Talk:Edit Review Improvements/New filters for edit review

Leave your thoughts and ideas here about the New Filters for Edit Review filtering tools and interface.

These are now standard on Recent Changes and available as a beta feature on Watchlist. What works well? What could work better?

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How to provide feedback

• do you have that bug when you are not logged-in?
• explain how to reproduce the bug (step by step)
• tell us what is your configuration (browser version)
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Also see the FAQ.

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T197686

Hi Supporters :) I'm taking care of the german de:Portal:Ethnologie (Ethnology) and find your tool very helpfull. I have added it into a category info template to link to the (german) "Spezial"-page to show all edits of pages linked by the categorie, in the form of: [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:%C3%84nderungen_an_verlinkten_Seiten?hidebots=1&hidecategorization=1&target={{FULLPAGENAMEE}}&limit=999&days=30&enhanced=1&urlversion=2 page changes] = page changes, example: de:Kategorie:Ethnologie.

My questions:

1. Do I have to use an url link - or could I use a normal wikilink?
2. Does my code need optimization?
3. Is there a way of adding category depths to the list?
4. and: How can I remove my own filter from my view? I have 1 saved ("links from the page Portal:Ethnologie"), but can't get rid of it without deleting it, and also I can't judge the effect this permanent filter has when I list category pages...

Thanx, and keep up your good work :) --user:Chiananda about 16:30, June 17 2018 (sorry, I don't know how to place my signature here)

Hello Chiananda, and thank you for your feedback. That usage of the filters is very interesting.

They way you've built that tool is great, because you can replicate it on numerous categories.

Concerning your specific feedback:

1. I'm sorry but you will have to use an URL like the one you use. That's due to the multiple parameters that have to be set and that are used to display the filters.
2. I don't think so.
3. It is not possible for now, due to performance issue. We are exploring a way to add category filtering on Recent Changes and depth is would be limited.
4. It is not possible to replace an existing filters on the saved filters menu. You need to delete the existing one and replace it with your new set. I4ll report you need.

Thank you for your nice appreciation, I'll report it to the development team as well. :)

(You don't need to sign or timestamp here. This is done automatically here.)

An optimization: change 999 to 500, while recent changes are capped to 500.

Thanx for your answer, Trizek :)

I have 2 more questions, an error report and a proposal for optimization:

1. What's the meaning of the parameter "enhanced=1"?
2. What's the meaning of "urlversion=2"?
3. I always get 0 results when I filter "article talk pages" (german: "Diskussion")! But it would be helpful if one could check for user contributions to article talk pages...
4. The "advanced filters" ("Erweiterte Filter") are right at the bottom of the long list of filters -- my proposal is to place them at the top of the list to avoid necessary scrolling, possibly a bit smaller and on a single line.

Shortcut for advanced filters.

My pleasure. :)

1. Well... honestly, no idea. :D I'll ask.
2. Same thing. That's the first time I'm ask for those.
3. Can you share with me the link with that particular filter?
4. You have a shortcut on the left (see picture) and you also can use typing shortcuts:
   • : (a colon) to access the Namespaces menu
   • # (a hash) to produce the “Tagged edits” menu.

• enhanced=1 is to group results by page
• "urlversion=2" helps track the state of the application"

Trizek, both shortcuts don't work for me, neither on the page nor on the filters list :-(

For talk pages I tried many different approaches and filter combinations -- always 0 results and the message "Keine Änderungen während des angegebenen Zeitraums entsprechen diesen Kriterien."

