Editing Help:Watchlist (section)

== Effects of watchlisting a page ==

Watching a page means that the recent changes made to it will show up on your watchlist ([[Special:Watchlist]]), as well as changes to its associated talk page. Actions affecting watched pages (page [[Wikipedia:Moving a page|moves]], page creations and deletions, protection) also appear in the watchlist. For example, if you watch a page that does not yet have a talk page, you will see on your watchlist when someone creates that talk page. If you watch a User: page, you will be notified on your watchlist if that user is blocked or has [[WP:PERM|user permissions]] added or removed.

If a page you have watched is moved to a new title, the new title will be automatically added to your watchlist. Even if the page is later moved back (and even if the page at the new title is deleted), the new title will remain in your watchlist along with the old one. If you notice mysterious nonexistent pages appearing on your [[Special:Watchlist/edit|list of watched pages]], this is the most likely explanation.

When you view [[Help:Recent changes|Recent Changes]], [[Help:Enhanced recent changes|Enhanced Recent Changes]] or [[Help:Related changes|Related Changes]], entries relating to pages you are watching appear in '''bold text'''. This means that it may be beneficial to mark pages as "watched" even if you do not intend on viewing the [[Special:Watchlist]] page.

=== Privacy ===
{{See also|Wikimedia:Privacy policy}}
No other user, not even [[Wikipedia:Administrators|administrators]], can tell what is in your watchlist, or who is watching any particular page. [[w:Wikipedia:Database download|Publicly available database dumps]] do not include this information either. However, [[mw:Developers|developers]] who have access to the servers that hold the Wikipedia database can obtain this information.

=== Number of watchers ===
{{anchor|watchers}}
For any particular page, it is possible to discover how many users have it on their watchlist. Under the Tools menu, click on [[Help:Page information|Page information]]. Scroll down about two-thirds of the way through the first ("{{Int:pageinfo-header-basic}}") section. You may see two related lines, like this:
{| class="wikitable"
|{{int:pageinfo-watchers}}
|312
|-
|{{int:Pageinfo-visiting-watchers|30}}
|23
|}
The first line gives the number of accounts in the database that presently include this page. The second tells you how many users not only put the page on their watchlists, but also visited that page at least once during the last 30 days. Particularly for older pages, the first number does not give an accurate understanding of how many editors might review edits to the page, as most accounts are inactive.<ref>As of 2024, [[Template:Registered editors by edit count|about 42 million accounts]] have been registered, and about 14 million of them made at least one edit (ever). About one-sixth of those 14.1 million editors made one edit during the year of 2023, and most of those only made one or two edits during the entire year.</ref>

If the first number is less than 30, the exact number is displayed only to administrators. For all other users, the first will say "{{int:pageinfo-few-watchers|30}}", and the second line will be omitted. If displayed at all, the second line shows the exact number to all users, or says "There may or may not be a watching user visiting recent edits" if none of the editors with that particular page on their watchlists has visited that page during the last 30 days.

=== Email notification ===
{{Main|Help:Email notification}}
Watching a page allows you to receive email notification of changes to it. To enable this feature, select "Email me when a page or file on my watchlist is changed" at the bottom of the '''User Profile''' tab in [[Special:Preferences]]. (Currently, it is not possible to limit email notifications by page, so you will receive notification when ''any'' page on your watchlist is changed.)

=== RSS feed ===
{{Main|Wikipedia:Syndication}}
You can also monitor your watchlist via [[RSS]] ([https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=feedwatchlist RSS feed when logged in]). You can also monitor your watchlist via RSS when logged out – see {{Section link|Wikipedia:Syndication#Watchlist feed with token}}.