MediaWiki talk:Watchdetails

message: You ran an extremely high-profile poll which gathered hundreds of votes and now that it's over and the results are in no-one has a clue what to do next? This was all just an enormous waste of time? Couldn't you have agreed on how to interpret the poll before launching it? Haukur 13:30, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pointless poll? 

message: It seems like this template is being used more and more frequently for less and less important purposes.  Okay, so today you want me to choose a strong password.  I can see why this is on admins' minds after reading AN/I, but I can see no need at all to annoy every registered user with it.  Why not just put a reminder or two on the Village Pump and in the Signpost?  There are lots of good ways to get a message to Wikipedians, and there ought to be few reasons urgent enough to cry this loudly for their attention (and risk them learning to ignore this screaming, and making the site that much less usable, and overwhelming useful information like the watchlist, which need I remind you is non-admins' key tool for preventing vandalism, with sheer noise).
So: I want to ask, politely, for a policy or at least a firmer etiquette on use of this header.  May I suggest that admins who update this watchlist header use a some restraint, please, and be sure that the message is urgent and needs every Wikipedian's immediate attention.  And why not include a link to this discussion page, which is almost impossible to find, so that users can easily respond to the message? -- Rbellin|Talk 03:14, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Why? Because we really want every Wikipedian to see this, regardless of whether they are sysops or not. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 03:35, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What's so annoying about this? You can dismiss it, it's just a little text, if this is something that annoys you, that's a personal problem. For the sake of the site, having this up for a few days so everyone can see it does absolutely no harm to anybody. John Reaves (talk) 05:43, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  If you don't see the need for my request, that's fine -- but both of these comments seem non-responsive to my concerns.  Why does it matter that every registered user have a strong password?  Where was this message discussed beforehand, and where can interested users go to discuss it now?  The header message answers none of these questions, and bristly defensiveness doesn't really help me understand why anyone thought it was a good idea to do this. (And I believe that the incredibly obscure location of this Talk page is the only reason more users haven't commented on their annoyance with the message, but in any case there's no need for the ad hominem.)  -- Rbellin|Talk 13:46, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Why should any account be subject to hijacking?  It's best not to lose any contributors, not just admins.  You haven;t answered my question, what's so annoying about a sentence of text above you watchlist?  Why is your annoyance , or anybody's, not worth the security of this site?  If it still bothers you that much , don't worry, it should be down by tomorrow. John Reaves (talk) 19:14, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Rbellin, I can understand your opinion and empathize with your request. However, I would like to point out the purpose of using either the sitenotice and this watchdetail is to disseminate information on a wide basis; because of the recent security lapses, it seems like a message regarding account security (which is critical for every account, not just sysop accounts) is appropriate. The message will also be removed within a day or two; a recent edit requested that the message remain for another day - a total of three days seems reasonable. That being said, there are multiple ways that we (the developers and other people who know their MediaWiki code) have taken to make it less obtrustive. You have the "dismiss" button now - one click, and the message should disappear for the remainder of the time that it's up. Watchdetails is also being used instead of SiteNotice to target specifically editors, and not all readers. Is there any suggestion you have to improve this? Also, regarding your suggestion of adding a link to this talk page: the problem I foresee with that is people would complain that link would be too much, expanding the watchdetails to a greater length. However, I'm open to your ideas as always - what do you suggest we do to the current message? Many thanks for your understanding. Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:52, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  The dismiss button doesn't exist for everyone. Could this perhaps have a css class? And would it be too much to add a "(t)" to the end of the message, linking to this page? It's pretty difficult to find. Gimmetrow 00:12, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've gone ahead and added the link to the talk page per your suggestion - I just added it to the end, which I hope is the most logical location. Regarding the CSS - I'm afraid I can't answer that, not being too familiar with coding there. You can manually remove the message using your monobook, though; there's a div class already that allows you to just remove this specific message. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:35, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  The dismiss button on the watchdetails (unlike with the sitenotice) is not built into MediaWiki, nor was it developed by the devs--rather, it's just a js hack. If you have js disabled, the "dismiss" button will not appear, nor will you be able to make the notice disappear, other than editing your Monobook.css (or whichever the relevant one for you is) to add #watchlist-message { display: none; }. AmiDaniel (talk) 00:45, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the clarification - I had an inkling somewhere that the dismiss buttom was only a hack implemented in local (not MediaWiki) code. Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:48, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

text:  Gee, just when I go to test it, the text is gone. Gimmetrow 01:07, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  annoying reminders 

message: Please put ,  around the latest message. Thanks. – Tivedshambo (talk) 04:52, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: AmiDaniel (talk) 05:39, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Watchlist message request 

message: Are the elections going to be on this message, like last year? Majorly (talk) 23:32, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  ArbCom 

message: I just clicked it. How does one undo that, to make it come back? Logging in and out didn't help. Will it come back when the Watchlist message next updates? Lawrence Cohen 19:09, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Did you try clearing your casche? John Reaves 21:01, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dismiss button 

message: Is now closed. Please remove it from people's watchlists. Jonathan321 (talk) 20:43, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Straw poll on Flagged Revs