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Community Wishlist Survey 2021/Watchlists

< Community Wishlist Survey 2021
Community Wishlist Survey 2021
Watchlists
17 proposals, 226 contributors, 328 support votes
The survey has closed. Thanks for your participation :)



Show only relevant wikidata property changes on client wiki

  • Problem:

if I select Show Wikidata edits in your watchlist from settings then I get a lot of edits that are irrelevant in local wiki's context and changes will flood the watchlist. Currently there is phab:T90436, which tries to add a more refined filtering by using information of which properties are loaded. However, even this may be too wide for common users as values from wikidata can be used only for filtering or data validation. This proposal tries to narrow the selection by using roughly the properties mentioned in template documentation as a selector.

  • Who would benefit:
  1. users who would like to follow wikidata edits from their local wiki.
  2. Wikidata could crowdsource the edit patrolling to client wikis
  • Proposed solution:
  1. Flag the wikidata changes of the properties linked from transcluded templates of the wikipage as important (in client wiki)
  2. Add edit filter for filtering flagged changes to Watchlist and Recent changes
  • More comments:
  • Phabricator tickets:
  • Proposer: Zache (talk) 18:04, 28 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Discussion

Voting

Watch a Wikidata query

  • Problem: When adding data to Wikidata, it's difficult to check if it continues to be consistent. Example: check if someone updates the population in a list of cities without monitoring each item in the Watchlist.
  • Who would benefit: Data curators in Wikidata
  • Proposed solution: Add a query, tested in the WDQS, to a page and run it with a custom frequency (once per day/week) similar to Wikidata:Database reports
  • More comments: See also Sparql recent changes. Already proposed in 2017
  • Phabricator tickets:
  • Proposer: Sabas88 (talk) 19:59, 18 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Discussion

  • @Sabas88: Thanks for your proposal! This is sort of possible with the {{Wikidata list}} template: it creates a table in a page that will be automatically updated from a query, and you can then add that page to your watchlist. Does that sort of meet your use case? —Sam Wilson 05:03, 23 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • @Samwilson: yes, that's what I use. The proposal is to simplify the process (or integrate the workflow in the Watchlist feature itself. --Sabas88 (talk) 12:46, 25 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Voting

Personal notes on watchlisted items

  • Problem: When watchlists become long, it is impossible to remember why you added an item to your watchlist.
  • Who would benefit: All editors
  • Proposed solution: When an item is added to a watchlist, include an optional query to the editor to add a short note about why it is being added to the watchlist. This field would be viewable only by the editor.
  • More comments:
  • Phabricator tickets:
  • Proposer: --Hammersoft (talk) 12:59, 25 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Discussion

  • I find it quite difficult to manage a long watchlist. The inability to note why I've added something to my watchlist is one of the most frustrating problems. Sometimes I want to watchlist an item to remind me to edit it later. Sometimes I added it because I want to temporarily watch a page due to an uptick in vandalism on the page. Sometimes I watchlist an item because something is going to happen regarding the subject in the near future, and the article will need attention either for editing or for guarding it against vandalism. When you add an item to a watchlist, it's a catch all pile with no differentiation. A few months on, I likely will have no recollection as to why I added an item to my watchlist. --Hammersoft (talk) 12:59, 25 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Implementing this in some way might mitigate the issue brought up in Accessible List of Pages on Watchlist" Philiptdotcom (talk) 14:10, 14 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Voting

Option to be e-mailed for every change to a page

Deutsch: Beobachtungsoptionen: Zusatzoption: permanente E-Mail-Benachrichtigen (auch wenn Seite nicht erneut besucht wurde)

