Wikipedia talk:Article alerts/Feature requests/Archive/Old/Implemented

Internal: Better category sorting

 * I think this is just a misunderstanding - Category:ArticleAlertbot subscriptions is not intended for human use. It's for use by the bot only. The weird sorting order arises because I'm using the "sort value" to pass parameters to the bot. --B. Wolterding (talk) 11:36, 25 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, then perhaps placing them into subcategories as well? Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 12:20, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Not sure - for the bot it's best the way it is. If really wanted, we could make a different (parallel) category that lists the subscriptions in a different order, for human use, with subcategories if you prefer. --B. Wolterding (talk) 20:12, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's what I had in mind. Also I've made suggestion on the template's talk page for improving the layout of the code. Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 21:51, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Implemented + verified (i.e., it works). See and . The categories wil be filled within the next days I think (the job queue is long it seems). Sorting order can be changed (if so wished) by modifying ArticleAlertbotSubscription. --B. Wolterding (talk) 10:34, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Copyvio

 * Good idea - this would fit very well. It seems that the articles can be obtained form quite easily; only the discussion link might be more complicated. --B. Wolterding (talk) 18:26, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't think there is much discussion going on COPYVIO other than temporary pages created at Talk:ARTICLENAME/Temp, and what is on article's talk page. I'll ask at copyvio. Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 23:51, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It's also possible that not all pages have the copivio template on them. Some could be simply linked at WP:CP, all entries seem to be produced by ArticleName from. ~


 * Hi. In spite of the words "technical issues", which usually send me the other direction, I came over from WT:CP to see if I can offer input. I'm way out of my neighborhood here, but I'm heavily involved in CP issues, and I can confirm Headbomb's impression that most copyright conversation takes place, if any does at all, at the article's talk page. Most of the time, we have a simple one-line listing at CP; when I'm the admin closing them, I usually append a few words explaining the resolution, but not until after the discussion is closed. (See Copyright problems/2009 February 16 as an example.) But if the purpose of this is to get more people involved in cleaning up copyright problems, then drawing from the list at "Possible copyright violations" sounds like an excellent idea. Not all of those are listed at CP, some of them are tagged as suspect. But even articles listed at CP could use knowledgeable assistance. More than once as closing admin I've had to request assistance on a rewrite of an article from a project; a procedure that lets them know in advance could result in better resolution. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:57, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * OK! So I'd propose a somewhat minimal implementation: Copyvios will be listed whenever they appear in ; further information: nominator; link given to article and its talk page only. --B. Wolterding (talk) 20:41, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Seems fine to me. What about the temporary page? What's the problem with giving that one as well? Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 01:33, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * FWIW, the temporary page isn't meant for discussion. It's a "draft" space for writing a new article from scratch. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:53, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * It's implemented now. Will be in the next bot version. --B. Wolterding (talk) 14:45, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Bounty/Reward

 * This is an interesting one - didn't even know of this workflow before. WP:BOUNTY seems to fit well in the bot's scheme, I'll look into that. WP:REWARD isn't actually that friendly to this particular bot - the list of nominees cannot be obtained from template transclusions or category members. --B. Wolterding (talk) 17:38, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. --B. Wolterding (talk) 20:12, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Stub types for deletion

 * Implemented, in a very simplistic fashion (looks at stub templates only, not categories; no links to discussion pages). --B. Wolterding (talk) 17:43, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * At least a link to WP:SFD could be given in the meantime? Or would that be redundant with the header links?Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 20:59, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I think that would be misleading, as a user who clicks on "see discussion" wouldn't actually be lead to the discussion - just to a long page where he can scroll down and then find the discussion. A link to the actual discussion seems impossible to give for SFD (it can't be inferred from the sfd template). I think it's best to show only a link to the article - the tag that is placed at the top of the article will explain more. --B. Wolterding (talk) 18:40, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Selected anniversaries (On this day)

 * Unfortunately these are handled in a completely different manner, compared with WP:DYK and WP:ITN. Those the bot finds by looking for tags and categories on their talk pages, such as ITNtalk, but it seems that there is no corresponding mechanism for WP:SA. If somebody were to create (and use) a similar template SAtalk, these events could easily be included. --B. Wolterding (talk) 20:10, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah. Then I'll contact SA and see what they think of tagging the talk pages.Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 20:59, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The existing template you are searching for is OnThisDay. It is currently inactive because it has not been maintained in over three or four years. As items have been rotated on and off the SA/OTD templates, which are recycled every year, users have not been updating the corresponding article talk pages. And it is also harder to maintain this tag when admins routinely add or remove items from the template to "rebalance the main page". See Template talk:OnThisDay for more on this issue – the last recent comment does in fact favor a script or a bot to help out, but nothing has come to fruition yet. Cheers. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 00:05, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, because those templates recycle every year and events are rotated on and off those pages, there will be some articles that get posted for several consecutive years, while other articles only get posted once or twice in non-consecutive years. So perhaps another parameter could be added to OnThisDay to indicate the years that the article appeared on the main page. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 06:07, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, that was precisely what I was thinking - tagging them with for example. That would exactly parallel the use of DYKtalk and ITNtalk. For the bot however, maybe there's a slight misunderstanding - the present bot is meant to evaluate templates like this, not to place them. You could of course put up a request at Bot requests. On the other hand, I'm not completely sure whether placing these tags requires some human judgement - DYKtalk and ITNtalk are used manually, probably for a reason. --B. Wolterding (talk) 13:54, 22 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Alright, I've updated the OnThisDay template so they can start using it again. Is this template AAbot friendly now? Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 22:46, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your work. Just one thing - I really don't want to be fussy, however: we now have the syntax, but . Of course I can work around that, but couldn't we keep to one standard? --B. Wolterding (talk) 23:20, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Alright, I can fix that easily. Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 23:31, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, no I can't. At least not in a straightforward way. It's because of the way the archives are set up (/February 22, /February 23, etc...). Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 23:32, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Well OK, I'll handle that in my code. --B. Wolterding (talk) 23:34, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * OnThisDay does not put the articles into a category yet - that would need to be added. I would suggest . --B. Wolterding (talk) 23:30, 28 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I've set them up at, where is the month.Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 00:01, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh no, one category please, for the bot's sake. Make it hidden if you prefer, but keep things simple and provide me with one category to find the articles in. --B. Wolterding (talk) 01:03, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'll add a hidden category. Gimme two secs.Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 01:31, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, I've set up Category:Selected anniversaries articles. The others will be there for humans.Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 01:31, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Implemented now. It will however work only when the OnThisDay template is actually added to articles. --B. Wolterding (talk) 02:25, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Appearance tweak

 * Done (the multicolumn approach).--B. Wolterding (talk) 17:00, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Now also done the links. --B. Wolterding (talk) 20:00, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Giving link to FR and Bugs in the alerts, "Other News section"

 * I think including these links in the actual alerts list would possibly cause problem with multi-column formatting, etc. However, almost the same effect can be achieved by editing the subscription template. The links now show up in display=plain and display=columns mode. Formatting can be changed at any time. --B. Wolterding (talk) 20:20, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I've just noticed that this leads to a problem for projects which uses the raw /Article alerts page and applies their own formatting (for example at WP:PHYS). It would be better if AABot included a section such as:

