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android app watchlist points to wrong change for wikidata edits
Open, LowPublicBUG REPORT

Description

Steps to replicate the issue (include links if applicable):

  • Use the android wikidata app
  • In watchlist, show wikidata changes
  • Have a change made to a wikidata entry related to a wikipedia page
  • Follow the change from the watchlist

What happens?:

  • You are sent to the wikipedia page

What should have happened instead?:

  • You should be sent to the wikidata entry; this is the behavior expected from the webclient

Software version (skip for WMF-hosted wikis like Wikipedia):

2.7.50433-r-2023-03-13

Other information (browser name/version, screenshots, etc.):

Originally reported on enwiki by Verbarson in https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)&oldid=1148144609#Mobile_watchlist_diff_points_to_wrong_project

Event Timeline

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Screenshots:

Watchlist showing J R R Tolkien Wikidata update (second entry on screen), followed by

Screenshot_20230404-114005_Wikipedia.jpg (1×720 px, 168 KB)

Diff page displayed when Watchlist entry is clicked, incorrectly showing latest Wikipedia history entry

Screenshot_20230404-114018_Wikipedia.jpg (1×720 px, 331 KB)

Same behaviour observed on other pages with Wikidata updates; when they are clicked on the Android app Watchlist it displays the latest Wikipedia update instead.

Dbrant triaged this task as Low priority.Apr 4 2023, 4:53 PM
Dbrant removed a project: Growth-Team.
Dbrant subscribed.

(to preface: "wikidata edits" is a new addition to the watchlist screen in the app.)
There seem to be a couple of issues here:

The app uses an API query to get a list of change events that correspond to your watchlist. However, in the case of Wikidata edits (i.e. external watchlist events), the API actually doesn't seem to provide us with the necessary details to construct a diff link to the corresponding Wikidata entity. We'll need to put this in our backlog for now, until we figure out a different/better API query for getting watchlist events with all the necessary details.

The other issue (which we can solve) is that the app currently displays Wikidata edits in your watchlist by default, which is actually not the default on the web version of the watchlist. I don't believe this was intentional, and we should make the default state match the defaults on the web. This is likely to be a source of confusion, so we'll update the defaults in our next release.

True; I don't expect to see Wikidata updates on my watchlist, and had to enable them to follow up this issue. But what about the people who use mobile watchlist and expect and want to see Wikidata updates there? Can they be warned, and will enabling Wikidata watchlist items affect mobile as well as desktop?

what about the people who use mobile watchlist and expect and want to see Wikidata updates there?

You can enable Wikidata updates by going into the Filter selection (tap the "filter" icon in the search bar at the top of the watchlist screen). They will simply not be enabled by default.

will enabling Wikidata watchlist items affect mobile as well as desktop?

Your watchlist filters in the app are separate from your preferences on desktop.