  • Problem: For a very small number of articles, it would be very important to me to be informed of every (!) Change by email. (At the moment - if I understand correctly - an e-mail is sent when an article is changed. I will only be informed of the subsequent changes by e-mail after I have visited the article (registered) or “All changes as Mark seen "was clicked.)
(Deutsch) Bei einigen sehr wenigen Artikel wäre es mir sehr wichtig, über jede(!) Änderung per E-Mail benachrichtigt zu werden. (Im Moment wird – wenn ich es richtig verstehe – bei einer Änderung eines Artikels eine E-Mail gesendet. Über die danach folgenden Änderungen werde ich per E-Mail erst informiert, wenn ich den Artikel (angemeldet) besucht habe oder „Alle Änderungen als gesehen markieren“ angeklickt wurde.)
  • Who would benefit: Who would this wish help: All those taking notes who are interested in the further processing of an article.
(Deutsch) Wem würde dieser Wunsch helfen: Allen Mitschreibenden, die am Verlauf der weiteren Bearbeitung eines Artikels interessiert sind.
  • Proposed solution: Suggested solution: That is why I would like an additional option: permanent e-mail notifications: even if the page has not been visited again or "Mark all changes as seen" has not been clicked. I.e. Notification by email of every (!) Change. (This is of course to be used sparingly: ie "opt in").
(Deutsch) Lösungsvorschlag: Deshalb wünsche ich mir eine Zusatzoption: permanente E-Mail-Benachrichtigen: auch wenn die Seite nicht erneut besucht wurde bzw. nicht „Alle Änderungen als gesehen markieren“ angeklickt wurde. D.h. Benachrichtigung per E-Mail bei jeder(!) Änderung. (Das ist natürlich sparsam zu verwenden: also „opt in“).

Discussion

This is already available as an Atom (RSS) feed. On the page you wish to monitor (e.g. w:de:Benutzer:Molgreen) go to its history. In the left hand menu there's a link to the Atom feed. I use Thunderbird for my email which also handles RSS feeds. Other feedreaders are available. Hope that helps, Cabayi (talk) 11:22, 19 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello Cabayi, thank you very much for your hint. I only use the website of my email provider or the app. Therefore Atom (RSS) feed probably does not help me. --Molgreen (talk) 16:42, 21 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
You could set up a task in de:IFTTT or http://n8n.io or de:Microsoft Power Automate to watch the RSS (Atom) feed and email you each time it updates. Cabayi (talk) 17:08, 21 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This should also be considered in the multiple watchlists proposal, such that different watchlists can have different notification action sets associated with them. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 09:48, 20 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Another solution to your problem would be my idea: Community Wishlist Survey 2021/Watchlists#Add a "favorite this page" in the "watch this page" star. Simply have the few very important articles to you (like an article you promoted to Good or Featured) at the top of your watchlist! No e-mail required (although you could also be e-mailed if you wanted, I guess. We can expand on my idea.) Bageense (talk) 17:17, 24 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Voting

  •   Support RobertBlinov (talk) 10:05, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •   Support Libcub (talk) 20:49, 10 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •   Support Anntinomy (talk) 08:48, 11 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •   Support As long as each user can configure in their Preferences whether to receive notifications in their email or not. WikiFer msg 22:24, 11 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •   Support I would also like the diff to be included in the email. Benjamin (talk) 13:28, 12 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •   Support Golmore (talk) 10:50, 13 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •   Support although an Atom feed (whatever that is*) is available, it would be nice to have an easy-to-use UI interface to this feature (*for folks like me!) Philiptdotcom (talk) 13:54, 14 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Watchlist Web notifications

  • Problem: Users that have too many pages in watchlist miss some very important pages edited that they sat in their watchlist.
  • Who would benefit: Users that have many pages in watchlist
  • Proposed solution: A tool to watch a page that sends Web notification when page edited.
  • More comments: I'd use this tool for the present page !
  • Phabricator tickets:
  • Proposer: Golmore (talk) 13:28, 18 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Discussion

This is already available as an Atom (RSS) feed. On the page you wish to monitor (e.g. w:fr:Utilisateur:Golmore) go to its history. In the left hand menu there's a link to the Atom feed. I use Thunderbird for my email which also handles RSS feeds. Other aggregators are available. Hope that helps, Cabayi (talk) 11:31, 19 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

  Comment: I have a similar proposal, which seeks to solve the same problem. Please see Community Wishlist Survey 2021/Watchlists#Add a "favorite this page" in the "watch this page" star. Bageense (talk) 17:05, 24 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Note that Community Wishlist Survey 2021/Watchlists#Add a "favorite this page" in the "watch this page" star has been merged with Community Wishlist Survey 2021/Reading/"Favourite" or "Followed pages" button - IFried (WMF) (talk) 19:23, 3 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Voting

