On 11/12/05, Magnus Manske magnus.manske@web.de wrote:

The third one I talked about, but noone saw it yet, so here it is: Task management! (you gonna love this!)

This looks like a really great start, and a much-needed new feature, so thank you. Here are my thoughts on the key things that need work to get this operational (hm, this should probably be on wikitech-l, shouldn't it... re-addressing):

* A proper replacement for manual in-page templates saying "this article has been listed for..." - as mentionned before, things like "wikify" don't need much prominence (though arguably more than the current sidebar link gives), but things like deletion most certainly do. A configurable banner for each task still seems the best way to me, with perhaps a built-in priority for different tasks (so that, for instance, only one banner is ever shown, but with an extra "+ 3 other outstanding tasks" if necessary)

* Actual replacements for AfD, etc - i.e. more viewing options for Special:Tasks, including ones which transclude all the relevant Task:* pages. These should probably be linked to from the little task status tables, as well.

* The "task discussion pages" need a better naming scheme, involving both the pagename and the task in question. e.g. "Task:Main Page/Delete". [I now realise that the current system is actually broken, with the "task box" relying only on the task's ID number, so that http://www.magnusmanske.de/wikipeerdia/index.php/Task:Delete_%281%29 and http://www.magnusmanske.de/wikipeerdia/index.php/Task:Wikify_%281%29 show the same metadata, but different content.]

* Obviously, presentational details can be fiddled with relatively easily, but I thought I'd mention that on the Task: pages themselves, the "This task is for..." message seems a bit hidden, and the "initial comment" might need to be more prominent to look like the start of the conversation that will take place below it.

Like I say, great start, and these are just a few thoughts, most of which you'd probably already thought about, but not had time to do yet. Y'never know, I might find time to help out (though presumably this isn't in CVS yet, since we don't really have an 'unstable' branch there atm, HEAD being the version live on Wikimedia).

-- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP]