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{{shortcut|WP:WATCH|WP:WATCHLIST}}
'''Watching pages''' allows any [[Help:Logging in|logged-in]] user to keep a list of 'watched' pages and to generate a list of recent changes made to those pages (and their associated talk pages). In this way you can keep track of and react to what's happening to pages you have created or are otherwise interested in.

==Controlling which pages are watched==
There are four ways to control which pages you have on your watchlist:
#When viewing a page, click the star sign between the 'View history' tab and the search box at the very top of the page (for the default appearance, in some other versions, click on the "watch" or "unwatch" tab), to respectively add or remove the page from your watchlist.<ref>When the star (or in other appearances "watch" or "unwatch") is clicked, the {{msg|addedwatchtext}} or {{msg|removedwatchtext}} message is shown above the page, and "{{int:watch}}" is changed to {{int:unwatch}} or conversely. Depending on the browser this is done without reloading the whole page, using [[w:Ajax (programming)|AJAX]] with [{{SERVER}}/skins-1.5/common/ajaxwatch.js ajaxwatch.js].</ref>
#When editing a page, check or uncheck "Watch this page" before saving (above the 'Show preview' button).
#Click "View and edit watchlist" or "Edit raw watchlist" at the top of the watchlist page to view or alter the list of watched pages directly. The first option takes you to [[Special:Watchlist/edit]], where the watched pages are listed with checkboxes which can be used to remove items. The second takes you to [[Special:Watchlist/raw]], which has a text area with a list of watched pages, one title per line, sorted by [[WP:Namespace|namespace]] number and then [[help:alphabetic order|alphabetically]]. You can edit the list directly, copy it to an external editor or replace it with a list created elsewhere. Duplicates are automatically removed on saving.
#If you have the [[WP:Popups|popups]] gadget enabled, you can use it to watch or unwatch a linked page without having to view it.

If you check "Add pages I edit to my watchlist" on the "Watchlist" tab of your user preferences, then the "Watch this page" checkbox will always be checked by default when you edit pages. Other similar options are "Add pages I create to my watchlist", "Add pages I move to my watchlist", and (for [[WP:ADMIN|administrators]]) "Add pages I delete to my watchlist".

It should also be noted that:
*Talk pages are not listed at [[Special:Watchlist/edit]] or [[Special:Watchlist/raw]], but they are automatically watched whenever their corresponding non-talk pages are watched.
*It is not possible to watch automatically generated pages, such as [[Help:Special pages|Special pages]]. Watching a [[WP:Category|category]] page will pick up changes to the text of the category page itself, but not to the lists of subcategories and pages contained in the category (see also [[Help:Category#"Related Changes" with categories|Help:Category]]). Similarly, watching an [[WP:Image|image]] will not detect uploads of new versions of the image.
*Additional page titles may sometimes appear on your watchlist as a result of page moves (see [[#Moves, creations and deletions|Moves, creations and deletions]] below).
*When a watched page contains transcluded text, such as [[WP:Template|templates]], the form of the page may change as a result of changes to the transcluded pages. These changes will not show up on your watchlist unless you are watching the transcluded pages as well.

===Hiding pages from watchlist===
{{main|Wikipedia:Hide Pages in Watchlist}}

It is possible to watch a page without watching its associated [[WP:Talk page|talk page]]; it is also possible to watch only a talk page. More information can be found at [[Wikipedia:Hide Pages in Watchlist]].

==How to read a watchlist==
When you are [[Help:Logging in|logged in]] to Wikipedia, a link, <code>my watchlist</code> appears at the top of every page.
This links to the special page [[Special:Watchlist]], reporting recent changes to your watched pages. It is a list separated by days, ordered backwards according to the time of the edit.

Each line shows details of each edit: whether [[Help:Minor edit|minor]] ('''m'''), whether made by a [[Wikipedia:Bots|bot]] ('''b'''), the time, a link to the page, a link to the difference ("[[Help:Diff|diff]]") made by the edit in question, a link to the page history ("[[WP:Page history|hist]]"), the editor's user name or IP address, the increase (green) or decrease (red) in the number of [[bytes]], e.g. <span class='mw-plusminus-pos'>(+76)</span>, <span class='mw-plusminus-neg'>(-490)</span> or, if over 500, in bold: <strong class='mw-plusminus-pos'>(+794)</strong>, <strong class='mw-plusminus-neg'>(-2,412)</strong>, and the [[WP:Edit summary|edit summary]].

