This page describes how to make SuggestBot recommend you articles at regular intervals. If you just want to try out recommendations once, please follow these instructions instead.
How to sign up
We currently offer two ways of signing up to receive recommendations regularly:
- Add the User:SuggestBot/config template to your user talk page or a sub-page of your user page.
- Add the userbox to your user page.
Since we offer two approaches there are several different ways to use these. To simplify the process, here is a summary of some possibilities and how they will work, based on the idea that User:Example wants to sign up to receive suggestions:
| Approach | SuggestBot will… |
|---|---|
| Userbox added to User:Example | Fetch the user's preferences from the userbox parameters and post suggestions to User talk:Example |
| Config template added to User talk:Example | Fetch the user's preferences from the template parameters and post suggestions to User talk:Example |
| Config template added to User:Example/subpage | Fetch the user's preferences from the template parameters, and post suggestions to User:Example/subpage |
| Userbox added to User:Example and config template added to User:Example/subpage | Fetch the user's preferences from the config template parameters, and post suggestions to User:Example/subpage |
In other words, if you use both the userbox and the configuration template, the latter will always take precedence. Previously you could sign up for regular recommendations on a separate list, but we have stopped doing this because the templates allow you to be in control of the process as the templates are added to pages in your own userspace, and it will be a lot easier for us to later add additional parameters later.
Configuration template
You can add the User:SuggestBot/config template to your user talk page, and we'll pick it up when our next update takes place. It is also possible to add this template to a sub-page underneath your userpage, e.g. "User:Example/SuggestBot", and the bot will then post the suggestions there instead of your user talk page. The format of the template is:
{{User:SuggestBot/config
|frequency = [how often you want suggestions]
}}
You'll need to replace "[how often you want suggestions]" so that it tells SuggestBot how often you would want it to stop by, see below.
Parameters
The following parameter is required:
- frequency
- Controls how often you will receive suggestions. You can choose between once a month, twice a month, or weekly
The following parameters are voluntary, and will only change the behaviour of the bot away from the default:
- replace
- If this parameter is present (either as a keyword or "replace=yes"), the bot will attempt to replace the last existing set of suggestions instead of simply appending them.
We're continually working on developing new features for SuggestBot, and will add parameters when new features become available.
Examples
This example asks to receive suggestions once a month:
{{User:SuggestBot/config
|frequency = once a month
}}
This example asks to receive suggestions twice a month, and that they should be replaced if present:
{{User:SuggestBot/config
|frequency = twice a month
|replace
}}
Userboxes
We've created a userbox for those who would like to announce that they're using SuggestBot on their user page. Just like the config template it allows you to define how often you want suggestions and if you want them replace, and we anticipate that we'll extend the list of options as the bot is developed further. If you're unfamiliar with how userboxes work and would like some help, see Wikipedia:Userboxes. The userbox is added to your user page in this way:
{{User:SuggestBot/userbox|frequency = …}}
The "frequency" option works just the same way as the config template, you can choose between "once a month" or "twice a month", and you can use the "replace" parameter in the same way as for the config template.
You can also add the userbox to a subpage of your user page, for example if you have a number of boxes and do not want the code for them to make your user page large and confusing. In that case, SuggestBot will still post the suggestions to your user talk page, as it would otherwise mean your suggestions would show up on your user page. If you want suggestions posted to a subpage, you will have to add the config template to that subpage (see the table of examples above).
Examples
To receive recommendations once a month with a userbox:
{{User:SuggestBot/userbox|frequency=once a month}}
The userbox will then appear on your user page like this:
| SB | This user lets SuggestBot recommend articles to edit once a month. |
How to stop receiving suggestions
If you wish to unsubscribe, all you need to do is remove the template and/or the userbox from your user talk page or sub-page of your user page. We check our list of users frequently and you should therefore not get any suggestions by accident, but if you do please leave us a message on the talk page as we will want to look into it to figure out what went wrong.