Help talk:Followed pages

Article question
Is 'Bold text' supposed to be appearing at the top? Seems like the New Features Template isn't working as expected...

&mdash; Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 20:48, May 3, 2010 (UTC)


 * i assume the exlusion bracketing new feature will be removed on the 5th.  Dr. F  21:57, May 3, 2010 (UTC)

Distinguish watch from follow
The associated page here implies that it will no longer be possible to Watch a page without also Following the page. That is, that while the "special: Watchlist" page will still exist, anything I put on my (former) watchlist will start spewing email to my email address when changed. This is highly distressing to me. I have a very large number of pages watched. I maintain them (when I do) manually. I have absolutely no desire to "spam myself" with change messages.

The wiki I edit most often does not (yet) have a preferences setting for opting out of Follow. If the choice is between removing everything from my watch list, or removing my email address, I will be doing the latter. --Eirik Ratcatcher 21:51, May 3, 2010 (UTC)


 * It follows exactly the same preferences for emailing as watching - it's all shared. It is basically just a new on-wiki front-end. (No duplicate email or anything, though we will be making some updates to the text of the emails of course.) Kirkburn (talk) 21:53, May 3, 2010 (UTC)


 * ... and I discovered an option near the end of the list of preferences "E-mail me when a page I'm following is changed", which contradicts my assertion above that there wasn't such an option. I can live with that.  I'd already had Watchspam turned off.  The thought  not being able to turn "followspam" off was ... overpowering.  Speaking of preferences, it's odd that "Hide patrolled edits from the watchlist" is in Misc, instead of under "watchlist" preferences. --Eirik Ratcatcher 21:59, May 3, 2010 (UTC)


 * Good question, probably a bit of custom code there. I'll look into it :) Kirkburn (talk) 22:11, May 3, 2010 (UTC)

Making privacy opt-in is BAD
Allowing people to broadcast their watched pages is fine. Making this behavior the default is not. This reeks of the Google Buzz contact-sharing incident. Also, someone needs to learn how to spell "summary", they misspelled it "summery" in a couple of the names of the new system messages. --Pcj (T&bull;C) 23:14, May 3, 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree; I don't want to know what pages other users watch, and I certainly don't want them knowing what I watch. If they wouldn't do this in Wikipedia, they shouldn't do it here. Will-Girl 03:25, May 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * Also agree. This could create issues for various wikis that attract vandals, if certain users (be they admin or whatever) watch a group of pages then vandals who might have beef with a user could attack a group of pages that are watched by that user. --Tangerineduel 12:15, May 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * This type of stuff is one reason why I rarely edit any wikia wikis anymore. Their views on privacy are lacking.--Rockfang 12:52, May 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * Option should be to opt-out of privacy, not opt-in. There are several issues with optin privacy, many of which were just enumerated. --Sky 18:23, May 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * Facebook recently got roasted - again - for opt-out privacy. ... as well as for making privacy REALLY hard to maintain, but that's a different story. --Eirik Ratcatcher 17:50, May 11, 2010 (UTC)

Viewing changes to followed pages
The example screenshot shows only that you can see a list of pages you're following. How can I see a list of changes to those pages, like the current watchlist? Powers 00:28, May 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * There is a "Followed pages" (Watchlist) tab on Special:MyHome that filters recent activity, or there is still Special:Watchlist. Kirkburn (talk) 11:31, May 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * Special:MyHome doesn't seem to exist on this wiki. And the only way I can see to get to Special:Watchlist is by typing it in.  Isn't there a link to it somewhere?  Powers 02:46, May 5, 2010 (UTC)

Bad idea
Even before I read (and trust me, I wrote this even BEFORE I read the above), who thought of the idea of being able to see other people's watchlist? What if another user got hold of the information, and deliberately vandalised the pages on a specific users watchlist to spam their e-mail account?-- 15:52, May 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * The possibility for watchspam exists by simply watching a high traffic page. As I corrected above, you are able to turn off notification of changes to your watched/followed pages, which would cut short the effectiveness of the vandalism as a means of spamming.


