I implemented a way to get a Watchlist that does not require you to waste lots of time. This is how I discovered that when you have the Watchlist open in a tab it sends a GET request every second or so: it's continually pulling even if "Live updates" is disabled. This is also how it displays the "View new changes since..." note at the top when things have changed.
I don't need or want this constant pulling when having a Watchlist tab open and it doesn't work with my method to get a working Watchlist, which is why I'd like to disable it. It only drains my computer/network's and MediaWiki servers' resources and has no advantage while having some disadvantages in my case.
However, I couldn't find any setting to disable it in the preferences and other users didn't know of a way to prevent this either.
You can check it like this:
- Open your Watchlist
- Press F12 in Firefox
- Go to the Network tab in that new window
- There should be a new GET request every 2 seconds or so if the JavaScript version of the Watchlist is used (no continous pulling for the old non-JS version)
Could you please add an option to the preferences and/or the Watchlist page to toggle this auto-refreshing?