Wikipedia talk:To-do list

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[edit] Initial Contributors

The To-do list mechanism has been set-up in July-Aug 2004. Many thanks to the following initial contributors:

Please add any that may have been forgotten.

[edit] Do we need a list of articles with "To do's" ?

Comments moved from the Village Pump

In the frame of the WikiProject Science, we have started to write "To do lists" in the talk page of articles needing improvements. The goal is to give specific suggestions to make the article "Feature class", and to encourage editors to do them.

We see this as a complement of the "Pages needing attention", i.e. those in which problems are know. "To do lists" are long term, while "pages needing attention" require immediate correction. This helps keep the list of "pages needing attention" short and accelerate the corrections. See the WikiProject for more details.

Was anything like this attempted before ? Any suggestion on how to do this better ? Would it be OK to generalize the process and write a general "List of articles with To do's". Pcarbonn 18:15, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I recently started doing this on a couple of talk: pages, and I think it's a good idea. Perhaps it would be acceptable / useful to make a convention for a "zone" at the top of the talk page where this kind of summary information can be seen prominantly, rather than being buried between lengthy conversations half-way through a talk page? — Matt 23:52, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps a todo talk subpage could become standard, located at Talk:Article name/todo. Then, at the very top of the talk page, the template {{todo}} could be added (see: Template:todo). This might be a good standard way of adding a todo list to an article. —siroχo 00:58, Jul 26, 2004 (UTC)

I like the idea of a template. (I have changed yours a bit). One advantage is that it makes it easy to build the list of articles with todo's using the Wikipedia search list. I have already done this for the list of accuracy disputes in Wikipedia:Accuracy dispute (it is more accurate than the previously-used "What links here" mechanism). Unfortunately, the search index is not updated in real time. Actually, I found out that it is not updated at all for the moment. Can anyone say when it will be updated again ? Pcarbonn 17:44, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I modified your new template to work under different namespaces (although it should only be used under the various talk namespaces), and have created a short draft of a policy page at Wikipedia:Todo list. This seems like it could turn out to be very useful for organizing work on big articles. (edit:) I also added a category to the template, which may or may not be necessary and useful, we can remove it if it seems better that way. —siroχo 20:54, Jul 26, 2004 (UTC)
Looks great. I like the idea of the category created by the template. However, I suspect that clicking on a link in the category page will bring you to the talk page, not the talk/todo page. This would not be convenient. This is an argument to have the todo in the talk page itself (under a "To do" section) rather than in in a separate page. (The header of the todo section would be included in the template.) Pro: makes the todo list more visible by editors, and facilitates access to the todo list from the category. Con: puts constraints on how the todo list can be organised (need to use sub-sections, need to place it at the top, ...) Overall, I prefer having it in the talk page. What do you think ? Pcarbonn 11:29, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I think the ToDo list should be on the Talk page, not a subpage. If it's an extra click away, then editors are less likely to use it — it's hard enough to get people to read the Talk: pages of articles they are editing. — Matt 18:55, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I can agree with keeping the todo list on the talk page itself. We just want to encourage people to keep the todo list useful—no discussions right in the todo list, keep the todo list at the top of the page above all discussions, etc. I've modified template:todo to do the following: It still only needs to be included as {{todo}}, and the list is stored on {{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}/todo but In the template, i've included {{{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}/todo}} which basically puts all the text of the todo page right there, like a template. I think this is a good way to do it because it will stop people from adding text in the middle of the todo list, unless they mean to edit the list specifically. It'll also keep the talk page cleaner in general, and this could save space on exceptionally long talk pages (if which there are many). The todo list is the first visible thing on the talk page, and editing it is just a single click. For an example of how it looks in action, see User talk:Siroxo/test. —siroχo 20:31, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)
OK, that looks really good. — Matt 21:02, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Awesome ! Pcarbonn 21:08, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Good work all around, I think this will really be useful now. Is there anywhere else we should post about this for other people to check over and start using? —siroχo 20:40, Jul 28, 2004 (UTC)

I have added it to Wikipedia:Peer review. Still, I would be bold, and launch it now. What's the risk ? If you agree, please proceed. Pcarbonn 21:40, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Usage

I like the idea. It may be tricky to get people to use it properly, considering that one can't police it (one for each article). There'll be people breaking every rule/suggestion here. The other pages will be ignored (cleanup, peer review, etc). Most likely rule to be broken is "a todo list is not a place for experimental ideas (these should be discussed first to reach a consensus)".

