Community Wishlist Survey 2017/Archive/Watch only a section of a page or of a talk page

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Watch only a section of a page or of a talk page

NoN Out of scope for Community Tech

  • Problem: If you are only interested in one section, for example, in user discussions, you must always watch the whole page. Especially when that is a well-used page, it is hard to find the changes that you really want to observe.
  • Who would benefit: registered users
  • Proposed solution: It should be possible to watch a page for newly created sections, and it should be possible to watchlist specific sections. If a watched-section is removed, or if the software loses track of the section for any reason, this would count as a watched-edit and the user can view what happened. If timed expiration of watchlist entries becomes available, a watched section which no longer exists should get automatic timed removal from the watchlist.
  • More comments: This was already wished for in 2016; Watch only a section.
  • Phabricator tickets: task T2738
  • Proposer: --Gnom (talk) 22:09, 6 November 2017 (UTC) and Alsee (talk) 09:09, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion[edit]

The proposal overlooked an important element. It should also be possible to watch for creation of new sections on a page. That would be a very low-noise way to watch a page, and when an interesting section appears it can be section-watched. Ping author Gnom to consider updating the proposal. Alsee (talk) 07:34, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Alsee, thank you for your comment. If you would like to modify the wish, please go ahead. --Gnom (talk) Let's make Wikipedia green! 07:40, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Gnom, done. Pinged so you can review the change. Blank lines removed per LISTGAP. Alsee (talk) 09:14, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would love the ability to just watchlist the leads of certain articles. So plus one to this. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:19, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Archived[edit]

I'm archiving this as it's just not technically feasible. Aligning wikitext with database is hard because it's too fluid and changing. Such feature will take a huge effort to develop and will need lots of maintenance, at the same time being painfully buggy. Thanks for participating in our survey. Max Semenik (talk) 01:12, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Max Semenik, I don't see why "it's very hard to achieve" could be a reason to archive wishes in this survey. If it were, there would be no VisualEditor today, right? --Gnom (talk) Let's make Wikipedia green! 08:39, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
This survey is for tasks that a small team, along with about 10 other tasks, could complete in a year. VisualEditor has had a large team for 5 years working on it. --Izno (talk) 14:04, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Couldn't this survey also yield "big" wishes that require a larger team and more time? I see no reason for such a limitation. --Gnom (talk) Let's make Wikipedia green! 14:52, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No, this is to set goals for our team only. Tackling projects that are too big would mean less attention to other proposals; we still would like to at least try to do the top 10. Max Semenik (talk) 19:01, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, enabling users to watchlist sections would require major architectural changes to MediaWiki. (Basically, MediaWiki has no real concept of sections other than a complicated hack to the editing interface that doesn't even work for VisualEditor.) This just wouldn't be feasible for us to work on and isn't likely to be feasible at all without a major rewrite of MediaWiki. Ryan Kaldari (WMF) (talk) 20:03, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Ryan Kaldari (WMF), if this "wouldn't be feasible" for the Community Tech team, well shouldn't then a different team work on it, if the community finds this important? --Gnom (talk) Let's make Wikipedia green!
No, the purpose of this survey is to find proposals for the Community Tech team to work on. Allowing people to vote for proposals that we know we can't work on would be misleading. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 21:50, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Assuming that Ryan Kaldari (WMF)'evaluation supersedes https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T2738#2361293 and what comes after that: the task at hand would benefit from this explanation (...[it] isn't likely to be feasible at all without a major rewrite of MediaWiki), and maybe should be declined for clarity? --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 13:54, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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