Common wiki tasks to help out

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Contributor's guide — Guidelines — Fixing errors howto
Editing pages — Talk pages — Formatting
Code of conduct — About Gentoo wiki — Wiki FAQ

There are some common tasks around the wiki that are easy for anyone to start contributing to. This is a list of common wiki tasks to help out, along with some pointers on how to get started with them.

See also
Check out the Contributor's guide to learn how to easily edit wiki pages.

Tackle todo tasks

The central hub for things that need doing is of course Category:Todo. Check out that category for all the things on the wiki that have been flagged as needing work.

There are also specific pages that have been flagged with todo lists on them: Category:Todo articles.

It's always useful to add any useful todo items to a page with the {{Todo}} or {{InfoBox todo}} templates. Please add such templates when noticing anything missing or that needs changing, if the work cannot be done right away.

Document solutions to issues that have been solved

When issues are solved on IRC, in the forums, or elsewhere, it will help users to resume the solution and integrate it in the wiki - either as documentation, or in a "troubleshooting" section, appropriately.

Flesh out a stub

Stub pages are always in need of development. A starting point can be writing pertinent sections to follow blueprints, if such sections don't yet exist.

Make an article conform to guidelines

It's great to have useful content, but for readability and coherence across the wiki, articles should also conform to the guidelines. For users starting out, or who have not yet read it, please read the Contributor's guide - it's what lets our documentation form a consistent whole across the wiki.

Adapting content to the guidelines can involve adding appropriate formatting elements (such as {{C}}, {{Cmd}}, <var>cow</var>, etc.), adjusting writing style, adding lead-in sentences, etc.

Sometimes an article will need rewording to avoid first and second person writing. Using a search function to go over the article and locate words such as "you", "your", "I", "we", "our", "one", etc. can be helpful.

Some common constructs and example replacements:

"you can do X to..." > "X can be done to...", "doing X is an option to..."
"now you should do X" > "do X"
"edit your config file" > "edit the config file"

Follow blueprints

Some articles such as those concerning a piece of software or hardware should conform to blueprints.

Add sections with appropriate content where useful - don't add sections just to hold to the template, the content must be of particular value for the article, otherwise sections from the blueprint should be omitted. Don't add empty sections.

Rename any sections that have content corresponding to a blueprint section but have used a different naming scheme.

Reorder sections so that they are in the same order as in the blueprint. Reorder the InfoBox items also, if necessary.

Even articles that don't have explicit blueprints should follow the "spirit" of the blueprints.

Reply to and close discussions

Often new users, and sometimes even more experienced ones, don't format talk pages properly. If needed, move new sections to the bottom of the page, new comments to the bottom of each section, indent each new comment properly, add {{Unsigned}} if needed. Make sure there is a {{Talk}} template for each section, and a {{Talk page}} template at the top of the page.

It's very useful to reply to any discussions if possible, and even better to be able to [[Help:Talk_pages#Closing_discussions[close them]].

Stub a new page

For topics that would be useful, it will often help to create a {{Stub}} page with as much information as possible, so that, and even to encourage, other to add to it.

Tag with maintenance templates

Some pages need work, or merit warning readers. Use the Category:Maintenance_templates to mark articles accordingly.

Follow recent changes

Watching the recent changes for obvious errors is a good way to keep things in check.

Fix links

There is a nascent effort to detect and fix links across the wiki.

Article layout details

Alphabetize

By default, lists, tables, see also sections etc. are presented in alphabetical order.

Source spacing

Some conventions are generally followed across the wiki, such as having empty lines above and below section titles.