Help talk:Watchlist/Archive 7

I've moved this from the help page, because it's not cited and has remained so for 8 years:

If you have a very large watchlist, bringing up the edit interface (Special:Watchlist/edit) can take a very long time. It may take so long that the server may terminate the query before any data has been returned to you,^[1] resulting in a completely blank page. How big your watchlist can be before you start having problems depends on the server load, so no exact threshold can be safely given. As of January 27, 2006, some highly unscientific testing has shown that watchlists bigger than ~9800 pages on the English Wikipedia will usually cause problems.^{[citation needed]} This value may be used as a tentative upper limit. If you still have problems at that size, manually reduce the number of watched pages until it works reliably again, and prune your watchlist regularly to avoid running into the limitation again.

I've moved the link to the essay to the 'see also' section. Kind regards, --Tom (LT) (talk) 10:00, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I currently have 19,168 articles on my watchlist (nearly every article I've created, plus a few hundred others) and I've had no problems so far. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 08:55, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Is there a way to find out how many people are watching an article (i.e. have the article on their watchlists)? Axl ¤ [Talk] 17:23, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

@Axl: Yes. For instance, you can find out the number of watchers for this page by visiting here. You can click on 'Page information' link which can be found on the sidebar under the Tools section. --Glaisher (talk) 17:27, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Glaisher. The page that I am interested in has "fewer than 30 watchers2. It's not as precise as I was hoping, but still useful. Axl ¤ [Talk] 19:04, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

I think it would be very useful to have another, separate watchlist. I participated in many conversations (talk pages) and sometimes I forget to check if someone answered me or posted after me. Therefore I would like to have another watchlist, specially for current discussions. I think it would be nice to have such a watchlist, where to keep only the pages that are very important for you. The regular watchlist is growing every day so it can't be used for such a purposes. For the moment, I am using a trick: in the "Edit summary" field I am placing a (TOFOLLOW) label, so I can quickly find those pages when I consult the history of my contributions. For example this edit. Using bookmarks doesn't help since I am using Wikipedia from many computers, and on some of them I can't use Browser's Sync feature.

Or, to implement user-defined tags, so I can filter the edits in my contributions log by my own tags. Then I can set the contributions log to show me only the edits where I have placed "TOFOLLOW" tag. —  Ark25  (talk) 15:27, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Watchlist changes. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:35, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Oh nice, thanks! —  Ark25  (talk) 09:20, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Is there a way to monitor when links are added/deleted in the "What links here" list of a page? -- GreenC 03:38, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

What is it? -- BullRangifer (talk) 18:59, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

If you have the default English interface then you should see MediaWiki:Wlheader-showupdated above the "Mark all pages as visited button". PrimeHunter (talk) 00:24, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Seconded: I too have come here to suggest putting the green button in the Legend. It makes no sense to have it outside always taking up space, while hiding all the other symbols that can appear alongside changes. If it‘s just as it was recently updated then that was months ago, based on the age of this topic.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 21:49, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Why isn't this article titled Help:Watchlists? I can't find any discussion. -- BullRangifer (talk) 19:56, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

@BullRangifer: Hmm, yeah, I think Help:Watchlist (singular) would be a better title for this page (we generally don't refer to pages like this as "articles"). It would better accord with the feature in the interface, and is more about that watchlist interface itself than the act of "watching a page", which in any event we often refer to as "watchlisting a page". It appears the original page was Wikipedia:Watchlist help, which now redirects here. It was created in January 2003‎ and was copied and pasted here in 2004 (that may have been before there was such a thing as moving a page). For a major project page like this you'd probably want to make a requested move to pursue this further.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:09, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

I agree that singular would be better for this help page. I made the request. -- BullRangifer (talk) 02:20, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

@BullRangifer: You made a technical request, as an uncontroversial move. I'm sorry for not being more specific, but what I said above about "For a major project page like this..." was intended to indicate this should probably have a requested move discussion; that this is not a good candidate for a bold move, or one to be sought as a technical request. See WP:RM#CM, which is what many people mean when they refer to making requested move, despite the existence of the technical section.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:26, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Fuhghettaboutit, I see the move has already been made. It was a technical matter, since a redirect blocked the move. Let's see how this works. -- BullRangifer (talk) 05:19, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

The issue is that when someone adds a tag such as this

And a bot comes along a few minutes later and dates it

This removes the previous edit from my watchlist. Really we need the watchlist to show all last non bot edits. Not sure who would fix this? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:05, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

That should be a custom feature or through a script. I prefer seeing the bots including dating notification as it's useful information (tells me tags were added when otherwise an edit summary doesn't say so). -- GreenC 15:26, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

The suggestion is not to turn of the bots, but to have the "Don't include bot edits" checkbox cause the last edit before the bot edit to remain in the Watchlist. Currently a bot edit after a user edit hides the user edit from the Watchlist. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 17:10, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

