Community Wishlist Survey 2017/Watchlists/Watchlist created on categories

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Watchlist created on categories

Problem: I would like to check entries depending on my knowledge.

Who would benefit: anybody watching not (only) specifically marked pages but (as well) pages according to a specific interest or knowledge.

Proposed solution: make possible to mark categories so that all pages under that category and all pages under its subcategories are on my watchlist (and could be removed from it by removing the category).

More comments: I have a broad knowledge of natural sciences, e.g. for biology. Until today I mark any page dealing with a specific species or family or class or whatsoever I occasionally come across. But this lets me feel like Sisyphus, as there are more pages unmarked than marked. And I miss the new pages, which I even would like the more to check. Besides. I have an interest in palaeoanthropology and some others. My "watchlist" by now is terribly scattered and not doing its job for me.

Similar idea in the 2016 Wishlist

Phabricator tickets: phab:T3710

Proposer: Himbear (talk) 12:45, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Translations: none yet

Discussion

For the single category case, try using Special:RecentChangesLinked. Recursing subcategories very quickly gets into major performance and semantic drift issues.
By "semantic drift", I'm referring to the phenomenon where the relation to the original category gets increasingly vague as you dig deeper into subcategories. For example, if you were to watch all subcategories recursively of w:en:Category:Black Sea, you'd be watching pages like w:en:Action Philosophers! (steps: 1 → 2 → 3 → 4 → 5 → 6; one issue of the comic featured a philosopher who lived in the Black Sea region) and w:en:Albert Jacka (steps: 1 → 2 → 3 → 4 → 5 → 6 → 7 → 8 → 9; thanks to lack of a Black Sea-specific category for coasts of Turkey, you wind up with an award recipient from a WWI battle on a peninsula on Turkey's Aegean Sea coast). Anomie (talk) 17:17, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Himbear: I've linked the related discussion from last year above. As noted there, a Toolforge tool (Erwin's relatedchanges) does currently exist which can do this one category (and <10 subcats) at a time, e.g. for category:Paleoanthropology with 3 subcat depth -- however the tool author retired a few years ago, and that tool would need to be extensively updated to account for a technical change that is occurring in a few weeks (phab:T175096#3768769), so that tool will disappear soon. :-( Hopefully someone will be inspired by this proposal to update that tool, or write a new tool, or implement this feature into MediaWiki's watchlists themselves. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 23:41, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the information, which apparently does not help me, but there is hope.--Himbear (talk) 09:42, 18 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Voting

Support —viciarg⁴¹⁴ 08:40, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 13:26, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support YFdyh000 (talk) 16:36, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Thomas Obermair 4 (talk) 23:10, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Libcub (talk) 05:29, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support This would also work great with new page creations within a category. Donald Trung (Talk 🤳🏻) (My global lock 🔒) (My global unlock 🔓) 12:47, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Natureium (talk) 19:34, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Nocowardsoulismine (talk) 02:15, 30 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Would also be useful for error-tracking categories, being alerted when someone saves an edit with an error of interest. DMacks (talk) 04:42, 30 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Like tears in rain (talk) 11:48, 30 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Interested for projects more than categories, but both are good Exilexi (talk) 15:32, 30 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Dromedar61 (talk) 21:48, 30 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Braveheidi (talk) 07:27, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support TheGLUTH (talk) 14:48, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Nicolabel (talk) 15:08, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Superchilum^{(talk to me!)} 20:34, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 12:44, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support ~Cybularny ^Speak? 13:31, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Tom Ja (talk) 14:12, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Matiia (talk) 15:46, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Kein Einstein (talk) 10:56, 3 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Yes, this is highly desirable for topically-focused editors. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:43, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Aunva6 (talk) 17:56, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support I've been missing this repeatedly Elmidae (talk) 19:24, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Yeza (talk) 20:05, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Nabla (talk) 21:16, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support: I would find this very useful. If it's necessary to limit this in scope due to performance issues (what happens when I try to follow en:Category:United States? Maybe it should only work on categories with e.g. < 500 pages), then fair enough. — Bilorv (talk) 01:29, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support, though this will need some constraints. Uanfala (talk) 20:54, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Klaas `Z4␟` V: 22:59, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]