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.
Version: unspecified
Severity: enhancement
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.
jackyrodger wrote:
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)?
robchur wrote:
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
That's acceptable. It should be a completely separate option from the existing
"Watch pages I edit", though.
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.