Technically, the watchlist is just another way to filter [[Help:Recent changes|recent changes]]. The entries come from the [[mw:recentchanges table|recentchanges table]] and are therefore restricted to edits not older than 30 days (the current value of the [[mw:Manual:$wgRCMaxAge|$wgRCMaxAge]] variable for Wikipedia).

===Options===
There are various options available to control how the list of changes is displayed:
*You may choose to hide or show minor edits, bot edits, one's own edits, edits by anonymous users and edits by logged-in users (links for this purpose appear at the top of the watchlist page). Initially the default behavior for all of these is "show"; this can be changed using the options available on the "Watchlist" tab of your user preferences.
*You can choose how many hours or days you want the list of changes to go back, using the links at the top of the watchlist. For the maximum (30 days), select "all". For non-standard values, select one of the available links and then edit the value after "days=" in the [[URL]]. The default value, which must be a number of days not greater than 7, is set on the "Watchlist" tab of user preferences. Note that there may be a later cut-off due to the limit on the number of displayed changes, described below.
*You can restrict the list to changes in a specified [[WP:Namespace|namespace]], using the "Namespace" drop-down box (check "Invert selection" to ''exclude'' the specified namespace).
*You can elect to display only the last edit to each watched page ("Simple watchlist"). This is currently the default, but can produce misleading results (for example, if the last edit to a page was minor, then there is no indication that a previous non-minor edit occurred). '''To ensure that all changes are displayed, check the "Expand watchlist..." option on the "Watchlist" tab of your user preferences.'''
*Having selected the expanded watchlist, you can choose "[[Help:enhanced recent changes|enhanced]]" display mode, which groups together all changes made to each page on a given day. Click on the blue arrows to the left of the list to expand or collapse each group. This option applies to both the watchlist and recent changes, and for this reason appears on the "Recent changes" tab of user preferences, not the "Watchlist" tab.
*You may choose to set the "Maximum number of changes to show in expanded watchlist" (on the "Watchlist" tab of user preferences). The maximum possible number of changes to display is currently 1000. If this causes a later time cutoff than you desired, you can see earlier changes by filtering by type or namespace, as described above.

==Other effects of watching a page==
When you view [[Help:Recent changes|Recent Changes]], [[Help:Enhanced recent changes|Enhanced Recent Changes]] or [[Help:Related changes|Related Changes]], entries relating to pages you are watching appear '''bolded'''. This means that it may be beneficial to mark pages as "watched" even if you do not intend viewing the [[Special:Watchlist]] page.

Another watchlist-related MediaWiki function is e-mail notification of watched changes, as described [[mw:Extension:Email notification|here]]. However this is not currently enabled for Wikipedia (as explained [[Wikipedia:Help desk/Archive 51#Watchlist email notification|here]]).

==Moves, creations and deletions==
Actions affecting watched pages (page [[Help:Moving a page|moves]], page creations and deletions, protection) also appear in the watchlist. For example, if you watch a page that does not yet have a talk page, you will see on your watchlist when someone creates that talk page.

You can watch a page even if neither the content page nor the talk page exists. To do that, go to the page's URL, either by typing the URL directly or following a (broken) link, and then press "Watch" (depending on the skin you may have to press Cancel first).

If a page you have watched is moved to a new title, the new title will be automatically added to your watchlist. Even if the page is later moved back (and even if the page at the new title is deleted), the new title will remain in your watchlist along with the old one. If you notice mysterious nonexistent pages appearing on your watchlist, this is the most likely explanation.

==RSS feed==
See [[Wikipedia:Syndication]].

==Alternatives to watchlists==
An account can have only one watchlist. However, it is possible to set up watchlist-like functionality using the "[[Help:Related changes|Related changes]]" feature, in a way that effectively enables a user to achieve multiple watchlists. To do this, create a page (normally in your own [[WP:User space|user space]]) containing links to the pages you wish to watch. Changes to those pages can then be monitored by going to the user page and clicking "Related changes". Note that in this case the talk pages corresponding to "watched" pages are ''not'' automatically included, and that changes to the user page itself will not be picked up.