Tips / Report a bug / Got ideas? / Suggest news / Feedback

Which would produce: Tips / Report a bug / Got ideas? / Suggest news / Feedback

This way we could send messages and tips concerning article alerts very easily. And we could also use it to display wikiproject-wide messages such as Signpost releases, RFC on wikipedia policies, etc... These two sections would be human-updated. Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 06:19, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Bleh, I'm starting to feel like I should run for admin again. I feel dirty all of a sudden. Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 06:26, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Are you really sure this is a good idea? It might be seen a bit like spamming. We invite people to get alerts specific to their articles, and then we use that channel to post general-purpose messages... I'm not sure whether everybody will appreciate. --B. Wolterding (talk) 02:22, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes I'm pretty sure its a good idea. If the criteria are too permisive, we can add some more but I think the two current ones will cover the majority of the request we'd face. Plus, if the projects really don't like it, they could always opt out of that "workflow" with workflow=!NEWS or something.Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 03:12, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * And I'd oversee each item to make sure it makes sense to include it. Unless people are unwilling to give me that sort of decision making power or something. Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 03:16, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, OK; if someone complains, we can always remove it. I'll simply include below the alerts, then the message can be modified as needed at any time. Note however that (in this simple form) this does not include an opt-out function. --B. Wolterding (talk) 21:15, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes we can always remove it. I'd rather subst than transclude however, otherwise it won't show in watchlists, but for now it's an acceptable short term compromise. Also what about including the News/Tips/FR/BR at the bottom of the alerts?Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}<sub style="margin-left:-4.0ex;">κοντριβς – WP Physics} 22:07, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Subst'ing won't work in the way you expect it to, because not all reports are updated on a daily basis. The links at the bottom could just be added to the same transcluded page, I think. (Personally I'd recommend that you could limit the number of links a bit, you've already arrived at 5.) --B. Wolterding (talk) 22:12, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Number of links? Do you mean the number of news? As for updating on a daily basis, couldn't the bot check if the news page has changed since its last run, and then update the alerts it wouldn't have normally updated based on that? I'm just throwing hypothetical at this point. As for limiting the number of news items, that's already set up and everything. Rule of thumb a)Items would be displayed for at least a week b) When things are slow, display the last 5 items. Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}<sub style="margin-left:-4.0ex;">κοντριβς – WP Physics}22:51, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Number of links: I meant the Tips / Bugs / Ideas ... which has meanwhile grown to five entries. Anyway. What you write shows that this feature is a bit out of line: Consider somebody who watchlists alerts lists for several taskforces. Any one of these normally changes very infrequently. However, with the "news" feature, they would suddenly all change at the same time, and for something unrelated to the actual taskforce. You see my concerns: it just somehow breaks the concept. --B. Wolterding (talk) 23:25, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah I've figured that you were talking about the Tips/Bugs/etc... so I've trimmed down the text. As far as the news feature/watchlist thing, I can live without it being subst. Let's transclude for now, and we'll see what's the feedback. However, I would still make these links bot-added than transcluded. The reason is we'd want to be able to (eventually) have the option to turn the "other news section" off on a per-project basis. Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}<sub style="margin-left:-4.0ex;">κοντριβς – WP Physics} 23:55, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I transcluded "Wikipedia:Article alerts/Footer" at the end of the alerts list, content can then be changed by simply editing that page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 01:46, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * It's set up at Article alerts/News. I could change it, but I'd rather not move the pages. Could you transclude that one instead? Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}<sub style="margin-left:-4.0ex;">κοντριβς – WP Physics} 02:02, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, it's changed to Article alerts/News. --B. Wolterding (talk) 02:04, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Cool.Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}<sub style="margin-left:-4.0ex;">κοντριβς – WP Physics} 02:15, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Add Today's featured article as a workflow

 * I'm not sure about this, mostly on the technical side. Unfortunately, there seems to be no template or category by which to identify articles that appear on TFA. Does anybody know of an analogue to DYKtalk or ITNtalk for TFA? --B. Wolterding (talk) 20:20, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * In the ArticleHistory template there is a maindate parameter which takes a date (the date on which the article appears as Today's featured article). This does not, however, assign the article to a category. Kaldari (talk) 21:10, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, that's a start. Scanning all featured articles for that template parameter might be a bit much. But it should be quite easy to add the category, by a change in ArticleHistory. Does that sound reasonable? If yes I'll request it at Template talk:ArticleHistory. --B. Wolterding (talk) 21:38, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Seems plenty reasonable to me.Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}<sub style="margin-left:-4.0ex;">κοντριβς – WP Physics} 21:50, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds reasonable to me. It should probably be a hidden category though. Kaldari (talk) 22:07, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * See Template talk:ArticleHistory. --B. Wolterding (talk) 22:29, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The category exists now (Category:Featured articles that have appeared on the main page) and all articles with the maindate parameter defined should automatically be assigned to the category. Kaldari (talk) 20:08, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'll add the bot implementation over the next days. --B. Wolterding (talk) 20:38, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Implemented now. --B. Wolterding (talk) 01:08, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Place ITN before DYK

 * Well, if your prefer... If only all feature requests were so easy to implement ;-) --B. Wolterding (talk) 20:44, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Toolserver status

 * Implemented. Be sure to create the page (as an empty dummy) before the next rollout. --B. Wolterding (talk) 23:38, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Well you can take a look at the page too make sure, but it's all commented away so I really don't see why there'd be a problem.Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}<sub style="margin-left:-4.0ex;">κοντριβς – WP Physics} 23:55, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Fine. --B. Wolterding (talk) 01:09, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Bad subscription categories

 * Do you refer to those reports where the bot prints an error message rather than the actual report? (In that case, the categorization is quite simple to do.) --B. Wolterding (talk) 20:31, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes.Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}<sub style="margin-left:-4.0ex;">κοντριβς – WP Physics} 21:01, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, done. --B. Wolterding (talk) 01:32, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Portals

