again. This one is even better imo. I especially like the edit summary upon updating because I can look at the summary of changes and not have to visit the page if there is nothing important mentioned. Brad (talk) 23:26, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks! — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 10:20, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The amazement never stops. Excellent idea tallying the keep and delete numbers on AfD's. But now one issue. I assume that AAbot gives notice to a certain project based on the presence of the project's banner on the talk page. Once in awhile a new article goes to prod etc but hasn't been tagged with any project banners. If the project banner happens to get added after AAbot has passed it by then notices don't show up. I'm not sure if that's fixable but I thought I'd mention. Brad (talk) 23:56, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * They don't? I'm sure they are supposed to. Here's video games report from yesterday and here's sandbox run with several new pages tagged. It seems the bot picked them up fine.
 * Regarding !votes count, you can also drop by Wikipedia_talk:Article_alerts/Feature_requests. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 08:54, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Let me make sure we're on the same page here:
 * Article is created
 * Article is prodded or anything else AAbot looks out for
 * AAbot sweeps past article and makes reports to any project that has a banner on the talk page of the article.
 * After initial report is made a user adds an additional project banner to talk page.
 * AAbot does not pick up on that additional project banner and report it to the relevant project.
 * Project does not get a report on the article.
 * I'm referring specifically to WikiProject Ships/Article alerts but unfortunately I cannot find a valid example just now. Brad (talk) 20:47, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

No featured articles promotions?
I noticed it completely missed the promotion of Painted turtle recently. Regards, SunCreator (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:23, 27 January 2011 (UTC).
 * It was listed while active, but archived to WikiProject_Turtles/Article_alerts/Archive prematurely. Unfortunately due to the way dates are currently parsed (date the workflow started as opposed to when closed), it got nicked too soon. —  HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 10:19, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

WP:ALVA subscription
I'm somewhat lost as to how to subscribe to this. Would someone be willing to subscribe WP:ALVA through the category method and create a alerts page at WikiProject_Albemarle_County/To_do/Alerts? We would appreciate it very much. WMO 03:34, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Added via WikiProject Albemarle County banner subscription, which is a tad more reliable that category. Report delivery defaults to WikiProject Albemarle County/Article alerts for consistency, you may change this via delivery if you really need to. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 10:14, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Do we have to do something to the page to make it come up? WMO 17:24, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No, the bot will create it. You can then put your project-related stuff above/below and  tags if you want. —  HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 18:12, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Post discussion immediate removal
If something gets promoted shouldn't this alert include it for a few days so that people can be aware of what the result was? I have noticed that when GAs conclude they are removed immediately from the report.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 07:44, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that is known. Basically, the bot doesn't retrieve the closure date properly and bases it's decision on how long since the thing was started. I'm getting this implemented slowly. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 09:16, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

SGpedians' notice board/Article alerts
It seems like the bot is not running for this wikiproject. The last update is 1 March.

Please help --Xaiver0510 (talk) 02:15, 30 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I can't believe everyone (well, me and Headbomb) missed this post. The page isn't being updated because there is nothing for the bot to report. It only writes the report when there is something new to add, some detail to change, or something old to remove. I fixed the wrongly reported HMS Repulse (1916) page, because the closing editor did not remove the nomination template, so the bot thinks the page is still active. The undated entry is a bot bug though, it currently does not remove undated entries that happen when someone messes up the workflow nomination process. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 09:33, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Status page of Article Alert Bot
I was wondering why the status page doesn't have anything on it. It is a very useful place to put the current status of the bot for people who are interested and is used on the WikiProject Council project page. Arlen22 (talk) 18:53, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I see now. I added a switch that outputs the status if the first param is "status". To send a message to everyone, just let it fall through status to the default. Arlen22 (talk) 19:15, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's on top of every report page and is only changed if there is something important to announce to every page. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:20, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

how does this work
I don't see any requested move alerts in project tennis alerts, yet there were some. Does the original page have to be tagged or categorized with something for the RM to show up? How does the bot know it's a tennis article to let us know of requested moves? Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:29, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The pages have to be tagged with WikiProject Tennis banner has to be in the (via the Requested move/dated template). Which pages were not reported, by the way? —  HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 07:52, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I think you are talking about Talk:Mate Pavic and Talk:Sophie Lefevre. The bot runs once a day, and has not run after the pages got the RM. If all is fine, the pages will be reported in today's run. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 08:46, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
 * That was it. I'll look for them today. Thanks. Fyunck(click) (talk) 17:35, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Can I manually update an Article Alerts page?
I saw that 2005 Dubai Tennis Championships – Women's Singles Qualifying is up for AFD but did not get posted to WikiProject Tennis/Article alerts as someone had misclassified the article as WikiProject Sport rather than WikiProject Tennis. There are no WikiProject Sport/Article alerts nor WikiProject Sports/Article alerts pages meaning AAlert never posted a notification.

I've added the article up for AFD to WikiProject Tennis but am unsure on the best way to have Wikipedia:WikiProject Tennis/Article alerts  updated. Will AAlert notice the AFDed article the next time it runs or should I update the Article Alerts page manually? --Marc Kupper&#124;talk 19:35, 7 September 2011 (UTC)


 * It should place the page automatically on the following run. Any changes you manually make to the page will be overwritten (though you can still make them). — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 20:23, 7 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I must have done something wrong as AAlert did not seem to notice the AFD. It would help if there was better documentation on how AAlert works. I updated Talk:2005 Dubai Tennis Championships – Women's Singles Qualifying to make it part of WikiProject Tennis and had manually added an alert to WikiProject Tennis/Article alerts. The article is in Category:Articles for deletion and yet when AAlert updated the Article alerts page it did not include this article.


 * We have another Tennis related AFD at 2011 Rogers Cup – Men's Singles Qualifying that AAlert first spotted 26 August 2011 and in the 8 September 2011 run AAlert dropped this article from the report even though the AFD is still open.


 * It appears AAlert maintains an internal state or database rather than looking at the intersection of Category:WikiProject Tennis articles AND Category:Articles for deletion and for those summarizing the AFD discussion.


 * It would also help to know how AAlert figures out the AFD date. For the 2011 Rogers Cup AFD AAlert was reporting Unknown. The AFD discussion page was created 17:09, 26 August 2011 but apparently AAlert does not look at that. --Marc Kupper&#124;talk 23:12, 8 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I see, sorry about that. Headbomb broke the subscription a little :), and it was not immediately obvious. The bot only checked for Infobox tennis biography. I added a warning message in the subscription template for cases like these. This is somewhat documented at Article alerts/Subscribing. The bot should now report pages that are either tagged with WikiProject Tennis banner on talk page or have Infobox tennis biography infobox on main page. I posted the report: WikiProject Tennis/Article alerts, and it looks fine now (though I'm a bit unsure why they are undated). —  HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 08:13, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Fixed the undated issue; it was because the template used &amp;#39; for apostrophe, but API did not decode that. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 08:47, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Perfect, and thank you as I had not realized there was an AAlert bug involved too. --Marc Kupper&#124;talk 09:54, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Bot down for four days
The bot has not made an edit in 4 days.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:08, 12 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I did not notice. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 07:01, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

My sig breaks AA
See WikiProject Poland/Article alerts. What worse, the rot spreads beyond AA page, and infects everything else, see WikiProject Poland. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 21:36, 17 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia_talk:Article_alerts/Bugs. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 07:38, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

London Transport alerts
If possible, please could you deliver alerts about pages tagged with the "underground=yes" parameter of to WikiProject London Transport/Article alerts as well please. Thanks, Thryduulf (talk) 20:14, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I didn't notice the post. I changed the category to include the article categorized by template such as WikiProject Trains. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 08:56, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Change to WP:KY reporting
Hello. Recently, WikiProject Kentucky decided to be supported by WikiProject United States, which resulted in a merging of our project banners. WP:KY articles are now (or soon will be) recognized by talk pages that contain WikiProject United States with the KY parameter set to "yes". I think this change has broken the AAlertBot reporting for WP:KY, as two DYKs (for Harry Toulmin (Unitarian minister) and Martin D. Hardin) and one GAC (for John Sherman Cooper) have not been reported. Could you please check to see if this is the case and if so, make a change that will fix it? I find the report helpful, personally, and would like to see it continue to be accurate. You might also check to see which other U.S. state-level projects this will affect. Several have merged with WP:USA lately. Thanks in advance. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 14:51, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I changed it to use the talk page category instead of the banner and it should work now. Btw, the bot doesn't report DYKs. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 08:48, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry; missed that it doesn't do DYK. As of the last update, though, the rest seems to be working. Thanks. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 19:30, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Double checking an idea before implementation
I had an idea to help automate some of the tasks in the to do templates currently in use by many of the WikiProject United States supported projects. Before I do though I wanted to make sure it wasn't going to bog the bot down. Here is the basic description of the idea: The template Tasks was recently modified to allow the inclusion of things like Featured and good article reviews and a few other things that this bot picks up. What I was thinking was to create a page, for each of these tasks for the projects and then embed those pages in the To do list for the project which would essentially automate the articles that were visible. That way when they werer promoted or demoted they would be removed from the list without manual intervention.

