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Community Wishlist Survey 2021/Watchlists

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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

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]

Discussion

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]

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]
  • 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]

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]

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]
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]

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]

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]

Voting

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]

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]

Comment 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]

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]

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]

Discussion

Voting

  • 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]

Discussion

  • 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]
  • 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]
  • @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]
  • 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]
  • 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]
  • 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]
  • 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]
  • 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]
  • 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]

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]

Discussion

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]

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]

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]
    Category names could be read from the Wikidata item for the category. --Izno (talk) 05:42, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[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]

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]
  • 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]
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]

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]
    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]
    @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]
    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]
  • 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]

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]

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]

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]

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]
    • 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]
  • 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]
  • 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]
  • 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]
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]

Voting

Allow administrators to access the user list that watches over a particular page

  • Problem: According to en:Help:Watchlist, "No user, not even administrators, can tell what is in your watchlist, or who is watching any particular page. Publicly available database dumps do not include this information either. Only developers who have access to the servers that hold the Wikipedia database could obtain this kind of information". This prevents the community from knowing the exact number of watches, as many users have abandoned the project and others are not even present to protect the page from vandalism. In addition, the information on the page, containing "Number of page watchers" and "Number of page watchers who visited recent edits" (see example) does not have a list that checks these accounts that have watched the page, which is insufficient to prove whether there are watches active or not. The idea is that each page is allowed access to check the list of accounts that have watched a specific page. In this case, only trusted users could have access to the names of users who watched the page: administrators (sysops).
  • Who would benefit: The administrators (sysops) would benefit, since they were elected by the local community to have access to system tools. It is up to them to check a page the list of users who watched that article, template, category, other domains. This proposal must be submitted to all global Wikimedia projects with active sysops.
  • Proposed solution: Allow administrators to access the list of users who have watched a page, whose list on a special page in their edit history. This model is important so that we can check the pages that still have active or inactive users, and which pages are more susceptible to vandalism based on the number of watches on a particular page.
  1. Click on "View history";
  2. On "External tools", below will be created "Special page for administrators", a new special page that will be part of the user group rights list: (userlistwatchedpages)
  3. All administrators will be able to view the list of users on this specific page, in addition to number of page watchers who visited recent edits.
  • More comments: Recalling that this proposal does not violate the privacy policy, as the idea is to make administrators (sysop) have access to the user list of only one particular page, and not the entire list of pages watched by a specific user. Therefore, it is important that there is no such confusion, as this model will bring more benefit to the pages and to every local project.
  • Phabricator tickets:
  • Proposer: WikiFer msg 19:45, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

