Last modified: 2012-10-31 13:44:30 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.
(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?
Changing component to "Watchlist"
(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.
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.
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.
Only person who has touched this in the past 3 years is me. Lowering priority.
