swalling wrote:

(In reply to comment #0)

This is the (hopefully) last split from bug 28026.
This preference is not true by default in our config, nor in the default
MediaWiki config, which doesn't make much sense; I checked inspired by
something jdforrester wrote me: «I assumed that when I created an account
"e-mail me about pages I watch" was switched on, as per most other instances
nowadays». They should indeed!

So, the plan is still the same as in bug 28026 comment 60 by Roan, except that
$wgEnotifWatchlist is currently true:

---

1. Add (or hack in) a MW config var that makes it so the enotifwatchlistpages

preference is visible, but not functional (i.e. enabling it doesn't actually
cause e-mails to be sent). This will stop watchlist e-mail notifs (similar to
disabling $wgEnotifWatchlist) but preserve the preference

2. Enable this config var
3. Compile a list of users that have the preference enabled
4. Set $wgDefaultUserOptions['enotifwatchlistpages'] = 1; . The preference is

now enabled for all users, but because it's not functional, there is no deluge
of e-mail notifications overwhelming our mail system

5. Using a maintenance script, set the preference to 0 for each user

individually, excluding users that already had it enabled (from the list made
in step 3) and invalidating the user cache for each user that it touches.
Running this will probably take a while (a few hours?) on a large wiki like
enwiki

6. Undo step 2 (disable the config var). The preference is now functional again

and enabled for the same set of users, but it will now also be enabled by
default for new users

---

This seemed to be harder than bug 36316 as first step, but unlike bug 36316 it
can't possibly give any problem with bots as long as their watchlists are
empty, and it won't affect existing users (or whatever subset of them we
choose) thanks to the maintenance script.
New users will still have to manually enable enotifwatchlist but won't have to
understand the watchlist before starting to use it...

+1 one to all of Nemo's comments. Please fulfill this request. :)

If we do this, we should make it obvious how to turn it off. It could be good for new users, but overwhelming once someone has watched a large number of articles.

(In reply to comment #2)

If we do this, we should make it obvious how to turn it off. It could be
good
for new users, but overwhelming once someone has watched a large number of
articles.

In the standard enotif, it is obvious. [[translatewiki:MediaWiki:Enotif_body/en]].

aravikn wrote:

Could someone assign this bug to me?

Aravind: If you can confirm that you have found the configuration files of Wikipedia in Gerrit and the place where to fix this (feel free to post a link here), sure. :)

(In reply to comment #5)

Aravind: If you can confirm that you have found the configuration files of
Wikipedia in Gerrit and the place where to fix this (feel free to post a link
here), sure. :)

Note, it requires more than just changing $wgDefaultUserOptions, due to the "for new users" part (changing a default preference/option affects anyone without an override for that preference, not just new users).

The MediaWiki default was just changed per bug 45022.

For anyone wondering, 01b32f67c3d04fa29edc02605abcbae6037297b4 explicitly sets enotifwatchlistpages off for the Wikimedia cluster. That way we can solve this separately (this bug requests to do it just for new users, which is different from the core solution).

No work is needed here, AFAICS.

Okay let's start a discussion in meta:Wikimedia Forum to see if it's actionable or if we need a RFC.

Discussion opened on meta. Wikimedia Forum (diff). We'll see what feedback we can gather there.

Sorry for mixing up core vs. Wikimedia in my above comment.

Also, the difficulty here depends on whether it's actually done only for new users (as originally requested), or for all users.

whether it's actually done only for new users (as originally requested)

IMHO not necessary, can be for all users: those who receive too much mail will quickly disable, but we can't predict what is too much for whom. But my original request was changed by another person in the bug from which this has been split.

In T40796#2294912, @Nemo_bis wrote:

whether it's actually done only for new users (as originally requested)

IMHO not necessary, can be for all users: those who receive too much mail will quickly disable, but we can't predict what is too much for whom. But my original request was changed by another person in the bug from which this has been split.

I don't think we can just do it. We have some users with absolutely ridiculous watchlist sizes. For example, ClueBot NG on enwiki has 2506182 (two and a half million) pages in its watchlist at the moment; File Upload Bot (Magnus Manske) on commonswiki has 1820788 (one point eight million) pages in its watchlist. Both of these accounts have a verified email set (Special:EmailUser works for them).

If we were to send an email for every change to these pages to them, even for a short time before the operators realize what is going on, it would probably be disruptive to whoever the email points at, and potentially also disruptive for Wikimedia (I wonder how many emails per second we can send…).

The numbers here were generated with this query, if anyone with access to Analytics replicas wants to verify:

select user_name, c from (select wl_user, count(*) as c from watchlist group by wl_user) watchlist2
left join user on wl_user=user_id
where user_email_authenticated is not null
order by c desc limit 10;

In T40796#2286301, @Mattflaschen wrote:

Also, the difficulty here depends on whether it's actually done only for new users (as originally requested), or for all users.

Not for all users of course, nor for new users hopefully. → What's the carbon footprint of ... email?

In T40796#2296110, @matmarex wrote:

In T40796#2294912, @Nemo_bis wrote:

whether it's actually done only for new users (as originally requested)

IMHO not necessary, can be for all users: those who receive too much mail will quickly disable, but we can't predict what is too much for whom. But my original request was changed by another person in the bug from which this has been split.

I don't think we can just do it.

Good point.

Someone should email the bots over a million and ask them to clear their watchlist with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:EditWatchlist/clear .

I wonder how ClueBot NG got so many to begin with. "Add pages I create and files I upload to my watchlist" shouldn't have caused that, since I don't know why it would be creating pages.

I don't know if it will actually break anything, but it's probably good to trim down the watchlist table and avoid unnecessary emails.