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Usability stats

Would the usability initiative be able to provide any input into decisions about how stub templates and categories are used? Basically what we have is a sensible arrangement derived from reasonable, but untested assumptions, we have one and a half million stubs, and no way of knowing how effective tagging, categorising etc are. We could of course do some simple tests ourselves. For example take a sample of 20,000 stubs and de-tag half, wait a month and see if there was a difference in the percentage expanded. Or try different tagging methods or location. Or try advertising 100 selected stubs via different means (subject projects, clean-up projects, Signpost, talk pages, mailing lists, universities). Rich Farmbrough, 04:09, 7 February 2011 (UTC).

FWIW, I keep an eye on those of my contribs which have been re-edited after my last edit (via a "hide top" on my contribs list) - I'm finding that the majority of stubs which I move to more specific stub categories seem to get either improved or expanded within a couple of weeks (though most still remain at stub level). So it's not entirely untested assumptions, though (of course) I don't have a "control group" to compare it to. As to the advertising of stubs, that's already done regularly via WikiProjects and user talk pages. Grutness...wha? 22:06, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

That's interesting data, I have just done some work on stubs SmackBot edited in 2009, and a significant proportion of them have not been touched since - so that's some kind of a control. But again that is an impression, not a hard figure, and we don't know what biases my be in either sample. Rich Farmbrough, 16:18, 10 February 2011 (UTC).

True, it's more anecdotal evidence than good hard facts, but it is perhaps indicative. I've also no indication of how frequently those articles were being edited before I changed/added the stub templates. Grutness...wha? 22:27, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Two blank lines prior to stub templates - revisited

I made a change change to this guideline, removing the requirement to have two blank lines before stub templates, and was reverted on the argument that the outcome of this archived discussion was not I as I think. I find that very arguable. See also this discussion, where two blank lines was said to give "the desired spaceing". This is precisely what I contest. I think the outcome of the old discussion here was that such spacing is not deemed necessary by most. Your opinions please. Debresser (talk) 09:57, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

IMO the instruction is probably not needed, but since it's already been in place for so long it's better to just leave it in. However, if you want to get rid of the 2 blank lines requirement then it's better to just remove that sentence altogether, instead of changing the requirement to 1 blank line, as then we'd be getting thousands of useless edits by users and/or bots wanting to make articles conform to this new rule. -- œ^™ 10:23, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

That (removing any specific requirement altogether) is also fine with me. Although the best thing in my opinion is to be clear about it and change the requirement to one, and just agree to not make any special efforts, apart from changing it in AWB. Debresser (talk) 13:24, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

There are no users or bots making edits to put them in, so your statement seems without merit. Rich Farmbrough, 13:45, 1 March 2011 (UTC).

I think you have to look at stubs templates which use "tall" icons, which butt up against navboxes in an unsightly manner. Years ago users caught loads of flack for formatting without two blank lines. And the same used to apply to navboxes until CSS was changed, you can still see (some quite snarky) HTML comments in many articles, designed to preserve those blank lines. Rich Farmbrough, 13:45, 1 March 2011 (UTC).

Do we have an example? Debresser (talk) 14:49, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Who can change the CSS, btw? Debresser (talk) 14:50, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree, a double space is not needed. -- Basilicofresco (msg) 12:00, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Some things do look bad with only one line in between but I've never seen an example of something that would exist in an article. Perhaps the specific stub templates that need an extra line should include the line as part of the template? McLerristarr | Mclay1 15:18, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The stub template with tallest image that I know of is {{Chile-geo-stub}} (if it were normal height it'd be too narrow to see). On Iquique Province it's given two blank lines beforehand, on Laguna del Laja National Park just one; Laja Lake has none. I don't think that being without a gap is such a big problem. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:57, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Definitely not. That stub template with only one blank line looks fine to me. Debresser (talk) 22:31, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

