In Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, I would like to have the option to receive an email whenever a page changes for any reason, and I wouldn't want the emails to stop if I didn't visit the page while logged-in.

Just add the page to you'r watchlist ans set mail notification to on?

In T114587#1700783, @Steinsplitter wrote:

Just add the page to you'r watchlist ans set mail notification to on?

You only get an email the first time the page is edited. Next edits on the same page won't trigger a new email, unless the user actually views the page again (or history), while logged in.

I think the current situation is good to not flood with mail on repetitive edits on the same page. Changing behavior would require a new user preference, but I'm not sure if the current content of the notification is useful enough to not view the page to see what has actually been changed.

In T114587#1700804, @Ciencia_Al_Poder wrote:

I think the current situation is good to not flood with mail on repetitive edits on the same page. Changing behavior would require a new user preference, but I'm not sure if the current content of the notification is useful enough to not view the page to see what has actually been changed.

Agree. Makes sense.

Steinsplitter,

Adding the page to my Watchlist and setting email notifications to on does not provide this functionality - the emails stop if I don't log-in and view the page.

Ciencia_Al_Poder, and Steinsplitter,

The request here is to change the current behaviour so that emails are generated whenever the page changes, even if the user doesn't visit the page when logged-in.

As in the original request for this task, more detail about the page changes could be added to the notification emails.

As an infrequent user, it is time-consuming for me to have to make sure I log-in and view changes for every notification email, or have the emails stop coming.

In T114587#1700878, @PeterEssexHeritage wrote:

As an infrequent user, it is time-consuming for me to have to make sure I log-in and view changes for every notification email, or have the emails stop coming.

I don't say this should not be implemented... in fact gerrit and phabricator work as you describe, so it may be considered. But probably something that a user can turn on or off.

In the meantime, have you actually tried to use an RSS reader instead? Your watchlist has an RSS/Atom feed you can subscribe to, to get notified of new changes, and with a token so you don't need to stay logged in to access it. Just fond an RSS/Atom reader that provides the functionality to notify you whenever the feed receives an update.

Ciencia_Al_Poder,

I agree this feature would be optional.

re RSS Readers, it probably would be possible to set something up so I get emails whenever something on the RSS feed changes.
However, it would involve extra steps to setup, and I would have to make sure the RSS reader is running on my PC, or to use a cloud solution, either of which could fail - eg if I change PC or the cloud company has problems, etc!
Also, the Wikipedia watchlist only has 30 days history, I believe.
A direct email from Wiki would be better, but thanks for the suggestion.

I'm hoping work I do on Wikipeda and Wikimedia Commons will be there for a long time, maybe 100s of years! I would also like to monitor changes in a simple way for the next 30 years, without having to worry about configs, etc.