Article Alerts v • d • e
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Article alerts is a subscription-based automatic article-monitoring system used to give "status reports" to subscribing WikiProjects. It was suggested by Headbomb (talk), and a number of WikiProjects indicated that they would be interested. ArticleAlertbot was coded by B. Wolterding (talk) to deliver the Article Alert reports, and is operated by Legoktm (talk).

For notification about cleanup tags such as {{wikify}} and {{disputed}}, see Cleanup listings by B. Wolterding.
For notification about recently created articles that could be of interest to your project, see Alex Bakharev's NewArtBot.

Article Alert Bot
(talk · contribs)
Article Alert Bot at full speed
Operator:	Legoktm
Author	B. Wolterding
Approved?	BRFA
Flagged?	Yes
Task/s:	Notify WikiProjects if any of their articles need attention
Edit rate:	Daily
Programming language/s:	Java
Other information:	This bot will not run if the toolserver is down

Shortcut: WP:AALERTS

Article Alerts is a fully-automated subcription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles tagged by their WikiProject/Taskforce template enter workflows (such as Articles for Deletion, Requests for Comments, Peer Review, and many more).

First ArticleAlertbot browses all the workflows in its scope, then checks for Wikiproject templates. If a subscribing Wikiproject/Taskforce is found, ArticleAlertbot will update a customized report called Article Alerts for that particular WikiProject or Taskforce. (An example of such a report can be found here.) Reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what is happening, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. So it is a good idea to request for a bot to place your WikiProject/Taskforce's banner on articles from relevant categories, so ArticleAlertbot covers more articles. (See also Tips and Tricks.)

ArticleAlertbot was coded and is updated by B. Wolterding and is operated by Legoktm. (See also the bot approval.) The bot runs on the tool server. While ArticleAlertbot has been running for a good while now, bugs and errors in the reports are still possible. PLEASE report those on the Bug reports page. Requests for new features or for new workflows are also welcomed on the Feature requests page, but might not be implemented on short notice depending how busy B. Wolterding is.

Contents 1 Workflows covered 2 Samples 3 Subscribing 4 News Request 5 Bug reports 6 Feature requests 7 Feedback and questions 8 Tips and tricks 9 See also

[edit] Workflows covered

TBRO = To Be Rolled Out, UT = Under Test

[edit] Samples

The table below shows an example of article alerts for WikiProject Comics.

Article alerts for WikiProject Comics

Proposed deletion 27 Dec 2009 – C. Martin Croker (talk) has been deleted. 27 Dec 2009 – Scott Saavedra (talk) proposed for deletion by Peripitus. 26 Dec 2009 – Standup Comics (talk) has been deleted. 25 Dec 2009 – Prometheus (comic) (talk) has been deleted. Articles for deletion 29 Dec 2009 – Clinic for Paranormal Research (talk) nominated for deletion by WossOccurring; see discussion. 28 Dec 2009 – Drew (artist) (talk) has been redirected to Married to the Sea; see discussion. 27 Dec 2009 – Silent Three (talk) nominated for deletion by Theresa knott; see discussion. 27 Dec 2009 – Itsu (comics) (talk) nominated for deletion by Otherlleft; see discussion. 21 Dec 2009 – Blambot (talk) nominated for deletion by Polarpanda; see discussion. 18 Dec 2009 – Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire (talk) was kept; see discussion. 17 Dec 2009 – Okashina Okashi - Strange Candy (talk) has been deleted; see discussion. Categories for deletion 24 Dec 2009 – Category:Comic book ambox templates (talk) has been deleted. 24 Dec 2009 – Category:Comics ambox templates (talk) has been deleted. Featured article reviews 21 Dec 2009 – V for Vendetta (film) (talk) is nominated by Collectonian; see discussion. Good article nominations 28 Dec 2009 – The Uncertainty Principle (The Spectacular Spider-Man) (talk) is nominated as GA candidate by SuperFlash101. 28 Dec 2009 – Reaction (The Spectacular Spider-Man) (talk) is nominated as GA candidate by SuperFlash101. 25 Dec 2009 – Howard the Duck (film) (talk) is promoted to GA status; see discussion. 20 Dec 2009 – Democracy (Judge Dredd storyline) (talk) is promoted to GA status. 2 Dec 2009 – Catalysts (The Spectacular Spider-Man) (talk) is nominated as GA candidate by SuperFlash101. 19 Nov 2009 – Bionicle (talk) is nominated as GA candidate by Twilight Helryx (on hold); see discussion. Peer review 20 Dec 2009 – Peer review for Bionicle (talk) closed. 8 Dec 2009 – Peer review opened for Bizenghast (talk) by Kaguya-chan. Other news 10 Dec 2009 – The cleanup listings from WolterBot have updated. 7 Dec 2009 – A new edition of the Wikipedia Signpost is out. 30 Nov 2009 – The new book-class is released. See the Signpost article and the setup guide for details. Contact Headbomb for questions and help. 28 Nov 2009 – A new database dump is available. Archives (4 more...)

