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Wiki: enhancing pending changes management

Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2011 9:55 am
by JML
On the Wiki there's a few Templates to suggest articles changes and make those proposals stand out in the targeted articles. But there's no way I know to get a list of those proposals, and thus be able to review them.

What I suggest, if you agree, is I add a category to those templates, create the category pages and link the latter to the Editor:To Do's page.

The templates list is:

Re: Wiki: enhancing pending changes management

Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2011 6:14 am
by JML
Done, there: Editor:To Do

Re: Wiki: enhancing pending changes management

Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2011 2:04 pm
by Azhrei
Actually, it looks like you can visit the Template page itself (such as Template:Deprecated) and then click the "What links here" on the left-hand side of the window. That does a search and brings up a list of all pages that link to the template. When I tested it the search results included the word "inclusion" which I'm guessing means it wasn't "linked to" per se, but included (as templates are).

Re: Wiki: enhancing pending changes management

Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2011 4:57 am
by JML
You're right Azhrei. I overlooked the "What links here" on the templates page, also I knew of it a few months ago.

Here, I think the point is that the existence of a way of doing something is not enough if that's the only way and it's awkward. This must have been the reason why I forgot about it.

Let me explain:
  • To get one list this way you must:
    1. Know you can get it from the template's page,
    2. Go to this page,
    3. Ask for the list.
  • Now if you want an overview of all kinds of changes that have been asked for, you must:
    1. Go to the Special Pages,
    2. Ask for Categories,
    3. In the categories list, ask for the Templates category,
    4. Sort out from this list the relevant templates,
    5. Go on each template to get the list of articles using it.
  • However, the list you get this way is just a plain, single column, unsorted list! I wouldn't call it user-friendly :)
Now, looking for wiki edition instructions and rules, I found this Editor:To Do page. It was nearly empty and unused for years but I thought having a sole entry point to ask for articles changes was still a good idea.

No one was using it because:
  1. You must be aware the page exists,
  2. Once you've done the job, using a template to suggest a change, you're not inclined to do it a second time by reporting it on the To Do page.
Adding the relevant templates to categories:
  • Summarising is automatic,
  • You've got it all in one place,
  • Category presentation is user-friendlier,
  • You can easily add or delete templates from the summary,
  • This shouldn't break anything in the wiki.
Is there something I got wrong?