  • For anonymity concerns, if this feature would be approved, it must be available only to a very small group of trustworthy users (definitely not all admins – I'm saying it as a local admin), e.g. someone like CU. — Draceane talkcontrib. 16:32, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@User:Draceane There will be no privacy or anonymity issues, as local administrators will only have access to the user list for a specific page. No administrator will have access to the list of articles monitored by a specific user, which is not the purpose of the proposal. Therefore, it is ideal that it does not confuse the main reason for this proposal. The idea of administrators having access to this list is just to know which pages have active users or not, as many pages are the target of vandalism. However, the inactivity of many old users can bring a fallacious number of watches, which leaves that information wrong, only causing damage to the local project. WikiFer msg 18:19, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't like the idea where the watchlist content would be exposed without permit from the user. Technically, this could be achivied also just using number. Ie, count of users with wl_notificationtimestamp = NULL of mw:Manual:Watchlist_table per page. However, I think even this would have privacy problems so it would need to be opt-in feature in the settings. --Zache (talk) 18:31, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@User:Zache The articles have no owner, so user don't would need to allow that admins to access the list of a particular page. As for mw:Manual:Watchlist_table, the number count already exists and it is precisely the problem pointed out, since only numbering shows that it is insufficient to determine who is active or not. Since administrators have access to see deleted page edits and see suppressed editions at the sysop level, there is nothing to prevent them from checking the pages as well. As I said, the articles do not belong to users, but to the local project. No administrator will have access to the list of pages watched by others, just the list of a particular page, something that only developers who would have this access. WikiFer msg 19:07, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think that the Number of page watchers who visited recent edits is how many user which have page in their watchlist have visited to the page in the period of last €wgWatchersMaxAge (180 days in wikimedia?) and not how many of them have been seen the all of the edits. (WatchedItemStore:countVisitingWatchers(). --Zache (talk) 20:18, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@User:Zache Yes, there are a number registered users have viewed the page in the past 180 days. However, it should be noted that during this period, it is possible that many of these users are absent from the local project and the system would have to update again to find out the exact number of watches for a particular page. Due to the impossibility of having a correct number of watches in articles A and B (two examples of articles), it is necessary that the complete list of users who watch A and B (special page on history) is visible to trusted users in the community who are the admins. WikiFer msg 20:57, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@User:Dipsacus fullonum You did not understand the proposal properly: no users watchlist will be viewed by administrators, this would violate the privacy policy and this is not the proposal. I am proposing that administrators have access to a list of users who watch a particular page, because only then will it be possible to check whether the page still has active users or not and whether this page remains subject to vandalism, based on the number of users who watch the page and are inactive. Checking a specific page is part of the local system, as well as who checks deleted edits, suppressed editions, everything is limited to one page, being it article, template, category, or even the domain of the local project (Wikipedia domain, for example). It is these pages that would have this resource so that administrators can verify who monitored it. No administrator will know how many pages a user watches as they will only have access to a particular page. WikiFer msg 22:24, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@WikiFer: I think I understood perfectly well. The proposal would make it possible for some users to examine if I have a page on my watchlist or not, that is parts of my watchlist will became exposed as I wrote. --Dipsacus fullonum (talk) 23:00, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Dipsacus fullonum: If you watch more than 5000 pages, it is practically impossible for an administrator to discover that you watch 10% of these pages, that is, they could only find out if you edit on a given page very often, which would be even more obvious that you watch that page. However, no user owns the articles and all pages belong to the project, so it is up to the administrators to be responsible for managing the entire project system, after all they were elected by the local community to comply with the project rules. WikiFer msg 23:19, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@WikiFer: I fail to see what ownership of pages have to do with the proposal. The proposal will reveal information about users' watchlists, and I doubt that is allowed by the privacy policy. --Dipsacus fullonum (talk) 23:41, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Dipsacus fullonum: The ownership policy of the articles is very clear that no one should take possession of a particular article, so there is no violate of privacy policy when an article is being verified, as a page is being verified and not the user's account. On the other hand, I would agree with you if I were proposing that the users watchlist would be viewed by the administrators, which is not true and is not part of my proposal (this would be a violation of privacy, as it would be checking all of a user's watchlists). See below how will be my proposal. I was very objective and this time there is no room for misinterpretation. WikiFer msg 23:53, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@WikiFer: I still see no connection between no ownership of pages and privacy. It is a violating of privacy if other users can see if you have or haven't a page in your watchlist. I see no misinterpretation. Please don't suggest otherwise. --Dipsacus fullonum (talk) 00:40, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Dipsacus fullonum: There is a misinterpretation on your part, as it is confusing the list of users who watch a particular page with the list of pages that belong to a user account. The pages do not have an owner to avoid being checked and I refer exclusively to the pages. For this reason, the property policy of the articles dismantles any narrative of the privacy violation, as it does not exist. WikiFer msg 01:07, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@WikiFer: No, I repeat that I am not confusing those two lists. The type of list you propose will reveal information about all users by telling if any is watching the page or not. No ownership of pages isn't an acceptable reason for violating privacy and I don't understand why you are talking about ownership. Yes, you have no ownership to most pages om most wikis, but I cannot see any relation between this and privacy policy. --Dipsacus fullonum (talk) 08:09, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Dipsacus fullonum: A specific page is insufficient to reveal information about all users, especially if they monitor more than 5000 pages. As I said, there are users who edit many times in a given article, so it is even easier to predict that it watches over that particular page. In addition, in 2015, the global community approved a proposal for any user to monitor the list of user contributions (this proposal completely impacts an account, and you are confusing my proposal that refers to pages with user accounts). Pages are just pieces of the project for building free content, not space for multiple users to appropriate it as the owner of the article. Therefore, page A (example) does not reveal information for multiple users, only details of this page A, just as page B would reveal information only on this page B. I assure you that not all users will have A and B on the watchlist, unless the theme is similar to what the user likes to edit. In your understanding, checking 1 page is like checking all 5000 pages of the user, which is not true. A single page would not reveal even 1% of all pages that the user watches, as a page is limited to information about it. I hope I have clarified even more! WikiFer msg 13:24, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@WikiFer: No, I am not confusing anything, and I am tired of you postulating that. User contributions are public, so monitoring them isn't a breach of privacy. Watchlists aren't public, so the comparision isn't valid. And your talk about ownership is still irrelevant. A list of watchers of a specific page do tell something about all users by saying if each user is watching the page or not. Thus all users' privacy is violated. --Dipsacus fullonum (talk) 13:36, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Dipsacus fullonum The project pages are also public and watching them does not bring any authority to the user in relation to that particular page (no user has control of the page they watch). Since you insist on talking about a privacy violation which does not exist with regard to articles, answer the following question: Why can administrators check a list of unwatched pages, but cannot check a list of those who watch these pages? Remember that I am talking about pages, they belong to the project and can be verified by the administrators, who are elected by the local community to work with the system tools. WikiFer msg 14:04, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@WikiFer: You asked "Why can administrators check a list of unwatched pages, but cannot check a list of those who watch these pages?" They can probably see a list of unwatched pages because that is considered only a minor privacy problem because that doesn't reveal who watches the watched pages, and they can probably not get a list of watches because that is considered a much more serious privacy problem. I assume that these decisions are made after carefully considering the pro and cons. I think the current situation is an OK balance, but that your proposal will have more disadvantages in form of missing privacy than advantages. --Dipsacus fullonum (talk) 14:53, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Dipsacus fullonum: Users'privacy is limited only to the information and personal data, IP, geographic location and all watchlist by it. The first three are visible to CheckUsers and the latter no one will have access. On the other hand, checking pages is not part of the user's privacy, as it is a public page and belongs to the project (deleted pages also contain deleted editions of users and users who watch, and this has nothing to do with privacy). It is for this reason that my proposal will have no impact on privacy, because it was not made to check users, but the check project pages; this will be taken into account during in the vote. In addition, administrators have the autonomy to comply with all policies and recommendations of the local community, which will be another reason for developers to create this special page with the list of users through a particular page. WikiFer msg 15:38, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Click on "View history";
  2. On "External tools", below will be created "Special page for administrators", a new special page that will be part of the user group rights list: (userlistwatchedpages)
  3. All administrators will be able to view the list of users on this specific page, in addition to number of page watchers who visited recent edits.

