Talk:Community Wishlist/W454

Possible way to sort

Instead of dragging down the database with an expensive query, might it be possible to utilize en:Module:AutosortTable for output of the query results? You could return an extra column with a sortable expiration date (using a future date for non-expiring), sort it ascending by default (with article/page name ascending as a secondary sort), and hide this column. Note this wouldn't work well in cases where namespaces are split up into separate pages. So... maybe just enable this for those who opt in, with a Watchlist preference setting called "Show expiring first in 'Edit Watchlist' (turns off paging)". Just brainstorming here. StefenTower (talk) 22:52, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

not really. To do that you have to output the entire watchlist instead of just the first page, which is just as hard on the db. Bawolff (talk) 09:26, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Update from WMF

Thank you for your wish and also for your patience while we identify an owner and determine feasibility. MikeZ-WMF (talk) 11:43, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Why do you have to "identify an owner" when it was started by a WMF employee? Nardog (talk) 04:06, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

I think Mike means they need to know who oversees or ordinarily works on that part of the MediaWiki code; i.e. code ownership. StefenTower (talk) 18:32, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

I know, but the proposer is someone who's been working on that part of the MediaWiki code... I'd've thought they had already figured it out before posting this as a wish. Nardog (talk) 06:52, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Yes, exactly and also vis-à-vis other priorities. Code ownership may also change over time.

Also, thanks again for all the votes and discussion! I am also already discussing directly with the reporter. MikeZ-WMF (talk) 10:34, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

For now this will be marked as a long-term opportunity to revisit when the team can make time to figure out an alternative way of doing it, probably involving adding indices to the relevant DB tables as suggested in the original wish details. MikeZ-WMF (talk) 14:53, 18 March 2026 (UTC)