Wikipedia talk:Article alerts

Discussion about adding do not remove text to Template:rfd

There is a discussion about adding do not remove text at Template_talk:Redirect_for_discussion#Can_"do_not_remove_this_notice_before_the_discussion_is_closed"_be_added?. --Jax 0677 (talk) 00:54, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

AAlertBot has crashed

Are Hellknowz and Headbomb aware that AAlertBot has crashed? Nurg (talk) 10:28, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

@Nurg: Yes, in general, it's just a matter of time of me waking up and noticing it. The bot runs at 4AM my time, so by noon it's normally noticed. If it's been more than 24 hours though, I might have forgotten to check though. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:06, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

AAlertBot removing content?

Hi, I noticed that in Special:Diff/1313095307 today, 435,000 bytes of content was removed from Wikipedia:WikiProject Athletics/Article alerts and I'm not sure why. The CfD listings taking up most of the removed bytes are still active, and several open AfDs like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Benjamin Keleketu and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Victor Razafindrakoto were de-listed as well. CC @Headbomb in case this page isn't watched. Thank you, --Habst (talk) 13:28, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Bot crashed today, I'm looking into it. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:40, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Huh. It's like it didn't have data files? —  HELLKNOWZ ∣ TALK 09:08, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

The run logs on IRC were full of errors. Wikipedia was also very wonky in general yesterday morning. I'd open 10 different articles and be logged out on the 3rd through 8th, but again logged in on the 9th and 10th. Then if I wanted to edit/save, it was a game of roulette if it would actually save on account of being logged out or in when I was previously logged in or out.

Anyway, I got someone to undo the run and reran the bot and things looked fine after that. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:17, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Thank you! I wonder if it had anything to do with the meta:Server switch yesterday. --Habst (talk) 12:19, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Possibly. The run happened well before the switch though, but so did the general instability. Things were stable after. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:25, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

@Headbomb, I initiated a mass CfD rename and I noticed it made Wikipedia:WikiProject Athletics/Article alerts hit the page size limit. The categories CfD'ed are all listed here: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2025 October 1#Category:Canadian female sprinters

Would it be possible to have the bot exclude those categories on its next run, so that the page size is in bounds and we can still see the other article alerts? Thank you for your work. --Habst (talk) 13:18, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

There's no such functionality in the bot code at the moment, so it's not possible to exclude specific pages besides messing with their on-wiki categories and such. —  HELLKNOWZ ∣ TALK 09:07, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

@Hellknowz, thanks, is the bot open source? I would be open to adding this feature myself or possibly splitting too-long alerts into multiple pages. --Habst (talk) 14:10, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

It isn't at the moment I'm afraid. —  HELLKNOWZ ∣ TALK 16:34, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

@Hellknowz, OK, I'm going to try to add some code into {{WikiProject Athletics}} then to temporarily remove categories from these mass CfDed pages to get the bot working again. I see these three are used -- which ones do I need to remove for the bot to stop tracking them?

1. Category:Category-Class Athletics pages

2. Category:NA-importance Athletics pages

3. Category:WikiProject Athletics articles

Thanks, --Habst (talk) 23:20, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

It currently works off {{WikiProject Athletics}} being on the page. You'd have to change the subscription itself to use categories first then before disabling that specific category, probably the third option. —  HELLKNOWZ ∣ TALK 09:34, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

@Hellknowz, do you know why it still says "The report page has exceeded the page size limit"? The mass CfD has since been closed, and I made a change here to remove the tracked category from all category talk pages anyways here: Special:Diff/1317665726. I'm not sure what could be causing it. Thanks, --Habst (talk) 22:46, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm not really sure. Exceeding the page size is a very rare edge case. The bot still internally tracks pages and makes a report, it just literally fails to write the page content. There aren't any direct mechanisms to retry or validate previous writes or anything like that. I have no idea if it still thinks the pages belong to the project or if it simply hasn't tried to update the page or if something else is broken. The bot probably needs to see a change to some other page before it attempts a new report; it hasn't attempted any deliveries for the past week. "Losing" pages from the project is technically not a "change", because it's also a kind of edge case where it simply no longer has an item it previously had, so there's nothing to see as changed. Since CfD closed while the pages were not part of the project, this wasn't a "change". I mean, I have no idea. Exceeding page size has happened may be a few times ever. When things change midprocess like this, it becomes really really complicated to debug. I assume the project needs to see a change. So may be try putting some obvious page into a process, like PROD or something to "force an update". —  HELLKNOWZ ∣ TALK 09:31, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

I can see there were changes in that time; for example, Derby Half Marathon was AfDed yesterday. I understand that this is a big ask for a volunteer project, but can you please check the log or tell AAlertBot to simply cut off the reports at $wgMaxArticleSize (minus a few bytes for safety)? I feel like I've done everything I can do from my side but without access to the bot code I don't know what I can do to fix the page. --Habst (talk) 14:33, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

Oh, I see. Adding the comment here made the bot completely ignore the subscription entry. I didn't even think of it. It's not really doing full wiki markup parsing when reading the subscription page, so it's basically been ignoring it due to invalid syntax. I removed it, so let's see what it does tomorrow. —  HELLKNOWZ ∣ TALK 21:36, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

Looks like the report got delivered now. —  HELLKNOWZ ∣ TALK 08:50, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

Fantastic, thank you so much for looking into this. --Habst (talk) 12:05, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

Lots of out of date entries

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Physics/Article_alerts has many entries that are long past the "alert" status. For example the section Articles for deletion has many entries that were closed. Is that expected? Johnjbarton (talk) 17:30, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

@Johnjbarton: The physics alerts are set to archive after 60 days, per Wikipedia:Article alerts/Subscription list (you'll have to edit to see details). That should put the threshold at ~7 August. No pages have had their last relevant action from before that date. E.g. for the entry

• 01 Aug 2025 – The History of Physics in Trinity College Dublin (talk · edit · hist) AfDed by Ldm1954 (t · c) was closed as delete by Explicit (t · c) on 08 Aug 2025; see discussion (6 participants)

August 8 is the last relevant action (60 days ago), and should get archived tomorrow, when 61 days have occured. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:56, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Ok thanks! Johnjbarton (talk) 18:00, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

@Johnjbarton: feel free to change the archive period. 30 days would be very reasonable IMO. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:14, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Ok I changed to 30 to see how it works, thanks. Johnjbarton (talk) 20:04, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Along those same lines, Wikipedia:WikiProject New York City/Article alerts#SPL is showing two entries from 2020 (Jamaica Savings Bank and Riverdale, Bronx), plus some from 2022, 2023, and 2024. How do I clear those out? RoySmith (talk) 14:57, 25 December 2025 (UTC)

Depends on what you mean by "clear those out"? For example, Jamaica Savings Bank has {{split}} on the page. If you remove the banner the bot will stop seeing it in Category:All articles proposed for splitting. I assume the rest are the same. —  HELLKNOWZ ∣ TALK 15:28, 25 December 2025 (UTC)

Heh, I didn't even notice that on JSB. I spent all of my time looking at Riverdale, Bronx, and now I see that it does indeed have a {{split}}, but buried deep down in the middle of the article where I didn't see it. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. RoySmith (talk) 15:43, 25 December 2025 (UTC)

Entries archived

Hello, the BOT appears to have archived 2 split entries, but the templates remain in the articles. Unsure why they were removed from the article alert report. See log. Keith D (talk) 19:08, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

Urgh, the bot failed to find any merge or split pages because workflow categories were moved: Category:All articles to be split to Category:All articles proposed for splitting and Category:All articles to be merged to Category:All articles proposed for merging and we didn't get notified about this (despite a huge banner at the top of the pages...) I will need to change the categories the bot uses. —  HELLKNOWZ ∣ TALK 19:09, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

Apologies for being delinquent on notifications when implementing that as closing admin; I should have done better (although in some sense it was the nominator's responsibility, not mine). * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:03, 29 November 2025 (UTC)