It's an old feature request. Help:Watchlist#Options has the reference: "Bug 9790: Watchlist doesn't show earlier normal edits when hiding bot edits or minor edits". PrimeHunter (talk) 19:39, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks User:PrimeHunter added my support. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:12, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

This edit request to Help:Watchlist has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

subash drew bieber 09:40, 27 August 2015 (UTC) subash drew bieber and jb

 Not done as you are in the wrong place, since this page is only to discuss improvements to Help:Watchlist.
If you want to suggest a change, please request this on the talk page of the relevant article in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ".
Please also cite reliable sources to back up your request, without which no information should be added to, or changed in, any article. - Arjayay (talk) 12:19, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Is there a way to create a sub watchlist of the user's choosing? --Efe (talk) 15:11, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

"Pages that have been changed since you last visited them are shown with a green marker."

Duh! Of course, that's why every single item in the watchlist is marked with that green marker, rendering it useless.

This is meaningless and the green marker should not be used at all, or changed to someting that's truly visible and significant, like the green markers on the "Related changes" page. There we have two green markers, one is a square box, and the other a triangle, and they actually do serve a purpose. It would be even better if they were strongly contrasting colors, like red and green.

Also, if it really meant anything, the marker should be included in the legend box (Template:Watchlist legend), and not in a whole sentence at the top of the page, but since it doesn't, just delete the whole sentence and the green markers. -- {{u|BullRangifer}} {Talk} 03:10, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

The marker is blue for pages that have not been changed since you last visited them. You can remove the green markers by disabling "Display green collapsible arrows and green bullets for changed pages in your Watchlist, History and Recent changes" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets. You can also choose to enable "Display pages on your watchlist that have changed since your last visit in bold". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist?uselang=qqx shows the name and placement of MediaWiki mesages on the watchlist (?uselang=qqx or &uselang=qqx also works on other url's). The current message is made with MediaWiki:Wlheader-showupdated which is meant for this purpose. There is no suited message in the legend box, and the same legend box is shown in different pages with different marking systems. Template:Watchlist legend is not shown on watchlists, recent changes or related pages. It's shown at Help:Watchlist#How to read a watchlist and only mimics the real legend box. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:20, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. So some of those teeny tiny boxes are actually blue? You could have fooled me. I have a hard time seeing the difference, and I'm not color blind. The difference between light green and light blue, when it's so small, isn't a big enough difference. Different shapes with contrasting colors would work much better.

Where can I see the bold? I can't find it in my preferences under the "watchlist" tab. -- {{u|BullRangifer}} {Talk} 06:01, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Bolding is also a gadget at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets. Gadgets are made at the English Wikipedia. The other tabs at preferences are determined by the MediaWiki installation and we cannot insert options or features there. We could theoretically insert a text on the watchlist tab, mentioning there are also gadgets which affect the watchlist. But https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences?uselang=qqx#mw-prefsection-watchlist doesn't show a suitable interface message for adding text unrelated to the existing watchlist options. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:26, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Marking of watchlist pages that have been changed since you last visited was introduced in MediaWiki in 2012. It was and still is done with bolding and no options in MediaWiki itself. The bolding got a lot of complaints at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 99#Watchlist - bold letter article titles!, so the English Wikipedia made gadget options to change or remove the markings, and chose a default setting without bolding. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:54, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for all the good info! I hadn't noticed the Gadgets. I tried the bolding, but it makes it harder to read, and so few are not bold that it's not worth it. It needs to be the exception that is more noticeable, so green boxes for the changed, and red triangles for the unchanged, would work much better. The red triangles would stand out, and the red boxes wouldn't affect the readability. BTW, I work with a huge watchlist. Right now it says this: "You have 6,628 pages on your watchlist (excluding talk pages)." It's been over 10,000 at times. I need to take a couple hours to pare it down again. -- BullRangifer (talk) 04:54, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

The green marker gadget uses MediaWiki:Gadget-WatchlistGreenIndicators.css if your skin is Vector. You could disable the gadget and try making your own version with other markers in your CSS. If you don't know CSS then you just have to replace the file names, for example starting at commons:Category:Wikipedia bullets and clicking on an image until you get a url at upload.wikimedia.org. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:28, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

I hate to appear dense, but in general haven't ALL pages been changed if they appear in the Watchlist? (I usually will not have recently visited most pages on my list.) Casey (talk) 23:31, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

It says "Pages that have been changed since you last visited them". Habits and watchlist settings vary. Many of my watchlist views have many pages which haven't been changed since I last visited them. It's nice to know this from the lack of marking. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:02, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

The limitations section needs to be updated, as there is a new MediaWiki feature that tracks which pages were added to or removed from a category. The corresponding checkbox is "page categorization", which is checked by default. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 04:17, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Everything is working good in my Wikipedia account (Talk, Sandbox, Preferences, Beta, Read Edit, View History) except when I attempt to click my "Contributions" and Watchlist", my wiki page hangs/freezes. What's the problem, why the page freezes?--Richie Campbell (talk) 00:59, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