Thanks from watchlist

  • Problem: there's no "thank" button on the watchlist
  • Who would benefit: anyone who wants to thank someone for an edit or action without leaving the watchlist window
  • Proposed solution: add a thank link
  • More comments: I believe this has been requested before, but not implemented; it can't be that hard. Please also consider adding a "thank" link to Special:Log pages that don't have it – the block log, for example.
  • Phabricator tickets: phab:T51541
  • Proposer: Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 11:31, 24 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Discussion

  • Haha, that's already a thing in the Portuguese wikipedia (at least). This is the code: pt:Usuário:Bageense/agradecer.js. (Agradecer means thank). The "thank" button is between the "diff" and "his" buttons. Bageense (talk) 17:09, 24 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • There is a userscript on enwp for this, too: en:User:Evad37/Thanky. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 01:07, 29 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • How do you know without viewing the diff that the edit is something that should by thanked? Even if it's an editor you know and generally trust they may have made a mistake - I can't see the use case of blind thanking. KylieTastic (talk) 19:25, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Sounds interesting, the diff may have been viewed from Popups.js or a page that closed unexpectedly. But I am also worried about abuse as well as confused due to accidental clicking, so I expect this to be a feature disabled by default and low development priority. Therefore, some user scripts may be a better choice.--YFdyh000 (talk) 22:40, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • If this ends up being added to the watchlist, it should also be added to the recent pages page for consistency. Hazard-SJ (talk) 04:57, 13 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Voting

  •   Support Imetsia (talk) 18:59, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •   Support --NGC 54 (talk / contribs) 20:01, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •   Oppose If you are not viewing the diff, there is no reason to thank. --Braveheidi (talk) 21:03, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    Reviewing diff can be easily enabled for Watchlist, e.g. by userscript Xinbenlv (talk) 22:17, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    If we're making things for people who use userscripts, why can't they just use the userscript to do this? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 00:37, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    I don't see anyone objecting to supporting this on UserScript, but UserScript comes at a barrier of technical savvyness and not all editors are good at it. I'd say when people think one usecase is compelling enough, some of them make their userscript, some of them vote to support these usecases to be supported more natively by MediaWiki. At first Twinkle was a user script, it gets adopted later and can be turned on by built-in preferences. I don't view people supporting these features to be objecting to using userscripts. Xinbenlv (talk) 04:26, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    The watchlist (and by extension recent changes) can feel cluttered as-is, so I'm not very eager to add more things that are always visible for everyone if it's primary aimed at people already using a script. Additionally, my intuition, in agreement with Braveheidi's comment, is that you should know more about an edit than just the editor, page, and edit summary before thanking, so that the action isn't done out of context. Hazard-SJ (talk) 04:57, 13 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •   Support Kisnaak (talk) 21:26, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •   Support Xinbenlv (talk) 22:16, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •   Support NMaia (talk) 03:12, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •   Support —— Eric Liu（留言．百科用戶頁） 04:43, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •   Support In the watchlist it is already possible to view the diff, if the possibility of checking pages just by placing the mouse pointer over the internal link is enabled in your gadget. This proposal is excellent because it aims to include the Thank button within the watchlist itself. In Portuguese Wikipedia, this feature is only available to anyone who is viewing a diff, not within their own watchlist. WikiFer msg 16:21, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •   Support Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:41, 10 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •   Support Sadads (talk) 16:41, 10 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •   Support I need it! Anntinomy (talk) 08:46, 11 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •   Support Somej (talk) 21:08, 11 December 2020 (UTC) yes would be useful, and works well with the "mouseover" for small diffsReply[reply]
  •   Support Golmore (talk) 10:20, 13 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •   Support — Draceane talkcontrib. 13:51, 15 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •   Support SeGiba (talk) 18:01, 15 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •   Support Épico (talk)/(contribs) 23:15, 16 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •   Support Simulo (talk) 14:57, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •   Support DarkGlow (talk) 21:16, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •   Oppose - "Thanks" link should only appear next to a diff. If you need a userscript to see the diff, then you can implement Thanks inside the userscript, too. — Omegatron (talk) 15:22, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •   Support — tyseria 01:59, 21 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Link watchlist

