User talk:NervousBot

Allow notifications to users who aren't the page author

I noticed this bot on User talk:Conversion script and am glad it got off the ground; I'd seen the very beginning of this discussion about the idea but didn't follow up on it. Just now I've thought of an idea to make the bot potentially more useful; I wonder if the bot could notify a user about not just articles they've created but also a customised list of articles (like pages they've worked on where they aren't the article creator), perhaps in a page only editable by the user in their userspace like User:Graham87/NervousBot.css or something (the CSS extension would mean that only the userspace owner and interface admins could edit the page). I was in a situation a while back where this could have been useful; see a post I made on meta regarding a proposal to remove language link edits from the Recent Changes and Watchlist Feed of projects besides Wikidata for more information about that. Graham87 (talk) 10:16, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Hi, I'll look into this/think about it and get back to you, it is something I have wanted to implement but not sure 100% of the right way to determine "subscriptions". The .css idea is interesting. Balance3641 🍃 (talk · contribs) 11:13, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

I've implemented that now, it isn't on a .css page, but it's a template you can transclude on either your talk page or a dedicated user page to subscribe to any page you want. Instructions are on the User Page for the bot. Balance3641 🍃 (talk · contribs) 12:33, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Thanks very much; done. Graham87 (talk) 13:19, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

This is really impressive!
Does NervousBot have any plans to be made available to other wikis?

If it could be deployed to the other Projects and language wikis, it could be an elegant solution for those who want to keep tracking language link changes to articles, even when they have been disabled from the local wiki's Recent Changes feed. Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 14:05, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Thank you very much! I'm happy to work on either cleaning up the code & making it open source, or deploying it to work on other projects, would just need translations of the messages and pages, but it should be able to be deployed on other projects whenever. Balance3641 🍃 (talk · contribs) 14:16, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

About your bot

Hi @NervousBot and @Balance3641, I recently asked for feedback on a proposal to remove Language link changes from the wikis Recent Changes (and therefore, also Watchlist) pages. I was told about your both by the poster above (@Graham87) and I wanted to contact you to ask about how your bot operates or where it tracks sitelink/language link changes from to create the user talk messages.

Would it be possible to see the code?

Or perhaps you can tell me if this bot reads from the local Wiki Recent Changes, or if it looks at Wikidata Recent Changes? Our proposal could potentially break your bot from operating.
Please feel free to reply to me here or my User Talk. Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 10:52, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

At the moment I don't have the code in a state that I'm comfortable open sourcing, I track the RC from Wikidata, which looks like it will remain working if your proposal goes through right? Balance3641 🍃 (talk · contribs) 11:11, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

I'm not @Danny Benjafield (WMDE): but it sounds like it would. Graham87 (talk) 11:26, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

I see the bot in action and wonder how an unsubscribe for a user who hasn't edited since 2010, such as User:YellowMonkey, would work. This is just an example. Could the bot be trained not to post on pages with a "... may have left ..." tag on top? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:13, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

I'm open to feedback for this, other bots seem to post regardless of account status. If there is a consensus that old accounts shouldn't be messaged, I can implement that. Balance3641 🍃 (talk · contribs) 12:31, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I revert others also who post to a user who died that some redirect is under discussion. A certain amount of informing talk page watchers is fine but in this specific case, I don't see much relevance, - it's not like an article proposed to be deleted that I could save. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:30, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

@Gerda Arendt: Also the bot only posts to each user talk page once unless their talk page is actively subscribed to the bot. Graham87 (talk) 13:23, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Hello, yes in that case we should not disrupt your bot from operating: the Wikidata Recent Changes table won't be changed. Thanks! Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 12:16, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Target a user subpage

Is there a way to get the notifications on a subpage rather than the main talkpage? This has a couple of advantages. Firstly, if these are frequent that's a lot of orange bars. Secondly, this sort of notification would be interesting to see in a series, and collecting them on a subpage creates an automatic chronological list. CMD (talk) 15:23, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, I'll look into this as an option. Balance3641 🍃 (talk · contribs) 23:46, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Wording

Hi this is quite an interesting bot, thanks for making it, but is it possible that the notification text could be re-worded a bit? I'm honestly not a fan of "linked to your page X" as it implies the user owns the article. Could you re-word it to something like "linked to page X, which you created"? Thanks ―Panamitsu (talk) 21:33, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

I have a similar reaction, except that I wonder why one needs to receive a talk-page message when a link is made to an article? Or at least I don't really need or want that. In fact, I was convinced I had nothing to do with the article Duris, Lebanon, about which you notified me. Apparently, 18 years ago, when the world was new, I had created the tiniest of stubs for the archaeological site of Douris but have not visited the article since and have zero memory of doing it. Subsequent users have been the ones to develop the substance of the article and would likely be more interested in how it's faring. When a user is motivated to know what links to an article, the existing tool for checking is sufficient for me. Cynwolfe (talk) 23:20, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for the feedback, I've implemented that now. Appreciate it. Balance3641 🍃 (talk · contribs) 23:44, 28 September 2026 (UTC)