What is your browser? There are reports about Safari 6 problems at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Watchlist getting stuck. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:41, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I have the same exact problem. Thanks! --Richie Campbell (talk) 02:52, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Sometimes random article titles appearing in my watchlist are bolded for no apparent reason. It is not because the change is over 500 bytes, and I cannot see any other explanation for it. It does not happen every time, and is only one or two titles at any given time. It is not the newest items on the list either. Has anyone else witnessed this before, or are able to explain it? Thanks, AtHomeIn神戸 (talk) 01:52, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

@Athomeinkobe: they show in bold if they've been changed since you last visited them. Click one of the bold links, then reload your watchlist and that link won't be bold anymore.

I'm wondering if there's a way to disable this, but I can't seem to find it. - Paul2520 (talk) 15:59, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

@Athomeinkobe and Paul2520: This bolding is supposed to be controlled by a preference checkbox, but there's currently a bug. It's being discussed at the technical Village Pump. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:52, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

. -- Kendrick7^talk 03:13, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

@Kendrick7: Previous versions of the user interface mentioned an "All" option, but behind the scenes this was implemented with a 30-day limit for performance reasons. The user interface has been corrected. -- John of Reading (talk) 05:40, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry, @John of Reading: you said the problem had been corrected, but I still can't see past 30 days? -- Kendrick7^talk 00:56, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

@Kendrick7: The English Wikipedia has been limited to 30 days for as long as I can remember. The limit is part of the software. See Help:Watchlist#cite note-2. https://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/highlight.php?file=CommonSettings.php says $wgRCMaxAge = 30 * 86400;. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:06, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

One of the limitations seem to be the number of days a watchlist "records." I stopped editing on August 3, and came back some hours ago, and the watchlist stopped at August 5. It doesn't seem to have picked up August 3 and 4. Before, when I missed two or three days, I figured that, on those days, there was no activity at the articles I watch. But now, having been gone longer, it seems it's rather that some days weren't "recorded." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:56, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

I guess you have to change one of the settings at Help:Watchlist#Options, maybe "Maximum number of changes to show in expanded watchlist". PrimeHunter (talk) 20:22, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I thought about going to my watchlist preferences to see what was going on. "Days to show in watchlist" was set to 3. I went ahead and changed it to 8. I changed the "Maximum number of changes to show in expanded watchlist" from 200 something to 400, but I'm not sure that was needed since I upped the "Days to show in watchlist" feature. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:20, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Today my watchlist has become a jumble of thick lettering, bolded and unbolded links, mixed medium size and large size print, and it's much harder to wander the eye through it. Was this changed sitewide or did I hit some key that jumbled styles. Thanks. Randy Kryn 11:54, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

@Randy Kryn: It's not just you; there's a discussion about it at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Watchlist bolding. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:58, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, will take a look. Randy Kryn 12:04, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Is there a way to sync/ share watchlist between accounts? Aunva7 (talk) 21:31, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

@Aunva7: You can click Edit raw watchlist at top of the watchlist and manually copy-paste the content with your browser. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:35, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Ah. That should work. Aunva7 (talk) 23:24, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

This edit request to Help:Watchlist has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

I would like to enrich this topic, I recently did a research and I am willing to share it. Diversity in the Classroom With the American society being so divers, the classrooms become increasingly diverse as well. With all different backgrounds; ethnicity, race, sex, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, visible or invisible disabilities, sharing the same space, it represents opportunities for some and creates issues for others. It becomes necessary for the leadership in the educational institutions to manage and implement strategies that encourage a more inclusive learning environment, where all students can learn safely. This paper summarizes practical researches and studies on the benefits, and addresses some of the challenges associated with diversity in the classroom. Said.denver (talk) 06:59, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Not done: this is not the right page to request additional user rights. You may reopen this request with the specific changes to be made and someone will add them for you, or if you have an account, you can wait until you are autoconfirmed and edit the page yourself. jd22292 (Jalen D. Folf) (talk) 10:05, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Why is my watchlist limited to the last 100 changes? I've never seen that happen before. 100 changes is barely 24 hours. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:13, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Preferences#Watchlist

"This controls how many recent changes to show for each watched article when "Expand watchlist" is switched on under "Advanced options". Default is 250; maximum 1000 changes."

I never set this. Expanded watchlist was not is not checked. Is someone playing with settings? I changes to "1000" and now see 7 days, < 1000 changes. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:31, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

About a week ago, my Watchlist went blank and nothing new has appeared on it. Before that, I could always see items on it and that is how I monitored the 500 or so articles that I regularly watch. What happened? How can I restore the previous functionality to my Watchlist? – Whaleyland (Talk • Contributions) 16:51, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

@Whaleyland: A feature has changed. Set a large number like 1000 at "Maximum number of changes to show in watchlist" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist. It's discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Watchlist changes. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:24, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: Splendid! Thank you. Everything appears to be working again. I must say that that seems to be the dumbest change I've ever seen!  – Whaleyland (Talk • Contributions) 04:26, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

What the heck! Every page is shown as not being looked at even after clicking on "Mark all pages as visited" more than once:

• "Below are the last 184 changes in the last 720 hours, as of October 24, 2017, 08:29."

