Talk:Community Wishlist/W409

Issues & already-implemented as script

• I trust the work of the editor or bot who made the change. So I wouldn't need to look at their change at all. I'd rather just tick it off (pretending I visited it). You may trust the most recent editor or bot, but there could have been changes before that so I don't think this is feasible; see phab:T171717 Allow seeing the diff of all changes since last visit directly from Special:Watchlist
• I use a tool that lets me see the diff of the change inline in the Watchlist, and the change is simple, and agreeable. I don't need to visit the page to confirm this was a reasonable edit, so again, I'd rather just tick it off. Partly implemented as script at User:Ponor/inline-diff-inline-patrol – on the talk page there I requested a change so that one can have it mark changes as seen when one expanded the diff. The script could maybe be eventually turned in the a setting in the preferences.

Prototyperspective (talk) 13:25, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback. On the first point, that could just as well be about trusting the work of all the previously unseen changes to the page, not just the latest. Even without seeing the diff of all changes, within the watchlist, I can step through the history and review each one. Ultimately, I think this is about trusting the judgment of the watchlist user - and if we do, their watchlist work can become considerably more productive. On the second point, thanks for the info about the script - I may check that out soon. StefenTower (talk) 19:06, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

@StefenTower this is an interesting concept for me, as I wonder how you determine if a user (and their edits) are trustworthy. Are there particular signals that indicate if an edit (or editor) are trustworthy, or is it more about "oh, I know [user123] and know they're doing the right thing"?

Relatedly, some wikis allow users to mark certain pages as patrolled (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Patrolled_edits). Are you effectively looking for this functionality? JWheeler-WMF (talk) 22:07, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

If I've reviewed a particular editor's work over time and have found their work to always be of high quality, I "trust" them. This isn't about feelings or friendship, but rather an objective acknowledgement that an editor understands policies and guidelines and executes consistent quality edits. I don't see a need to look at their edits over and over again, as I know they are here to build an encyclopedia and are careful in their work. I don't think I'm looking for patrolling - in this context, I'm looking for less work to do, not more. I want to mark something as visited for my own watchlist purposes, not patrolled for others to see. StefenTower (talk) 22:19, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Curious if @Nardog's script helps you here. If it's what you're looking for, perhaps we can look into ways to make it available to everyone. JWheeler-WMF (talk) 15:23, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

That script does help a lot, and should be made more available, if not integrated into MediaWiki (per the "Set of Users" filter wish). But per this wish I also see watchlist entries that are easy to dispense with, and would like to avoid formally visiting those pages to unbold them. To me, if an entry is bolded, it's like a to do item, and if I can't easily "tick it off", I have to concentrate harder on the list to focus on what I really need to review. StefenTower (talk) 21:12, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

What script are you referring to? Or did you mean Ponor? Nardog (talk) 04:04, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

I've been assuming it's RCMuter. StefenTower (talk) 19:55, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

I think I need to expand on the first point: re You may trust the most recent editor or bot, but there could have been changes before that – you can't tick things off the watchlist like that because usually, on EN Wikipedia at least, there have been changes before the most recent edit and one can hide things from the Watchlist currently based on the most recent edit. There could for example be a vandal edit right before and I also explained this at Talk:Community_Wishlist/Wishes/Filter_watchlist_by_user_set_for_greater_productivity#Big_problem_of_this_hiding_prior_edits_by_other_users.

As for the second point above, this seems relatively complex to implement with current MediaWiki: see the discussion at the scrip's documentation talk page – currently it looks like it would just mark things as seen even if you haven't seen the edits prior to the most recent diff and just the most recent diff.