  • Problem: There are people on wikipedia interested in self promotion. There are many ways to self promote on wikipedia. The most obvious is to create an article about oneself, but for others who already have an article, they may try to add their name to irrelevant or inappropriate places. This may fly under the radar of recent changes patroller. There are also many vandals who engage in sneaky link vandalism. Finally, there are many people who create inappropriate redirects to articles.
  • Who would benefit: Everyone except vandals and those with coi.
  • Proposed solution: A watchlist for when something is linked from another page on wikipedia. It could be separate from the regular watchlist or could be integrated into it.
  • More comments: This is similar to The watchlist for categories idea under the categories section.
  • Phabricator tickets:
  • Proposer: Ghinga7 (talk) 03:09, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Discussion

  • If the links are worth watching, surely they are worth blacklisting too? --Izno (talk) 18:05, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Am I right in thinking that edit filters can be used for links which might be worth patrolling, but that you don't want to blacklist? — Bilorv (talk) 20:10, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Sorry everyone, let me clarify. What I mean is internal links. An example would be if I was John Smith, and I was the Head of a foo factory. While that is my claim to fame, I wouldn't necessarily belong in the foo article. My link watchlist idea would, if implemented, alert people on their watchlist who are watching John Smith's article that User:John Smith added the link John Smith to the article Foo. Sorry that I was unclear before, @User:Izno and @User:Bilorv. Ghinga7 (talk) 23:05, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • So specifically, is this tool about adding an option in the watchlist to see when a page you are watching is linked from another page? Presumably you'd want to choose to opt out of this, on a per-page basis, and also choose which namespaces trip this filter (e.g. if I follow the article "Wikipedia" on the English Wikipedia then I don't want to hear about every time a bot lists it in the most-viewed pages of the week in WikiProject Wikipedia). — Bilorv (talk) 00:29, 18 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • @User:Bilorv Yes, that is correct. I was thinking that it would be opt-in rather than opt out. I didn't think of an option to do it for only specific links, but yeah I think it would be wise. Again, didn't think of only specifying namespace. I guess you could disable it in different namespaces... honestly, I probably wouldn't use it at all, but I would see why some people would want it. Thanks for responding and asking detailed questions; I'm grateful that somebody is willing to think through my (possibly) half-baked ideas :) Ghinga7 (talk) 01:46, 18 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • There is already a preference which allows you to receive a notification when a page you created is linked to from another page. Could extending that feature to any page you selected be sufficient, or is the watchlist presentation particularly helpful in some way? Samwalton9 (talk) 09:32, 18 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Yeah @User:Samwalton9, something like that. Thanks for pointing out that this similar tool exists. I would use this, but, of course, I still haven't created anything useful on wikipedia. I would prefer it to be on the watchlist, as it directly relates to watched pages. Besides, some people have thousands of pages on their watchlist, some of them very popular, and I don't think they would want to get a notification every time someone linked to, say, Earth on another page. Ghinga7 (talk) 18:38, 18 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Hey @User:Cabayi, maybe. I find those feeds incredibly techy looking and possibly offputting to some users (like me, the one who hates wikitext and uses visual as often as possible. I know. I'm that guy. :) But anyways, it might be an easier but less effective fix. Cheers, Ghinga7 (talk) 17:04, 19 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • I'd use this. I currently bookmark "Related changes (linked to)" for an image which vandals often insert inappropriately but has a few legitimate uses. With my current method, most changes are false positives (good edits to a page which already contained the image). Certes (talk) 13:38, 19 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • This is something I've wanted at times in the past, too, when cleaning up spam/listspam/promotion. My big question would be how many links are there that have problems which span a long period of time. The times I've wanted it were really about a pretty short span of time (until the spammer gave up, which does usually happen). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 02:23, 29 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • @User:Rhododendrites, I don't see how that's relevant. If you're able to stop this kind of disruption, whether long term or short term, it helps the wiki. That's the main point of it. Regards, Ghinga7 (talk) 18:26, 29 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Another use case from enwiki: wikilinks to certain lists are almost invariably intended for a particular entry. For example, links to Schoenberg are never about the surname but refer to Arnold Schoenberg. With this tool, we could spot and fix them as they arrive rather than having to check manually whenever we remember. These are good-faith errors rather than vandalism to be blacklisted. Certes (talk) 21:36, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Voting