Zoney 23:24, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

We'll see how it develops in practice, I suppose. I would think that regular editors of the corresponding article will watch the todo list, just as they watch the article and the talk page, so that they will be some form of control. It will be in the interest of all to agree on the todo. Pcarbonn 11:10, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I think the general wikipedian population will continue to police their favorite articles' todo lists. Hopefully, if people decide the "requirements" we've listed for todo lists aren't satisfactory, then the requirements will be updated. Peer Review probably won't be ignored, it has a different purpose in general. We'll have to see how things work out with Cleanup and PNA —siroχo 12:29, Jul 29, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Ideas

Now, if one could dynamically generate the "cleanup" and "pages needed attention" (at least) from the to-do lists, that would be, well, great! So a page with a certain number of to-do items would appear on specialised list pages, either generated on request, or updated regularly by a script (if on-request generation would involve too much server load). If one could rank urgency on the to-do lists this would be great for computer-generated pages also! Seriously, one could do away with the awkward cleanup and pages needing attention pages!

Additionally, the items on a users to-do suggestion box (or whatever it's called) could be randomly picked using these parameters (no. of items, urgency of items) from the page-specific to do lists.

I hope all that sounds coherent! I've just gotten a list of what one could call to-do items from posting an article on Wikipedia:Featured article candidates (it was on Wikipedia:Peer review for a week previous without comment). I love the idea of a to-do list for each page, because in the situation described, people might have contributed all along to a to-do list.

Zoney 23:24, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hey, why not. I think these are good ideas. Let's investigate how it could be done in practice. (I'm afraid that some of this would require some changes in the Wiki engine, so it may take some time before getting there.) Pcarbonn 11:10, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

146.201.25.237 (talk) 22:29, 15 May 2008 (UTC) Would it be possible(and legal) to use this in another mediawiki site? I tried to export all the templates under the To Do category and import them with no luck. Not being a Template expert I couldn't figure out what other dependencies needed to be brought in. Perhaps some simple installation instructions in this section or a "Installation" section would be awsome.

[edit] Sort articles by popularity in the category ?

Because the Todo mechanism deals with long standing requests, the list of articles with a Todo could get very long, maybe 10,000 articles... It would be nice to put some order in it.

The best order is to use the most popular articles first. This way, editin effort is placed where it is most valuable. Popularity can be measured by the number of pages that link to it, like Google does.

Unfortunately, Wiki does not offer a variable that contains the number of pages that link to a page yet, as far as I could find.

So we would have to resort to a manual process in the mean time, where readers would state the priority of each page with a todo. One way would be to use a parameter : {{todo|<priority>}}, where <priority> would be 1 for a very popular article, 9 for a not very popular article. So this priority would apply to the page (not to a particular task).

For example, we could define the priority as follows:

  • 9 for 1 or 2 links
  • 8 for 2 to 5 links
  • 7 for 5 to 10 links
  • 6 for 10 to 20 links or less than 1 page
  • 5 for 20 to 50 links or less than 2 pages
  • 4 for 50 to 100 links or less than 3 pages
  • 3 for 100 to 200 links or less than 6 pages
  • 2 for 200 to 500 links or less than 12 pages
  • 1 for more than 500 links or more than 12 pages

Of course, we could have some abuse on this, but that's the same for any part of wiki: we'll have to trust that self-monitoring will do its trick. Having a standard rule (the number of pages that links to it) helps resolve conflicts.