Anyone else having this problem? Pyxis Solitary talk 08:32, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Just want to report that whatever the bug was, the watchlist is back to normal behavior. Viewed pages are no longer remaining boldface. Pyxis Solitary talk 09:39, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Whenever I click the "star" at the top of an article that is not currently on my watchlist, most of the time the article will be added to my watchlist with a brief popup window telling me that. Sometimes, however, clicking on the star takes me a different webpage altogether where I'm forced to confirm that I want to add the article to my watchlist. Why is this behavior inconsistent? Is there any way to always just add the article without taking me a new page and requiring me to confirm my choice? Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 20:15, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

I think I have answered my own question: The behavior of the link differs depending on whether or not the article has fully loaded. The "confirm your choice in a new webpage" is the default behavior that occurs if the article has not fully loaded. ElKevbo (talk) 20:23, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

I remember there used to be a link to a page that showed how many users (without naming them) were watching a particular page. For example, it might say "1,000 people are watching this" or something like that. I can't find it on any of them anymore. Does it still exist?SpidersMilk, Drink Spider Milk, it tastes good. (talk) 16:20, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

@Spidersmilk: Yes, that information is included in the "Page information", which is one of the options under the "Tools" menu in the left sidebar. If there are fewer than 30 watchers, though, the exact figure is only shown to admins. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:43, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

When accessing the history log of any given page, there is a "Number of watchers" link. That link reveals how many users are watching the page, so long as there are 30 or more users doing so.

My questions are: are there one or more reasons why low-traffic pages have to be described as possessing "Fewer than 30 watchers"? Is there anything being done to fix the feature so that exact amounts of watchers can be displayed for such pages? Also, is there much demand for such data?

For what it's worth, I would like to make the suggestion that exact watcher numbers be displayed for "fewer than 30 watchers" pages. I feel it defeats the point of that statistical feature if low-traffic pages have that detail of theirs be as vague as it is. Mungo Kitsch (talk) 03:46, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

@Mungo Kitsch: This is a deliberate security feature, to prevent vandals finding un-watched or under-watched pages where vandalism might last for longer. Admins can see the true figure. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:10, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Ah, I hadn't thought about that. That would be a fitting reason for the existence of such a feature. Thanks for the explanation. Mungo Kitsch (talk) 19:00, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

This edit request to Help:Watchlist has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

As I wound up on this page by accident, would the following hatnote be able to be added to the page?

Thanks, 142.161.81.20 (talk) 21:03, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

 Done Seems like a useful redirect warning, and WP:HATCHEAP applies. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:17, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

I shortened it to:

"WP:WATCH" redirects here. For the guideline about problematic words, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch.

Hatnotes should be short and are intended for people already looking for a page so you don't need details. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:34, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Thanks, Eggishorn! 142.161.81.20 (talk) 21:38, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

This edit request to Help:Watchlist has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

(edit conflict) As the second parameter of the hatnote was just changed to "the guideline about problematic words", could I suggest that the word "words" be replaced with "terminology" as the guideline covers more than individual words (as discussed in its lead)? Thanks, 142.161.81.20 (talk) 21:38, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't think that's necessary. "Terminology" is only slightly more inclusive than "words" ("words and phrases" would be almost exactly synonymous) and the page is titled "Words to watch", after all. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:43, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

@Eggishorn: Of course it's titled as such for the sake of a snappy title, but why does it repeatedly used the terms terms and expressions? 142.161.81.20 (talk) 21:45, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't know, you'd have to ask the writers (of which number I'm not). "Terms' and "Expressions" there seems to just be synonyms for "words and phrases" and "words" is easier to read in the short space that hatnotes are supposed to consume, as PrimeHunter above has correctly noted (my bad). "Words" versus "Terms" especially seems like a difference without distinction in such an application. I hope that helps. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 22:03, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

@Eggishorn: Are you genuinely suggesting that there is no difference between the terms terms/expressions and words? And how is words "easier to read in the short space that hatnotes are supposed to consume" than (one of) terminology, terms, or expressions? 142.161.81.20 (talk) 22:10, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

No, I'm suggesting that, in the context of a hatnote, the subtleties of the distinctions between these variants is unremarkable and worrying about them is unhelpful to whomever will later read this hatnote. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 22:14, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

You didn't answer my latter question, Eggishorn. "[H]ow is words 'easier to read in the short space that hatnotes are supposed to consume' than (one of) terminology, terms, or expressions?" 142.161.81.20 (talk) 22:29, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

