Github tip: Subscribe for updates to a single Issue / Pull request

When you are active in the open source world working on a bunch of active projects notifications quickly become too large to manage. Here is an example:

Fortunately a way to mange this is to only look at the notifications for issues / pull requests you are participating in.

However many times you don't have a meaningful way to participate and you end up doing this:

Comment just to participate

Fortunately you don't need to do this. If you are watching a repository (because you are active in it) you will see the message "because you're subscribed to this repository" as shown:

You can upgrade a particular issue / pull request to "participating" by clicking unsubscribe then subscribe again. Now you will see the message "because you're subscribed to this thread" as shown:

That's it. Now it will show up in "participating" for your notifications and no one needs to know (or get notified about you subscribing).

Admittedly its intuitive and I only learnt it from experience. I haven't searched for this so perhaps it is a documented way.