Last modified: 2012-10-31 13:44:30 UTC

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Bug 13602 - Page move vandalism creates watchlist clutter
Page move vandalism creates watchlist clutter
Status: REOPENED
Product: MediaWiki
Classification: Unclassified
Watchlist (Other open bugs)
unspecified
All All
: Low normal with 2 votes (vote)
: ---
Assigned To: Nobody - You can work on this!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:...
:
Depends on: 3185
Blocks:
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2008-04-03 12:06 UTC by Will Hirsch
Modified: 2012-10-31 13:44 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

See Also:
Web browser: ---
Mobile Platform: ---
Assignee Huggle Beta Tester: ---


Attachments

Description Will Hirsch 2008-04-03 12:06:09 UTC
Anyone who has a substantial and established watchlist on a wiki like Wikipedia probably has some unwelcome additions to it since they added the first items. Every time a page move vandal moves a watched page to a title which is subsequently reverted and deleted, a redlink to the title is left behind in the watchlist of everybody who was watching the page. The result is when I actually checked my list recently to prune some entries, it was full of redlinks to pages like [[HAGGER???????]] and [[George W. Bush on Wheels!!!]].

Needless to say this looks pretty bad to anybody who isn't familiar with the vandalism which goes on an is a royal pain to clear out.

Obviously normally it makes sense to watch both the source and destination of a page move. It also makes sense to keep watching a page which has been deleted if you specifically asked to watch. I don't know if this kind of information is readily available in the MW database, but I'd think the logical thing to do is if a page watched as the result of a page move is deleted, then it gets unwatched. Or possibly this is something that can be integrated into the function of rollback/revert buttons.
Comment 1 Mike.lifeguard 2008-10-30 05:16:47 UTC
(In reply to comment #0)
[...]
> Obviously normally it makes sense to watch both the source and destination of a
> page move. It also makes sense to keep watching a page which has been deleted
> if you specifically asked to watch. I don't know if this kind of information is
> readily available in the MW database, but I'd think the logical thing to do is
> if a page watched as the result of a page move is deleted, then it gets
> unwatched. Or possibly this is something that can be integrated into the
> function of rollback/revert buttons.
> 

Perhaps I'm dense, but what is the obvious reason for watching the redirect page after someone moves a page?
Comment 2 Siebrand Mazeland 2009-02-02 11:42:15 UTC
Changing component to "Watchlist"
Comment 3 Will Hirsch 2009-02-02 11:59:58 UTC
(In reply to comment #1)
> Perhaps I'm dense, but what is the obvious reason for watching the redirect
> page after someone moves a page?

Mmm, good point. I could think of a couple of scenarios where it would be useful but actually would then be doing decision-making on your behalf on a level which is only useful in a few select cases. Unwatching shadow redirects seems sensible.
Comment 4 Chris McKenna 2009-06-30 11:06:32 UTC
See also Bug 3185 "Page move rollback should not leave a redirect", if this were in place then there would be redirect from the vandalised title for you to be watching.
Comment 5 Mark A. Hershberger 2011-10-11 19:54:27 UTC
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=455038876&oldid=455033536

: I just checked the list of pages on my watchlist and I spotted ''Hurricane Shit (2011)'' and ''Hurricane Shithead'', even though I never watchlisted or visited them.
Comment 6 Mark A. Hershberger 2012-03-09 05:21:20 UTC
Only person who has touched this in the past 3 years is me.  Lowering priority.

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