Editing Encyclopedia:Special pages bug reports (section)

== My watchlist ==

I just clicked on the "my Watchlist" link, and went to the right place (a good thing), but all of the watchlist changes are now listed under 2/25/02, 15:51 (not a good thing, since yesterday they were sorted by day and time!).  Thought you might want to know! [[User:JHK|JHK]]

:This isn't a bug in "my watchlist". The problem is that the timestamp on every article got changed (which also added a few thousand pages to Recent Changes). --[[user:Zundark|Zundark]], 2002 Feb 26

::This was my fault. With the introduction of the new database schema we introduced a new column that had to be filled with a new value. I forgot that setting this value automatically updates the timestamp of the article.  So this is not a bug in the software but in the procedure for moving to the new database schema. -- [[user:Jan Hidders|Jan Hidders]] 2002 Feb 26

'''Namespaces and watchlists don't mix very well now'''

My watchlist now classifies pages with namespaces together with the normal form of the pages under the date and time list. This isn't very useful.

The watchlist also lists the namespaced page under its own proper time, which is useful. This does lead to the humorous result that [[Talk:Main Page]] is listed twice in a row in my watchlist right now, since among the pages in my watchlist, changes to [[Main Page]] and to [[Talk:Main Page]] occur right next to each other, as things are now.

When I add a page to my watchlist, the software brings me back to the page that I just added -- great. But now when I add a page with a namespace, I come back to the unnamespaced version, which is not very nice -- and quite disconcerting when that unnamespaced version doesn't even exist!

Now, what do you suppose the result to my watchlist is when I add a page with a namespace that doesn't have an unnamespaced version? (such as this very page). It shows up in my talklist under the unnamespaced name, in the list of "non-existing [sic] articles" that I'm watching. This is completely useless.

This all seems to be a result of implementing the feature that putting a page on the watchlist also puts all of that page's namespaced compatriots on the watchlist. This is a great idea, for the reasons listed in [[Wikipedia:Feature requests]], but I don't think that it was implemented very well -- so much so that I prefer it the way that it was before.

:The watchlist is currently somewhat broken thanks to workarounds for slow database issues. It'll be rewritten shortly so that all namespaces, not just (some) Talk pages, will work happily again, and everything will appear in a reasonable order and not duplicated. [[user:Brion VIBBER|Brion VIBBER]], Wednesday, May 15, 2002

-- [[user:Toby Bartels|Toby Bartels]] 2002/05/15

:(Problems mentioned above now fixed in CVS. [[user:Brion VIBBER|Brion VIBBER]], Wednesday, May 15, 2002)

After raising a point at [[Talk:Nobel Prize]] I activated the "Watch This Page" function so that I could be ready to find answers when they came.  Instead I ended up the underlying [[Nobel Prize]] page contrary to my intention. [[user:Eclecticology|Eclecticology]], Thursday, May 16, 2002

:See above; [[Nobel Prize]] and [[Talk:Nobel Prize]] will '''both''' appear on your watchlist. This is a feature: you don't have to separately add them both. [[user:Brion VIBBER|Brion VIBBER]], Thursday, May 16, 2002

Thanks for the comment; it makes sense with the explanation.  Now a related problem.  I was culling my watch list of pages that I no longer wanted to follow.  One of these was [[Talk:Simon and Garfunkel]], which I put in on March 30 without the underlying article.  I tried stop watching this page with no effect.  I tried to watch the main article; this put the article on the watch list with a '''second''' talk page entry.  At this point the stop watching command got rid of the article and the new talk page, but left the old talk page still there.  Resultant question: How does one get old talk page reference off one's watch list? --[[user:Eclecticology|Eclecticology]], Tuesday, May 21, 2002

:No problem, Eclec; just do what I did: By this point, all articles on your watchlist that don't belong to the blank namespace are listed at the bottom of your list as "non-existing [''sic''] articles". Next to each is the link "Stop watching this article for me" -- this does not work properly due to a cookie bug (I assume), so don't click on it. Instead, follow the link to the article itself. (If the article is ''really'' nonexistent, then you will now have to manually edit the URL to remove the <code>&amp;action=edit</code> at the end of the URL before the next step.) Now click on "Stop watching this article for me". This will remove the page from your watchlist and at the same time remove from your watchlist every other page with the same name but in different namespaces. If you don't want to watch any of these, then you're done; else, click on "Watch this article for me". You are now watching all of the articles with that name, in whatever namespace, but there will be no spurious entries on your watchlist. You say that you want to watch the main article but not the talk page? Tough beans, that is no longer an option (unless there's something that I don't know about, which is always possible). FWIW, I did all this on [[March 21]], just in case this trick has been ruined by an update since then. -- [[user:Toby Bartels|Toby Bartels]], Thursday, May 23, 2002
::Thanks Toby - it seems to work; now I can do some real housecleaning! [[user:Eclecticology|Eclecticology]]

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'''Can't watch <nowiki>[[User Talk:]]</nowiki> pages'''

I've been watching [[User Talk:AxelBoldt]] since [[June 11]] now, waiting for him to reply to something that I wrote there.
Even though my watchlist reports every petty change to [[User:AxelBoldt]], it doesn't notice any of the 4 changes that occurred to the talk page since then, so that I failed to realise until now that he answered me the very same day.
&mdash; [[user:Toby Bartels|Toby Bartels]], Monday, June 24, 2002

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'''Can't get my own  <nowiki>[[User Talk:]]</nowiki> page on my own watchlist'''

I can't seem to get my user page to stick on the watchlist.  I put it on, it's there for a day or two sometimes, then goes off.  This week I just can't get it on the watchlist at all.  The interaction seems normal, but when the page refreshes, it is still unwatched.  Since this is a major means of communication, I'd like for this to work more reliably.  I can watch any other page.  I've tried this with three different browsers and it's always no go.  Note that I live in the "Macwater".  [[user:Ortolan88|Ortolan88]], Saturday, July 13, 2002
:I'll email you when it changes.  ;-)  I was watching your page awhile back and forgot to stop.  [[user:Koyaanis Qatsi|Koyaanis Qatsi]]

Wait, is the problem your <nowiki><code>[[User:]]</code></nowiki> page or your <nowiki><code>[[User_talk:]]</code></nowiki> page?
Is this the same bug as the one just above?
&mdash; [[user:Toby Bartels|Toby Bartels]], Sunday, July 14, 2002
:I can't watch my own user page or my own user_talk: page.  I '''can''' watch [[User Talk:AxelBoldt]] however, so it isn't the same bug.

:When I click on "Watch this page" I get a message that the page has been added to my watchlist, then I get a new page whose title is the URL of the page I just asked to watch.  I just ignore this page.  This happens whether the request to watch the page works or not.  [[user:Ortolan88|Ortolan88]], Friday, July 19, 2002