Last modified: 2010-05-15 14:36:08 UTC
On the English Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Forced to be on at least one watchlist), a consensus among editors that we would like a feature that adds pages to their creator's watchlist automatically. We believe that this, along with warning (and asking for confirmation) the last watcher of an article when he attempts to unwatch it, could help cut down on vandalism.
That URL should be: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28proposals%29#Forced_to_be_on_at_least_one_watchlist
I just grasped that the second feature would allow vandals to test whether pages are watched (add it to their own lists, then try to remove). I'm no longer in favor of that part, but I still think the first should be implemented.
Second feature: how about a Few Watchers warning, say when there are only three watchers left. This would not help the vandal but would still enable The Good to target their watching more efficiently (OK, it _would_ help a vandal if they watched under under three diff names and removed one to see where the message triggered...But the rigmarole makes vandalism more painful for the vandal).
Unfortunately, Jacky rodger, no matter what we set the Few Watchers threshhold to(and even if it's "secret"), a bot vandal could easily exploit the feature. Infinity0, who seems reluctant to register here, said "What I want to say is that an alternative to the second feature which you pointed the flaw to, could be the creator gets the confirmation, instead of the last watcher, since the creator is usually the person most dedicated to it anyway." I think that's a good idea, too. Perhaps a notification box(similar to the one for new talk messages) could come up when they view their watchlist (assuming they're no longer watching the item)?
Changing summary to reflect what I understand is the main bulk of the request as it is now. Might I suggest a user preference, defaulted to on, which causes the "watch this page" checkbox to be checked when someone is creating a page? This means that [a] the user can still opt not to watch it [b] the user can opt out of this behaviour
That's acceptable. It should be a completely separate option from the existing "Watch pages I edit", though.
Well, that was the implication, wasn't it?
I'm sorry if I offended you, but I don't always like to assume. For example, even if they were separate options, you might have coded it such that if a user unchecks "Watch pages I edit", created pages would not be watched by default.
Not at all. :)
Added in CVS HEAD.
