Watchers - how to allow a user to only add themselves as a watcher

[Hilary Boyce]

Currently we don't allow our client users to use the @mentions feature because it has meant they would be able to see the names and details of users from other clients.  However I understand this is now limited to the project for the comments and description fields which is where it is most useful.  I know our clients would love to have this feature enabled.  However the area of watchers is still a problem.  Currently they have manage watchers permission and could still see all users there, so I would like to be able to change the watcher permissions so that they would still be able to add themselves as a watcher but not add others.  I haven't found anything that suggests how to do this or if it is possible (although I'm sure I've added myself as a watcher on Atlassian's own tickets in the past and not been given the option of adding others.  Can this be done or do we have to choose between @mentions or watching?

[Hilary Boyce · Accepted solution]

It seems that when you disable their manage watchers permission the user can still add/remove themselves as a watcher of the issue.  This just doesn't seem to be documented anywhere!