I would like to try this on one or 2 projects first before full blown implementation but before I even did that I wanted to run it by you. I was thinking of establing a naming scheme of Project name/to do/applicable alert (GAC, FAC, etc). Is this something that would be ok.--Kumioko (talk) 21:24, 12 January 2012 (UTC)


 * That is fine. WPUS is already subscribed, so the bot won't need to process more pages, just print a few more reports (if I understand you correctly). — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 09:38, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok thanks. One last question, is it possible to list the content affected inline with all the extra stuff normally included? Just Article 1, article 2, article 3, etc.? If not its fine I just don't want to add too much extra details to the To do list templates if I can help it. --Kumioko (talk) 15:23, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Not at the moment (if I understood you correctly). But it's not too complex to do as it's only the format it prints existing data at, so I could implement it. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 15:29, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok thanks. Let me play around with some things and see what looks good on one and I'll let you know. --Kumioko (talk) 15:43, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Just be careful if those todo templates are transcluded a lot (like project banner), because it will cause lots of updates, which is not recommended for AAB (though that was for last bot and I don't know the specifics of that). — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 18:41, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Reboot of Article Alerts
After several months of inactivity, a new bot has been coded to replace User:ArticleAlertbot. See the bot request for approval for details. As this represent a total reboot of the project, all previous discussions have been archived in Archive 1, Archive 2, and  Archive 3 (also accessible from the archive box, on the right).

Subsequent archives (/Archive 4) and up refer to the new bot. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:34, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Archiving spree
The various AA-related talk pages were growing massive, so I just went on an archiving spree (and set up automated archiving of this page, which should kick-in sometimes in the next 24 hours). Feel free to de-archive some of the stuff if you think it shouldn't have been archived. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:39, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

TFD not notified
Hi, when I complain that WikiProjects aren't being notified on their talk pages about XFDs, I'm either told "that violates WP:CANVAS", or "you should subscribe to Article Alerts". But I've found that the latter isn't reliable - for example, WikiProject Trains/Article alerts was not informed about, even though it was informed about a different TFD by the same person,. All the relevant template talk pages bear a. -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:36, 14 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Seems like the cause is that they aren't proposed for deletion via tfd, but rather proposed for merging via tfm. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 22:41, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * And anyone who says "you shouldn't notify wikiprojects, that's WP:CANVASS" clearly does not understand what canvassing is. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 22:43, 14 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Added tfm to bot's TfD list (technically, "templates for discussion"). Hopefully this makes it 3.8% more reliable. :) I didn't even realize there was TfM, I thought merging was under the same tag as every other TfD... — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 07:46, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
 * It's ... but is ascribing two TFDs to me which is a bit rum considering that I'm an opposer. -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:36, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, this happens when someone subst:'s templates they shouldn't have. The bot parses the history and there's no easy way to tell who originally placed the tag if they subst'ed it. I'll see what I can do with looking for cases like that. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 20:42, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
 * That should do it. Hopefully, I won't forget to re-retrieve the data in today's run. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 10:30, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Latin American music task force
The Article Alert bot has not picked any news since the sub page was created a year ago. Erick (talk) 17:40, 18 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Whoops, my apologies, I didn't notice this message. I fixed the subscription for you, it used a wrong category. It should report any pages in today's run. Regards. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 08:48, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Erick (talk) 15:27, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Confused by change to WikiProject Oregon/Article alerts
AAlertBot made this edit adding 10 RfDs but I don't see any discussions, nor were any of those pages were changed, nor are they redirects in the first place. Am I missing something? Valfontis (talk) 19:36, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it was because of Nasdaq2's RfD nomination without, which made it transclude onto ±1100 article pages, which bot detected as RfDs. I'll see if I can get rid of these somehow without removing proper ones. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 20:14, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Valfontis (talk) 21:06, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Urgh, it didn't add new ones, but kept the old ones, because being "closed" (not in RfD category) is different to being "open" and the code bit that removed them is only present in the latter. Guess I'll try again tomorrow. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 18:50, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

April 2012
Request for Subscription of Article Alert Iramuthusamy (talk) 14:34, 24 April 2012 (UTC)


 * What project do you want to subscribe? — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:04, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Link to old, open FfDs
If I take for example WP:VG/AA, there are FfDs older than 7 days that are pending closure. The "see discussion" link for File:Sparkster (SNES).png on the AA page points to, while the actual discussion is currently at. Is it technically possible to have these links update after the discussion is moved (I believe it is after 7 days)? Salvidrim!  19:13, 29 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I didn't realize the template used log, the examples I used when setting this up must have omitted it. I will link directly to the log then, like the ffd template currently does -- sandbox. Having links update after a set time would be a pain, but linking directly would work fine. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:34, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The discussion is not moved from the main page after 7 days - it's always on a daily page, which is transcluded to the main page from the start. If the FFD is done properly, specifying the log parameter in the template (which is how  on this file), the link target is set to correctly point to the daily page. If you go to the file page, and click the link titled this file's entry, you'll see that it goes to the right place already. -- Red rose64 (talk) 19:51, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Some doubts

 * Moved from User talk:AAlertBot

This bot regularly updates WikiProject India/Article alerts page. However, it does not always catch up with the articles listed on AfD at WikiProject Deletion sorting/India. I have both pages on my watchlist and hence i would not face any problem in AfDs. But other users might. Also, i am not aware of any other page for seeing alerts on PRODs, GA Noms, Move requests, etc. other than this page. If the bot doesn't keep up with all AfDs, is it also missing some PRODs? That's quite bad. PRODs definitely need to be notified properly. §§AnimeshKulkarni (talk) 08:14, 29 May 2012 (UTC)