There's nothing that requires me to answer your exact questions the way you want. I believe that the current hatnote is good enough, and that's all it needs to be. Thank you for your suggestion. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 22:46, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

@Eggishorn: There's nothing that requires me to answer your exact questions the way you want. Of course not, but I trust that you want to be working collaboratively to build a consensus. I'm hoping to clarify what you wrote, so I'm asking on what basis you assert that "words" is easier to read in the short space that hatnotes are supposed to consume. 142.161.81.20 (talk) 22:56, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

This basis. Can we be done with this conversation now? It's not worth this much effort and debate. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 23:04, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Yeah. Would you have problems finding the page now? Do you think others would have problems if they were looking for the page? If the answer is no then please be glad you got a hatnote and move on. I would have said terminology/terms/expressions if the page was called "Terminology/Terms/Expressions to watch", but it isn't. A hatnote is for people searching for a title so it's natural to use words (no pun intended) from the actual title. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:24, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Eggishorn: If we were to accept the website to which you linked, Simple Writer, as being determinative of what words we could use, one of the three words I suggested based on the language in MOS:WORDS – expression – would be perfectly acceptable. So how does Simple Writer serve as a basis for your assertion that "words" is easier to read in the short space that hatnotes are supposed to consume? 142.161.81.20 (talk) 00:29, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

JFYI: there are 24 proposals in the current community wishlist that you can vote for here: m:2016 Community Wishlist Survey/Categories/Watchlists.

Personally I think that making it easy to quickly see all changes (in a single diff) since one last visited a page would be of most use which is why I suggested it here.

--Fixuture (talk) 00:52, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for notifying everyone about this. Of course, I'm partial to the idea of hiding edits from editors you trust in Watchlists and RC pages to make our watchlists (and RC pages) much more manageable, which I proposed. :) Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 04:02, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Foolish me, but I've only just become aware that the Watchlist even had personal preferences options. I think other editors would find it helpful to have it "Watchlist Preferences" button right there, to clue them in. --Hobbes Goodyear (talk) 00:00, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Could the "green markers" on watchlists be enlarged severalfold? On my watchlist, the markers' tiny size makes it hard to spot the blue markers that indicate items which I have reviewed. Thanks. Nihil novi (talk) 05:31, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

I think just a tiny dot in blue or green is not enough of a difference between 'processed' and 'unread' items on the watchlist, especially for people who are colourblind. I know this has already been discussed here, but I don't think it's solved. Can someone please help? Laurier (talk) 07:17, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

I just found this page and section. So it is possible to change this setting. But I think this is way too complicated for most users (including me), so the default should be changed. I hope you agree. Laurier (talk) 07:37, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Apparently, in the last 20 minutes a new watchlist design have been deployed. I do not have a strong opinion whether the design itself is an improvement or not, but it considerably slows reloading of the watchlist, like if a heavy gadget was deployed. This slowing down is smth I would like to avoid.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:42, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

+1 - I kid you not it takes mine a whole 10 seconds to load after each refresh - The previous took a mere second if that, Any chance this can be reverted atleast until the time it takes to load is fixed?... –Davey2010^Talk 17:13, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

I do object to the design as it appears to use the space less efficiently. Not only am I having the same speed problems as above my computer is using considerably more processing power on it. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 17:16, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

I am gone now for several hours but if someone wants to take the problem up (Village Pump technical?) please feel free to do it.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:20, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

My load time isn't that bad but it is still considerably longer than it used to be. I also agree about the non-effective use of space. Why the drop downs for number of changes and how far back to view can't be in the same line as the mark all changes as read button I've no idea. Nthep (talk) 18:17, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Someone's helpfully filed a Phabricator task about the slowness already, with a suggestion for how we might fix it. We'll take a look at that today. In the meantime, the new watchlist UI comes from the "New filters for edit review" beta feature (it previously only applied to the Recent changes page, but starting today it applies to the watchlist too), so you can disable the beta feature if it's causing issues for you. --Roan Kattouw (WMF) (talk) 19:26, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

@Roan Kattouw (WMF):, thanks for that. Is there anywhere we can feedback about the layout? Nthep (talk) 19:51, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

@Nthep: Yes there is! Your feedback is welcome at mw:Talk:Edit Review Improvements/New filters for edit review. --Roan Kattouw (WMF) (talk) 21:06, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Try as I might, even toggling "7 days", I can't shift my watchlist longer than the last 1000 edit barrier. I'm going on vacation-is there any way to set it so I can catch up when I return? If you're going to send me to the "Customizing Watchlists" page, please provide specifics. Thanks--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 13:40, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

The top of the watchlist has the link Edit raw watchlist. When you return you could use this to temporarily save the watchlist elsewhere and copy different parts back at a time. Make sure UTF-8 characters are stored correctly. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:38, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

I have 55000 articles on my watchlist-is there no less-horrific way?--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 13:36, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Like a way, for instance, to do "older 500" as is common on user;contributions? Like we used to have?--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 13:37, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

I think the only method without editing the watchlist is to use watchlists settings to hide some edits or only show one namespace at a time, so the maximum 1000 edits can go further back. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:09, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

I just tried adding &limit=2000 in the middle of the URL, it works for me.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:29, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

I recently added a page to my watchlist. I don't remember the exact title, but now I want to go back to it. It apparently hasn't been edited since I added it, so it's not showing up on Special:Watchlist. Is there some way to view my watchlist in order of when I added things? I imagine I could do this in Quarry, but I'm thinking through the normal wiki interface. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:53, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

There used to be little colored radio buttons which showed which you had reviewed and which you hadn't.