Here's one for the "de:Kategorie:Schamanismus" without any filters, only with activated "Diskussion" (top of the name space list, below the "Artikel"), and a vivid discussion going on at the article "de:Schamanismus":

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:%C3%84nderungen_an_verlinkten_Seiten?target=Kategorie%3ASchamanismus&namespace=1&limit=999&days=30&enhanced=1&urlversion=2

For the de:Portal:Technik, which is one of the most frequented portals in deWiki:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:%C3%84nderungen_an_verlinkten_Seiten?target=Portal%3ATechnik&namespace=1&limit=999&days=30&enhanced=1&urlversion=2

For "de:Kategorie:Mathematiker (20. Jahrhundert)" with 4.330 pages:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:%C3%84nderungen_an_verlinkten_Seiten?target=Kategorie%3AMathematiker+%2820.+Jahrhundert%29&namespace=1&limit=999&days=30&enhanced=1&urlversion=2

For "de:Kategorie:Liste (Biografien)" with 4.807 pages:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:%C3%84nderungen_an_verlinkten_Seiten?target=Kategorie%3AListe+%28Biografien%29&namespace=1&limit=999&days=30&enhanced=1&urlversion=2

Shortcuts that don't work are really an issue. Can you tell me if they work if you click on that test link?

Concerning discussions, the link you give me has no edits on talk pages. Can you made an edit on one of the articles so that we can check again? Because if there is no edit on talk pages for the last 500 edits, that's a bit difficult to filter. ;)

Still the shortcuts don't work (on your test link) -- possibly a problem of the de:keyboard setting? And sorry: the name space button on the top right of the interface slipped my attention ;-)

Your test link ([https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:%C3%84nderungen_an_verlinkten_Seiten?target=Kategorie%3ASchamanismus&namespace=1&limit=999&days=30&enhanced=1&urlversion=2&safemode=1 shamanism] = 0 results) includes the main article de:Schamanismus with fresh discussions, see de:Diskussion:Schamanismus, which shows results only for itself:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:%C3%84nderungen_an_verlinkten_Seiten?target=Diskussion%3ASchamanismus&namespace=1&limit=999&days=30&enhanced=1&urlversion=2&safemode=1

Possibly I'm misunderstanding your tool: I'm trying to find new edits on talk pages of articles, but as talk pages generally are not linked from any article or portal pages the tool can't find them... Any hint or workaround?

I think you found it yourself as to why you don't get any results when you filtered for changes to dicussion pages in the related changes page of a category. As neither the category nor it's child categories link to any discussion pages, there aren't any changes shown when you filter for changes to discussion pages. To clarify a little, it's not about the tool (new edit filters) it's about how Related changes work. You wouldn't get any results even with the old interface. You would get a result only if the category or one of if it's children link to a discussion page. Hope that helps.

About the shortcuts not working, I'm not sure what's causing issues with you but they work for me in the test page Trizek pointed out. See linked screen shot to get an idea of how it would look like when shortcuts work.

1. The '#' shortcut
2. The ':' shortcut

Addition: I once tried to find changes on talk pages with PetScan, but never got a single result.

> I'm trying to find new edits on talk pages of articles, but as talk pages generally are not linked from any article or portal pages the tool can't find them... Any hint or workaround?

Ha! I think you've found the reason: looking for changes on Kategorie:Schamanismus may only look for changes on pages listed on that category but not their talk pages. I've tried that by adding the French Wikipedia's sandbox talk page to a category I was monitoring and it worked. That's something we should fix, I've filled a task for that.

Now we have to fix that keyboard issue:

@Chiananda, I don't think that's the case. Colons : are at least on all keyboards... Maybe your specific keyboard combination? Do you have the opportunity to try that on another computer? I've asked a friend to help us, by testing the shortcut on another German keyboard.

@Kaartic, do you still have the typing shortcuts when you don't use the safemode link I've provided?

Okay, got it :) And the shortcuts do work -- when I type them into the input field, also work when not in safe mode. Me dummy was just pressing keys without having placed the cursor properly ;-)

Now I understand the situation with talk pages, but still wonder why PetScan doesn't find any, even when I configure it for the shamanism category containing the shamanism article who's talk page I edited yesterday: https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?language=de&project=wikipedia&depth=10&categories=Schamanismus&combination=union&ns%5B1%5D=1&ns%5B7%5D=1&ns%5B11%5D=1&ns%5B101%5D=1&sortby=ns_title&interface_language=en&

I know that's not your construction area, but possibly there's an explanation for that effect? Cheers :)

Re the PetScan issue[1], the reasoning is quite similar. As I stated before, it can only see pages that belong to a particular Category[2] or one of it's children (sub-categories). It doesn't know about the association between pages and their corresponding talk pages as we as humans do. From the perspective of PetScan (or any other tool, for that matter) a talk page is just another page and so if a talk page belongs to one of the categories in your query (with appropriate parameters) it gets listed else it doesn't. Hope that clears your confusion. If not feel free to contact me on my talk page about it!

[1]: I incidentally happened to use PetScan recently for one of my projects. It's quite a powerful tool, indeed. [2]: a set of categories, for that matter

Adding to the talk pages problem: There used to be a bot for that, but longtime offline, this used to be the url: ...toollabs:drtrigonbot/cgi-bin/sum_cat_disc.py|wiki=de&cat=Shamanismus&start=&period=700

Nowerdays there seems to be no way of overviewing talk pages, so nice that you considered to fill a task for that :)

> Me dummy was just pressing keys without having placed the cursor properly ;-)

:D Happy to see it is working like we've deigned it.

I have no idea about PerScan, a tool I don't use at all.

The task has been filled to have talk pages edits listes on Related Changes. It will take a couple of weeks to have it reviewed, given the fact that the development team in charge doesn't have their weekly task triage meeting today.

Thank you for the great discussion, btw. It is really pleasant to work with people like you both @Chiananda and @Kaartic! :)

> The task has been filled to have talk pages edits listes on Related Changes.

It's nice to have a task for that but I think it would complicate the RelatedChanges a bit and might possibly trigger controversies and conflicts with people who like the way in which RelatedChanges works now ;-)

It might be better to do this as an additional feature rather than a modification to the existing feature. A feature possible possibly called "Show changes in pages linked from (and their corresponding talk pages)" or so. (Noted in the phab task.)

> It is really pleasant to work with people like you both @Chiananda and @Kaartic! :)

My pleasure, thanks :)

It would be much clearer and cleaner to have the active filters and saved filters buttons spatially related.

A very small tweak would solve this: Put saved filters directly under active filters by exchanging the saved filters and live updates buttons.

(Sure to be contested bonus from the change: live updates would then be where I, at least, would intuitively expect it, at the upper-right-hand corner of the box.)

This is probably too late...

I see the current interface as (from top to bottom):

1. useful tools that can setup the work environment (other tools, saved filters)
2. filters strictly speaking (selecting, saving...)
3. tools that help to handle the selection of filters (number of results, live...)

As of August 6th, out of 120,258 active users on English Wikipedia at that time, 1,101 users have opted out of the watchlist (0.91%) and 630 have opted out of RC (0,05%).

Now that I see growing number of less satisfied users and no (if not very little) positive feedback, I would like to see the statistics of users opting the newer feature out. Just curious.

I can ask for it.

Also, I see some positive feedback, and don't forget that happy users tend not to say that they are happy. :)

May you please provide links to the positive feedback? Thanks.

Having been initially sceptical, I really like the new watchlist. Just discovered the coloured filters and that's really useful. I also like that I can filter out all the bot edits that I rarely care about. The interface seems to have improved too, or maybe I'm just used to it now.

You have access to the same feedback page I have, where you can easily find some positive comments. However, we are not counting points here: only look for people who are complaining about the filters versus the one who aren't is not really meaningful. Let's wait for the statistics and compare them to the number of active people on the wikis.

It may depend on whether it is used on RecentChanges or Watchlist.

Statistics are not available yet on Gafana or query-able. I've asked a developer to find those statistics. We will see if it is possible to have them visible publicly.

As of yesterday, on English Wikipedia, 1101 users have opted out of the watchlist (0.91%); 630 for RC (0,05%). To be compared to the 120,258 active users at that time.

Can we see how many active users use the Watchlist regularly, and how many of those use filters? Total number of active users is not relevant, as a significant percentage might not use the Watchlist or filters.

Hmm.... Can I ask for next month's stats? I can see numbers growing (steadily?) but not as big compared to 32,000+ enwiki users (part of 70,000+ total) enabling the feature before graduation out of beta.

If you remind me about it next month, yes.

When the release on watchlist happen, only 32,000+ were using that feature (because it was already default on RCs). Now, that's more 199,000+ users using it on watchlist. That's a lot.

I like the changes! Can I save my choice of filter options e.g. Humans only?

Yes, with the icon to the left of the trash bin, which is supposed to look like a bookmark. The current choice of options is saved behind the "Saved filters" button.

What are the default filters? Or is default to show all contributions (no active filters)? I see no "default" button for a pre-selected list of active filters chosen by the wiki admins. If default is to show all contributions, then I believe many editors will stop using their watchlist very much, if at all.

Anyone with a lot of categories on their watchlist may give up as I almost did before someone selected some filters for me. See my other thread. The filters are baffling, even to longtime editors. The "all contributions" watchlist shows all the many files added and removed from those watchlisted categories. That makes the watchlist very long and almost useless. One can't find the important stuff buried among the files being added and removed.

A pre-selected fallback list of active filters might keep many editors from abandoning their watchlist over time. There needs to be a filter to show all revisions, except for revisions for talk pages. The filter should set talk pages to latest revision. Otherwise the same active talk pages will show up on every day of the watchlist. I like seeing all revisions (for most things), but had to turn it off due to talk pages filling up my watchlist.

Default filters are the ones people got when they opened the watchlist the first time on the old configuration. You see all contributions.

You can redefined default filters by clearing all of them (trash bin icon), which will give you access to the "restaure default filters". It is possible to define a different set of filters for your wiki, after a community consensus.

You can personally set your favorite set of filters, by saving a preset and defining by default.

You can exclude some namespaces, for instance talk pages (click on "namespace", then select one or multiple namespaces, then click on "excluding namespaces"). That selection can be saved for you as well, so that you can switch to it anytime.

I have been talking about the Commons watchlist. I suggest that "Restore default filters" be supplemented and improved with 2 options that are always visible:

• "Restore my saved default filters".
• "Restore the Commons default filters".

What do you mean by "old configuration"? Are you talking about checking the box for the setting, "Hide the improved version of the watchlist":

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist

I don't want to totally exclude the talk pages on the Commons from my watchlist. I only want to see the last revision of talk pages.

Default Commons filters are the ones you get when you access your watchlist the first time, if you haven't changed them. If you wish to define another set of filters as default, you can save them as "Commons default filters". Then you can switch between "Restore my saved default filters" and "Commons default filters".

By old configuration, I mean the one you get by selecting "Hide the improved version of the watchlist" on https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist.

To get the last revision of talk pages exclusively, you combine two filters: the one for talk pages and the one for "latest revision". You can go further and filter multiple kind of talk pages, differentiating them using highlights (here yellow for Talk: and green for File talk:).

Thanks. I saved the first-time watchlist filters.

Both of the talk page filter combinations ended up with empty watchlists. I looked back 14 days too. So they are not allowing talk pages at all on the watchlist.

Empty results mean that there is no changes on talk pages you watch for those combinations. I don't have changes on my volunteer's account watchlist either.

You can test those combinations on RecentChanges to be sure they're working. Just change "Watchlist" by "RecentChanges" in the URL:

• latest revision + Talk namespace:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:RecentChanges?hidepreviousrevisions=1&namespace=1&limit=250&days=3&urlversion=2
• latest revision + Talk namespace and Talk File namespace: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:RecentChanges?hidepreviousrevisions=1&namespace=1%3B7&limit=250&days=3&namespace__1_color=c2&namespace__7_color=c3&urlversion=2

OK. Some talk pages on my watchlist are Commons talk, template talk, category talk.

Are there any generic talk filters?

> Are there any generic talk filters?

I suppose there isn't a direct Generic talk filter. But, I think you could use the "Exclude selected" option and do some magic with it. For example the linked set of filters would show you all the RecentChanges to the talk pages in en.wikipedia. That's done by excluding all the corresponding article namespaces.

@Timeshifter, you're looking for a global filter for all talk pages?

Yes, I am looking for a way to see all talk pages changes in my watchlist. But I only want to see the latest revisions for talk pages.

I've documented that shortcut for all talk pages as a new feature.

What is important in my opinion is how these new watchlist changes effect the number of active editors on the Commons and English Wikipedia:

See more active editor statistics:

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_active_editor_statistics

That would be visible through time.

I think after some tries and 2 million edits it is too complicated. Too much switches, not really saying where to find what. Even the diasable button for the new feature is heavily to find. In the old version, I needed three clicks to solve everything, now 10+.

What are the cases you're trying to solve?

From my side there are too many scroll down menus. One must go through all of these to find all the things needed. Then, it is not really easy to find out, what is meant. For my edits, for instance - hide or show? Already two times I did it the wrong way. I personally want to see all possibilities of choice at one and have it clickable. The amount of choices went up, this is good. But too complicated to reach.

There is not only a scroll down menu: there is also a search field, that would ease your filters selection.

Concerning the example of filtering your edits, if you check "changes by you", you will only see your changes. If you check "changes by others", that will show changes not done by you. You can also just highlight your changes, so that you will see them with a selected colored background.

What do you mean by "to see all possibilities of choice at one and have it clickable"? If you select a filter, that filter will be be active and filter what you've selected. You can combine filters from different categories to have a narrower list of results.

I believe Florentyna means having bi-state buttons like those in the old filters; clicking a button enables or removes the filter. Clicking an active filter would disable its effect but not hide it from view.

If so, it's the same feature I suggested. I know it goes against the mental model created by the designers - only showing "currently active" filters in the bar; but it's logical that many users expect that mechanism, since it was how filters have always worked until now.

Get the old show/hide filters back is available by opting-out the filters. I'm sorry but that's the only option I can offer you, while those filters have been tested by multiple users during a while without surfacing the design change you suggest.

Showing only current active filters has been chosen because it is similar to other services online. The goal is to have more people capable of watching recent changes or changes on pages they watch. Research done during the design process has shown that experienced users haven't been blocked by that approach.

I can assist you if you need more advice to apprehend those new filters. Please ask, I'll be happy to help you. :)

What services are similar to this one? Faceted search tools may have "active filter" breadcrumbs, but they usually also have the facets themselves always visible at the side bar, not hidden behind a giant dropdown menu. The paradigm of complex filters useable by the large public, a travel site, which used a filter system like this wouldn't sell many tickets, I presume.

Now I'm curious, what online filter tools did you find which hide the list of available filters?

@JMatazzoni (WMF) has made that comparison during the project definition phase. I let him reply to your question.

@Diego Moya is right that most faceted searches show the unselected options as well as the selections. The aspect of the new interface I've said is familiar from major search sites is that users select what they want to include, not what they want to exclude. This is a switch from the past UI but users should find it familiar once they give it a chance.

I'm sure there are good reasons for why we didn't make the filter list visible on the top level of the UI. I'm pinging our designer, @Pginer-WMF, who can explain this approach.

I have been using the watchlist filters for a while in beta and have noticed a bug while browsing through diff views. I am using the "unseen changes" filter. Normally, when a diff from the watchlist is viewed and then I back into the watchlist, all the more recent diffs for that page are still showing on the watchlist. However, if I load a different diff while I am in diff view and then back into the watchlist, all edits for that page are gone. This happens even if the diffs I viewed did not include the current version. It happens even if I go backwards into the history rather than forwards.

Monobooks/Firefox/Windows 10.

Sorry for the late reply.

I'm not sure to understand the process you use. Can you describe it again with steps I can reproduce?

Thanks!

• In Wikipedia:Preferences:Watchlist check "Expand watchlist to show all changes"
• Save preferences
• Load watchlist
• Clear all filters
• In filter changes:
  • Check "unseen changes"
  • Check "page edits"
• You probably don't need these, but to get the exact filter I am using:
  • Check "Logged actions"
  • Check "Page creations"
  • Check "Wikidata edits"
• Find a page on the watchlist with at least three edits displayed
• Click on the "diff" for the second most recent edit (edit 2)
• Click on "Previous edit" to go back to edit 3
• Reload the watchlist (or use "back" button)

Expected result: edits 2 and 3 are no longer displayed on watchlist. Edit 1 is displayed on watchlist.

Actual result: No edits for that page are displayed. If there have been a lot of edits to the page, many edits can be "lost". For instance, starting with the diff at edit 21 will "lose" 20 other edits from the watchlist.

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T201443

Could a condensed, more compact version be implemented of the edit filter section at the top of the watchlist? The "new, improved" version takes up about five times the space the previous one did (the one with the small radio buttons). Thanks, 日本穣 Nihonjoe (talk) 22:07, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I second this request. This is a legitimate usability issue.

I'm just not a fan of the current trend to make everything huge. I can understand having it as an option (for those who need larger fonts and such, for example), but making it so everyone has to use up so much screen real estate for six/seven huge buttons? That's just a little ridiculous. Maybe I'm just old school in that respect.

I third it. Let's keep this compact.

It may surprise you, but, based on the team observations, the overall new interface is as high as the old one on most wikis; it is even sometimes a bit more compact that the previous one.

View of the compact mode link ("hide") for recent changes and watchlists.

Have you seen the "hide" link on the top-right of watchlist and recent changes pages, below the "saved filters" option? It displays an interface more compact than ever.

I use MW1.31 and I don't get the hide button. I guess that must be a more recent addition. I still run MW1.30 on another wiki, and the new version's filter GUI really is only a little big taller, maybe 1 line, but it is taller. The "hide" could make things better, especially if it can hide by default. However, even when "hidden" the top area still has those big buttons and a lot of whitespace. I just took a screen shot of it, and at my resolution the font in the buttons is 11 pixels high, where the font on the page (eg the change links) is 9 px high. Maybe it would look less bloated if the font were the same size?

Trizek, for me (Chrome on Windows 10) that button collapses one menu to the left and moves everything else up a little bit but it mostly creates a bunch of new whitespace.

Here is a screenshot of my Chrome window with the new watchlist: https://imgur.com/a/Ve4C0yc. That's a maximized window at 1080p resolution. Between the normal Wikimedia UI and the watchlist UI the substantive content - the actual watchlist - doesn't begun until about 2/3 down the screen. That's a legitimate usability issue. It's not the end of the world and it doesn't mean that the tool is broken but it does mean that it needs to be polished.

I readily concede that the new watchlist doesn't take up any more screen real estate than the old one; I think the whitespace just makes it really obvious how much space the UI of this tool takes up.

EkKevbo's screenshot is how it appears for me in Firefox 61.0.1 (64-bit) in Windows 7. And it is quite a bit higher than the previous appearance. There is no way to hide all of the tools, but if they could be made more compact, perhaps on a single toolbar (similar to the edit toolbar when editing an article), that would be awesome. Even if it was just an option to display it that way, so everyone else who likes the humongous new version can keep using it.

@Tenbergen, the hide button is a recent addition (end of June).

@ElKevbo, the screenshot is the normal display.

You all suggest to have a more compact toolbar. What would you like to have remaining visible on that compact toolbar?

You can have all of them remain visible. I'll try to mockup something later to show you.

I haven't conducted any usability testing (I hope that you and your colleagues have!) but I can't imagine that most users routinely make changes to these settings so I would only retain a "Show settings" or similar option to view all of the settings.

Apparently, you both have a different opinion about what's should (or shouldn't) be displayed. :)

We haven't performed tests per-se on that very specific point but we have created that collapsing feature based on user feedback we've received.

I'm a little late to the discussion, but have you considered that maybe the problem is that the large amount of visual noise makes the controls look bigger than they are? The previous watchlist controls meshed fairly nicely with the rest of the Vector skin, whereas the new filters have dark borders and bold icons everywhere.

I made a change using custom CSS to change the border colour of all elements from #a2a9b1 to #c8ccd1 (in Vector, this is the colour of the legend's border, also used for e.g. the ToC in articles) – and suddenly it looks much less busy.

I do think that there's a large amount of wasted space between the buttons above and below the controls, however (between "mark all as read" and "saved filters", and between "live updates" and the length-of-time dropdown). There's space to put all four buttons in a single row with room to spare, even on my not-so-large screen, so it looks a bit silly to have one button at each side with a huge gap between them, especially when the toolbar is collapsed as ElKevbo pointed out.

Controls are using the standard palette named OOUI. That standard has been defined to be accessible and unify the experience across all services and all wikis. That includes more margins and paddings than on the old interface. Colors are standard as well.

Concerning the toolbar, I'll wait for more inputs while, as already said, everyone is not asking for the same thing. :)

Is this the result of the new watchlist? For several days it switched back and forth from the old watchlist length to a very shortened one. The last couple of days it seems to have settled down. Meanwhile, I have not changed anything in my Preferences - 30 days and 1000. I am aware of how "grouped edits" can shorten the watchlist, but I watch out for those from previous experience. What gives? ~~~~

Sorry to hear that. What kind of edits are missing?

No specific edits. Usually I have two days worth showing. I make a lot of categories, so usually some of those show up and other edits I have made, like a renaming request, to watch. There are very few other pages I watch. Then suddenly about a week or so ago only part of one day showed up. This went on for several days, then it would flip back and forth from one day to the next. Now it seems to have settled down, I hope. It's been ok for the last couple of days. During that time I made no changes in Preferences. I hate to opt out, as the warning says that I would lose whatever improvements and tools added since 2017. I don't know what those are, but I hate to change anything as it was fine until recently.

It is not normal that you get different results for the same watchlist. Can you share with me the URL of your watchlist, with all parameters? That will not reveal what you watch, just the filters configuration. I can then have a look at them, to tell you what may cause that change.

You can monitor categories renames using the Categories namespace filter and highlighting the moves, like this. That result will also show you Categories creations and edits. You can even narrow it down to only surface logged actions (moves and deletions). If a combination you make works for you, you can save it to reuse it later.

Opting-out improvements and tools added since 2017 means that you will return back to the watchlist you've used before the deployment of the filters.

My watchlist hasn't be shortened recently. It's been ok for 4 days now. On the example you give above: what should I do to get the same result? I tried to copy what you did, but I don't understand it. I tried to name the results, but that turns out to be hard to do. My naming attempts disappear as other windows fly up. When that happens, I don't know what to check.

21 hours ago

Trizek (WMF)

I think I best opt out. The explanations are too hard to understand. I have over 300,000 edits on Commons but this new watchlist is so slow; and here on WikiMedia, these comments are hard to make. I was hard to find even this page.

To get the examples I gave you earlier, you click on the search bar (the one with a blue border in this example). You will then have access to all filters available. You can play with those filters to check what fits you.

To get the default filters back, remove all active filters (click on the X). You will then have access to a "restaure default filters" link.

Concerning your saved sets, are they on the bookmarks menu?

I understand that you want to opt-out, while you are used to the old interface. I just hope you will manage to find a solution to your problems.

Trizek (WMF)

I used the filters, and now I can't get back my regular watchlist. How do I get it back?

I don't know whether you can get back to what your watchlist was. However, if you're still on the 2017 watchlist interface, how about clicking the "trash can" icon to clear out all filters and then clicking the "ribbon" icon next to the other icon to save your filters? That way, you can see all past and present contributions of every page that you have on your watchlist.

Nevertheless, if you still opted-out the 2017 UI version, have you gone yet to the "Watchlist" tab of your preference settings?

George Ho

I opted out of the new watchlist. That solved everything. Perhaps someday I'll learn about all those Icons and what they do. Since I'm not an admin and don't chase vandals or anything, I'm probably the type that doesn't benefit from the new watchlist. And I'm too afraid to try anything new, like putting things in the "trash can" on my watchlist. Too many times I have screwed things up by trying methods I'm not familiar with. Thanks for the suggestions though.

In the old UI was a simple tick box for edit types, like say bot edits. Could temporary switch off and rerun list. How does that work now?

Well starting to get it but works opposite to what was thinking. Need to filter on what you want to see not filter out what you do not want to see.

That's exactly it: you ask the filters to display what you want to get.