---
title: Tags and to-dos
tags: [Writing]
---
Two lists hang off every page: **tags** for readers, **to-dos** for editors.
## Why two lists, not categories
On older wikis, categories do two different jobs at once. Some say what a page is about (*Weapons*, *Season 6 legends*). Others are the wiki's housekeeping (*Pages missing an image*, *Articles needing sources*, *Stubs*), added by templates and hidden from readers with a switch. The two kinds live in one list, so readers see the clutter when the hiding is forgotten, editors wade through topics to find the work, and big wikis end up with hundreds of hidden categories nobody can keep track of.
Wiki Forge splits them:
- **Tags** are only about what a page is about. Readers see them, and every tag has a page listing everything with it.
- **To-dos** are only about what a page still needs. Readers never see them; editors get one list of everything to fix, grouped by kind, and the most common problems (broken links, missing images, missing alt text, citations without sources) appear there on their own.
## Tags
Tags say what a page is about. Each tag has its own page listing everything tagged with it, at `/tag/name`, and an article shows its first tag above the title and all of them at the end.
```yaml
---
title: Peacekeeper
tags: [Weapons, Shotguns]
---
```
Tags are flat (no tags inside tags) and match whatever their capitals: `Shotguns` and `shotguns` are the same tag. Other wikis call these categories.
Components can add tags too: an infobox for weapons can tag every page that uses it as a weapon. See [[Writing components]].
## To-dos
To-dos say what a page still needs. Readers never see them; editors see a count on each page and the whole list under **To-dos** in the sidebar, grouped by kind.
They come from three places:
- **Written by hand** in the frontmatter: `todo: [Stub, Needs sources]`.
- **Found by the wiki**: broken links, files that don't exist, components that don't exist, citations without a source, and images without alt text. These are worked out as the list is shown, so they're never out of date.
- **Added by components**: an infobox can add "Add an image" to any page that doesn't give it one.
Fixing the problem clears the to-do; there's nothing to tick off.
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