WP:FOOTERS states that the order is navboxes, ..., categories, stubs, interlanguage links (ILLs). Since no article should be uncategorised, there will always be some cats, and so stubs shouldn't be butting against the navboxes unless the article doesn't comply with MOS in at least these respects (the aforementioned Laguna del Laja National Park has the stubs before the cats, whereas Laja Lake has the navbox after the cats). I don't actually see why two blank lines are needed as opposed to one; an argument in the past was that this made it easier for bots to detect the stubs, but any well-written bot should be able to detect a stub template anywhere regardless of whether there are two, one or no blank lines before it. Personally, when editing article for a different reason, and I encounter stubs placed before the cats, I move them to between the cats and ILLs; if there is no blank line before the stubs, I insert one; if there are three or more, I reduce to two: But when I find either one or two blank lines, I neither add nor remove.

So: don't change explicit "two blank lines" to explicit "a blank line", change it to "either one or two blank lines". That'll forestall the useless-edit mob. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:57, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure that we need this for appearance to the reader, but I think it is helpful in the edit box. A double blank line serves as a subtle indication that the (new) editor has reached the end of the article, and what follows can be ignored. Also, it helps less experienced people get things into the right place, especially with external links. Without it, the latest addition to ==External links== tends to show up underneath a navbox.

Redrose's "one or two blank lines" works for me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:59, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I prefer two blank lines, although I'm not sure that it's so critical that we need to mandate it. I think it helps signal, "The article is now over. What follows is templates and categories." This is particularly useful to less experienced editors. The point isn't to make the article display differently, but to make editing easier for humans.

For the same reason, I also prefer labeling what follows as <!-- Categories --> and such. I remember that when I was a newbie, I briefly thought that {{Foo}} and [[Category:Foo]] were redundant. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC) (moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (layout) by Redrose64 (talk) 17:37, 1 March 2011 (UTC))

I think that "signaling" the end of the article per se, is a bad reason to have a double blank line. Especially since many articles have no stub templates at all... Debresser (talk) 22:31, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

• I would definitely not change the guideline to "one space". The examples given above for Chile, are inapposite as they all have a template box before them that may vitiate any potential problems. Although it seems, that with a long article (past the info box) and without the template box at the bottom, the system makes extra space for the starting line, at least in my browser. Older browsers may still have a problem. --Bejnar (talk) 22:07, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I chose them precisely because they had a navbox before them: please see Rich Farmbrough's post of 13:45, 1 March 2011. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:23, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Compare one blank line with two blank lines. I don't think the former looks bad. Having categories between the text and the stub template makes no difference. However, with a navbox, it does look too bunched up with one space but two spaces looks too far apart. McLerristarr | Mclay1 04:03, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

We have fiercely disagreed on another subject, but in this case you and I are of one mind completely. Debresser (talk) 09:08, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Some earlier tests (play with the page if you wish). And yes a half-line would be ideal. Or ditching the icons... Rich Farmbrough, 19:20, 2 March 2011 (UTC).

[Parenthetical note:One blank line will display the same as zero blank lines, an uncategorised stub with a defaultsort will have too much space, however this is likely to be a temporary and rare occurrence] Rich Farmbrough, 19:29, 2 March 2011 (UTC).

Stubbing existing articles: seeking precedent

Over at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Jagged_85#Tag_for_stubbed_pages? we're discussing what to do about some articles that need stubbing due to long-term pollution. I think we want a tag, something like "This is a stubbed version of a much longer article that was found to have problems. You may see the earlier version at []. Please help us rebuild it". Is there any precedent for this? William M. Connolley (talk) 10:14, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Usual method is to simply stub the article as normal but to also make a note on the talk page to say that there was a longer article, with a link to the article history showing the earlier material. There should probably be a separate template (additional to the stub template) which can go at the top or bottom of the article saying that (I've made a prototype of the sort of thing I mean at User:Grutness/Shortened). Grutness...wha? 10:45, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Need more than one ref

I have started a discussion over on GNG, which mostly relates to stubs - and similar issues to those in the section above, except it is concerning the need for minimal reliable sources in articles - even if they're stubs.

