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May 29

wikipedia

I have a Wikipedia account. Does Wikipedia log the articles I've visited under my account? Obviously they log the articles I've edited. Therapyisgood (talk) 02:34, 29 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No it doesn't. But depending on your browser settings, your browser might record what webpages you've visited. Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:09, 29 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Shantavira: Sure? When I see an article's history, I sometimes see recent edits as "Updated since your last visit". Are they marked after cookies? --Error (talk) 18:01, 29 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Error: AFAICT, you're referring to the updated since you last visited feature which is part of the Help:Watchlist Mw:Help:Watching pages#Recent and related changes, page history. If so, then yes this is definitely stored on the Wikimedia servers along with the watchlist. This doesn't seem particularly surprising though. I mean while having something on your watchlist doesn't mean you've visited it, it's quite likely you have. So frankly the fact you visited a page that is on your watchlist is not particularly revealing. When you visited it might be a bit more revealing, still the feature is there for a reason. If your not happy with it, then the best solution would be to not watchlist articles. Nil Einne (talk) 05:21, 30 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Shantavira: Try logging in to Wikipedia from two different devices (or from two different user accounts on a single device) and see if a page visited from one of them remains unvisited on the other one. If so, it may be a result of a the cookie-based method. On the other hand, if the visited revisions appear visited on the other device, too, which does not share the same cookies, then you'll know it's based on server's records. --CiaPan (talk) 19:36, 29 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In twenty years of editing Wikipedia I don't believe I have ever seen that message, but I don't use a watchlist so, as Nil Einne suggests, I think it may be something to do with those settings. Shantavira|^{feed me} 10:41, 30 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It can be complicated even if you use your watch list (intentionally or not), it only shows if there's been a change since you last visited the page with your account. So if you visit the page with your account then check the history as I guess people often do, it won't be there unless the page changed since you visited and clicked the history which is only likely on fairly active pages. You generally need to visit the history without visiting the page first, e.g. from your watch list, to see it. Nil Einne (talk) 16:08, 30 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

To answer the original question (before the 18:01, 29 May 2022 clarification), it is very likely that the WMF servers log every request that comes to them, and likely in the Common Log Format. Such log lines include both the page requested and the IP it was sent to. In that sense, if you have a fixed IP, yes, Wikipedia logs the article you visit.

Those logs do not include authentication cookies, but it would probably be easy to reconstruct the user id, at least if you log in at every connection. The login request will be logged, so if you see that IP X logged in as user Y you can presume that the pages visited by IP X in the next hour or so are visited by user Y. (There might be other traces too.)

It is also very likely that such logs are never read by a human, and rarely used at all. Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 09:15, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]