following up on the discussion of LT
As far as I know, there is no way to be notified for LQT talk pages in the same way as one is notified of changes to watched non-LQT talk pages. If one has the entire talk page watched, all new messages posted to that page appear in New messages. Otherwise, only responses to individual threads which are watched appear in New messages. One can watch a specific thread by clicking "Watch" in the menu in the top-right corner of a thread. Replying to a thread also automatically adds a thread to one's watchlist. (So, to answer Eirikr's question "Do I have to unwatch the page to not be notified of every single thread update?", yes, one does.)
Thank you, Yair, that's helpful. I think I've gathered that threads are stored as sub-pages of a user's Talk page, so if that's correct, that also answers my other question from before -- i.e., watching the Talk page will not show changes as expected in my watchlist. -- Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 22:30, 2 April 2012 (UTC)