Default expiry for watchlist entries

  • Problem: Items added automatically to the watchlist stay there indefinitely.
  • Who would benefit: Editors wishing to benefit fully from Community Wishlist Survey 2019/Watchlists/Watchlist item expiration, due for release soon recently released
  • Proposed solution: In Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist, under Watched pages, replace the checkboxes by dropdowns or radio buttons offering time periods alongside the existing No and Forever options. Apply these values when watchlisting pages silently, and preselect them as the defaults when watchlisting pages via a dialog such as that below the edit box.
  • More comments: Some of us occasionally manually watchlist a page of interest permanently, but more often want to watch pages we just edited for a week or month in case of replies, reversion, etc. This is particularly useful for gnomes who make many minor edits.
  • Phabricator tickets:
  • Proposer: Certes (talk) 17:07, 18 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Discussion

  • I am glad to hear that Community Wishlist Survey 2019/Watchlists/Watchlist item expiration is coming. This proposal seems fine to me but I would know much better how I feel about it after I see how Watchlist item expiration is implemented. --Jarekt (talk) 20:21, 20 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • I wouldn't use this myself but I see a huge use case for it and find it odd that this was omitted from the implementation. — Bilorv (talk) 00:32, 2 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • I also find it odd that it's not possible to set default expiry times, at all or by type. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:11, 2 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • One more thing: if a page is already watched, the time period suggested should be the longer of the existing watch duration and the default. I'm not sure (and don't mind) exactly how this works with (say) 15 days of a 1 month watch left where the default is a week; leaving the existing watch period would be one good solution. Certes (talk) 16:42, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • (Added after close) English Wikipedia editors may wish to install a script to fix this omission: w:User:Rummskartoffel/auto-watchlist-expiry. Certes (talk) 13:20, 25 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Voting

Sortable list of watched pages with date added

  • Problem: As other proposals highlighted, watchlists are often used for remembering pages to edit later. However, especially when watchlists are very large, it is difficult to find the watched page again and in general it is difficult to navigate the watched pages.
  • Who would benefit: Any registered user
  • Proposed solution: Add a sortable list of watched pages (or improve the current "edit watchlist" page) with date of addition to watchlist. In this way, it is easier to find again pages and in general to maintain the watchlist.
  • More comments:
  • Phabricator tickets:
  • Proposer: Ita140188 (talk) 07:30, 21 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Discussion

Voting

Automatically add subpages in the watchlist

  • Problem: On several wiki, the archives of community discussions are structured as "Commons:Village pump/ArchiveYYYY/MM" (this is an example with Commons but this is the same idea on other projects and languages). Not talking about archives, some community discussions are stuctured this way: "Wiktionnaire:Questions_techniques/MM_YYYY" which means there is a new page to watch each month. This leads to the creation of such list.
  • Who would benefit: every contributor who watch community discussion pages that use subpages. It will allow to see a change in an archived discussion.
  • Proposed solution: Mediawiki should offer a new button next to the "Watch this page" button. This new button would be "Watch this page and all subpages". Clicking on such button, if a contributor chooses to watch Wiki:XXX, then all subpages are automatically added to the watchlist Wiki:XXXX/aaa, Wiki:XXXX/bbb, Wiki:XXXX/cccc, ... When one subpage is created, it is automatically added to the watchlist of user who watch this main page.
  • More comments: I think one should allow users to be able to remove subpages individually from their watchlists. For exemple, if one watches Wiki:XXXX, then Wiki:XXXX/aaa and Wiki:XXXX/bbbb are automatically added to the watchlist. Yet, one should be able to remove manually Wiki:XXXX/aaa.
It appears that Extension:WatchSubpages has been developed for this purpose but it is not deployed on any wiki because it needs to pass several reviews. The developer, Prod started the review process but did not finish it. So I think an official support by the MediaWiki developers is a way to see this extension alive.

