Purpose

To change the 'Notify watchers’ feature to be disabled by default when editing a page.

Solution

For Confluence 5.7 and below

1. Navigate to Custom HTML in Confluence Admin (can be found in Browse >> Confluence Admin >> Custom HTML)
2. Click Edit button

3. In the At end of the HEAD field, copy/paste the following script

   <script type="text/javascript">
   AJS.bind('init.rte', function() {
     AJS.$('#notifyWatchers').attr('checked', false);
   });
   </script>
   

4. Click Save

For Confluence 5.8 above, as suggested by Mikhail Zakharenkov

1. Navigate to Custom HTML in Confluence Admin (can be found in Browse >> Confluence Admin >> Custom HTML)

2. Click Edit button

3. In the At end of the HEAD field, copy/paste the following script

   <script>
   function disableWatchers() {
     setTimeout(disableWatchers, 1000);
     if ( $('#notifyWatchers').attr( "mz" ) != 1) {
       setTimeout(function() {$('#notifyWatchers').removeAttr('checked');}, 1000);
       $('#notifyWatchers').attr( "mz", 1);
     }
   }
   disableWatchers();
   </script>