This priority level could then be used in 2 ways: to build sub-categories, or to sort the articles using the sort keys in the category.

I modified the template to use the second option, and I have entered the priority of the existing pages. (However, categories with sort keys still have technical problems: "One-time pad" still comes on top)

What do you think ? Should we update the policy to reflect this ? Any other options ?

Posted: Pcarbonn 16:30, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I'd prefer to use alphabetization, simply because its harder to find articles in the list if they are there by priority rather than alphabetization. Perhaps we can create separate categories even like "Todo priority 1", "...2", "...3", etc or something, and use a priority variable to sort them there? Anyways, I'm sorry for changing your numbers though, I didn't quite realize what they were for until I had already done it to alphabetize the category. If its decided that we want to use your system exclusively, i'll change them back myself. But I think that we should consider leaving it alphabetized, and perhaps creating separate categories. —siroχo 22:20, Jul 30, 2004 (UTC)
No problem for the numbers. I still have them on a paper, so it will be easy for me to put them back if needed. I guess I was to quick to implement it: I should have waited for the discussion to take place...
Although I do not see the interest to sort them alphabetically as you suggest, the ideas are not incompatible: we can have a category "todo of popular articles" and "todo in alphabetic order". Yet, if you are searching for a particular article, why don't you go directly to it ?? Please explain when you would use the alphabetic order.
From a collaborative point of view, I think it is important to focus the editing effort to where it matters (have you seen how much time is spent on Wikipedia:Cleanup on "irrelevant articles") ? I'm not saying that cleanup should not be done like that, but we are missing a mechanism to focus effort on important articles too. Todo lists are the ideal way to do it.
Also, yesterday I have introduced a request for enhancement to Wiki to be able to automatically list the todo-list articles with the most recent first. This way, we would have 2 (or 3) list: by priority for the occasional reader, most-recent-first for the addict to Todo lists (who checks it every day) (and alphabetic if needed). This could be of benefit to other collaborative-mechanisms too (e.g. requested pictures) Pcarbonn 09:13, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Have now created 2 categories: todo (by alphabetical order) and to-do of popular articles. Unfortunately, the sort works properly in the first one, but not in the second. Any help to fix that is welcome. Pcarbonn 09:46, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

As there are only 17 real articles in Category:To do, this seems like a non-issue. --Eequor 08:58, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Please realize, this idea is only a couple weeks old, and not even finished yet, it will grow in popularity as time passes, so its certinaly not a non-issue. The point is to plan for the future. —siroχo 11:57, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Finding another name (completed)

How about... "to-do" :o) Zoney 19:39, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

  • I think "to-do" is usually used in the sense of tumultuous behavior, so "to do" might be better. —siroχo 21:53, Aug 1, 2004 (UTC)
    • Yep, you're right. "To do" is the proper form. Well, there shouldn't be any difficulties simply renaming it "to do" rather than "todo". It'd be good to nip the bad English in the bud now rather than be stuck with it. Zoney 11:24, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've changed everything from 'todo' and 'to-do' to 'to do', EXCEPT the template is still named template:todo, or {{todo}} simply because that seems standard. Think {{copyvio}}, {{compactTOC}}, {{notenglish}}, etc. Thanks to anyone who helped finding and solving the name problem, so we could get it early. —siroχo 22:48, Aug 2, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] What to do when to-do list items are all completed

One question we haven't even considered yet is what to do when all the items on a to-do list are completed. Here are a few options,

  1. Add more items (will not always apply)
  2. Remove template, save list
    • When doing this, it might be nice to replace {{todo}} with a {{completedtodo}} template that might say "The to-do list for this page has no remaining tasks" with a link to the list. The new template would not contain a link to category:to do
  3. Remove template, delete list
    • Would need a Wikipedia:To-do lists for deletion page then
  4. Leave near-blank template (category will clutter with unneeded to-do lists)