Discussion

Voting

Watchlists should highlight pages up for deletion

  • Problem: Sometimes it is easy to not notice that an article or page on your watchlist has been tagged for some sort of deletion, particularly if there has been an edit after the one tagging for deletion so it does not show on the watchlist.
  • Who would benefit: Any editor (but mostly experienced editors) keen to keep track of articles that they care about being proposed for deletion so that they can participate in deletion discussions and make sure that deletion tags are not being used spuriously. This may also benefit administrators as it should reduce requests for undeletion made by people who didn't realise that an article/page was up for deletion until it was actually deleted (although I don't know how often that actually happens).
  • Proposed solution: Articles/pages that have any sort of deletion tag on them should be shown with a clear indication in the Watchlist. This might be an icon or a coloured highlight. When an article/page is proposed for deletion of a type that has a discussion (AfD etc) then the discussion page should also be automatically added to the Watchlists of all users who have the article/page on their Watchlist. It is reasonable to assume that anybody who cares enough about something to put it on their Watchlist would want this but, if some people disagree, then maybe automatically adding the discussion to the Watchlist could be an option per-user.
  • More comments:
  • Phabricator tickets:
  • Proposer: DanielRigal (talk) 23:52, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Discussion

  • @DanielRigal: I see English Wikipedia is your home wiki, so you may be interested in w:User:Anomie/linkclassifier. This script will highlight links pink if the target page is up for deletion, among other features. Unfortunately we can't simply deploy this gadget to all wikis, because deletion processes differ by community (at least the category names do). We could however rework the gadget to be configurable so that other wikis can install it if they wish. Would you like to reword your proposal to be that, or does this user script work for you? I do not believe a proper MediaWiki solution is easily achievable given there is no uniform deletion process in MediaWiki. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 00:46, 18 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    Category names could be read from the Wikidata item for the category. --Izno (talk) 05:42, 18 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    True, but different wikis have entirely different deletion processes that use categories differently. For example, most wikis are not going to have an equivalent of Category:Expired proposed deletions of unsourced BLPs, but they may have some other equally obscure and complicated system. I think the only way this would work is if each wiki configured the gadget with their local list of deletion categories. Kaldari (talk) 21:20, 20 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • good idea! -Cramyourspam (talk) 15:05, 18 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Technical implementation might be an issue - how does the watchlist "know" that a page is up for deletion? I'd imagine we'd get a system message (say MediaWiki:Deletion_templates) that can be edited to get a list of templates and if one of these templates is transcluded in a page the watchlist highlights it (presumably if a user preference is set) Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:16, 19 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Voting

Large watchlist access

  • Problem: editors with large watch lists (40k + for example) (by accident or intention), when trying to edit or access their watch lists are responded to with timeout messages.

The usual response from those who know, is there is no way that the large watchlist can be fixed except my manual means, time consuming and for large watchlists a real problem.

  • Who would benefit: anyone who has a large watchlist.
  • Proposed solution: Some method by which sections of large watch lists can be accessed, without causing a timeout message. There may be more than one way of separating.

Sometimes the components of a larger watchlist has material across all forms of material found in english wikipedia. Other watchlists might have only articles. There should be more than one way to 'breakup' or gain access into the watchlist of size.

Discussion

  • May be users could have multiple watchlists. Each one could be selected to view the changes relating just to that list or to add/delete items to the selected list. This would help users organise their watchlists to focus on specific areas of work, deletions could be kept on one list, vandalism on another, etc. This would reduce the large watchlist problem and make them manageable. Keith D (talk) 01:38, 24 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • While we're at it, deleted pages should automagically be removed from watchlists. How about an option to also unwatch the talk pages of inactive users. These two options could quite dramatically shrink watchlists of editors like myself who have been here for a decade or longer. Dodger67 (talk) 18:11, 11 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Automatically de-watchlisting deleted pages sounds like a good optional setting. I watchlist spammer-created-later-deleted pages to spot sock/meat-puppetry and competing-paid-editors-with-same-client page re-creations. Davidwr/talk 17:26, 21 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Voting

Simple import and export of Watchlists

  • Problem: As an experienced editor, I would like to be able to share a list of pages that another user can import to their watchlist in a couple of clicks so that they can easily start watching a list of pages on a particular topic. I would like to be able to generate this list via an export from my Watchlist.

Ideally this would be combined with multiple watchlists so that you could import/export just one category/tag of your watchlist rather than the entire thing.

This need came to me, again, during the 2020 US election. I had watchlisted ~250 articles relating to the election and wanted to share this with some new editors who were interested in monitoring election pages. To do this I went to the 'raw' version of the watchlist and copied the full list into a Google Doc. I then shared that along with instructions on where to paste the list in order to generate their election watchlist. Ideally I would like to have shared a single link that they could have clicked to import the pages to their watchlist.

