This is absolutely a terrible idea. It's perfectly sufficient that we can look at who has edited a page and what they have done. The only reason I can see to know who's watching a page is to be better able to track what someone may decide to edit.
Between [[Problem users]] and [[Vandalism]] and the aforementioned page histories, that seems to provide more than enough resources for tracking things. I imagine that developers can look at someone's Watchlist, and that's fine, but I don't want folks with an axe to grind to be able to "watch my watching." And the idea of having the default be that people can't see one's watchlist is better, but I think the whole idea still undermines Wikifaith and adds an unwelcome level of surveillance.
And one more thing, I noticed this a couple of hours ago on Village Pump page because the person who suggested it, User:Paul_Klenk, had just been adding fuel to the flame on the Mother Teresa talk page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Mother_Teresa#Something_we_can_all_agree_on, although he has also added some constructive comments. He's new, so this isn't meant to trash him, but this is a perfect example of where it would *not* be helpful to have the ability to see other people's watchlists.
Thanks, Brian
At 02:15 AM 10/21/03 +0000, you wrote:
From: "Graham Burnett" grahamburnett@blueyonder.co.uk Idea for new feature: "Who's watching this page?"
This got mooted on the Village Pump today- I'm STRONGLY against this, to the extent that I'd withdraw from wikipedia with a demand that any history of pages I'd watched be deleted from public record if it were to be implemeted. Suffice to say many of us watch certain pages for many differing reasons which are nobody elses business.
Nuf said i hope.
Graham (Quercus Robur)
It strikes me that when things change, they might be called something different. So while a "watchlist" is understood as a private affair --( I never use the damn things myself, anyway --part of what prompted me to start comment on the potential drag they might have on the servers --I was right somewhat.)
But anyway it seems to me that there are two distinct things: *private lists, and *public lists --and having one of each *might be *better than simply having an option of "open" or "closed." "Watchlist" would refer to the private list --the public list would be called something else. Continuing along these lines could open up a whole new way to look at WP and how people interact --conference calls, etc, outside of attached-to-article talk.
Eh? ~S~
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