Watchlist
Your watchlist is a personal tool that helps you track changes to pages you're interested in monitoring. This guide explains how to use your watchlist effectively.
What is a Watchlist?
Your watchlist is a personalized list of pages that you've chosen to monitor. When any of these pages are edited, the changes appear in your watchlist view, allowing you to:
- Keep track of articles you've contributed to
- Monitor discussions you're participating in
- Stay informed about changes to topics you're interested in
- Quickly identify and review recent edits
- Help maintain quality by watching for problematic edits
How to Access Your Watchlist
You can access your watchlist by clicking on "Watchlist" in the navigation menu or by visiting /watchlist. This page shows recent changes to all the pages on your watchlist.
Adding Pages to Your Watchlist
There are several ways to add pages to your watchlist:
- Using the "Watch" tab:
Every page has a "Watch" tab or star icon at the top. Click this to add the page to your watchlist.
- When editing:
When editing a page, check the "Watch this page" box before saving your changes.
- From your preferences:
In your dashboard, you can set options to automatically watch pages you edit or create.
- From search results:
Some search interfaces allow you to add pages to your watchlist directly from the results.
Removing Pages from Your Watchlist
To remove a page from your watchlist:
- Visit the page and click the "Unwatch" tab or star icon at the top
- Go to your watchlist, click "Edit" or "Manage watchlist," and remove pages from there
Using Your Watchlist Effectively
Filtering Your Watchlist
You can filter your watchlist to show only certain types of changes, such as:
- Edits from the last hour, day, week, etc.
- Only unpatrolled or unreviewed edits
- Only minor edits or non-minor edits
- Edits by anonymous users or registered users
- Edits to specific namespaces (e.g., only articles, only talk pages)
Reviewing Changes
When reviewing changes from your watchlist:
- Click on "diff" to see what changes were made
- Look at the edit summary to understand why the change was made
- Check the user who made the edit
- For multiple changes, use the "Compare selected revisions" feature
Managing a Large Watchlist
If your watchlist becomes too large:
- Regularly remove pages you're no longer interested in
- Use filters to focus on the most important changes
- Consider setting up watchlist expiration in your preferences
- Create categories or groups for your watched pages
Watchlist Preferences
You can customize your watchlist behavior in your dashboard:
- Automatically watch pages you edit: Adds pages to your watchlist when you edit them.
- Automatically watch pages you create: Adds pages to your watchlist when you create them.
- Hide minor edits from your watchlist: Filters out edits marked as minor.
- Expand watchlist to show all changes: Shows all edits to each page, not just the most recent.
- Set watchlist expiration: Automatically removes pages from your watchlist after a certain period of inactivity.
Watchlist Notifications
You can receive notifications about changes to your watched pages:
- Email notifications: Receive emails when watched pages are edited (configure in preferences).
- On-site notifications: Receive notifications within Origin Wiki when watched pages are edited.
- Watchlist feed: Subscribe to an RSS feed of your watchlist changes.
Tips for Using Your Watchlist
- Watch talk pages of articles you edit regularly to stay informed about discussions
- Watch articles on topics you're knowledgeable about to help maintain quality
- Use your watchlist to identify and revert vandalism quickly
- Check your watchlist regularly to stay engaged with the community
- Consider watching related articles to get a broader view of a topic
- Watch policy and guideline pages to stay informed about community standards