Change #1305990 had a related patch set uploaded (by Jdlrobson; author: Jdlrobson):

[mediawiki/extensions/DiscussionTools@master] Add click tracking instrumentation to topic subscriptions

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1305990

I was hoping I could get some data comparing watch/subscribe usage [1] but we'd need to add the above instrumentation for that to work:

[1]

select action_source, count(*)
from mediawiki_web_ui_actions
where action = 'click' 
and year = 2026
and month = 6
and mediawiki.skin = 'vector-2022'
and page.namespace_id = 1
and ( action_source = 'ca-dt-page-subscribe' or action_source = 'ca-watch' or action_source = 'ca-unwatch' )
group by action_source

Option 4: promoting subscribe (with icon)Subscribe + watch

Most people probably want to either watch a discussion page (and get notifications about new topics, replies and other changes via Special:Watchlist and email) or subscribe to it (and get notifications about new topics only – with replies being separately configurable per-topic – via Special:Notifications and email); both watching and subscribing to a page would mean duplicate notifications. So I think combining both actions in a common button would be a bad idea.

You attached the same screenshot to options 1 and 2, please replace one of them.

Note that similar comments apply here to those I made on the promote-on-Minerva patch -- namely that this likely makes sense on talk pages, but that shouldn't be conflated with "pages on which the subscribe action is available".

Change #1305990 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/DiscussionTools@master] Add click tracking instrumentation to topic subscriptions

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1305990

So I think combining both actions in a common button would be a bad idea.

Clarification: we're not proposing combining the actions. The proposal is to show watch and subscribe side by side in option 3 and 4.

Thanks for updating the screenshots!

In T430372#12078382, @Jdlrobson-WMF wrote:

Clarification: we're not proposing combining the actions. The proposal is to show watch and subscribe side by side in option 3 and 4.

I could swear there was only one button when I commented that, even though Phabricator history tells that you changed nothing on that image… Maybe I got confused by the different color and the lack of text. After the watch/unwatch tabs recently got texts in addition to the icons, I think adding an icon-only button would be bad both for consistency and discoverability (I’m pretty sure I won’t be the only person to fall into that trap and simply not notice the bell icon). Making both watch and subscribe icon+text could be an option, removing text from either of them shouldn’t be. (Removing text from both of them could once again be an option, but I assume there was a reason to add the text to the watch tab.)