Updated daily by bot

See also a lengthier list for WikiProject Biography.

[edit] Subscribing

In order to subscribe to the article alerts, place the {{ArticleAlertbotSubscription}} template somewhere on your WikiProject or WikiProject Taskforce's main page. By doing this you will subscribe to Article Alerts. For example if your WikiProject is WikiProject Tulips, the report will automatically be generated at Wikipedia:Wikiproject Tulips/Article alerts, and will be transcluded on the WikiProject Tulips mainpage wherever the template was placed.

Core features

• If you do not want the report to be transcluded on the Wikiproject's main page, use {{ArticleAlertbotSubscription|display=none}}. However, remember to give a link to the alert page if you decide to not display the alerts.
• If your Wikiproject's banner name is not the same as your Wikiproject's name (for example if {{WPTulips}} is used to mark the Wikiproject Tulips article rather than {{WikiProject Tulips}}), then use {{ArticleAlertbotSubscription|banner=WPTulips}}) instead.
• If you are subscribing a Taskforce, say the Red Tulips Taskforce of WikiProject Tulips, then use {{ArticleAlertbotSubscription|wgcat=Red Tulips articles}}. (This supposes that the task force articles, or rather their talk pages, are contained in Category:Red Tulips articles.)
• By default all workflows are covered, but you can choose to exclude some workflows if you wish. See Wikipedia:Article alerts/Subscribing for how.
• By default Article Alerts display what happened in the last 14 days. If you want X days of coverage, place {{ArticleAlertbotSubscription|archivetime=X}}.
• Other options are available. See Wikipedia:Article alerts/Subscribing for more information.

Caveats

• Put the subscription template onto your main page, not a transcluded subpage, otherwise this will cause problems. If you want to display Article Alerts on a subpage, use transclusions instead.
• Do not transclude the Article Alerts into your project banner, otherwise this pollutes many "What links here" lists. Instead link to your WikiProject's Article Alerts page.

[edit] News Request

• If something is happening that you think WikiProjects should know about, then let us know and we'll include it in the articles.

[edit] Bug reports

• Please report bugs, missed articles, and any other mishaps on the bug report page. Don't think someone else will do it, because that someone else might think you'll do it, and then neither of you will have reported the bug. It is also possible that the error is specific to your project, so you might be the only one to have seen this error.

[edit] Feature requests

• Have an idea that you think would improve the reports? Share it with us, and we'll see what we can do about it.

[edit] Feedback and questions

• Having troubles setting up Article alerts? Leave a message on our talk page, and we'll try to help as best we can.
• Think Article Alerts is the greatest thing since sliced bread? Think it sucks because it doesn't actually cover Featured deletions? Let us know.

[edit] Tips and tricks

• Remember to watch your project's Article Alerts pages.
• Did you know that you can monitor your project's Article Alerts using RSS and Atom feeds? Go on your project's /Article alerts history page, and there should be a " RSS Atom" in your toolbox located on the left of the page.
• You can incorporate Article Alerts in navboxes for the users of your WikiProjects (see {{Physics Member Navbox}} for example).
• If a related WikiProjects is also subscribed to Article Alerts you can transclude their report on your Project's homepage, and monitor their articles too.
• Request a bot to place your WikiProject's banner on the articles located in categories relevant to your wikiproject. You will probably end up with some unrelated pages, but at least you've extended Article Alerts to cover many articles you might have missed.
• AlexNewArtBot is a bot which produces a list of recently created articles that could be in your project's scope. Going through the list to do some tagging will ensure that ArticleAlertbot picks up these articles as well.
• Consider subscribing to B. Wolterding's cleanup listing to be notified of articles that need cleanup (covers cleanup tags (such as {{expert}}, {{wikify}}, {{reference}}, etc).

[edit] See also

• AlexNewArtBot
• Cleanup listings