Help talk:Watching pages

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[edit] 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)

[edit] Watch message

‘The page "x" has been added to your watchlist. Future changes to this page and its associated Talk or article page will be listed there, and the page will appear bolded in the list of recent changes to make it easier to pick out.’

Don't you think it would be better to say ‘emboldened’ instead of ‘bolded’? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Max naylor (talk • contribs) 18:33, 11 May 2006 (UTC).

It would be better to say bolded. --Siva1979Talk to me 04:02, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Technically, it would be better to say "emboldened", however, the grammatically correct version could confused some users. You could try "in bold", instead. 86.133.54.220 10:19, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Phrasing

I find the phrase "one can not watch one and not watch the other" to be rather unclear. Assuming that I have interpreted it correctly, could I suggest that it be changed to "if you watch one, you have to watch the other" or something of that nature? Mrplastic 08:38, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, your way is much clearer than the current version. Nationalparks 01:38, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. --Siva1979Talk to me 18:35, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Stylistically, this article goes back and forth between the friendly, second-person "you" and the formal, third-person "one." I think "you" is much better, but in any case, the article should be consistent. ThreeOfCups (talk) 04:34, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Expand Watchlist Option

What does the "Expand watchlist to show all applicable changes" setting do? Shouldn't info on this either be on Help:Preferences or Help:Watching pages? --Muéro 01:08, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

It makes the watchlist behave more like recent changes. The default setting (above option off) causes only changes to be shown when they correspond to the most recent version of a page. With the option switched on, however, all recent changes to your favourite pages are listed. 86.133.54.220 10:18, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Marking edits "read"?

I have a feature I'd like to suggest for the Watchlists on Wikpedia. It would be nice to be able to mark an edit as "read" so the page doesn't show up in my watchlist until there's another edit. I don't know if this is the relevant page to discuss it though. --Howdybob 09:12, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

This sounds like a good idea as the amount of clutter in the watchlist page would decrease significantly. --Siva1979Talk to me 02:50, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm unwatching this page now, so anyone who wants to answer to me please mention it on my talk page. --Howdybob 07:25, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
I'll second addition of this feature. Either drop reviewed pages from the watch list or mark them much like how Wikipedia:New_pages_patrol/patrolled_pages patrolled pages get marked. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 18:12, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Protection

This is a copy of the master help page at Meta. 
Do not edit this copy. Edits will be lost in the next update from the master page.

Why do we even need this? If we do not want it edited, why don't we just protect it? It seems much easier to me.--Chili14(Talk|Contribs) 18:27, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree with Chili14 here. --Siva1979Talk to me 18:58, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
At a guess, I'd say because the bot that overwrites it from meta probably doesn't have admin powers... -- nae'blis 03:20, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 30 day cutoff?

Trying to catch up after an extended wikibreak, I can't seem to view changes more than 30 days old in my watchlist. I know I have pages that were last edited before that - my timestamp page is one of them. Is this an undocumented feature? DenisMoskowitz 19:30, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

This is the same as for recent changes - watchlist items are taken from the same temporary cache of changes, and this is periodically automatically pruned, so these items will not be available past a set time. 86.133.54.220 10:17, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Multiple Watchlists

Is it possible to combine watchlists from multiple Wikipedias into a single page? I am currently monitoring articles on both the French and English Wikipedias, and it would be convienent for all edits to be reported in one place.

Michaelbusch 01:50, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Hello, I had the same request here:
I move it to here now, since it is the appropriate location.
@Michael: I would say: you should vote for the bug, at the moment, we have 3 votes for it. ----Erkan Yilmaz (evaluate me!, discussion) 14:47, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
start quote:
Hi, I am now participating on many wikis: Wikipedia (English, German), Wikiversity (English, German, beta), Wikibooks,... just to name some. My problem now is: I have to go to every wiki to log in with a different password (no, I won't use one single pwd for all :-) ). Isn't there a possibility to have one page only, where I can redirect all my watchlists (e.g. Special:watchlist) to? And then of course when clicking on it, I go to the different wikis. --Erkan Yilmaz 21:07, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Another possibility for this: I could also imagine, that I could get a daily digest for each wiki by mail --Erkan Yilmaz 06:54, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, they are already in request:
end quote

[edit] New feature?