 * More interesting is the possibility of inserting a malware vector into the default watch email message and causing watchspam to toss out malware for you. --Eirik Ratcatcher 17:56, May 11, 2010 (UTC)

Questionable
What exactly does this improve, beyond changing the word watch to follow? Aside from automatically violating users' privacy without their consent, of course. Normally I would use the phrase "fixing what isn't broken", but I feel this is more towards "breaking what works". Pardon my...hostility, but I fail to see how this improves the current system. Auguststorm1945 18:18, May 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * Completely agree. Why would anyone care what pages other people are watching?  I've been editing for a while now with the option "Add pages I create to my watchlist" enabled, so my watchlist is huge and essentially meaningless.  I fail to see any point to this change, other than a lame attempt by Wikia to jump on the "social" bandwagon (did no one else notice the verbage parallel with "following" someone on Twitter?).  Dr ishmael 16:16, May 5, 2010 (UTC)


 * This is something I'm not getting.
 * Why did they do this, what was the idea behind it? Was there some big demand out there from people wanting to monitor what other people are watching? --Tangerineduel 17:03, May 5, 2010 (UTC)

PLEASE tell me I can get rid of this...
Three questions: 1) I'm an admin on some wikis, and I'd like to get rid of this crap on them. Is there any way I can do that, or is it global?

2) Is there any way that I can put "Watchlist" on my masthead globally, INSTEAD of "followed pages"?

3) If I can't get rid of this crap in either of those ways, then can someone PLEASE put "watchlist" back on the masthead, in ADDITION to the "followed pages"? Because quite frankly, the Watchlist is organized just fine as it is, and I don't need this crap getting in the way.  King Nothing  Speak now, vermin!  15:44, May 5, 2010 (UTC)


 * "Breaking what works" seems a very appropriate term here, yes. I have the same issue as the person above me. I am an admin on multiple wikis, and I would like to remove this completely pointless feature from those sites. The   Slicer  22:19, May 5, 2010 (UTC)

What have you done?
This new system does not work. On most of my wikis, I can't even view my watchlist the right way; all I can view is a page listing what pages I watch. Now how can I tell what's been edited in my absence? Please, for the love of walking sticks, just set the watchlist system back to the way it was. Most if not everybody dislikes this new system, and nobody needs it. Will-Girl 04:07, May 6, 2010 (UTC)

I'll put it in another way: I have five wikis under my care right now; four of which I am trying to get spotlighted for the first time. One of these, I was only just granted admin/bureaucrat rights over, a few days ago. If this new system is going to continue, then I'm afraid the buck will just have to stop here. I cannot continue in these poor working conditions, and I will not invite potential editors to join in the projects when the watchlist system is so faulty and intrusive. If you want to lose one of wikia's most devoted editors, and the potential for at least a hundred more in the next two years alone, then keep this up. Will-Girl 04:14, May 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * Special:Following is not intended as a way to check for article updates. That is the intention of the emails and Special:MyHome's "followed pages" tab. You can still go to Special:Watchlist, though it is not linked. Kirkburn (talk) 10:11, May 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmmmm.... well then, it should be linked again. Will-Girl 02:40, May 7, 2010 (UTC)

Feedback
Please note, we are reading all your feedback, but this is not the location to give it. Please either use the announcement blog post (here), or Special:Contact. This page is intended to discuss the article itself, not the subject. Kirkburn (talk) 10:10, May 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * Then you should probably announce the change elsewhere before the Help page, because this was the most documented location before the blog post. --Pcj (T&bull;C) 16:06, May 7, 2010 (UTC)

Advantages of "following" over "watching"
I hoped that this help page would explain the advantages of "following" over "watching." On the whole, it seems there are any number of things that I used to be able to do with the watchlist that I can no longer do with the followed pages (or at least, not as easily). I am not sure why following is better.

Ideally, it should also explain how to find your watchlist (which otherwise seems hidden from view). Thanks! &mdash;Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 10:43, June 10, 2010 (UTC)