Last modified: 2008-10-15 13:56:49 UTC
The first request would be for matching Talk pages to appear as links next to each Watchlisted page. If that is too resource intensive, here's how I'd prefer that Watchlist items be rendered: 1. If the main page exists, display a link as normal. 2. If the main page doesn't exist, display a link to any existing, matching Talk page. 3. If neither a main page nor a talk page exists, display the main page name red, with a strikeout. Also, when going to [[Special:Watchlist/edit]], these should be checked by default, or have some kind of javascript link to select them all, so they can be cleared out of the Watchlist easily. #2 is useful for User talk page archives. Most of these don't have a "main page", so they appear red. You can't visually tell if there is a talk page there or not. Also, you can easily spot "orphaned" talk pages where the main pages have been deleted. #3 is useful, for example, for people who do RC patrol and watchlist any pages they tag for speedy deletion (to make sure tags aren't removed). Also, this is handy for anyone who has been around a long time since pages inevitable get moved.
It's not really resource intensive, it's just a matter of someone coding it.
EnotifWiki has this implemented, see http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enotif and http://sourceforge.net/projects/enotifwiki.
Created attachment 1487 [details] Patch to add talk page links to Special:Watchlist/edit This is a simple patch to add "(talk)" links to Special:Watchlist/edit. It does not affect the normal watchlist view in any way. The patch is against a fairly recent CVS version.
Added links to talk pages on edit view in SVN HEAD. I took the opportunity to update the code to use title objects more effectively, and to add a batch existence check, so I didn't use your patch.
