For full analogy I'd say a clickable count between Writeups and Location

Taking my profile as example:

...
Writeups:       12121
Watched:        1
Location:       Darmstadt, Hesse
...
[download]

I'd also hide it from other users the same way private-scratchpad and pad-edit links are hidden.

if(  $NODE->{author_user} == $USER->{node_id}  ) {
[download]

(Not sure about the last part, I am reading the code with my mobile ATM)

Updates

• If you want, I could provide a patch this weekend
• you may also want to add a backlink to this thread to My Watched Nodes, as a provisional documentation for newbies exploring the features here.

Hrm. I don't think it belongs on the homenode, which is really meant to be publicly-visible information about the user. For user-private things, we have settings and so on.

add a backlink to this thread to My Watched Nodes

I added a sitedoc to My Watched Nodes, but it's pretty bare-bones — currently just a link, as you suggested. I hope someone in SiteDocClan will come along and make real documentation. The PerlMonks FAQ needs matter added.

I also added a statement of count in My Watched Nodes.

Today's latest and greatest software contains tomorrow's zero day exploits.

Thanks.

I really think adding it to the homenode makes the feature more explorable and acceptable.

But it's your decision!

If you ever change your mind I'll be happy to provide the patch.

One other suggestion: adding the node's author² to the watchlist might help too.¹

And - as a meditation - are you considering also to add a "follow Monk" feature, once this proved to work?

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
see Wikisyntax for the Monastery}

Updates

¹) that's actually easily done with just the node's id using the templates we were discussing recently -> Docs for enhanced linking style with '<' for '|' ?

²) and maybe timestamp ? 🤔