The Sims Wiki:Todo/explained

Here you will find the tasks from the |To-do list in greater detail.

Dead-end pages
"The following pages do not link to other pages in The Sims Wiki." This list is usually empty, though sometimes new articles show up here. This can easily be fixed by adding links to other related articles, the game(s) where the subject of the article is from and so on. Many articles also contain infoboxes which usually have many links, though these are templates, which can be tricky for beginners.

Orphaned pages
"The following pages are not linked from or transcluded into other pages in The Sims Wiki." New articles often end up here as no other articles link to them. You can think of related articles and link the orphaned page in a "See also" section. We also have many Category:Lists, perhaps the orphaned page fits in on one of them.

Unused files
"The following files exist but are not embedded in any page. Please note that other web sites may link to a file with a direct URL, and so may still be listed here despite being in active use." If you see an interesting image on this list which you feel could be used in an article, please insert the image there.

Adding content
For starters it's a good idea to find articles about something you like in the games and add information to you think is missing. If there's something you're not sure about adding, try posting about it in the article talk page and others might be able to guide you.

At later task levels you will learn how to find articles in need of content.

Old pages
These pages could use a hand and be freshened up a bit. They're bound to contain outdated templates or in need of a better image.

Categorizing
Before you attempt to categorize, it might be a good idea to look at similar pages to see what categories might be available. The CategoryTree is also a good way to familiarize yourself with the categories. Finally if you find a category something might belong in, check the other pages in the category to see if you are correct.

Note that Category:Browse is always uncategorized since it is the top category.

Our license templates for images also add a license category which removes the file from Special:UncategorizedFiles. The Sims Wiki has therefore created their own special page which lists files and videos without categories in addition to the license categories: Special pages/uncategorized media.

Duplicate images
"Search for duplicate files based on hash values." At the bottom of an image page it will show a link to a duplicate image, just above 'what links here' if the hash values of the images are the same. This means the images have to be completely identical, if someone changes just one pixel in an image and uploads it again, it will not be detected.

The Special:FileDuplicateSearch page leaves much to be desired since you can only search for the title of an image, which is silly since then you'd have to know beforehand that the image is a duplicate. There's a forum thread about how to more effectively search for duplicate images on Community Central.

Luckily there are three work-arounds: Javascript, API & Google.

Javascript
Following a discussion on the Central Community forum, a Javascript was made displaying duplicate images. It is now a custom special page here on The Sims Wiki.

API
The Wikia API can be used to produce a list of all images where the duplicates are marked:

Just look for the indented  in the list. Regular users are limited to displaying 500 files at a time. To continue on "the next page" add  and then the last file on the list (without the File: prefix) eg.

If you have a bot account or if you are at least a sysop, the  can go up to 5,000.

currently has files. That's some pages to search for regular users, but only 2 pages for bots and admins.

Google
Searching the Sims Wiki file domain for the duplicate text string will also find duplicates:

Search google for duplicate files

The above link searches google with the command:

Note that the results may be outdated.