 * Good idea. In particular, the Featured Portal processes seem to be very similar to FA/FL etc., so they might be very easy to implement. Will investigate that. --B. Wolterding (talk) 20:23, 25 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Then it should be implemented easily? <b style="color:#0000FF;">OhanaUnited</b><b style="color:green;">Talk page</b> 14:36, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
 * "Featured portal candidates" is implemented now, it did not need much effort. I'm skipping "Featured portal review" for now, due to lack of examples. Strange enough, there seems to be another workflow "Featured portal removal candidates", without examples either. Will look into "Portal peer review" separately. --B. Wolterding (talk) 02:10, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh yes, don't do Featured portal review and removal candidates yet. We are trying to reduce bureaucracy by combining both processes together. I'll let you know if (and when) the merge occurs. Thanks. <b style="color:#0000FF;">OhanaUnited</b><b style="color:green;">Talk page</b> 04:40, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Turning off the other news section.

 * See also the previous discussion about this feature.

Yes, I will implement this in the next bot version. --B. Wolterding (talk) 16:46, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Added the following feature now: There is a "dummy" workflow NEWS which can be subscribed/unsubscribed like any other workflow. Thus, setting "workflows=ALL,!NEWS" will produce all article alerts except for the "Other news" section. Note that this change is not yet in the live bot. --B. Wolterding (talk) 13:06, 22 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I personally feel the "other news" section should be disabled by default. It's not the kind of information I'm looking for on a wikiproject page.--Father Goose (talk) 08:46, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
 * You'll be able to disable it soon, but remember that you are not alone in your project. You should ask on your project page to make sure that you are not removing a section which a significant portion of your members like/want. Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}<sub style="margin-left:-4.0ex;">κοντριβς – WP Physics} 09:24, 29 March 2009 (UTC)


 * It's not that large a project, I'm the one that added the automated alerts to it (and I didn't check with anyone if it was okay to add it -- if they dislike it, they can revert me), and I would personally be surprised if most editors wanted information having nothing to do with a project inserted into a project page. I'm already watching CENT, RfC, the Signpost, and so on, so I don't also want that information spammed across hundreds of project pages.


 * Not that I want to be insulting and call it "spam", but in this case I think it fits; it's off-topic information being put onto hundreds of pages that nobody necessarily asked for in the first place. I feel it should be included in the alerts on an opt-in basis, not an opt-out basis.--Father Goose (talk) 17:09, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
 * This is now in the live bot. For suppressing the "other news" section, set the parameter "workflows=ALL,!NEWS" in the subscription template. --B. Wolterding (talk) 22:04, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

box
Should be more consistent now. --B. Wolterding (talk) 23:14, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Upcoming TFA
For all I know, the bot already does this - the articles will appear as soon as they are tagged as such (with the "maindate" parameter in the "ArticleHistory" template); example here. However, currently the bot will report " - was featured on the main page" even if is in the future. This wording should probably be changed. --B. Wolterding (talk) 11:28, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * --TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 02:28, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Has the wording been changed? Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}<sub style="margin-left:-4.0ex;">κοντριβς – WP Physics} 06:38, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Support for projects without a banner

 * As far as I understand your request, this is already possible with the current bot. It just needs an appropriate modification to the banner. See WP:WikiProject Films and its task forces for a large project that uses this kind of subscriptions. --B. Wolterding (talk) 23:30, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Parent projects
Hi, I'm looking at WikiProject Latin America, which I'm trying to revive. It has lots of child projects (one per Latin American country). I'd like to make an alert subscription for Latin America which aggregates alerts for the different countries. Trying to make this look good in a table or something might be hard, but a simple aggregated listing with headers should be OK. I'm not sure how this could be done without multiplying the banner parameter in the template though; perhaps by adding an additional "follow child projects parameter", and taking the details from the project template? Rd232 talk 07:52, 11 March 2010 (UTC)


 * My suggestion would be to have all the individual banners place articles in Category:Latin America pages (or similar) in addition to all the regular categories of the banners. You could then feed that category to the alerts subscription template using Latin America pages. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 05:58, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, I guess that would work - but I'm not quite clear how to do it. Could you possibly do me an example, eg Template:WikiProject_South_America? Thanks. Rd232 talk 08:01, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, for example Costa Rica is part of WP Latin America, so WikiProject Costa Rica should place articles in Category:Latin America pages (or similar). Simply add at the bottom of the template like this (I've reverted myself so you can decide on the proper category name).

Likewise, WikiProject South America should be modified to add pages to that category whenever a Latin America country is set to yes (yes for example), and so should individual banners like WP Brazil. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:57, 12 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I've done that. Rd232 talk 11:20, 24 March 2010 (UTC)