What happened to them? This is on google chrome. Also does not work on Firefox. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:09, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

It's discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Watchlist problem? PrimeHunter (talk) 16:22, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

@Doc James: Same is the problem here. How to fix it? --Saqib (talk) 12:54, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

User:Saqib it has been fixed for me... Are you still having problems? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:32, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

@Doc James: This issue began for me just yesterday. --Saqib (talk) 14:58, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Can you upload a screenshot? Have you tried a different browser? And have you tried clearing your cache? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:11, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

@Doc James: Here's the screenshot. I tried different browser and clearing cache. --Saqib (talk) 15:41, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi, would anyone please be able to help me get rid of the annoying new dotted underlining for the D, m and b flags? Thanks very much! Dr. Vogel (talk) 08:09, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

I noticed something strange with my watchlist after I refreshed it to view the latest changes. The pages I had checked were still bold after I hit the refresh link. I reloaded the page, and the only page that was not bold (with the exception of the pages I had checked several hours before) was the last one I checked. I checked another page and reloaded the watchlist again, and that page was not bold but the all the others (including the one that was not bold before) were. See the images for an example. - ZLEA _T\^C 22:34, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, this is a known bug which has been on Phabricator for quite a while. At some point, the developers claimed they have solved it, but the issue is indeed recurrent, I also had this for a brief period yesterday.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:40, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm probably late to this, but my ability to quickly see diffs without leaving the watchlist or history page has gone missing. I finally went to investigate and believe this function was part of the Watchlist Gadgets in Preferences. I have this option checked, but it also says: "Display green collapsible arrows and green bullets for changed pages in your watchlist, page history and recent changes (unavailable with the improved Watchlist user interface)." What improved Watchlist interface? When did this happen? Can I use the old one, or is there a way to do something similar with the new one? Thanks! -Reagle (talk) 14:17, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Add this to user:name/common.js importScript( 'User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/commonHistory.js' ); // Backlink: [[User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/commonHistory.js]] -- GreenC 15:32, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi - the watchlist is extra slow to fully load on mobile, and I found out why - it's the JavaScript interface. It meant clicking on links while loading ended up moving the page, making me constantly load the wrong pages. And sure, removing the interface in Preferences works, but then I can't have it enabled on my desktop/laptop. Can there be some way to disable just on the mobile site? ɱ (talk) 15:42, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I've been having a couple issues with my watchlist.

I currently have 1,061 pages selected for my watchlist. My settings are to display most recent edit only, hide bot edits, hide own edits.

Everything with my WL has worked perfectly fine up until late last year when it suddenly began showing only two or three individual edits (results). I changed my 'results to show' settings from what I believe at the time was 3 days, 50 edits, to higher values. I was able to get just a few more to load, maybe seven total. At that time, my WL had grown to over 1,500 pages so I thought that was the problem. I trimmed it down to about 900 and that seemed to have only a small immediate effect. However, later on, and over the next several days, the results started to grow as more results trickled in. In the meantime I was playing around with the 'results to show' settings to try to get more to display. I found the only way to get it to display more than a dozen or so for more than 1 or 2 days was to set it to 30 days and 500 results. With that setting I typically get edits 4 to 6 days old, totaling 20 to 40 results. It's been that way ever since.

Lately, since Ive been paying closer attention, I consistently get around 40 results but never anything more than six days old. I'm hesitant to tinker with the results setting any more because the last time I did so (back last year when I was still trying to figure it all out) it again reduced the number of results significantly and it took a couple days to repopulate.

Possibly related: Template:OS/doc is on my watchlist but this edit did not appear on it.

Here's what happened: On the March 25, I had just checked my WL. There were about 40 edits from the last six days, and only a few new ones from the last time I visited it. None of those new edits looked suspicious or even particularly interesting, so I moved on. The next thing I did was go to recent changes. I selected a saved filter of mine where it displays edits filtered 'may be bad-faith' from Template namespace. I was immediately drawn to the edit in question on the page Template:OS/doc. It was bolded as it should be because the page is on my WL. However, I found this very odd because I had just checked my WL and I didn't remember seeing any template/doc edits, nor any edits from IPs. So before doing anything else, I went back to my WL just to double-check if the edit was there or not, and indeed the edit was still not there. I then went back to the page Template:OS/doc and I reverted it and issued a warning on the IP's talk page.