Please comment over there: Wikipedia talk:Notability#Articles need multiple sources.

Best,  Chzz  ►  22:56, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Haven't you got something more useful to do with your time Chzz? Geographical place names only need verification of existence. And my Benin stubs have government population data. Expecting lots of web sources for towns in places like Benin is hardly indicative of its level of notability or level of encyclopedic appropriateness. A single source to government figures or other reliable source is enough to make it valid, at least as a start. If you genuinely wanted to improve our coverage of the "Global South" then a mention and fact about the places is far far better than if it didn't exist at all. If you still have a problem with that then I suggest you learn to accept it or simply shut up. The web is still in its infancy and more and more sources are becoming available for third world locations and topics all the time. Take the Communes of Mali for instance. There are a lot of USAID case studies on them on the web.♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:05, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Geographical articles only need verification of existence? I realise that it's popular, in some quarters, to create thousands of microstubs from geographical databases of dubious reliability; but we should at least try to apply the GNG. bobrayner (talk) 16:30, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

If there is a general acceptance of notability for some class of subjects, such as legislators, licensed broadcasting stations which produce some of their programming locally, public high schools or private high schools of a certain size, accredited colleges and universities, inhabited or formerly inhabited named places, or professional sports players, then it should be sufficient (if far from ideal) for a stub to have one reliable source initially. The reason such subjects have been consistently kept in AFDs is that we have found that it is generally possible to find multiple reliable and independent sources with significant coverage of the subject, although it may require more effort than a quick search for online sources at Google News archive or Google books. I agree with questioning "geographical databases of dubious reliability" since some are plainly full of careless errors, and lack a mechanism for getting errors corrected. Some anonymous person enters a hamlet in a geographic database, from unidentified sources, and there is a "hamlet" at a place where no dwelling ever stood. An Ordnance Survey map in the UK, or a National Geological Survey map in the US have been more carefully vetted than some online map system like Google Maps. I have personally contacted Google Maps with evidence of an error in the name of a street, with no reply and no correction of the error, for instance. Edison (talk) 17:10, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I thought you'd already agreed that you couln't tell if Lougba was actually a town? [1]

Anyway...as I suggested at the top - it would be best to comment on WT:N to avoid splitting up the discussion.  Chzz  ►  17:53, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Redlinks more informative in some cases

The discussion above has brought out many useful viewpoints. I will try to summarize them before asking for input to a straw poll. But I am not comfortable that we are giving enough weight to the reader's experience and would like to first open discussion on that. Whatever our hopes are that stubs will somehow encourage editors to add content, the question of whether stubs are useful to readers is not one to be ignored. Wikipedia is for readers, not for editors. If readers get even more cynical about Wikipedia, most of the work put into the project will have been wasted. Here is a scenario. The article on the famous Ruritanian poet Hyrmant Schlanzk includes the following:

Schlanzk spent many idyllic summers with his Kashubian grandparents in the remote highland village of Xtrynyr, fishing in the Sktor River and exploring the pine and oak forests of the Ztandl mountains. It was here that he first became interested in lepidoptery.

When a reader searches on Xtrynyr, they will find the article on the poet Schlanzk, and will learn something about the village. Now we make a stub that says "Xtrynyr is a community in Ruritania". When the user enters "Xtrynyr" in the search box and presses ENTER, that is all they get. Before, the search results gave some information about Xtrynyr. Now, the reader is stuck in a stub that tells them next to nothing. I am not sure about the wording, but there must be some way to say that a stub is not good if it reduces the amount of information a reader would find on a search result. Thoughts on how stubs increase or reduce the value of Wikipedia to readers? Aymatth2 (talk) 00:07, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

An excellent example, and well presented. My thought is that the stub template should be improved, so that it says something to the effect of "this article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. Suggestions may be found on the Talk page, and further information may be found on the articles that link here" with "articles that link here" as a wikilink to the articles that link to that stub. My opinion at this point is that a suggestion like this is superior to some sort of "more information here than in the linking articles" requirement. Jessemv (talk) 06:27, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

