RickK writes:
Although I, personally rarely use my Watchlist (I tend to use it only to go back to pages whose names I forget all the time), there are many people who have made mention here on the mailing list, that they found it virtually impossible to work with Wikipedia without their Watchlists. Perhaps they can shed some light on the why?
For me, personally:
1. Stuff on my watchlist (since I have my preferences set to put on the watchlist everything I edit) is the stuff I know about, and thus the stuff I'm knowledgable enough to detect vandalism on. 2. My watchlist tracks the articles I'm working on and in most cases those that need some work. If there's collaboration, one needs to keep track of the work of one's collaborators. 3. Talk pages only really work with watchlists, otherwise you never know when an issue has been raised or answered. 4. I'd rather the pages I've put effort into continue to improve. I don't get the idea that I should just cast my words out into the wild and never check back on them. I'm not invested in my personal text; I do care that my work not be 'undone' in the sense of the article becoming a worse, rather than better, treatment of the topic. I'd love my text replaced anywhere -- IF the replacement is better.
Probably a few more reasons too, and I'm sure others have their own reasons as well.
-Matt (User:Morven)