As of today, when I check at my watchlist I see numbers (positiv and negativ) beside edits.What are they??? --Powo 20:54, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

It looks like the number tells you how many characters were added/deleted in a specific change. A negative number says how many characters were deleted, positive number says how many characters were added and a zero means the number of deleted characters and added characters are the same. That's my guess at least. Jtrost (T | C | #) 13:56, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Added or removed characters. — Jonathan Kovaciny (talk|contribs) 16:53, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Having just found this page in desperation at finding the reason for the seemingly random coloured characters that recently appeared in my watchlist and, having learnt what they do, I really fail to see the use of such a feature. For the vast majority of editors it's nothing more than page clutter. Surely something like this should be disabled by default on all accounts? If some character counting geek needs it then let them hack around with their css file! M100 22:29, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
You can get rid of it -- Arriva436 19:09, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Useless for deletes

Now this is something that really aggravates me: When some admin decides to delete an article or image without warning (something which should be much more controversial as it is), why does the watchlist not even tell me? Surely, that is a rather major change?

Has happened to me only two-three times in a long wikipedia service, but its extremely irritating nonetheless. MadMaxDog 09:04, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't like that either. — Jonathan Kovaciny (talk|contribs) 16:59, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
If you were watching a page then you will see the notice for deletion which includes a link to the discussion page about that deletion. Watch-list and participate in that discussion. That said - I do wish it was possible to watch-list a section of a page as a the delete-discussion pages will get updated anyone makes an edit even if it was about one of the images/pages you are not interested in. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 19:21, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Help link on watchlist.

Could an admin please add a link to Help:Watching pages at the top of the watchlist. Something like this:

You have 167 pages on your watchlist (excluding talk pages); you can display and edit the complete list. See Help:Watching pages to learn how to use this page.

Thanks. — Jonathan Kovaciny (talk|contribs) 16:58, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 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 Wikipedia: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)

[edit] Limit of number of Pages?

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

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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 wikipedia:bugzilla [1]. 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 <blush/>; 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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? Joe 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#Size_limitation 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? --YbborTalkSurvey! 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#Size_limitation, I guess I'll have to do this one at a time, ugh. Thanks  :) Joe I 01:54, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] "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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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  21:04, 11 June 2008 (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  21:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 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. MrZaiustalk 14:27, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 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? MrZaiustalk 14:27, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 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. MrZaiustalk 01:04, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion of pages

Help:Watching pages#Deletion of 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). — Tobias Bergemann 16:14, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

(Addendum: Deleted pages still appear when I am directly editing my watchlist. — 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)

[edit] 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. —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 00:10, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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!!! --EinsteiNewton 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? - LinczoneTalk/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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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#What_do_the_colored_numbers_mean.3F 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] Phantom pages on my watchlist

Every so often I find items on my watchlist that I did not put there. Not only did I not put them there, but apparently neither has anyone else -- the links lead to empty articles. How can I put a stop to this? How can someone else add items to MY watchlist?! Misterdoe (talk) 18:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Red or Green, + or -

I think someone should talk about when you resecive a message that some one has edited a page and it has a + or - and then numebers in etheir red or green. Rdrg93 (talk) 19:16, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

It's the number of characters added/deleted. See Wikipedia:Added or removed characters. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 22:01, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
I know that but I just think someone should talk about it on the article. Rdrg93 (talk) 15:49, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
I would like to "second" this request - it was trying to figure out what those things are that actually brought me here, and I'm delighted to have found the answer, but I think I was lucky - thanks, Rdrg93, for asking first. —Martha (talk) 06:16, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How to enable "updated (since my last visit)"

A wiki that we use at work bolds articles that have changed since my last visit in my watchlist, and tags edits that have been made since my last visit in the page history. I remarked to someone that it'd be nice it Wikipedia did this, and she told me that Wikipedia does do this. When I searched for the function, I found the appropriate section on this page, which tells me that Wikipedia has the feature... but I don't see it in action on my watchlist, nor do I see anything in my preferences that would seem to enable it. What do I need to do to enable this feature? Erik Harris (talk) 12:39, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hide bot edits...?

