How do I stop an individual or group of users from being able to watch an issue?

[Simon Ward]

We need to restrict some users from the watch issues function. I can see I can do this at a global level, but how can I manage this at lower (group or user) level?

Also it appears from the permissions scheme I have that Anyone can view voters and watchers, but only jira administrators can manage watchers. how come non-admin people can add themselves as a watcher in this instance?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

You can't, to any of those. If watching is allowed, people can add and remove themselves.

Only people you've given "maintain watchers" permission can maintain other people. They have to have the global permission "browse users" in order to find and add other people.

[David Toussaint [Communardo]]

true. While you can still ad/remove watcher if you do not have the "browse users" permission (just typing the username, you will have to know it) you cannot search for users without this permission.

[Simon Ward]

Hi guys - thanks for that.

The aim of the exercise here is to have a generic user id that allows purely browsing. I think we'll have to do it another way by not having the user log in, but amend the system dashboard to show the filters required. it appears to restrict the things that can be done with a issue to virtually nil.

We have lots of non-jira users that need to see the progress of the projects but not have access to change anything.