Difference between revisions of "Help:Watchlist"

Latest revision as of 04:24, November 19, 2011

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When a user is logged in, you will see a link in the sidebar entitled "Watch this page" (on non-dynamic pages). When you click on that link, you add the current page and the corresponding talk page to your watchlist.

You can access your watchlist by clicking on the My watchlist link in the sidebar.

The watchlist basically functions as a personalized recent changes page, just for articles that you select. It gives you a list of all watched pages, reverse-ordered according to the time each page was last edited. The default cutoff for the watchlist is currently three days for users with less than 1,000 pages in their watchlist, and 12 hours for users with more than 1,000. (This is a default setting that cannot be changed by the user.)

Each line in the watchlist provides the usual details about the last edit: the date and time, if it was a minor edit (or not), the difference between the current version and the previous one, the history, the editor's user name, and the edit summary.

What the watchlist does:

• Last edit. The watchlist lists the last edit made to each watched page, in reverse chronological order.
• Recent changes. In the recent changes page, any watched pages will be listed in bold to call attention to them.

What the watchlist does not do:

• Multiple edits. Only the last edit made to a page will be shown. If the last edit was a minor edit, there is no notice given that there was a major edit before the minor edit.
• Deleted pages. If a watched page is deleted, it is automatically removed from your watchlist without any notice. (Yes, this is considered strange behavior.)

Watching pages[edit]

You can add pages to your watchlist in one of two ways:

• View the article, and click the "Watch this page" link in the sidebar.
• While editing an article, check the "Watch this article" checkbox near the edit summary. When you save the page, the article is added to your watchlist.
• In your preferences, select the option to "Add pages you edit to your watchlist".

Un-watching pages[edit]

If you decide that you are no longer interested in changes made to a page, you can remove that page from your watchlist in one of two ways:

• View the article, and click the "Stop watching this page" link in the sidebar.
• Click the "My watchlist" link in the sidebar, and select "edit complete list". You will be given a checkbox list from which you can select multiple pages to be removed from the list.