  • Who would benefit: New users who want to quickly monitor a set of pages on a particular topic. This might be useful in events and campaigns, encouraging participants not to simple create their own content, but to also quickly get up to speed monitoring pages of interest.
  • Proposed solution: An export function for your watchlist that generates some ingestible list of pages (maybe this is simply the existing 'raw' functionality?). An import function that can take a list of pages and import them to your watchlist.

Maybe this could look something like the following:

  • I click 'Export' on my watchlist and choose a destination page, e.g. User:Samwalton9/Election watchlist. The raw list of pages is pasted onto that page.
  • Another user can click 'Import', pointing it at the page I generated. This imports the list of pages to their watchlist.

Discussion

  • This would help with creating watchlist backups, i.e. to make sure all is not lost if I ever accidentally click the clear watchlist button. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:43, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    Watchlist backups: Go to raw watchlist, copy, paste onto wiki page. (Clearing a watchlist is something all people eventually do as they come up against the limits either of the server or of their own willigness to watch several thousand pages for changes.) --Izno (talk) 18:04, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    @Izno: (This either makes me proud that my watchlist pruning skills are apparently exceptional or concerned that I'm not part of the domain of "all people"... 🤖) {{u|Sdkb}} talk 03:24, 19 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    Sdkb, the x on the watchlist page hasn't existed forever, so a lot of people probably don't employ it as a tool to prune stuff that shows up that they don't care about. Then there's the "I watch ever afd I edit" set, whom will soon be served by watchlist expiry. It's also just possible you haven't been around long enough. ;) --Izno (talk) 04:25, 19 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Cool idea... but I think raw watchlist basically works for now. I don't really understand why you put it on Google docs instead of onwiki.... --Izno (talk) 18:02, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    • It was the first thing that came to mind, onwiki would have worked too :) Samwalton9 (talk) 18:03, 18 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Voting

Accessible List of Pages on Watchlist

  • Problem: I will often use the watchlist not merely to monitor changes to articles but to save articles I am reading that need to be edited that I can come back to later. For this reason I often find that I want to view the pages on my watchlist regardless of whether there have been recent edits or not. The only way to do this is to edit the list of watched pages, but that is obviously for the purpose of editing, not merely for viewing which pages I have listed. Essentially, the watchlist currently is much stronger at listing changes than listing what you are watching (unless I do not know how to use the page properly).
  • Who would benefit: Anyone who would like to view their list of watched pages without having to pretend to edit their list of watched pages every time.
  • Proposed solution: A possible solution to this problem would be to have a collapsible or uncollapsible list of your current watched pages that appears as soon as you click the watchlist (along with the normal changes display, of course), rather than having to click into the watchlist than editing the list to view the pages.
  • More comments:
  • Phabricator tickets:
  • Proposer: DynaGuy00 (talk) 23:55, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Discussion

This might be resolved/mitigated if some version of "Personal notes on watchlisted items" were implemented. Philiptdotcom (talk) 14:07, 14 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Voting

Multiple watchlists

  • Problem: As an editor with thousands of pages on my Watchlist, I'd like to have multiple watchlists - each containing a subset of those pages - so that I can focus my attention on changes to specific groups of pages during an editing session.

One example use case from personal experience is that during the 2020 US Presidential Election I was interested in monitoring pages related to the election. These weren't pages I previously had on my watchlist, and I didn't want to drown out the pages I was otherwise interested in watching with the addition of ~250 pages, many of which would have very high activity and that I would want to un-watch in a few months. To solve this problem I made a 2nd account, where I watchlisted the group of pages I was interested in. I then signed into that account on a 2nd browser so that I didn't need to keep logging in and out. I'm sure there was a simpler way of doing this, but it's the method that seemed most obvious to me at the time.

In an ideal world, I would have been able to watchlist all the election pages but make them available in a secondary category from my 'main' watchlist.

