Policy | Technical | Proposals | Idea lab | WMF | Miscellaneous |
This page is currently inactive and is retained for
historical reference. Either the page is no longer relevant or consensus on its purpose has become unclear. To revive discussion, seek broader input via a forum such as the village pump. |
This page is no longer used or actively monitored. It should be viewed as an archive.
Rationale: The purpose of this page was to provide safe haven to proposals that showed consensus, but that would otherwise have become automatically archived due to inactivity before they could be implemented. It was an effort to ensure that potentially valuable proposals were not forgotten simply because there was currently no time to implement them. Developer intervention is required in order to implement most proposals, so this page was viewed as especially necessary while the developers are particularly busy with long-term projects.
However, in reality, discussions here were mostly forgotten. The page was only active for its first year or so, and then rarely saw comments anymore, and the number of comments placed continually declined.
If a proposal needs to be "persistent", try opening a new discussion on the Village Pump that specifically discusses implementation. If the proposal is potentially complex, create a new page for this purpose. For purely technical implementations, open a bug at one of Mediawiki's bug-tracking systems.
Note: This is not the place to post new proposals that have not been discussed at all yet. Post new proposals at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). Also, do not confuse this with perennial proposals, which are "persistent" in that they are frequently made, but have all been rejected. Proposals here, conversely, showed some degree of consensus.
Note - this was removed from archive 3 and if archived should go there.
Greetings fellow volunteers.
I'd like to propose an innovation to watchlists. This is an idea that has, in fact, been discussed here before (see discussion reproduced below). I want to take up where that left off and expand on the idea a bit.
The idea is to allow users to categorise or split their watchlists. A user will still be able to view their watchlist as a whole, like now, but will also be able to view a sub-set of their list as defined by them.
Instead of a binary choice (choosing either to watch or not watch) users would be able to "add new watchlist tag/category" via a drop down menu then add a an article/page to that tag or category.
There's three elements; the first is a change to the user interface when viewing an article; the second is a change to the 'editing' screen; the third is new options available when viewing the watchlist.
At the moment the user sees a 'star' icon; this is a binary switch which can be clicked to watch/unwatch an article. The new interface would display a down arrow next to the star. When clicked this would display the user's Watch Categories/Tags and the user can choose a category/tag to add the article to. There would be an additional option to "Create new category/tag". Alternatively the user can click the star, as now, and the watched page will just enter into his 'uncategorised/untagged' pot by default. If the article is already being watched the user can just click the star to unwatch.
At the moment a user can tick a checkbox to add a page they're editing to their watchlist. In the new interface there is an additional drop-down menu next to the checkbox which, when clicked, shows the user's Watchlist Categories/Tags and one can be chosen to assign the currently edited page to. There would be an additional option to "Create new category/tag". By default the page will be left Uncategorised/Untagged.
At the moment a user will see all their watched pages together and this is still what the user will see when they click My watchlist. Currently, the user can choose from a menu and decide to view only changes to a particular namespace such as articles, project pages or books.
In a new interface there would be some mechanism to view pages assigned to the user's Categories/Tags; these could appear as additions to the namespace drop-down. But I would prefer to see them have their own mechanism. A drop-down menu requires two clicks; one to display the menu, another to choose a menu item. I think I may prefer it if the watchlist had tabs which would mean displaying all the user's categories/tags in the watchlist interface and a user can just use one click to display changed pages in that category/tag.
1. What is the best term to describe these 'subset areas'? Categories? Tags? Both 'category' and 'tag' already have interface meanings on Wikipedia. Perhaps something like "WatchCat" or "WatchTag"?
2. Should there be a limit to how many categories/tags a user can create for themselves?
3. Many users will already have a highly populated watchlist; how could we make it easy for them to categorise/tag their currently watched pages?
That's the end of my proposal - the earlier discussion on a similar idea follows. -- bodnotbod ( talk) 08:12, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
For organizational purposes, it would be nice to be able to maintain more than one watchlist. I've been cleaning up my watchlist every couple months but I usually end up deleting things I actually want to keep, just to get the list cut down to a more manageable size. I'm tempted to maintain an external text file or something so I can move chunks of listings in and out of the raw watchlist editor depending on what I want to look at, but would it really be so difficult for the wiki have that kind of functionality already built-in? I can't see it being an additional resource hog. Equazcion •✗/ C • 15:23, 12 Mar 2008 (UTC)
This may or may not relate to this but how about something like this?. I still wanted to add another feature, which probably would be of greater interest to you but if there's too many changes, the whole thing will never pass. The feature would be to have a clean up button next to each change in your watchlist which when clicked, deletes the entry in your watchlist until another change is made to it. That way your watchlists is always clean. -- penubag ( talk) 02:51, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
~~ end of discussion as previously archived ~~
This would be extremely useful, and seems to be something that many people are interested in (and I haven't seen anyone who is opposed to it). What would be the best route to get this thing going again? -- Mesoderm ( talk) 02:08, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
Policy | Technical | Proposals | Idea lab | WMF | Miscellaneous |
This page is currently inactive and is retained for
historical reference. Either the page is no longer relevant or consensus on its purpose has become unclear. To revive discussion, seek broader input via a forum such as the village pump. |
This page is no longer used or actively monitored. It should be viewed as an archive.