I believe that my proposal above is now well understood for everyone. WikiFer msg 23:19, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • It seems you are interested in "knowing the exact number of watches" and "whether there are watches active or not". Both of those things can be done technically without revealing the actual accounts that watch a page. Not to mention the fact that not everyone agrees with your opinion that this proposal would not constitute a privacy violation. Silver hr (talk) 02:45, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    @Silver hr: You just forgot one detail: many users have abandoned the project and others are not even present to protect the page from vandalism. It is important to note that all articles and pages in any domain are public and from the moment a user decides to watch a page, he is transferring his account to the public pages of the project. A good example is the edits that users make on a page, it is recorded in the edition history; and when the article is deleted? Administrators and eliminators have access to their deleted edits, which shows that users have no page ownership and they all assign their accounts to public project pages. In addition, the vote has not yet started, so the narrative of who not everyone agrees with me may seem fallacious, before we know who understood the purpose of the proposal, which is to bring more transparency to the pages, with administrators as reliable users for management their. WikiFer msg 14:56, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    @WikiFer: If it is true that the actual purpose of this proposal is being able to know if there are active watchers for a particular page, why do you not want a solution where server software determines that instead of exposing a list of watchers? OTOH, if the above is not true, what is the actual purpose of this proposal? ("bring more transparency to the pages" is vague and undefined; please state the purpose in practical terms--perhaps with an example.) Silver hr (talk) 15:16, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    @Silver hr: But the proposal is precisely to create a special page for administrators to have access to information who has watched a particular page (proposal title). If you look at the proposed solution, I presented examples with two articles on how the proposal will be applied. At no time does the proposal refer to a single user's watchlist, you misunderstood. As for the transparency of the pages, it is already detailed in the proposal that this information on a specific page will be more evident to know if an article will be well protected or not from watchers in the fight against vandalism. Remembering that many accounts are absent or abandon the project, but the user continues to watch the page as if it were active, which is not true. Just look at the whole proposal. WikiFer msg 15:40, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    @WikiFer: You have not answered my questions. I'll try again, just to be very clear.
    1. Do you want to know if there are active watchers for a particular page? (Yes / No)
      1. If Yes, what use case do you have where having the server tell you that directly is not good enough? Please answer succinctly and concretely.
      2. If No, for what other reason do you need the list of watchers for a particular page? Please answer succinctly and concretely.
    --Silver hr (talk) 16:11, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    1. Yes, I wish that all administrators (sysops) have access to a list of everyone who watches over a particular page of the local project.
      1. The current server does not prove, according to the number of watchers in the article, who is still available in the project to combat possible vandalism in the article or a similar page of the project. For this reason, the server created by the developers will be in the special page format, that is, currently administrators on English Wikipedia use "Unwatchedpages" to access unwatched pages. In my proposal, the server created will also be similar: "Userlistwatchedpages".

