View source for Help:Watchlist

{{Nutshell|Your watchlist is a list which is used for tracking changes to pages you have chosen to follow.}}
[[File:Watchlist star - Adding a page.png|550px|thumbnail|Watchlist star - Adding a page to your watchlist|alt=Screenshot of a USApedia page showing a cursor hovering over the watchlist star icon]]

Each USApedia account has a '''watchlist''' that allows the account owner to keep informed of changes to their "watched" pages.  In this way you can keep track of changes to pages you have created or are otherwise have an interest.

There are two types of [[#Getting notifications|notifications]] available for USApedia editors.

Any page you [[Editing USApedia|edit]] or [[Creating a page|create]] is automatically added to your watchlist. 

==Getting notifications==
{{Help Box}}
# USApedia's default notification tool is called "[[Special:Watchlist|My watchlist]]".  It is just like [[Special:Recentchanges|Recent changes]] but only shows changes to the pages on your watch list. Your watchlist is always a single click away in the top right corner of your browser window.
# By default, USApedia also sends an email when pages is changed by someone else.  That can disabled in the "User profile" tab in your account's [[Help:Preferences|preference]].

==How to add a page to your watchlist==
# [[How_To_Start_Editing_The_Wiki|Get a USApedia account]] if you don't have one already
# Login to USApedia
# Go to the page you are interested in watching
# Click the “watch” star next to the search box in the upper right corner.  You will be given the option to watch the page permanently or for a [[#Expiration|limited time]].

By default, all editors will be emailed when a change is made by another editor.  This can be changed in [[Special:Preferences|your preferences]].

== Expiration ==
{{Mw|article=Help:Watchlist expiry|label=Watchlist expiry}} allows you can optionally select to watch a page for a limited period of time. Once the watch period has expired, the page will be automatically removed from your watchlist. You can update the watch period at any time, including switching from temporary to permanent status. Temporarily watched pages are usually represented by a half star icon (as opposed to a full star, which represents permanently watched pages).

If you would like to continue watching pages permanently, you won't need to change any of your current processes. The user flow for permanently watching pages has remained intact.

{| class="wikitable"
|+
|-
!Expiration options!! colspan="2" |Watchlist Star Status
|-
| rowspan="2" |[[File:Watchlist expiry options.png|312x312px]] || [[File:Watchlist full star.png|96x96px]]||The full star indicates you are permanently watching the page.
|-
|[[File:Watchlist partial star.png|97x97px]] ||Half star indicates that you are watching a change for a limited time (1 week, 1 month, 3 months, or 6 months).  Hovering your cursor over the star will indicate how many days are left in your watchlist.
|-
| colspan="2" |[[File:Watchlist expiry options in Enhanced editor.png|400x400px]]
|By default, "Watch this page" is checked when saving a page using [[Enhanced editor]].  When that option is checked, you are also given the opportunity to set an expiration.
|}
==Knowing which changes you have viewed==
[[Special:Watchlist|Your Watchlist]] is a curated version of [[Recent changes]] showing recent changes to pages on your list.  When you follow one of those links from the list, or one of the [[#Getting notifications|links from your email]], the title of the article will become un-bolded.  

== Bolding==
On [[Special:Watchlist]], some page names appear in bold. This indicates whether or not you have visited the page to see the change. It's a bit like read/unread emails in an email inbox.  The "[[Special:RecentChanges|Recent changes]]" page will also have some new bold highlighting, but for a different reason. Here bold is just indicating edits to pages on your watchlist.

==Helping others add a page to their watchlist==
Sometimes a curator of a page wants to help their colleagues add a page the page to their watchlist so they get an email when new content is added.  All users (new and existing alike) will now receive email for watchlist changes, we only need to help users add the page to their watchlist.  

'''To facilitate that action, we have a separate page with nothing but these instructions that you can share with your colleagues.   See [[Help:How to add a page to your watchlist]].'''

Each user has a '''Watchlist''' associated with their account.  Adding a page to your watchlist is called "watching a page".  Wikipedia's [[Wikipedia:Help:Watching pages|Help page on Watching pages]] has a great [[Wikipedia:File:Wikipedia video tutorial-2-Reliability-en.ogv|tutorial on why watchlists are so helpful]].

== Pending reviews ==
* [[Special:PendingReviews]] comes with {{Mw|Article=Extension:WatchAnalytics}}
* [[Special:ClearPendingReviews]]