Rationale: The purpose of this page was to provide safe haven to proposals that showed consensus, but that would otherwise have become automatically archived due to inactivity before they could be implemented. It was an effort to ensure that potentially valuable proposals were not forgotten simply because there was currently no time to implement them. Developer intervention is required in order to implement most proposals, so this page was viewed as especially necessary while the developers are particularly busy with long-term projects.
However, in reality, discussions here were mostly forgotten. The page was only active for its first year or so, and then rarely saw comments anymore, and the number of comments placed continually declined.
If a proposal needs to be "persistent", try opening a new discussion on the Village Pump that specifically discusses implementation. If the proposal is potentially complex, create a new page for this purpose. For purely technical implementations, open a bug at one of Mediawiki's bug-tracking systems.
Note: This is not the place to post new proposals that have not been discussed at all yet. Post new proposals at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). Also, do not confuse this with perennial proposals, which are "persistent" in that they are frequently made, but have all been rejected. Proposals here, conversely, showed some degree of consensus.
Note - this was removed from archive 3 and if archived should go there.
Greetings fellow volunteers.
I'd like to propose an innovation to watchlists. This is an idea that has, in fact, been discussed here before (see discussion reproduced below). I want to take up where that left off and expand on the idea a bit.
The idea is to allow users to categorise or split their watchlists. A user will still be able to view their watchlist as a whole, like now, but will also be able to view a sub-set of their list as defined by them.
Instead of a binary choice (choosing either to watch or not watch) users would be able to "add new watchlist tag/category" via a drop down menu then add a an article/page to that tag or category.
There's three elements; the first is a change to the user interface when viewing an article; the second is a change to the 'editing' screen; the third is new options available when viewing the watchlist.
At the moment the user sees a 'star' icon; this is a binary switch which can be clicked to watch/unwatch an article. The new interface would display a down arrow next to the star. When clicked this would display the user's Watch Categories/Tags and the user can choose a category/tag to add the article to. There would be an additional option to "Create new category/tag". Alternatively the user can click the star, as now, and the watched page will just enter into his 'uncategorised/untagged' pot by default. If the article is already being watched the user can just click the star to unwatch.
At the moment a user can tick a checkbox to add a page they're editing to their watchlist. In the new interface there is an additional drop-down menu next to the checkbox which, when clicked, shows the user's Watchlist Categories/Tags and one can be chosen to assign the currently edited page to. There would be an additional option to "Create new category/tag". By default the page will be left Uncategorised/Untagged.
At the moment a user will see all their watched pages together and this is still what the user will see when they click My watchlist. Currently, the user can choose from a menu and decide to view only changes to a particular namespace such as articles, project pages or books.
In a new interface there would be some mechanism to view pages assigned to the user's Categories/Tags; these could appear as additions to the namespace drop-down. But I would prefer to see them have their own mechanism. A drop-down menu requires two clicks; one to display the menu, another to choose a menu item. I think I may prefer it if the watchlist had tabs which would mean displaying all the user's categories/tags in the watchlist interface and a user can just use one click to display changed pages in that category/tag.
1. What is the best term to describe these 'subset areas'? Categories? Tags? Both 'category' and 'tag' already have interface meanings on Wikipedia. Perhaps something like "WatchCat" or "WatchTag"?
2. Should there be a limit to how many categories/tags a user can create for themselves?
3. Many users will already have a highly populated watchlist; how could we make it easy for them to categorise/tag their currently watched pages?
That's the end of my proposal - the earlier discussion on a similar idea follows. -- bodnotbod ( talk) 08:12, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
For organizational purposes, it would be nice to be able to maintain more than one watchlist. I've been cleaning up my watchlist every couple months but I usually end up deleting things I actually want to keep, just to get the list cut down to a more manageable size. I'm tempted to maintain an external text file or something so I can move chunks of listings in and out of the raw watchlist editor depending on what I want to look at, but would it really be so difficult for the wiki have that kind of functionality already built-in? I can't see it being an additional resource hog. Equazcion •✗/ C • 15:23, 12 Mar 2008 (UTC)
This may or may not relate to this but how about something like this?. I still wanted to add another feature, which probably would be of greater interest to you but if there's too many changes, the whole thing will never pass. The feature would be to have a clean up button next to each change in your watchlist which when clicked, deletes the entry in your watchlist until another change is made to it. That way your watchlists is always clean. -- penubag ( talk) 02:51, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
~~ end of discussion as previously archived ~~
This would be extremely useful, and seems to be something that many people are interested in (and I haven't seen anyone who is opposed to it). What would be the best route to get this thing going again? -- Mesoderm ( talk) 02:08, 31 January 2011 (UTC)