I answered all your questions above? The proposal is very simple and will regulate only what the administrators already have in their hands, which is to have access to unwatched pages; this time, having to check the pages with watchers to check whether the page is liable to vandalism based on active or inactive users. WikiFer msg 17:06, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think Wikilegal or whatever WMF department is responsible ought to sign off on this request before it can go forward. Watchlists may not be private information per se but they have always been treated as such. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 09:04, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: I agree that the WMF should comment on my proposal before the vote, not least because it would be a way of proving that there is no violation of the privacy policy when the articles and other pages of the project (which are public) are being verified, and not the users'account. As I said above, once a page is watched by someone, that user is releasing information to a public page that can be managed by trusted users of the project. I have no doubt that WMF will be aware that an account's private information is limited to personal information, IP, geographic location and all of its watchlist (my proposal is limited to just check one particular page). Finally, I understand that if the WMF allows the vote, it means that all narratives about the violation of privacy must be ignored and, consequently, this proposal must be approved, as it aims at the good of the entire project. WikiFer msg 14:56, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If I can see There are 20 users watching this page, 10 of them were active in last 30 days and 2 have seen this page after last edit - I would agree with this. But When somewere can see User:BigBlue is watching page "List of films with some-weird-sexual-preference - it can be easily recognized as revealing private informations. 21:04, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

@JAn Dudík: His example is interesting, but let's say that User: BigBlue is inactive from the project, we would only know that it is part of the 20 users if there is verification. Even though he watched this page, it is public and belongs to the project. Generally for a page to be checked by administrators, it may have been the target of recurring vandalism or some users or IPs have inserted content into the article. Pages that are poorly edited would hardly be checked, unless the topic is of interest to the administrator who checks. In the example you presented, it is an article that can be a constant target of vandalism, by the related category. However, checking the articles is only for the project to know if the article is in the good hands of active users to prevent vandalism and his example would not demonstrate clarity for how accounts that are active or inactive. WikiFer msg 23:42, 6 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No! U wrote: "This //en:Help:Watchlist// prevents the community from knowing the exact number of watches...". Your proposal doesn't refer to this problem. Sagivrash (talk) 19:32, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sagivrash My proposal does refer to this problem, because the number of watches does not reflect the number of users active in the project. WikiFer msg 23:57, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This proposal is very intrusive and not very useful. User(s) should not be exposed to the fact that they have watched a page. I initially thought you to plan to use this to judge sockpuppetry accounts. Extend existing Special: Unwatched pages to exclude active users can be considered. Listing the users or providing a specific page/user to check is not considered, it is private, and the can be traversed to collect.--YFdyh000 (talk) 22:55, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Voting

Server filtration by user, tag or substring

  • Problem: In some wikis there are some cases of flooding by one or more users, which do bot-like actions without bot-flag. These changes make impossible to get all changes in a watchlist (sometimes even limit=5000 isn't enough)
  • Who would benefit: All users who work with big watchlist
  • Proposed solution: To add filtering (off) edits/changes which are done by 1) specific user, 2) have specific tag or 3) have specific substring in title or in edit description.
  • More comments:
  • Phabricator tickets:
  • Proposer: Infovarius (talk) 23:05, 21 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Yes, i think this would be useful as a both filter on OR filter off feature. --Zache (talk) 18:21, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Voting

  • Oppose Oppose This proposal is unrelated to your watchlist, as filtering by user means that you would be watching all editions of this user and not over all the pages you watch. For this reason, I believe that even by filter it is not possible to solve this proposal. WikiFer msg 16:51, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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