# What is the significance of the yellow highlighting on some items in the list of MSE questions?

About 2–3% of the questions in the (recency-ranked) main list of MSE questions are set in a block of pale-yellow highlight. The selection appears to be random and doesn't seem correlated with my personal interests or activity on the site. What does the highlighting mean?

Edit $$\;$$ A previous poster asked a corresponding question about blue highlighting. Without the additional answer to this question, it would not be clear that yellow highlighting now means the same as blue highlighting did formerly.

• I think you are "watching" a tag. Here you can see I'm following the measure-theory tag (note the eye symbol) If this isn't it, can you provide a screenshot? Feb 25 at 8:32
• Thank you, @CalvinKhor . It seems that I am "watching" discrete mathematics (which I neither dislike nor have a special interest in). I must have pressed a button by mistake some time. Anyway, I have now successfully pressed the button to "unwatch" this tag. Your comment completely answers the question, and could be posted as an answer. Feb 25 at 10:52
• @CalvinKhor Maybe you could expand your comment to an answer? (So that in the future if somebody asks about the same thing, we can direct the user to this post. That is also the reason why I have added the (tag-watching) tag - so that this question is easier to find when needed.) I remember that I have answers a similar question on MathOverflow Meta - but I did not find such question on this meta. (Of course, it's possible that such question is there and I simply did not find it.) Feb 25 at 11:10
• Sure, though it will most certainly have less links than your MO answer! Feb 25 at 12:00
• @MatthewTowers : I would expect two highlighting colours (blue and yellow) to mean two things. From the (accepted) answer to my question and the answer you link to (but not from either answer alone), it seems that this is wrong. Perhaps the highlighting colour for watched tags was changed between 2018 and now. Whatever the explanation, I think that the present question and answer supersedes, or at least complements, the earlier ones. Feb 25 at 16:42

## 1 Answer

Here is a screenshot:

On Math.SE, the yellow highlighting denotes that you are "watching" a tag. In the above picture, I am watching . This is also indicated by the eye symbol.

There are a few ways I know of to watch a tag. One of them is prone to misclicks: simply mouse-over a tag you want to watch, then at the bottom of the tooltip, click on "watch tag".

If you are already watching the tag, there is an "Unwatch" button instead.

These buttons also appear on the page that you get after clicking on a tag:

The other way is with the "edit" button in the top-right of the list of Watched tags on the right of the front page. After clicking, you should type in the tag you want to watch, or click on the $$\otimes$$ to unwatch.

Note that the eye doesn't appear when there are too many tags, or the tag is too long. There is also the option to 'ignore', which greys out the question and displays a crossed out eye . These can be seen in this screenshot. Ignored tags can also be edited in the corresponding list on the right.

• The eyes are a relatively new feature at the time of writing; see this post on Meta.SE Feb 25 at 12:52