The discussion explores the difference between “watching” and “tracking” a topic on a forum. xgpt notes confusion around the terminology, with developers possibly considering a rename. ondrej and awesomerobot clarify that watching triggers notifications for every new post in a topic, while tracking only notifies for direct replies or mentions. Lilly adds that the settings are explained in the preferences, with screenshots illustrating the options, and references a conversation with the Settings helper for further details.
When I searched for the answer I found a few posts talking about how confusing the terminology was and it seemed as though the developers were considering changing it to subscribe or something?
What is the difference between watching and tracking a topic?
As noted in the above screenshot, watching means you’ll receive a notification for every post made within the topic.
Tracking means you’ll only be notified if someone replies to you directly (by clicking the reply button under your post), or mentions your @username
The settings descriptions in https://yoursite/my/preferences/tracking are pretty straightforward:
These settings are affected by the ones above it in the preferences:
I also inquired with the Settings helper for a full explanation:
