@Prod do you plan to start a review for your extension?

I'm working on updating the code to match some of the newer features and functionality.

Once that's complete I'll look into getting it fully reviewed. I'm new to the process, so it will take some time.

@Prod: Hi, any news when the extension code will be in a state to start the review process on https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Writing_an_extension_for_deployment ? I see on https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/g/mediawiki/extensions/WatchSubpages/+log/master that https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/plugins/gitiles/mediawiki/extensions/WatchSubpages/+/8f4b57993a4c773e631286697a1ecc21b83a15c0 has been merged for T192402; could you clarify what else is needed? Thanks!

@Aklapper I think it should be ready to start the review process. What do I need to do next? Can this ticket be converted into the central tracking ticket, or do I need to create a new one?

I am guessing you'd need to start the review steps at Writing_an_extension_for_deployment#Preparing_for_deployment.

I've requested a security review at T269517

Change 663892 had a related patch set uploaded (by Prod; owner: Prod):
[mediawiki/tools/release@master] Start branching WatchSubpages

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/663892

I did a quick skim of the code, my main concern is that most of the code is copy and pasted from other special pages like EditWatchlist and PrefixIndex, which suggests it'll be a maintenance burden with duplicated code that falls out of sync.

I read through https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist_Survey_2021/Watchlists/Automatically_add_subpages_in_the_watchlist and feel like this extension in its current form doesn't actually address the request. The request is that when you watch a page, its subpages are also watched, even if those pages are created later on, so newly created subpages will automatically pop up. AIUI this extension just lets you add pages that match a prefix search that already exist.

For the wishlist request, I'd suggest adding a "prefix" watchlist entry (or something), and then having a hook that listens to page creation/deletion to add/remove watchlist entries on demand.

The other issue I see that will come up is the problem with watchlist table size and queries. Watchlist queries are already problematic, and I don't think DBA (explicitly not tagging them yet) will be huge fans of making it easier for people to bulk add pages to their watchlist. Since these are monthly pages, I suspect the entries could expire after a month or two since no one should be editing the old archives, right?

Sidenote: I wonder if people have considered (ab)using T15602 to get people to automatically watch new pages...

Hope this helps.

Change 663892 abandoned by Prod:

[mediawiki/tools/release@master] Start branching WatchSubpages

Reason:

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/663892