Tasks with start date far in the future sorted too high by urgency

[Cito]

Expected Behavior

I have the following two tasks:

- [ ] task 1 - default prio starting tomorrow🛫 2022-05-27
- [ ] task 2 - medium prio starting in ten years 🔼 🛫 2032-01-01

In this example, you need to change 2022-05-27 to the date that corresponds to "tomorrow".

When ordering them by urgency, I expect that task 1 shows up first, and then task 2.

Current Behavior

Task 2 is shown first, then task 1.

Steps to Reproduce

Use this to show the tasks above, after changing the date of the task starting "tomorrow":

sort by urgency

Context (Environment)

• Obsidian version: 0.14.13
• Tasks version: 1.5.1

Possible Solution

The problem here is the formula for calculating the scores linked above, not its implementation.

Currently, a task with a start date in the future will always get a score of -3, no matter how far it will start in the future. If that tasks has a medium priority, its total score will be -3 + 3.9 = 0.9 which is still above the score of a default task.

Strictly speaking, a task with a start date in the future should have a score of -infinite, since the start date indicates that you simply cannot work on the task before that date. It makes sense to show these tasks in an ordered list to be aware that these will soon pop up, or maybe you can actually arrange to work on it earlier anyway. But it makes no sense to have a task that can be started only in one year shown before one that is actionable now.

I suggest to increase the penalty score for the start date the more it is in the future. If it is more than 2 weeks in the future, the penalty should be higher than any positive score that the task could get via its due date or priority.

[schemar]

Thank you for the proposed change, @Cito. Moved it to the discussion section, as it is not a bug.