Why can't I add an open profile to my Watchlist?

Question

Suppose there's a medieval profile I'd like to keep an eye on.

If it's orphaned, I can adopt it and unadopt it, and now I'm on the TL and the profile is on my Watchlist.

But if there's a PM, I have to go through the PM.  I can edit the profile, change the parents, change the spouses, rewrite the bio, but I can't just watch.

If anybody bothered, the nuisance involved for PMs would be ridiculous.  The only reason it isn't is because nobody bothers.

Comments

I second this request. I'd love to be able to add a profile to my watchlist without being on the Trusted List.

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+1. I might want to watch profiles for any number of reasons, and that ought not be the PMs' problem.

Answer 1

At Wikipedia, any registered user can add any page to their watchlist, with no fuss -- and no special permission from anybody. I don't see why that should not be possible here.

One reason I would like to watchlist pages without being on a trusted list is that the leaders of one WikiTree project periodically remind me of project rules and instructions and other resources that are found on category pages or on specific free-space pages that can be edited only by project leaders. Navigating from pages that I have watchlisted to these various other pages is possible, but it would be so much more convenient if I could add these pages to a bookmarks list internal to this website -- such as my freespace watchlist.

For navigation internal to a website like this in the era of Web 2.0, browser bookmarks are not a good substitiute for personal navigation pages on the website itself. It doesn't make sense to tell users that we need to keep track of certain WikiTree pages within our browsers, while others are indexed on the website. Also, browser bookmarks don't provide a feed that indicates when a page has changed. The scratchpad is a good feature that provides a partial work-around for the lack of a personal index, but bookmarks saved on the scratchpad aren't active -- they need to be copied.

Can something be done to make it easier for contributors to keep track of pages of interest?

Answer 2

Maybe you could bookmark it or put it in your browser favorites?

Comments

5,000+ favourite pages?

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Bookmark each family and go from there. Or add private Categories to your profile with lists of the wikitree IDs. Private categories use a colon before the word Category like this     :Category: Profiles to Watch

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Putting a colon before the word Category just makes it a link to the category (as opposed to actually putting a page in the category). It doesn't make a category private.

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Argh, on the bookmark solution. I already have a management nightmare there already.

For me it's about simple notifications if a change has been made.

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Quite agree

Answer 3

Is there still no way to just easily add Profiles to your watchlist?

Comments

No, there isn't.