I think a combination of 1,2 and 3 would probably serve best, but I'm really not sure, and would love to hear other opinions.
—siroχo 07:49, Aug 10, 2004 (UTC)

I would start with a simple and intuitive process:
  • remove tasks from the /todo page as you go along (why clutter it with striked-through tasks as I've seen on some To do's ?)
  • when the list of task is empty, remove the {todo} from the talk page. This will remove it from the categories.
I'm not sure why we would need the Wikipedia:To-do lists for deletion : Please explain. I would just leave the /todo page there, in case it is needed in the future... (it does no harm to leave it there, as far as I know).
If needed, we could later add invitations to add more tasks to the To do, using the features you suggest. I'm not sure we would need it though, and could clutter the talk page needlessly.
Any other point of view ? Pcarbonn 16:44, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Editing/Saving/Adding spaces with change in to do

I think this has to do with browser cache. Have you tried using a reload/refresh? —siroχo 00:51, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I did that. (I had the problem only after an update of the to-do list, not when creating it). My cache settings are as follows: "Check for newer versions of search page: Automatically". Maybe it would better to select: "Every visit to the page". I'll try next time I have the problem. Pcarbonn 04:45, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Todos

The current template does not work well outside of the main namespace. I've created Template:WikipediaTodo to use in the WP namespace. - UtherSRG 11:31, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Note for future reference: this has been fixed. --- Charles Stewart 04:48, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Purge link

I recently added a link to "action=purge" on the Template:todo, and was asked to explain its purpose here, which I'm glad to do.

Some browers, notably Microsoft Internet Explorer, have a bad habit of caching pages excessively, not always downloading a new copy of the page when it needs to. This is especially evident in the following situation (which commonly occurs when editing to-do lists):

  • Page A includes Template B.
  • User C updates Template B, but not Page A.
  • User C then returns to Page A, which Internet Explorer thinks hasn't been updated, when it really has. Thus User C gets an out-of-date version, and is forced to either:
    1. manually delete his browser cache and reload
    2. do some bizarre combination of Alt-Ctrl-F5 or something to force a reload
    3. use Wikipedia's built-in "action=purge" parameter, which also forces a reload.

To me, at least, the latter option is much easier to use. That's why I added it as a wikilink directly on the template. I do agree that the to-do template is bulky enough as is, which is why I added it as a link only for the ":" character.

Now, if the consensus is that this minor addition bloats the template by too much, that's fine by me. I was only trying to help out those Wikipedians with less-than-optimal web browsers. (Including myself; I'm too used to IE :-P) • Benc • 21:41, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As this template is solely for editors, I think its fine with an extra link, especially if its useful. —siroχo 04:17, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Obvious question

But where *are* the pages of to do lists? 212.85.6.26

here? --Open4D 15:39, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bad grammar in the "Spelling and Grammar" section?

At the bottom of this project page is the "spelling and grammar" section. It includes the phrase in quotes "List of To do's". Surely the apostrophe in there is wrong since there is no contraction or possession. Like the so-called grocer's apostrophe in "cheap apple's for sale". --Open4D 15:30, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Subject specific to do list

I've created (ie. cut and pasted) a new template Template:Logic task which uses the category Category:Logic to do, which I've made a subcat of the regular to do cat. I'm guessing that a similar shipping out of article to do lists by wikiproject would make a lot of sense.

Note: there is no current WikiProject Logic, but it's on the cards. --- Charles Stewart 05:22, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New template

I have created a new template which uses a much-simplified scheme for doing all the complicated namespace-specific linkage and takes care of the priority stuff. Use {{todo priority}} with a single parameter, the priority number: I haven't set it up to cope with the oddity that is Category:To do, priority 1 (Top) yet (just a bit of crafty code should do it Template:;-)) but for priorities 2–9 it's working fine. If you don't give a priority, it automagically uses Category:To do, priority undefined until you do. Assuming nobody can find any serious bugs with it, I'll be replacing priorities 2–9 with it ASAP and nominating the associated templates for deletion. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 08:22, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] No-category version

I have created a version of the to-do list which does not add to any categories. {{todo_nocat}}. I wanted to use it on my user page (as some other wikipedians do) but I want to have the option of not having my page added to Category: To do or other categories. I don't know much coding, but I used guesswork and it seems to function okay. --Singkong2005 03:21, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] To-do list templates for specific articles?

