Community Wishlist Survey 2021/Categories/Better tracking of category changes

Random proposal ►◄ Categories  The survey has concluded. Here are the results!

Better tracking of category changes

• Problem: For a few years, category changes have had dedicated entries in recent changes and watchlist. This is useful for watchlist – when you watch a category and have category changes enabled, you can see recent additions and removals to the category. For recent changes, this isn't much useful as it lists changes to any category. For Special:RecentChangesLinked ("related changes"), it only shows additions to the category. It's because when you remove a page from the category, it is no longer "linked" and thus it isn't listed in the related changes anymore. I believe this isn't logical as this change is pretty much related. Additionally, the diff links of category changes are quite buggy and could be fixed as part of this wish.
• Who would benefit: Wiki gnomes checking for mistakes, patrollers checking for vandalism, wikis with complex categorizations
• Proposed solutions (one of these):
  1. Improve Special:RecentChangesLinked to implicitly show additions and removals of the category
  2. Create a dedicated "mode" for categories in Special:RecentChangesLinked (i.e., make #1 explicit)
  3. Create a new special page dedicated to category changes (similarly, there is Special:NewPages for pages creations)
• More comments: All of these could also add a filter for additions/removals only. Option #3 a stand alone tool to see whats been added or removed from a category in the last 30, 60, 90 days.
• Phabricator tickets: phab:T89582, phab:T130134 (general problem); phab:T140602, phab:T147770, phab:T148533, phab:T243965, phab:T264491 (diff links, could be duplicates)
• Proposer: --Matěj Suchánek (talk) 10:25, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

• This is basically the same as Content changes to categories. This proposal is more well thought out, so I might suggest merging the other one here, with Gnangarra's permission. However my gut tells me Special:RecentChangesLinked is not the correct place for this, the keyword being "Linked". If a page is not in a category, it's no longer linked. So option #3 seems best, which is basically what Gnangarra was proposing. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 17:31, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

  MusikAnimal (WMF) please do merge, I just want a tool that let us find whats been added or removed from a category for an extended period Gnangarra (talk) 23:26, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

  Done! Thanks, MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 23:33, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

  Thanks for noticing and merging! --Matěj Suchánek (talk) 10:01, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

• support option #3 as a stand alone tool so that we can view the history of additions and removal of items from categories to better identify when changes are taking place and why Gnangarra (talk) 23:44, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

  While Special:Diff/20730296 would definitely be nice, I will note that categorization changes are currently bound to other recent changes, which for WMF wikis are purged after 30 days. So if this was to be implemented, it would be a lot bigger project. --Matěj Suchánek (talk) 10:01, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

  if a 30 day max for "simplicity" purposes is all we can get as an initial tool that in itself would be useful. Gnangarra (talk) 10:21, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Voting

•  Support support this solution. Create a dedicated "mode" for categories in Special:RecentChangesLinked (i.e., make #1 explicit) Leftowiki (talk) 00:37, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support * Pppery * _{it has begun} 01:54, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support PianistHere (talk) 02:05, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Maybe collapse all category changes into "5 categories added, 4 categories removed"; or something similar. Opalzukor (talk) 08:17, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support JAn Dudík (talk) 10:47, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Ghost Iridescent (talk) 14:40, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Ján Kepler (talk) 14:48, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support - yona B. (D) 07:15, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support I would have gone further with this and enable a watch mode that adds any page in the category to the watchlist (especially useful for categories of discussion pages), but this idea is gonna be helpful as well. Tomer T (talk) 08:04, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Libcub (talk) 18:32, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support NaBUru38 (talk) 20:25, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Gnangarra (talk) 01:00, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Izno (talk) 15:07, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support It is necessary for the project to know that the category has been removed from a page. WikiFer ^msg 19:08, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Helder 09:51, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Important, should show also Lemma getting deleted in category. Conny (talk) 15:46, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Theshumai (talk) 22:24, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Wikibenchris (talk) 08:48, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Tgr (talk) 05:00, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Sadads (talk) 11:44, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Tutwakhamoe (talk) 21:30, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Improvement in category management/patrolling would be a Good Thing.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  05:09, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Rzuwig^► 14:15, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Mohanad Kh ^Talk 06:03, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Aspiriniks (talk) 10:21, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Base (talk) 20:09, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Owleksandra (talk) 20:10, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Important in spanish wikipedia too. Importante también en la wikipedia en español. Dhidalgo (talk) 10:07, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support We need that Nadzik (talk) 11:51, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support Fringilla (talk) 19:51, 20 December 2020 (UTC)