Soon after, I posted at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Watchlist because that is the suggested forum for such matters. I got two questions and I answered them both. I conducted a couple tests by changing my settings based on one suggestion and eventually was able to get the edit to display on my WL. I concluded it was probably just an isolated glitch, but I got no explanation from anyone why it happened in the first place. I decided to post here while the incident is still semi-fresh in my memory. --DB1729 (talk) 16:15, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Is there? Bertdrunk (talk) 04:14, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

I haven't found a way to do it until now. It will be very useful though to have that, especially we ourselves revert our edits due to trivial error (e.g. typo). Chongkian (talk) 03:00, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi, is there a way to bypass the question screen when adding a page to my watchlist via the little blue star at the top? It used to be pretty straightforward once, but now it takes me away from the page I am reading, I have to click on a yes button and even so I am not brought back to the page I was reading but have to backtrack with navigation. I find this very annoying and I am surprized there is no option to bypass this in my preferences. Thanks. Hoverfish Talk 20:01, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

I rarely get a question screen but don't know what determines it. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:54, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

So far I have never seen/received any question screen when adding a page to my watchlist via that little blue star. Chongkian (talk) 03:01, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

. Hallelujahknowledge (talk) 18:47, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

When I'm reviewing my watchlist on my Windows 10 laptop in Chrome, and I click to expand the list of revisions for one of the pages on it, the watchlist has begun shifting downwards so that the entry I just expanded scrolls half the height of the browser window below where it had been when I clicked the expander icon. This appears to happen when the item I'm expanding is within maybe five or six lines of text from the top of the window. There is no shift when I click on item that's farther down.

I've been using my watchlist for years and years. Therefore, either it's always been like this but it took me all those years to notice something I'm now finding jarring each time it happens, or else it's new. Has something changed? Largoplazo (talk) 12:05, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Probably due to phab:T172618. Nardog (talk) 06:03, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

The article says that the max temporary time on a watchlist is 6 months, but 1 year is an option in the UI. The article also doesn't mention the one-year length when it lists the possible temporary lengths.SPA5CE! talk about it 16:36, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

@SPAAAAACE: Well spotted. I've added it. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:42, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

The Watchlist Legend seems to contain items that are somewhat misleading or perhaps out-of-date:

• The "r This edit may be damaging and should be reviewed (more info)" line is not covered at section of this help page covering legend items, and moreover requires the user to install a beta extension, through a somewhat advanced process that most users are not likely to do, to actually display in one's list. That's not immediately apparent (even when clicking "more info"). It seems misleading to include it as a legend item for all users, who may reasonably interpret the lack of r flags in their watchlist to indicate that none of the edits are potentially damaging (we know how true that is, of course).

• "D This edit was made at Wikidata" - I no longer see the option to show Wikidata edits (which I remember existing at one time, and it's still described in the Options section of this help page); is this still a flag that can ever show up on the watchlist? I know I haven't seen it anytime lately.

• Related: under "Options" is the ability to show/hide "page categorization". I don't know what that functionally means and it doesn't seem to be covered here.

I don't know if this is the right place to raise this issue, please let me know if it's more appropriate elsewhere. FWIW, I have my watchlist Expanded and Enhanced. Antepenultimate (talk) 20:36, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

I didn't even know of the existence of those flags before you mentioned them here. I guess I don't look at the watchlist legend often enough. That said, I could see this being a minor problem to some. Dustin (talk) 21:16, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, to be clear, I don't think this is a massive issue. Though I figure if it's confusing to me (I consider myself to be reasonably experienced), then I'd worry about how it may appear to a brand-new user, who would be most likely to need the legend and help pages to try and figure out this crazy place. At the very least, there's an opportunity to update this Help page to stay current with what users are encountering, but I don't consider myself enough of a Watchlist expert to make changes myself. Antepenultimate (talk) 21:36, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm working on an update. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:46, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Does help? Your link "somewhat advanced process" is about how a wiki powered by MediaWiki can install the Ores extension. It's installed here at the English Wikipedia and users can easily enable it for their account at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:58, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, thank you! That is a very thorough update and answers all of my questions. (I'll admit that I Ctrl-F'd "Page Categorization", and therefor missed the guidance that already existed that did not use that exact phrase - so that was my bad, though it's easier to find now, for sure.) And definitely my ignorance of extensions shows in that I did not realize that the process for ORES was for wikis, not users! Thanks for clearing up why "Wikidata" changes are no longer an option as well. All in all, thanks for such a quick yet thorough response! Antepenultimate (talk) 23:15, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

The page says "Tab at top of page: When viewing a page, click the star symbol between the 'View history' tab and the search box at the very top of the page, to respectively add or remove the page from your watchlist." but I don't see any marker for watching, and as far as I know, I'm using the default skin. There doesn't seem to be a "watch" item under the adjacent "Tools" pulldown either. DWorley (talk) 22:59, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

