User blog:Brandon Rhea/New followed pages feature from Wikia



Hey guys. You may have noticed yesterday that there's now a new feature from Wikia called "followed pages." What this essentially does is makes your watch list public, both by introducing a new header on your masthead (the thing on your user page with the tabs that links to user page, user talk page, contributions, etc.) and introducing a new section on the right side of your user page. By making this public, like your contributions already are, you allow users to know a little more about you by showing them what pages you like to watch and/or are interested in on this and all wikis. When you choose to follow a page (the "Watch" button has been replaced by "Follow" up at the top), it's added to the followed pages list. The most recently edited page will be shown on your user page.

Now you can also receive notifications when there are changes to a category page or when a new blog post is submitted, meaning you can watch categories and blogs and all that. If you have your preference set this way, you can also receive e-mails whenever there's a new post. This allows you to keep up to date with even more latest happenings on the wiki.

It's understandable that there might be privacy concerns because of that, as some of you guys may want to keep your watch list/followed pages private. If so, you can do just that! Just follow these simple steps:


 * 1) Go to Special:Preferences.
 * 2) Click the "Followed pages" tab.
 * 3) Find "Make my followed pages list private" in the first section and then check that box.
 * 4) Scroll down to the bottom and click the "Save" button.

Once you do that, your followed pages list will only be viewable by you, and that new section on your user page will disappear along with it. Should you need any help with the feature, feel free to visit the help page. If you want to give your feedback on the feature, feel free to do so on Sarah Manley's blog here on Community Central.

Just remember, since I've seen a few issues with this in the past, if you don't like the feature you need to be respectful about it. Criticism is one thing, but being rude about it and going over the top about the way you feel is another thing entirely. I can also help you guys out with any questions you have if you post them in the comments section of this blog, but if you have specific feedback and concerns about it then the best place to go would be Sarah's blog. =) - Brandon Rhea  (talk) 16:03, May 6, 2010 (UTC)