Community-authorised general sanctions (GS) are in effect for some topics on Wikipedia. Users editing these pages may be alerted that general sanctions are in effect. You must use this template to do so.

Alerts ensure a user knows what is expected of them. Alerts are a neutral courtesy; never use them to intimidate, coerce, or shame another editor.

To alert a user, open a new section on their user talk page. Paste the following code into it, replacing topic code – see list with the corresponding code from the table below. Type an appropriate subject line, then save the page.

{{subst:Gs/alert|topic code here – select from list}} ~~~~

Using this template will trigger EditFilter 602. As a result, your edit containing the alert will be tagged with "contentious topics alert". Edits with this tag can be searched for in user contributions, user talk page histories, Special:RecentChanges, and the log of EditFilter 602.

Therefore, an automatic system log of all alerts is maintained. You need not do anything except leave the alert.

To see whether a user has been alerted to general sanctions, load the history of their user talk page and search for contentious topics alert under the 'tag filter' field. You can use the {{Ds/log}} template (usually alongside {{user}} in noticeboard reports) to quickly generate links for conducting searches of issued alerts.

When leaving a user an Alert, you must replace |topic code – select from list with the relevant topic code:

This section transcluded from: Template:Gs/topics/single notice [] [GS template subpages]