OK, my mistake: I was looking at Wikipedia in a tab that I had not refreshed since I had logged in. DWorley (talk) 23:04, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

The article information in my watchlist is now double spaced. This is the first time this has ever happened. I didn't changed any of the settings for my watchlist. Is this a glitch or an intended change? I want my watchlist to return to being single spaced. SMP0328. (talk) 01:37, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#crazy watchlist. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:41, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

For the record, the discussion is archived at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 166#Thursday's software release issues, 28 June (1.32.0-wmf.10). —⁠andrybak (talk) 00:08, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't know where to say it, so I am trying here. It seems that in the watchlist, and maybe other places where edit summaries appear, there is no space between the page name and date. I believe this is new, as I would have noticed it before, but maybe I wasn't looking. Gah4 (talk) 01:45, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Bad separators on multiple pages. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:59, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

For the record, the discussion is archived at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 177#Problems with separators and semicolons on RecentChanges, Watchlist, History and Contributions. —⁠andrybak (talk) 00:14, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

This is an extremely common form of vandalism. There is never a reason to change numbers without leaving an edit summary. —DIYeditor (talk) 18:30, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

I've started a discussion at WP:Village pump (technical)#Numerical changes without edit summary should be flagged "r" in watchlist. —DIYeditor (talk) 19:22, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

For the record, the discussion is archived at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 205#Numerical changes without edit summary should be flagged "r" in watchlist. —⁠andrybak (talk) 00:14, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi - in Help:Watchlist#Limitations, it suggests you can't watch categories. Yet isn't this what [] does, if you put in a category name? TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 23:04, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Quote from Help:Watchlist#Limitations, additional emphasis mine:

Watching a category page will pick up changes to the text of the category page itself. If "Hide categorization of pages" is disabled at Special:Preferences § mw-prefsection-watchlist, or "page categorization" is unchecked after "Hide:" on the watchlist, then it will also show pages being added or removed from the category. However, it will not report changes to subcategories or member pages contained in the category.

Watchlists can be configured to monitor immediate categorization relationships, changes to "children" of the category. But watchlists don't show changes of more distant categorization relationships, i.e. "grandchildren". —⁠andrybak (talk) 00:39, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

As someone patrolling recent edits, I often temporarily add pages to my watchlist, so they are more obvious when a recently vandalized page is edited again. A lot of (most?) vandalism is relatively short-lived, as the vandals get bored, are blocked or the page protected. It would be helpful to have a shorter time period than a week (3 days, or even 1 day) so the pages watched several days before, do not obfuscate the current crop of problems. Where would I ask for this? - Arjayay (talk) 18:06, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Is there any way to do this? JJMC89 bot III is killing my watchlist, and while there is the option to hide bot edits, there are other bots I would like to see (for example those dating tags).

Going further, can edits from a specific user be hidden but the latest edit by any other editor still be highlighted in a watchlist? Number 57 22:40, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Could someone please add an explanation of the difference between watching an article or subscribing to an article? I see the words as synonyms. David Spector (talk) 20:17, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

I am still seing "subscribe" links on sections, but no explanation of how subscribing is different from watching. "Subscribe" seems to be undocumented and mysterious. If it is similar to Watching, why isn't it described in this Help article? David Spector (talk) 01:19, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

"Subscribe" links on sections is a relatively new feature, from 2021–2022. See WP:SUBSCRIBE for details. —⁠andrybak (talk) 00:42, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Subscribing gives you notifications for a single section of a discussion page, and watchlist shows all of the changes, even the ones that you are not talking about. Justjourney (talk) 17:15, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

My Watchlist used to update automatically as a I was reading it, but now it doesn't. I have to refresh the page periodically. Is there a way to turn the update function back on? Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 16:46, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

You can get this feature back by clicking the ▶︎ Live updates button on your Watchlist.

by the way, this is a talk page to discuss improvements to this page. if you want any help in the future, check out the Teahouse instead!

Hope this helps! -Ahuman00 (talk) 04:31, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

@Ahuman00: Thanks for the reply. I reason I posted here is that I tried the Help desk, without success. (Teahouse has politely told me in the past that I have too many edits for them, and I should go to Help desk.) One editor there also mentioned this "Live Updates" button. Where do I find it? It's not on my Watchlist page. I asked that as a follow-up question in my reply on the Help desk, and no-one responded. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 04:08, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

That's weird... It's under the "Filter changes" bar for me, right above the actual content of the watchlist.

Hope you're able to find a solution -Ahuman00 (talk) 04:32, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Aha! I had to click on "Active Filters - Show" and that expanded to include "Live Updates"! If I click on "Active Filters - Hide", then the "Live Updates" button gets hidden. Thanks very much. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 04:35, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Glad you found it!

-Ahuman00 (talk) 04:21, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 04:31, 22 May 2025 (UTC)