 * As you can check on the subscription list, the bot only recognizes the pages that have the WikiProject India banner on their talk page. Many pages on the deletion sorting do not, hence they don't get reported because the bot doesn't know they ought to belong to WPIndia. That said, I added the delsort page to the subscription, so it should report all the pages off the delsort. New pages will still need a WPIndie banner before the bot reports them. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 20:35, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I see! Thanks for the information. But then PRODs without any project banner simply get deleted? §§AnimeshKulkarni (talk) 07:40, 30 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, they don't get reported. There is little I can do about it for now. There is User:TedderBot that tries to guess and make a list of new articles that could be a part of the project if you want to catch new articles early and banner them. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 07:50, 30 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I can try and add project banners. One more question; does the bot go through few days older PRODs also? Means if i add banner 4-5 days later than the tag was added, will this bot still enlist it under concerned projects? §§AnimeshKulkarni (talk) 18:55, 30 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:00, 30 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Thats great! Thanks! §§AnimeshKulkarni (talk) 20:22, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Changed Defunct Airlines project to a task force
Not sure if this will affect AAlertBot, but I decided to let you know anyway. I just moved WP:WikiProject Defunct Airlines so that it is a task force. I've been moving its subpages too, particularly the article alerts page from WikiProject Defunct Airlines/Article alerts to WikiProject Airlines/Defunct airlines task force/Article alerts. Since it's a bot that edits the page, I wanted to make sure it didn't edit the former page (which is now a redirect to the new page. Please update the bot's programming to reflect this.  Thanks, Comp dude 123 19:30, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Huge increase in size of AA list
Where did come from? -- Red rose64 (talk) 13:15, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * It's because their parent template Template:Japan Railway Line is being TfDed. :( Yazan (talk) 13:25, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Ah, yes, that's a bug. I don't report TfDs unless they have the actual nomination template on them (not just in the category). I also report all the wrongly categorized TfDs to IRC for review, but once their number exceeds a certain limit, I stop reporting them to minimize spam. Unfortunately, I placed the condition to not post those records on alert pages inside that limit check. So the bot skipped first X tfds, but then posted all the remaining ones... I fixed it now, should be good tomorrow. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:31, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Should be good now. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 12:27, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, -- Red rose64 (talk) 13:29, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Bold
Why do some things appear in bold on the article alerts? To me, it appears random. StringTheory11 (t • c) 00:20, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Feature request. The ones updated with the last bot's edit are bolded -- either new entries, or entries closed. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 07:44, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Women scientists
The article on Barbara McClintock has been tagged using the banner for WikiProject Women scientists. Its featured article review is not showing up in WikiProject Women scientists/Article alerts. RockMagnetist (talk) 06:03, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi! The bot expected to see the default WikiProject Women scientists or its redirects, but the project uses non-standard WPWS. This should fix it. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 10:08, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Banner redirects?
Does the project pick up articles templated with a redirect? For example, if it's set for the banner WikiProject Iowa, will it also pick up articles tagged with Project Iowa? --Philosopher Let us reason together. 19:43, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, it checks for all the banner templates' redirects each run. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:55, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Awesome, thanks! --Philosopher Let us reason together. 21:45, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Women scientists (2)
Any idea why an article that's still at AfD have been removed by the Article Alert bot from the article alert page, and to do so without archiving? KTC (talk) 18:21, 22 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry I didn't get back, didn't have much time during holidays and I didn't spot the problem right away. The issue was that the project banner was renamed from WPWS to WikiProject Women scientists. (If you check the edit summary, it says "No major changes", where it would say "-1 Afd" if it had been an AfD closing. So the bot decided the page no longer belongs to the project. Other pages still show up because WPWS is actually used, but of course nothing redirect to that, so no other banner aliases are picked up.) This should fix it next run. Unfortunately, there is no easy way for me to detect this except retrieving all 560 banners every run. —  HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:39, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Tennis project alerts
Why is it that two prods such as Varunya Wongteanchai and Patricio Heras make to the WikiProject Tennis alert page while 3 afds did not? Azarenka–Sharapova rivalry, Azarenka–S. Williams rivalry, and WTA Big Three. Does this alert sweep only every few days? Fyunck(click) (talk) 03:48, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * It's normally once a day, [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Tennis/Article_alerts&action=history see here]; and although the last update was 12:54, 5 February 2013‎ there would have been a sweep on 6 February 2013 and 7 February 2013 at about the same time. When there is nothing to change, the page isn't updated. For an article to be listed on WikiProject Tennis/Article alerts, the talk pages need to bear at the time of the sweep.
 * These talk pages - Talk:Azarenka–Sharapova rivalry, Talk:Azarenka–S. Williams rivalry, and Talk:WTA Big Three didn't get until, , and  respectively; so expect these to be added on the next update - within the next hour or so. -- Red rose64 (talk) 12:14, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * . -- Red rose64 (talk) 14:24, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I put those tags there after noticing they weren't being swept. Thanks. What's funky is those other two pages (Varunya Wongteanchai and Patricio Heras) were in our alerts but they don't have those tags either. Why did they get swept in without any tags? Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:38, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * This is just a suggestion - since I don't have access to the AAlert source code - but I suspect that the presence of on both of those was the trigger. The three articles on rivalries don't have that (or any other infobox). -- Red rose64 (talk) 22:21, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll take that as a working hypothesis. Good to know. Thanks. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:12, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Headers on the "/Article alerts" page
Thanks very much for maintaining and running this bot - it's really useful. Does the bot replace everything on the page, or will it leave headers such as  ? Best regards, Illia Connell (talk) 04:02, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks. No, it will leave stuff untouched at the start and end of page as per Article_alerts/Subscribing. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 08:53, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Great! Thanks, Illia Connell (talk) 14:06, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Opera move request
In WikiProject Opera/Article alerts of today, RegentsPark is named as having requested the move of The Flying Dutchman (opera), but he is innocent, I did. - Can the bot learn? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:15, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Should be good now. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 12:06, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

WPAA
How would I go about creating an Article alerts page for WikiProject Asian Americans?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:15, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
 * You wouldn't, the bot would. See Article alerts/Subscribing for information on how to get the bot to do this. -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:31, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:51, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Mark Satin
At WikiProject California/San Francisco Bay Area task force/Article alerts, Mark Satin A class article review keeps getting added, though it closed over a year ago, and is now a Featured Article. I tried to remove it, but bot adds it back.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 02:40, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The problem here is that on Talk:Mark Satin, the has current so as far as AAlertBot is concerned, the A-Class review is still open.
 * It appears that the A-Class review closer didn't complete the process (see WikiProject Military history/Assessment/A-Class review in the collapsed box "A-Class review/reappraisal closure instructions for coordinators" immediately above the table of contents). As a quick fix, I've amended the current to fail, and added a row to the, and verified that it's in WikiProject Military history/Assessment/2011/Failed, but there may be other outstanding actions, so you may need to ask WT:MILHIST to verify that the A-Class review has now been closed properly. -- Red rose64 (talk) 11:17, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
 * And there you go, . Please note that manual editing of pages like WikiProject California/San Francisco Bay Area task force/Article alerts has no lasting effect, since the bot doesn't look at the existing page in order to amend it - instead, it just replaces whatever is currently there with a freshly-built page. -- Red rose64 (talk) 14:04, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