I would like to create a to-do list for a subject area (Appropriate technology), which interested users can insert onto their own user or talk page, using a template.

A possible but undesirable way would be to copy {{India tasks}} or {{WikiProjectMelbourneTasks}}. The problem is that these make for tables that are fiddly to edit when maintaining the list. I would rather keep it simple for anyone to use, just like the to-do list. Can someone help or offer a suggestion? Thanks, Singkong2005 04:54, 27 January 2006 (UTC)


Here's a possible approach: use the existing {{todo}} template for articles' talk pages. But we write another template which recreates the to-do box on any page, by referring the template to a the relevant source page. We could call it, say, {{todo_mirror}}

E.g. If a user adds this this code to their page:

    {{todo_mirror|Wikipedia:Indonesia-related topics notice board}}

or

    {{todo_mirror|Talk:Roma people}}

then the pending tasks list which appears on their page would be derived from [[Wikipedia:Indonesia-related topics notice board/to Talk:Roma people/to do for these cases.

A couple of points:

  • This version should not have "edit - history - watch - purge", but rather should direct people to the talk or project page where the {{todo}} is found.
  • It should not add the user page to any "to do" categories.

I've made an attempt, but I can't figure it out - I don't know much coding. --Singkong2005 00:24, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Archived Peer Review

The archive link is red. Where's the archived peer review? Quadzilla99 20:04, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:TODO redirect

Currently, WP:TODO redirects here, to this template description. The redirect isn't in heavy use, and I'd like to propose changing it to redirect to an actual list of items to be worked on, such as Wikipedia:Community_Portal#Todo. This would be useful for leaving messages for new members - ie, "if you're looking for something to work on, try WP:TODO". Thoughts? --ZimZalaBim (talk) 20:33, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. This place can always use WP:TODOBOX or something. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 01:53, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Needs a hide/show button

This desperately needs a hide/show button, and a parameter to have it hidden by default. The code for this can be ripped from any of a number of other templates (I've even seen a WikiProject talk page banner that does this - it has a line reading something like "Project to-do list [show]" and it uses the same to-do list as this box template. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 01:53, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] That's an idea

Uhh, if this is in the wrong place, will somebody please move it? I wanted to suggest a page listing NFL 1-game or "special" records, like "most interceptions in a row". Trekphiler 15:05, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shrink the size of the "to-do" box

I have a to-do box on my userpage. It is too big for some screens. in other words it begins below my userboxes as opposed to being beside it. How can that be fixed? Is there a way to shrink the box size? thanks, PGPirate 17:00, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Priority vs. urgency

The list currently has a 'priority' (popularity, more accurately) status, but what about the urgency of the work? Some articles only need minor adjustments or have very low urgency tasks such as 'improve related articles', 'maintain quality' etc. Should this also be a factor, as with class/importance in banners? Richard001 07:53, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Instructions please

Greetings. I found the instructions inadequate. This is complicated (for me) so please look over the step-by-step and see if it really works. Where to put the * bullet point tasks? Would help to have a screen shot or two. See my problems here, thanks. HG | Talk 13:07, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Change of surname Douchewich to Norman de Mattos Bentwich

I have altered on the Rosalind Franklin's page, the surname of Norman de Mattos Bentwich which was written as Douchewich but when that's translated from Dutch it is a "shower". But he was a lawyer and her uncle. When I was looking into her last year, his name was shown up correctly as Bentwich which was his father's name too.

They were important people for the UK in the last century 20th. As was his wife, Helen Caroline Franklin. A suffragette and a local councillor.

Feline23 (talk) 15:50, 13 May 2008 (UTC)