Help talk:Watchlist/Archive 4

Custom watchlists?
Is it possible to make a special page with a list of articles that will behave like the watchlist does? For example, if I wanted to watch perhaps 200 pages related to a given topic, but not clutter up my primary watchlist to make it unreadable? How does everyone else do this? F.F.McGurk 21:48, 9 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Im always finding the watchlist difficult to use. I personally think it should list watched articles, and then have ,last edited...date here, or something. Its rather hard to use i find. To answer your question, I have yet to find an answer, ive tried it myself, watch all article related to or on the list of gameboy advance games, but it didnt work..sorry.. Fethroesforia 01:00, 20 January 2007 (UTC)


 * WikiProject Iowa, has the following watchlist - Special:Recentchangeslinked/Wikipedia:WikiProject Iowa/Iowa recent changes - to go with WikiProject Iowa/Iowa recent changes, which is just a list of the the links related to the WikiProject (I use AutoWikiBrowser to generate a list of articles with the project's banner on their talk pages).


 * It should be fairly easy to create similar pages as sub-pages of your user page or WikiProject if you want customized watchlists.


 * (Side note: the popups script is a really useful tool when working with watchlists b/c it lets you see the changes between versions w/o loading a separate page.)


 * If I wasn't clear enough, please leave me a note on my talk page and I'll be glad to help. --Tim4christ17 talk 19:53, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Limit of number of Pages?
Is there a limit to the number of pages you can have on your watchlist? --  A r r i v a     436 17:52, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Related changes
A bit of a silly problem... I go to my Watchlist page and none of the links go directly to the page that the links relate to, only "user", etc. What is going wrong? Thanks in advance.Asteroceras 16:14, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Try the Help Desk If you haven't already. — Lenoxus 18:59, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Want to see your watchlist as an Atom (RSS) Feed?
Then you need hAtom - vote to add hAtom to MediaWiki's article history. Andy Mabbett 19:59, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Add all pages in a category to a watchlist
Is there any way to add every page in a categry to your watchlist? I've tried to search, but I can't find any mention of it? Basically what I want to do is watch every page that is part of WP:Stage - the WP I contribute to. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bryson430 (talk • contribs) 16:55, 9 March 2007 (UTC).
 * As far as I know, there isn't. Also, do you mean Category:theatre or what? $$\sim$$ Lenoxus " * " 19:34, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, Category:Stagecraft, but the concept is the same. In the end, I've added it all by hand, but then, obviously, it doesn't update when new articles are added.  Never mind!  Bryson430 19:36, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
 * You can always check the "related changes" for a category, from the toolbox link. This doesn't tell you when articles are removed. You can also take the category and convert it to a list in a subpage of your user space, and check the "related changes" for that page. Gimmetrow 19:45, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Green text
Is it fine to make the "green text" thing a subtopic of the CSS section in this article? I just think it'd be easier, seeing as you can only change the green text in CSS which doesn't seem to be a very intuitive thing to do for newcomers like me. Maybe putting it in a different article and linking there might work better. What do you think? Kennard2 09:04, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Bookmarking diffs
If you are watching a page, it's a very good idea to watch it properly - that is to check every single edit to ensure no vandalism, spam or disinformation slips through the cracks. Too often I see pages where some form of mischief has gone unnoticed for up to a year. To remedy this, we need to have people watching articles, ideally such that every single article is maintained by someone. However, when watching a number of articles, or those with high traffic, it's often easy to forget where you last checked. A bookmarking feature incorporated into the watchlist page could help make this easier - if you could mark the diff that you last checked, you could proceed from there next time and know that you have missed nothing. Thoughts? Richard001 21:12, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * You know, a feature like this seems to appear for certain sites using the same wiki software, like Uncyclopedia, where edits that you haven't seen are emboldened. Anyone know the reason for the diff? — $$\sim$$ Lenoxus " * " 21:03, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I can't say I have an account there, but it sounds like an excellent feature. That's basically the sort of thing I'm looking for, if we could use whatever code they did it should work here too, since it's all on the MediaWiki software. Richard001 06:22, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

This topic has apparently been discussed several times on bugzilla. There was reluctance to change the watchlist user interface, so nothing happened. But be sure to go to your preferences page, watchlist tab, and check the first box ("Expand watchlist to show all applicable changes"). This at least lets you see the full history of an article's updates each day, not just the last update. (I only just noticed this option ; I had assumed that any watchlist options would be at the 'edit your complete watchlist' link, or that at least they'd be mentioned there.) Trevor Hanson 03:26, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, I use that option myself (and find it highly preferable). I don't actually care about this anymore with the ability to see the full list, it's easy enough to find out where you are. Richard001 03:34, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't display all edits...?
Hi all.

When I looked at my Watchlist earlier (my very short watchlist), I noticed that the only change of the article World of Warcraft was visible for the 23rd of march (today)... and this was a revert of vandalisation which happened earlier today. I then checked the article and saw that there was a lot more edits today, and many that weren't listed. Maybe I've missed a setting or something, but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Could someone give me some help here? Many thanks in advance! Torte... of Doom! 19:47, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The watchlist normally shows only the most recent edit on the page. If you want all changed during the last few days, change your preferences->watchlist and set the "expand" option. Gimmetrow 21:09, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Ahaa, many thanks! That'll help a lot :). Torte... of Doom! 21:21, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Every article I visit is automatically added to my Watchlist
I'm not sure if this is the appropriate place to ask this question, but if anyone could help me I'd greatly appreciate it. Recently, every Wikipedia article I view is automatically added to my Watchlist even though I don't click the watch button. I've looked over my preferences, but see no option to toggle this "feature" on and off. As I said, this only started happening recently, like in the past three weeks. Is there any way I can prevent this from happening? Jtrost (T | C | #) 23:37, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
 * There is a preference setting for this. Look under "Watchlist" on the My Preferences page. --orlady 22:29, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Display and editing
Hey, the display and edit complete list has broken down for me. For about the last week, I've been unable to draw up this list. All that happens is a blank page will load after a moment or two. Recently I did go over 10k pages on my watchlist, which I was trying to cut back on when I found the problem. Anyone got any ideas, or solutions? Jo e  I  03:37, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Just to be sure, when you say "Recently I did go over 10k pages on my watchlist, which I was trying to cut back on..." you mean that as of now, you've cleaned up your watchlist right? Help:Watching_pages shows that the limit is near that size, but you should still prune it down even more if you haven't finished. how big is it now? --YbborTalk Survey!  00:22, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
 * No, it's still over 10k because I couldn't get to the list to edit it down. I didn't see Help:Watching_pages, I guess I'll have to do this one at a time, ugh. Thanks :)  Jo  01:54, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

edit size?
Would it be possible to include an option hiding all edits below a certain size? BillMasen 19:18, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
 * It shouldn't be too hard from a technical point of view, but why would you want to? There's always the 'hide minor edits' option. Just because a change isn't large in terms of total text change, I wouldn't recommend ignoring it completely. Someone could rewrite a whole section but still have a small text size change. Richard001 11:20, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
 * people don't use that button very much. I don't feel like i need to know every time someone puts an apostrophe on my watched pages :). BillMasen 00:26, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I suppose it wouldn't hurt, though again I would caution that small changes such as vandalism would be included in those edits you block out, e.g. changing a word to something offensive. There would probably have to be more editors wanting the feature before they would go to the trouble of writing it, unless it's possible to code it yourself in your preferences somehow. Richard001 00:49, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Finding out if articles are watched
From a maintenance/anti-vandalism point of view, it would be helpful to know how many people, if any, are watching a given article. Is there any way to ascertain this information? I can find nothing on the article page. If there isn't, I think it should quickly be added as a feature so that editors can locate unwatched articles to help maintain the quality of the encyclopedia, as unwatched articles have little defense against drive-by vandalism. Richard001 11:31, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Just an added thought - unregistered users should not be able to see this information as it would help vandals locate unwatched pages and make a mess of them. Only established (semi-protection criteria) users should be able to view this information. Richard001 00:12, 2 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I've had the same idea, and I support Richard001's proposal. Are there any developers who would support this?--Sumthingweird (talk) 04:49, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * See Special:UnwatchedPages and Wikipedia Signpost/2005-12-26/Technology report JackSchmidt (talk) 04:59, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

"Unwatch" button on "My Watchlist"?
Is it possible to put an "Unwatch" button directly on "My Watchlist", as on the full editable list, so that it can be removed with a single tick? That would help to shorten the list in a quicker and more convenient way. -- Matthead discuß!    O       17:26, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a good idea. I find the confirmation page annoying myself, perhaps there could be a quick way to remove any item(s) directly as you suggested without any confirmations. Richard001 00:12, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I was just going to ask this also. This would be ideal. Anyone listening? Dforest (talk) 08:03, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
 * You can do it with popups, though it could probably be made easier still. You'll probably have to take it to Bugzilla or possible the village pump to get any action though. Richard001 (talk) 00:31, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Watching a section only
If I want to watch for a reply at a very busy talk page like the village pump, is there any way I can watch only the section my question is in? Would it be technically possible, and if so practical and useful to have a feature like this? Richard001 00:44, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I've been going round & round with helpers here on the helpdesk, because of the same problem on the refdesks. Yes, it would be VERY nice to only watch those sections you were interested in.  No, it doesn't seem possible.  At the moment I'm trying to see if there is any way to "Don't Watch" specified pages, because of the effect you have noticed.  If you 'watch" any of the desks, the notices drown out anything else.  I sure hope someone else has a better answer than mine.  -66.55.10.178 (talk) 00:13, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

watching non-existent talk pages
Is it just me or does the text on the help page imply that if a page doesn't exist, the choice to watch a non-existant page must be made purposefully? I.E., it implies that the default watching of the talk page that accompanies an article does not function if the talk page is not yet in existence when the "watching" occurs. Miss Mondegreen talk , 29 July 2024 (UTC)


 * It is automatic. If neither the content page nor the talk page exists the choice must be made purposefully.--Patrick 12:02, 5 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Right, right. But when I read the section it made it sound like if I was watching an article page and I wanted to know if a talk page was ever created for it, I had to make the purposeful choice to watch it--which isn't correct.  We still default watch non-existant pages that correspond with created pages.  I just thought that this didn't come accross clearly and I wondered if I was the only one who thought it was unclear... Miss Mondegreen  talk , 29 July 2024 (UTC)

i can't see my watchlist
I cannot see my watchlist recent changes. Is there a bug? Tkjazzer 22:00, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
 * What can you see? Your question is slightly ambiguous.  MrZaius  talk  14:27, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorting by date?
Does MediaWiki track the info it'd need to tell when any given page was added to the watchlist of any given user? If not, would the MediaWiki devs be likely to grant a second list, a Readlist, that just keeps internal bookmarks or something of the sort, if I were to file a bug report? MrZaius talk  14:27, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

250 cap?
Am I nuts, or is the Watchlist capped at 250 edits? I've gotten to the point where I'm monitoring enough pages that I can't see even a full 24 hours of edits, and I'd kind of like a workaround, if one is available. MrZaius talk  01:04, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of pages
Help:Watching pages currently claims "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Watchlist&magic=yes shows all watched non-talk pages, including the deleted ones." Is this really true? It does not appear to work right now for my watchlist and the article ttylinux (deleted 13:48, 27 May 2007 after I had tagged it with Template:db-copyvio). &mdash; Tobias Bergemann 16:14, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

(Addendum: Deleted pages still appear when I am directly editing my watchlist. &mdash; Tobias Bergemann 16:18, 27 May 2007 (UTC))


 * This has bothered me too. If an admin deletes a page I had been working on improving, I don't find out until I wonder why no one has made any changes to the page in a long time and I go back to find it's been deleted. I understand that this helps prevent recreation of pages which need to stay deleted, but it's annoying. — Jonathan Kovaciny (talk|contribs) 15:42, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * The link given doesn't work show deleted pages for me, either, so it should really be removed from the article. --Evil1987 18:39, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Watchlist only going back one week now
Hi all. In case any of you haven't noticed it, the "all" link on the watchlist only returns seven days of results all of a sudden instead of the thirty days it used to. There have been some assertions of functionality regarding the change. There's a discussion at the Village Pump here and a bug report has been filed 10349. &mdash;Elipongo (Talk contribs) 00:10, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

New "watch" toggle
Hey... to whoever made the new "watchlist" toggle... I raise my Goblet of Rock to You! --Knulclunk 00:35, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Yep, I found the old method irritating, the new way is much better. Thanks, guys Lurker  17:28, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * What happened? It's back to the old method where you get redirected to another page Lurker  12:20, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
 * What did it do? — Jonathan Kovaciny (talk|contribs) 15:33, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
 * It's working again, maybe it was a problem on my end. The watchlist toggle lets you add pages to your watchlist without taking you to another page that says "x has been added to your watchlist. Lurker  15:36, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Yay for the new "watch" toggle! It is truly magnificent! --Eliyak T · C 22:51, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Useful even if not used?

 * The watchlist is only one of the features with regard to watching pages; even without ever using it, specifying pages to watch is useful.

What does this mean, exactly? Eaglizard 22:21, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Good question. Can't see how it would be useful myself, though it must have been added for a reason. Richard001 09:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Ditto! I have no idea what this sentence is supposed to mean Cheakamus (talk) 21:31, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Odd watchlist behavior
For some reason my watchlist isn't registering all changes to the pages I'm watching. For the last few days I've found changes on the watchlist as normal, but when I click on the page that the notification is for I notice that there has actually been more than one edit/editor since the last time I was notified. I like to stop vandalism, syntactical/grammatical and other errors sooner rather than later, and I'm a little surprised that the function is "missing" stuff. Any ideas? ChrisStansfield Contribs 18:18, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I think I have a problem
Every page I edit automatically appears on my watchlist. Before you reply....yes I have unchecked the option in my preferences, if need be I can provide a screencap. This has been frustrating me for weeks now. Just wondered whether this is a known problem. I used Firefox if that helps. Please reply via my talk page. Thanks.  Ryan (talk/contribs) 23:55, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Please excuse the above, I've found out why I'm having problems. I use Twinkle to tackle vandalism and I didn't know that the default settings in the monobook.js was to add all edits to my watchlist. It's adjust now accordingly. Thanks  Ryan (talk/contribs) 01:00, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Unexpected Pages Appearing In Watchlist
Does anybody know how come some articles which I have never added or edited become appended to my watchlist? Blueshirts 22:23, 11 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Possibly you made a comment on the talk page (or started it from scratch?). Have a look at your preferences and see if you can find out why it's happening. Richard001 00:52, 12 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Hello, for example, I have this HAGGER????? weird page in my watchlist. The article is an empty one and is protected against creation. I have never seen this before and I don't know how it got there. Blueshirts 02:02, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The same thing happened to me recently, i came on one morning, and there was Photograph sitting on my watchlist, even though i've never edited it. Confused the hell out of me.--Jac16888 23:36, 24 September 2007 (UTC)


 * When someone moves a page, you watch the new page as well. HAGGER????? was a result of page move vandalism, which also showed up on my watchlist (although a slight variant). ~ Squids ' and ' Chips  16:07, 25 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, that happened to me as well, except with Luigi ON WHEELS!!! -- Einstei  N  ewton  22:41, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * This has been happening to me too. Numerous articles that I have never seen before (incuding HAGGER?????) have been added to my watchlist. Why does this keep happening? - Linczone Talk/Watch 12:51, 30 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I have been suffering this, and regularly have to clear out my watchlist of spurious entries. Unless vandals can edit watchlists, I would have thought that it was vandals moving a page I was watching, and the new page name being added.  However movement of pages appears on the watchlist, and I have yet to see an entry for any of the spurious pages. Also, the links in the watchlist are invariably red, indicating the pages do not exist - so they have either been deleted and moved back before I notice, or some miscreant can hack in and edit watchlists.  --JohnArmagh (talk) 08:32, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a problem?
Whenever I click on my watchlist I get this message:

--- Wikipedia has a problem

Sorry! This site is experiencing technical difficulties.

Try waiting a few minutes and reloading.

(Can't contact the database server: Unknown error ) -

Does anyone know what the problem is? Is anyone else having this problem?  Wikidudeman  (talk) 16:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I just get a message that the page cannot be displayed. First time that has happened.Zebulin 16:40, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Is it working for anyone?  Wikidudeman  (talk) 16:45, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Apparently not, or we would have gotten an explanation by now. Just64helpin 17:00, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

An explanation?  Wikidudeman  (talk) 17:13, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
 * i had the same problem, except it said the whole 500 internal error thing. Just started working again a few mins ago --Jac16888 17:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Divergence from Meta
The help page has diverged significantly from the master copy at m:Help:Watching pages, despite the statement at the top of the page: ''This is a copy of the master help page at Meta. Do not edit this copy.''

I don't have any problem with ignoring Meta, but if in fact that is the policy, it would be good to make it clear. Your username goes here 10:31, 29 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, it sure has... this diff shows the divergence. I guess people aren't reading the notice. Should they be united again? I presume dumping all the changes is not desirable? Richard001 23:55, 29 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Given the lack of posting by other editors, it's probably best to take this to one of the village pump pages to discuss. -- John Broughton  (♫♫) 00:28, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

A key to the watchlist needed
On the watchlist what does a red minus two in parentheses signify?... (-2) What does a green plus ten in parentheses signify?... (+10) There should be a key for it on the watchlist ! the zak 17:39, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * This indicates how many bytes (essentially the number of characters) were added or removed from the page. --- RockMFR 18:13, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Help:Watching_pages Gimmetrow 19:11, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm looking for this information also. Unfortunately the section referenced above no longer exists (and I'm too lazy to go digging for it in the page history) --Kvng (talk) 14:57, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion: unwatch link on the watchlist
Would it be possible to place a code in the MediaWiki that placed an "unwatch" link next to every page that came up on the watchlist? That would be most convenient. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:06, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I second that... Vrac (talk) 08:18, 19 December 2007 (UTC)