diff --git a/playbooks/docs/rtd-warning-job.yaml b/playbooks/docs/rtd-warning-job.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..8feb65e3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/playbooks/docs/rtd-warning-job.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+- hosts: all
+  tasks:
+    - name: Fail job
+      fail:
+        msg: |
+          Your project requires manual intervention to correctly publish results
+          to readthedocs.  For more details see http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2018-August/132836.html
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/zuul.d/jobs.yaml b/zuul.d/jobs.yaml
index 1c68fc47..8ef0f1fc 100644
--- a/zuul.d/jobs.yaml
+++ b/zuul.d/jobs.yaml
@@ -262,6 +262,14 @@
     vars:
       constraints_file: '{{ ansible_user_dir }}/src/git.openstack.org/openstack/requirements/upper-constraints.txt'
 
+- job:
+    name: your-readthedocs-job-requires-attention
+    parent: base
+    description: |
+      A placeholder job to warn projects their readthedocs
+      post-pipeline jobs are failing and require updating
+    run: playbooks/docs/rtd-warning-job.yaml
+
 - job:
     name: tox-py35-on-zuul
     parent: tox-py35
diff --git a/zuul.d/project-templates.yaml b/zuul.d/project-templates.yaml
index 0399f23a..ef402c95 100644
--- a/zuul.d/project-templates.yaml
+++ b/zuul.d/project-templates.yaml
@@ -686,6 +686,32 @@
       jobs:
         - trigger-readthedocs-webhook
 
+- project-template:
+    name: docs-on-readthedocs-failing
+    description: |
+      Template for projects requiring updates to their
+      docs-on-readthedocs usage.  Because project managers
+      are required to update their project, infra can not
+      fix deployment.  Since rtd triggering only
+      happens in the post pipeline, nobody really checks the
+      results of the jobs.  Not everyone reads the mailing list as
+      closely as we might like.  The result is a lot of projects
+      with broken documentation publishing that don't know about it.
+
+      This job always fails and provides a link to the mailing list
+      post with details of how to fix the job.
+
+      Revert to docs-on-readthedocs when the webhook id is added to
+      the project.
+    check:
+      jobs:
+        - build-openstack-sphinx-docs
+        - your-readthedocs-job-requires-attention:
+            voting: false
+    gate:
+      jobs:
+        - build-openstack-sphinx-docs
+
 - project-template:
     name: nodejs4-publish-to-npm
     post: