Wikipedia talk:Don't overload your watchlist!

Closed deletion discussions

I would reverse the listing for "Closed deletion discussions, unless they are currently under deletion review. These are never supposed to be modified." by placing it in pages to watch. The reason very rarely edit pages are perfect for your watchlist is because they add no clutter for the very reason that they rarely if ever should be modified. So, normally, the only time they pop up is when they are vandalized. This really goes for any very rarely modified pages. I have 15,243 pages on my watchlist and I am not overloaded at all, because probably 13,000 or so of them are deleted and rarely watched pages.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:50, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

This is an essay, and everything I have written here is just advice, as the essay template states.

It says here that if you have more than 9800 pages on your watchlist, that it slows down the system for you. I don't know whether this has been improved since then.

Some time ago, I held a discussion on vandalized closed AfDs. I suggested that all finished AfDs be protected, since one is not supposed to modify them. There was no consensus to do so. I know of one AfD in particular that has been vandalized, and the vandalism has never been reverted. I have not even reverted it myself because it is not supposed to be modified. I commented in it, and in fact, it was for an article I created. The article was kept. But I have long since removed it from my watchlist.

Sebwite (talk) 01:26, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

The vandalised AFD sounds like a perfect case to ignore all rules. Graham87 04:18, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Help with overloaded watchlist

I usually work on Commons and use "Add pages and files I edit to my watchlist". So far I was good at trimming my watchlist once or twice a year. Unfortunately with new tools like cat-a-lot etc. I started accumulating pages faster than I expected and not I am unable to open "View and edit watchlist" and "Edit raw watchlist". Are there any other ways of editing your watchlist? It seems like I could use AutoWikiBrowser to edit pages I want to remove from my watchlist, with "Remove all from watchlist" option. Any other ways? --Jarekt (talk) 14:00, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, overloading comes easy in Commons. With 10,000 of my own pix uploaded and at least twice as many cat wrangled, I have the same problem. Mostly I just unwatch ones that are not mine when a bot or human does something to them. Many of us would be glad to hear of solutions. Jim.henderson (talk) 14:10, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Any way to bookmark or save pages to prevent bloated watchlist?

I read Wikipedia pages more often than I edit them, and there's a lot of pages that are relevant to my current life or that I found interesting and don't want to lose. Isn't there any way to save these pages to a list associated with my account? Or will I just have to turn to an external tool, such as my browser's bookmarks and reading list or something like Pinterest, Pocket, etc.? --Warm Yellow Sunflower (talk) 19:07, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

@Warm Yellow Sunflower: you have a User Page same as other editors; many like to make a section there, full of links to interesting articles or other important pages. I don't know of any who use it to list thousands of pages, however. Jim.henderson (talk) 14:40, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Side note that maybe should get added

Once your watchlist gets too large (like 30k pages too large), the editing interface fails to load, so you're stuck. — Alien  3
3 3 18:53, 27 October 2024 (UTC)