  • Who would benefit: Experienced editors, particularly those with large watchlists or who are interested in tracking multiple categories of pages.
  • Proposed solution: There are a few different solutions proposed in previous incarnations of this wish. One that I found quite interesting was the ability to set 'tags' on pages, and then filter the watchlist based on combinations of those tags. A simpler approach might be to have articles exclusively in one watchlist 'bucket' or another. This would undoubtedly require both technical and UX exploration so I won't assume to propose a solution beyond these ideas.
  • More comments:
  • Phabricator tickets: T3492
  • Proposer: Samwalton9 (talk) 00:19, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Discussion

  • I like the idea of being able to tag and filter your watchlist. I'm sure every long-time editor would have some sort of use with this - personally, there are a lot of pages I put on my watchlist when doing recent changes patrol, but sometimes I forget why I've watched them in the first place. Or they get mixed in with all the other pages and I forget I'm looking out for something specific with them. I would love to be able to create/use a tag so I can filter them out separately. - Whisperjanes (talk) 03:57, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    • Love the idea of tagging reasons when adding to watchlist. Currently the only way sort pages you're interested in is to create a userspace page and sort them manually or use an external program like notepad. I would definitely use a tagging feature if its easier than either of those options. --// Lollipoplollipoplollipop :: talk 07:01, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • I support this idea. I definitely edit in topic-themed chunks and would love to be able to maintain a tabbed (or something) set of lists that I could look at at a glance. Would also really love to be able to place all TALK pages on their own sub-list. Jessamyn (talk) 04:34, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • I also like this proposal. Maybe just some "tags" and a relative "tag filter" would be a great idea--ValeJappo【〒】 08:51, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Each time this is discussed and considered, I need to remind people about Special:RecentChangesLinked. If you really need something today, that's what you should employ for (especially) a (temporary) secondary watchlist. --Izno (talk) 18:51, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Wow thanks for that page, I did not know it existed. You are right, this essentially cover this need if all the pages to follow are linked from a user sandbox for example. --Ita140188 (talk) 03:17, 14 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Absolutely. I'd really benefit from personal watchlists "Content I've worked on", "High-risk articles", "Patrolling", "Discussions" and an option to see them all aggregated. — Bilorv (talk) 20:09, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • This is what i need. Rahmatdenas (talk) 09:51, 18 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • This is very tempting - I could keep my AfD traffic to one side and otherwise split up usefully between my content and admin work. Big support Nosebagbear (talk) 15:32, 18 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • I will say this is a good idea, but the implementation need not be multiple watchlists, rather my suggestion will be having filters in watchlists, like what we have in recent changes and users can customize the filters to their liking (e.g. Wikipedia namespace, IP edits etc) I.e. bring recent changes into watchlist, like a recent change of watchlisted page etc. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 16:09, 18 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • @Samwalton9: This sounds like it might be outside the scope of the Community Tech team, which specifically says, "Tasks that are not in scope include: Large, long-term development projects like converting Commons to use structured meta-data or creating an entirely new watchlist interface." I'll leave it to the team members to make a more official evaluation though. Kaldari (talk) 21:51, 20 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    • Ha, I'd missed that this was almost directly called out as an example of what not to do :) In my defense, Ilana told me to file this! Samwalton9 (talk) 22:38, 20 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
      • I actually think this might be doable this time. After our work on Watchlist Expiry, our team now consists of watchlist experts :) What I envision is using the "Saved filters" dropdown as the way to select your custom watchlists. So we don't need an entirely new UI. We just need a new table to store the relationship between the name of the watchlist and its items. In a sense it'd almost be a repeat of what we did for Watchlist Expiry, only this time we know where everything lives in the code. That's for a proper solution. At worse, we could make my crappy customWatchlists script something actually worthwhile. We'll have to discuss it more with the team before we go into the voting phase, but I don't think we need to archive this proposal just yet. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 00:23, 22 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • This watchlist proposal would work for my own situation. I would like to distinguish between articles I have created and articles by others that I watch for a variety of reasons, such as created by new editors from an editathon. Oronsay (talk) 18:33, 23 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • see also: Option to be e-mailed for every change to a page --Molgreen (talk) 16:43, 21 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Another see also: Community Wishlist Survey 2021/Watchlists#Add a "favorite this page" in the "watch this page" star. --Bageense (talk) 17:15, 24 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Yes please. ToBeFree (talk) 23:33, 29 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • I made a similar suggestion to Community Wishlist Survey 2021/Watchlists/Large watchlist access above. May be could be combined into a single proposal. Keith D (talk) 18:03, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • This might bethe easiest approach to haveing multiple watchlists. DGG (talk) 00:26, 12 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Voting