Lastly, re for example To me, if an entry is bolded, it's like a to do item, and if I can't easily "tick it off", I have to concentrate harder on the list to focus on what I really need to review I think this also applies to and would be most useful for bot edits like those of CitationBot; see Community_Wishlist/Wishes/A_way_to_filter_edits_by_Citation_bot,_InternetArchiveBot_and_OAbot_from_diffs, in specific the difficulties with that described in its recent talk page discussion. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:15, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for spreading the word, @Prototyperspective. I played with the idea, and added a 👁 button to User:Ponor/inline-diff-inline-patrol and a counter of unseen revisions for each watched page on the Watchlist. The button lets you move the last seen timestamp to whichever revision you want, with pretty much no downloaded data overhead, it only uses what's already on the Watchlist page. pon_or (talk) 20:36, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for implementing this feature. I just added it for my use on enwiki, and I will let you know if I have any questions/concerns. Cheers! StefenTower (talk) 02:43, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Great, thanks! However, this only works for marking the diff that I've expanded inline as seen – it always shows 1/1 even if there are multiple unseen diffs for that page. One also can't load the prior diff inline, one can still only see the most recent. I suspect things other than marking the expanded diff as seen only work with some specific Watchlist setting. I have what I think is the most reasonable and widely used Watchlist config for heavily-edited Wikis and/or time-efficiency: Unseen changes only + Latest revision only. This means any given article shows up in the Watchlist only once (some articles may have been edited hundreds of times while away for a few days) which is why I'd only see the latest diff when expanding the diff inline and would need some indicator that there's prior unseen edits and way to load those. Prototyperspective (talk) 18:50, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

I will refer to what I said in a previous reply above: "within the watchlist, I can step through the history and review each one. Ultimately, I think this is about trusting the judgment of the watchlist user". In short, trust that I will review prior edits before ticking it off. StefenTower (talk) 01:52, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Also, in the talk page of the other wish you linked ("Filter watchlist by user set..."), I acknowledge the issue you bring up, having known about it myself for nearly a decade, and I concur a prerequisite fix is necessary. StefenTower (talk) 01:58, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

This image shows how you can quickly mark a page as seen: expand the diff inline and click on the eye icon (you can collapse it afterwards)

Per this wish it seems like you really don't want to check the diff or check whether there are any prior unchecked edits. Thus, after changes to the script, inline-diff-inline-patrol seems to fully solve what's requested here or not?

Because if so, I think it could maybe be marked as done and if not, it needs clarity on what is missing. If the thing remaining is integrating the functionality of the script or the script into native functionality, then the wish about that is W402: Show diffs below revision entries on page history, user contributions, and recent changes on demand .
Prototyperspective (talk) 21:24, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

I would check sometimes. But either way, I want a simple "mark this as visited" function I can click next to each entry. No need to make it more complicated than that. StefenTower (talk) 10:47, 12 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. I think in this case, this should solve it: at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist (you can also configure it globally) enable "Add direct unwatch/watch markers (×/+) to watched pages with changes (JavaScript required for toggle functionality)" to then mark a page as seen click the × and right after it the +. Does this solve it? Prototyperspective (talk) 11:16, 12 February 2026 (UTC)

No. That has nothing to do with my request. Watching vs. not watching is not the issue as I'm already aware of that functionality. This is about an unvisited page (bold) vs. visited (unbolded). StefenTower (talk) 00:02, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

What I said does not relate to watching vs not watching. This is for marking the edit as seen. It thereby disappears from your Watchlist at next refresh. If you configure your Watchlist some way, this should be in the wish. Maybe you want to only mark a certain change as seen but not the latest edit (which with the default Watchlist config makes the page disappear from the Watchlist). Prototyperspective (talk) 00:58, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

You were referring to "unwatch/watch markers" and that is what I responded to. Anyway, I don't feel any need to complicate the wish with implementation details. I just want to mark a page as visited without actually visiting it. I will let developers decide if there needs to be a preference that goes with it. StefenTower (talk) 01:18, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

This is what the unwatch/watch button does. Prototyperspective (talk) 01:20, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

No, that is not correct. Visiting and watching are not the same thing. StefenTower (talk) 03:28, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

Basic user script that implements this

I have developed a very basic user script to demonstrate what I want. It adds a 'v' link next to Watchlist entries that let me mark them as visited. Please consider this an unreleased script with no guaranteed technical support at this time. It could be buggy for some users. StefenTower (talk) 03:26, 28 May 2026 (UTC)