Why do User:ClueBot's edits show on my watchlist even though I have "hide bot edits" checked? I unchecked and rechecked it, and I still have ClueBot's edits. SpencerT♦C 02:09, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I moved the question to User talk:ClueBot Commons#Not flagged as a robot? where it got answered. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 10:13, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Ok thanks. But now I'm seeing edits from User:SpillingBot. This is odd. SpencerT♦C 21:50, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Delete log

I noticed awhile ago that all the worst obscenities, blp violations and other crud always ended up on my watchlist because when somebody would remove say User:SqueakBox to User;SqueakBox is a plonker, the latter would remain on my watchlist until or unless removed manually. I can only imagine what many people's watchlists look like, I always cleaned mine out regularly but now with the deletion log in place we get warned of this kind of crap and so it can be cleaned out immediately. This is the kind of development that really makes a difference. Thanks, SqueakBox 18:55, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Updated from meta?

Is this page really regularly updated from the master page at meta, like it says at the top? If not, perhaps we could remove the notice?--Kotniski (talk) 12:41, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Terminology confusion

As discussed at WP:VPPR#"Watchlist" terminology clarification, the word "watchlist" is used for both the list of pages that are being watched, and for what I call the "watchlist report", which is sometimes called "watched pages". I think it's important, particularly for inexperienced editors, to clearly distinguish between a list of pages (the watchlist) and a list of edits that are related to the pages being watched (a report).

Since there was only one comment at WP:VPPR, what do other editors think? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:13, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

If there there was confusion on my part it was so brief that I've forgotten about it. I guess you could say it's similar to those situations where the verb and noun are the same word. There could be confusion but nearly always people figure out the correct meaning from context. As it is, the wording at the top of the watchlist recently changed from "View relevant changes" to "Display watched changes." Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 19:01, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit]  :D

Kind of an odd post and I'm not even sure if this is where it belongs, but I've only just discovered the extended watchlist feature, and I LOVE it. I just wanted to thank whoever was responsible for creating it, because it has certainly made my wikilife a whole lot easier (and because of that more enjoyable :) ) -- certainly one of those things I wish I'd known about earlier :) PageantUpdater talk • contribs 08:12, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Lol, it took me about 6 months of being a serious editor to discover. I then felt embarrassed it had taken me so long. This is at the heart of good wikipedia practice. Thanks, SqueakBox 19:19, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Watchlist bolded

Pretty much all my watchlist entries are suddenly bolded. Even the ones where my edit is the last one. What's that about? I've never seen this before. -- VegitaU (talk) 02:13, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I have the same gripe. ALL watchlist entries are bolded, including those that I have visited since the last change. Who approved this? WWGB (talk) 02:20, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Update - appears to be fixed. WWGB (talk) 02:23, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Updates have to be done sometime, and unlike nation based sites wikipedia is truly a 24/7 website. Thanks, SqueakBox 19:17, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Secondary watchlist (probably a stupid question)

Hi there. I've been an editor for quite a while now, and have accumulated a rather large number of "watched" articles (as I'm sure most of us have). However, there is a smaller number of articles that I edit more intensively, and which I like to keep more of an eye on. Often my visits to Wikipedia are somewhat fleeting and I miss edits/vandalism to this shorter list since I don't have the time to wade through my watchlist. Does anyone know if it is possible to create a page in my space (here for example) where I can put this shorter list of articles so that I can quickly check them for recent edits? I reckon this isn't possible, since watchlists are such a deeply embedded feature of wikis, but I'd be delighted to know if there was a way of achieving this [*]. Cheers, --Plumbago (talk) 13:08, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

[*] Aside from methods like thinning my watchlist, or creating a secondary account that only watches my "favourite" articles.

