Help talk:Watchlist

	This page is within the scope of the Wikipedia Help Project, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's help documentation for readers and contributors. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. To browse help related resources see the Help Menu or Help Directory. Or ask for help on your talk page and a volunteer will visit you there.Wikipedia HelpWikipedia:Help ProjectTemplate:Wikipedia Help ProjectHelp articles
Top	This page has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Archives

Archive 1	Archive 2	Archive 3
Archive 4	Archive 5	Archive 6
Archive 7

This page has archives. Sections older than 90 days may be automatically archived by when more than 3 sections are present.

Modifying limitations

Hi - in Help:Watchlist#Limitations, it suggests you can't watch categories. Yet isn't this what [[1]] does, if you put in a category name? TimTempleton ^(talk) ^(cont) 23:04, 13 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

Any edit that changes a number or numbers without an edit summary should be flagged "r"

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Watching versus subscribing?

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

"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)[reply]

Adding lower time period to temporarily watched pages

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)[reply]