Related Changes can also be used to monitor changes to pages belonging to a [[WP:Category|category]], including the addition of pages to the category (which is not picked up by placing the category on a watchlist). However, the removal of pages from the category is ''not'' detected.

===CSS===
As an alternative or in addition to using the watchlist feature, you can also define a [[Help:User style|user style]] for links to selected pages, putting in one's [[Cascading Style Sheets|CSS]] a list of lines like:

<source lang="CSS">
a[title ="pagename"] {color: white; background: red; font-size: 150% }
</source>

This works in Opera, but not in IE.

On the (Enhanced) Recent Changes page it works like the bolding feature mentioned above, but it is more versatile, e.g. allowing extra emphasis on pages one is ''very'' interested in, or different styles for different categories of interesting pages. Furthermore, it also works on user contributions pages, and on regular pages (also for piped links, but not for indirect links through a redirect). It also applies, less usefully, for the section editing links in the page itself.

To highlight links to the given page also from other websites, including interlanguage links, use instead of the above:

<source lang="CSS">
a[href ="full URL"] { .. }
</source>

Note that the full URL is needed, even to highlight links from the same project, even though the [[Help:HTML in wikitext|HTML]] code uses the relative URL /wiki/''pagename''.

==Size limitation==
{{seealso|Wikipedia:Don't overload your watchlist!}}
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,<ref>[https://wikitech.leuksman.com/view/Querybane Wikitech.leuksman.com]</ref> 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. 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.

==Privacy of watchlists==
Ordinary users or [[Help:Administration|administrator]]s cannot tell what is in your watchlist, or who is watching any particular page. [[w:Wikipedia:Database download|Publicly available database dumps]] do not include this information either. [[m:Developer|Developer]]s who have access to the servers that hold the Wikipedia database could obtain this kind of information.

== Watchlist notices ==
Watchlist notices are messages which are posted at the top of all users' watchlists, for example to publicize changes or discussions which are of importance for the whole editing community. Users are able to dismiss these messages when they have read them. The messages are placed via the message page [[MediaWiki:Watchlist-details]] (editable by [[WP:ADMIN|administrators]] only).

==Multi-project watchlists==
A standard watchlist covers only one [[Wikimedia]] project (so your English Wikipedia watchlist can contain only pages on English Wikipedia). However, there is a multi-wiki watchlist available at http://tools.wikimedia.de/~luxo/gwatch/ that will allow you to simultaneously display changes to watched pages on as many Wikimedia projects as you want.

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==See also==
*[[Wikipedia:Copying watchlist to new username]]
*[[Wikipedia:Hide Pages in Watchlist]]
*[[m:Help:Watching pages|Help on watching pages at meta]]
*[[mw:watchlist table|Watchlist table (MediaWiki technical documentation)]]
*[http://toolserver.org/~mzmcbride/cgi-bin/watcher.py Check page's number of watchers (if more than 30)]

{{Readership}}
[[Category:Wikipedia interface help]]
[[Category:Editor help]]

[[als:Hilfe:Beobachtungsliste]]
[[ar:مساعدة:مراقبة الصفحات]]
[[ca:Ajuda:Vigilar pàgines]]
[[de:Hilfe:Beobachtungsliste]]
[[es:Ayuda:Lista de seguimiento]]
[[fr:Aide:Liste de suivi]]
[[it:Aiuto:Osservati speciali]]
[[he:עזרה:חשבון חדש#רשימת המעקב שלכם]]
[[nl:Help:Volglijst]]
[[pt:Ajuda:Guia de edição/Menus e ferramentas/Páginas vigiadas]]
[[ru:Википедия:Инструменты/Список наблюдения]]
[[simple:Help:Watchlist]]
[[sr:Помоћ:Надгледање страна]]
[[sv:Wikipedia:Bevakningslistan]]
[[tt:Ярдәм:Saqtezmä]]
[[vi:Wikipedia:Danh sách theo dõi]]
[[yi:װיקיפּעדיע:נאכפאלג ליסטע]]
[[zh:Help:监视列表]]

Revision as of 10:51, 31 July 2010

Mathiura Bilateral High School