More or less yes. Special:RelatedChanges/User:Plumbago/Shortlist will display all recent changes to articles wikilinked from User:Plumbago/Shortlist. For instance, User:TreasuryTag/Watchlist and Special:RelatedChanges/User:TreasuryTag/Watchlist function this way. JackSchmidt (talk) 15:06, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Set up a separate account and just use iut for the watchlist and open it in a different web browser. Thanks, SqueakBox 15:12, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Hi JackSchmidt - brilliant! That looks like exactly what I'm after. I'll give it a go. SqueakBox - thanks, but I already said I didn't fancy this way of doing it. Cheers, --Plumbago (talk) 16:59, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Its a very good solution, I am near 5000 on mine and that in spite of regular vandalism move clearouts. Thanks for showing us that, SqueakBox 22:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
And, I have just noticed, if you want to add a talk page you have to add it to the shortlist manually, it wont do it automatically like in a primary watchlist. Thanks, SqueakBox 19:16, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Yup. There was a discussion at WP:VP/T to automatically check talk pages too. I submitted a patch at some point that did this for articles, but there is a technical problem for categories. Which reminds me I should advertise one of the cooler uses: Special:RelatedChanges/Category:Even-toed ungulates. You can see all recent changes to any article in the category! Unfortunately the code that does this is basically independent of the article page related changes code (even though both are activated by looking Special:RelatedChanges), so making them both work they way people expect is hard, since people expect different code to behave as if it was all the same thing. JackSchmidt (talk) 19:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] My Watchlist isn't working

Ok, I have added tons of things to it, and then the next day nothing pops up and it basically means no edits have happened, but I look at some of the pages and they have been edited, is there something wrong with mine or should I have it on a certain setting or what??? I don't know, please help!Jonni Boi 15:58, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

You have to be logged in, of course. If you are, then click "my preferences" at the top of the screen, choose the "watchlist" tab, and have a look at the options there. You might have "ignore bot edits" checked, for example, which would cause certain edits not to show up. If you still can't find out what's wrong, come back here and maybe someone cleverer than either of us will be able to help.--Kotniski (talk) 17:19, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Also try the help desk which is watched by more people. This page is theoretically dedicated to improving the help pages, not directly helping people. Of course once we figure out the problem it might be a good reason to update the help page. JackSchmidt (talk) 17:32, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Do not watch" list?

If I want to watch a page, I add it to my watchlist. Quick and easy, works great. It's even automatic, since I have my preferences set to "watch pages I edit". And, I want to see all edits to those pages I watch. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any way to perform the opposite function. I edit one of the reference desks, and I forget to uncheck the "Watch this page" box. Next time I look in my watchlist report, it's overrun with entries about the hundreds of edits to the refdesk page since I last logged in. Is there any way to tell the watchlist "Don't watch this page"? Simply clicking on the "unwatch" tab on top doesn't help, as five minutes from now I edit another section, and it's back on my watch list. Now, if I have a page on my list, and I edit that page again, it doesn't get added a second time, so the code that adds pages clearly reviews the list first to prevent duplicate entries. Is it possible (whoever has access to that code) to implement a "Don't watch" feature such that manually adding a line

"-Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language"

tells the code to not add this page to my watchlist, even though I forgot to uncheck the box? I'd like to keep the feature that says "automatically watch any page I edit", I just want to turn it off for a very few high-traffic pages. Specifically, the 8 desks. If I edit a particular section of the Science Desk, I do NOT want my watch report to be filled with the hundreds of edits to the rest of that page. I'd like to be able to tell the list to not add it. (Yes, this is pretty much a duplicate of a Village Pump/Help Desk section) -SandyJax (talk) 00:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I would like such a feature too (and for basically the same reason). To be clear, to get into this situation, a user has to make two changes to their preferences: watch pages I edit, and show all edits, not just the most recent. Disabling either of those also fixes the problem, but presumably some users (like me and presumably SJ) want both of those enabled. If someone doesn't have a premade solution, I'll write a short javascript thinger. JackSchmidt (talk) 17:57, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Here is a simple solution:

if( wgAction.match(/edit|submit/) && wgPageName.match(/Wikipedia:Reference_desk.*/) )
addOnloadHook(function(){ var o = document.getElementById("wpWatchthis"); if(o) o.checked=false;});

You add this to your personal javascript page at wikipedia, like User:SandyJax/monobook.js or for me User:JackSchmidt/chick.js. I thought there was a better help page, but WP:US might be the main page. It might be nice if it had an easily editable list of pages, but this just unchecks the "Watch this page" button for any page with "Wikipedia:Reference_desk" in its title. JackSchmidt (talk) 18:31, 6 June 2008 (UTC)