A question
Can work this boot in a spanish wikiproject? Thank you. --Rwheimle (talk) 18:07, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I don't think this is viable at the moment. It is very much based on English Wikipedia's workflow specifics, categorization, templates and general practice. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:58, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Article alerts for small projects without many alerts
Just wondering if the displayed page can be improved when there is nothing to report. For exampe I find WikiProject_Breakfast/Article_alerts very confusing as it stands right now. Thanks in advance, XOttawahitech (talk) 15:14, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
 * How would you have it improved and which part do you find confusing? A page with nothing to report looks like this. Breakfast page has never had any pages, so until it does, the bot pasted the first "greeting" report. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 15:42, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Running?
G'day, this hasn't run for MILHIST since 29 July? Is there a bug? Thanks, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 08:21, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
 * It's not just MILHIST - it didn't run for anybody on 30 or 31 July, see [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Article_alerts/Last_update&action=history history of Wikipedia:Article alerts/Last update] or [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:AAlertBot/Status&action=history history of User:AAlertBot/Status], but it's running today. -- Red rose64 (talk) 12:39, 1 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for notifying us! Not technically a bug, the bot just didn't run for a couple of days due to... something. I ran it today, should be good. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 12:46, 1 August 2013 (UTC)


 * The "something" is probably my computer crashing, and me being away from home to restart it. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 14:25, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

MILHIST A-Class articles
G'day, the bot run last night didn't pick up four recent A-Class nominations (see the top four here). Is there anything that can be done to correct this, or a cause you can see? I rely on the bot to prompt changes to our announcements page. Help appreciated. Thanks, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 00:28, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

How to include ACRs?
Maybe I have something set up wrong, but WikiProject Australian Roads isn't getting alerts for articles at A-Class Review. The delivery location is WikiProject Australian Roads/Article alerts, ACRs are conducted through WikiProject Highways (WP:HWY/ACR), and the talk page banner categorises articles at ACR into Category:WikiProject Australian Roads articles nominated for promotion at A-Class Review and Category:WikiProject Australian Roads articles nominated for demotion at A-Class Review. The latest article nominated at ACR is Tonkin Highway at 15:43, 18 August 2013 (UTC), the last bot run was around 11:52, 19 August 2013 (UTC). - Evad37 (talk) 03:03, 20 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi. The ACRs have different syntax for different projects, so it doesn't work out of the box, definitely if extra info about project-specific ACR process isn't added. I added that, so hopefully everything is what other projects use and it will get delivered today. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 08:23, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi Hellknowz, thanks for looking in to this (and sorry for the late reply). The ACR still isn't being picked up, so something obviously isn't quite right... I don't know what, I couldn't see any documentation on subscribing to ACR alerts (and there's no mention on the Subscribing page that special settings are required) - Evad37 (talk) 16:11, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Can someone please add
WikiProject Geography/Article alerts, WikiProject Maps/Article alerts. I tried doing myself before but page errored. Thank you. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:20, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

multiple templates for merge discussions
Does these get included in Article Alert? I'm wondering because Templates_for_discussion/Log/2013_September_21 doesn't pop up and I'm not sure where I missed something. --Cold Season (talk) 05:17, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Which Article alerts page should it have appeared on? -- Red rose64 (talk) 14:07, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Right, Tfd/dated was moved to Template for discussion/dated but Tfm/dated wasn't, yet I renamed it in code. The bot didn't see the template, so it assumed it's one of the many cases on indirectly TfDed templates because of transclusion of templates actually up for discussion. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 18:03, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
 * [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Food_and_drink/Article_alerts&oldid=574308866 Looks okay] now. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:50, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Multi-page move notifications
Moved to Wikipedia talk:Article alerts/Feature requests older ≠ wiser 13:07, 25 September 2013 (UTC)