"Redlinks more informative in some cases". I would thoroughly disagree, especially on stubs with intertranswiki tags. If the articles inform the reader that it is located in .... even that is more informative than nothing at all. Any "empty" stubs I've created have the translation tags in which one can click google translate link and immediately be presented with the information to the reader in english. Sorry Aymatth, but I think your distaste of the shorter stubs is affecting your outlook. A lot of editors are willing to add to an article but unwilling to create it. And if editors hate short stubs in their preferences they can simply programme a minimum KB size. You could simply change it in your preference to avoid clicking on articles and getting the "annoying lack of content". I would agree that one fact and one source bare minimum should be a rule but then this would exclude new articles from newbies who may start notable subjects and have them deleted because they don't know about sourcing. I think you're pretty much wasting your time with this as there is unlikely to be a "rule" which stops them from being created. If just a guideline if merely says "we frown upon this", not as if I wasn't aware of that already!♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:57, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

• I like Jessemv's idea of adding a pointer to inbound link articles into the stub template (really just the toolbox "what links here", but more visible). That should be raised on the template talk page. I can't see a downside. I still think the guideline, and it is just a guideline, not the LAW, may well say "in general, we discourage..." and describe things like no useful information, no sources, less information than exists elsewhere etc. Aymatth2 (talk) 16:19, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Suggestion

I notice on many websites they provide useful buttons beneath their content in order to make it easy for users to share that content with others via e-mail or on specific social networking websites. I've encountered some stubs on Wikipedia and was hoping to share it with people I knew had knowledge on the subject so that they may consider expanding these stubs. However I've been compelled by the lack of share buttons manually to copy stubs' URLs into e-mail messages if I wished to share said stubs. My suggestion is that the stub notices that appear at the end of short articles contain these share buttons and that when a user shares an article with someone through one of these buttons, the message that the recipient receives contains the entire article (if it is short enough) with a direct link to edit the article, or a subsection of it. For example, a button following a stub article may ask, "Do you know someone with knowledge on this topic? Ask them to expand this article!" with the last sentence being a link that pops up a window allowing the user to type in e-mail addresses or to share the article on a social network. I believe that implementing such buttons will encourage common readers to share articles with their knowledged acquaintances more freely, hence encouraging greater participation in the project. Kind regards, Adriaan. Adriaan Joubert (talk) 21:29, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I think it would be too much like advertising. You may find those buttons useful, but ultimately they are just a form of advertising for the social networks in question. Maybe a generic "email this article" would work, but it would be hard to prevent its use in spamming. Gigs (talk) 20:26, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

About Shekhar Chander

Shekhar Chander is Lecturer in Computer Science — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shekharchndr (talk • contribs) 09:07, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Eliminate stub templates?

At Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Layout#Swapping_order_of_categories_and_stub_templates there is a discussion about the order of categories and stub templates where an editor has suggested considering the elimination of all stub templates. I've suggested that they pursue that discussion here instead. PamD 07:00, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Given no discussion here, I have raised this proposal at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Eliminate_stub_templates_completely. Jason Quinn (talk) 15:31, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

There is no presence of the "latin script stub" on the stub type list, but countless articles have it! PhoenixSummon (talk) 22:03, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Has the definition of a stub changed?

I've been seeing a lot of stub templates and stub-class assessments being added to articles that contain considerably more than "only one or a few sentences of text" -- frequently on articles that contain a screenful (or more) of running text. These aren't just old templates, either; they're being actively added to articles of this size. I'm getting the impression that "stub" is now being used, at least by some active users, to label any article that could do with expansion or is otherwise less than perfect.

I haven't been very active on Wikipedia for a number of years, so I went looking to see if there had been any change in the definition of "stub", but if there has been, it hasn't been reflected on this page. Does this page still reflect the community's understanding of what a stub is? -- Visviva (talk) 02:51, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

As far as I know, the definition for stub tags hasn't changed, but some editors may have differing ideas on how long is too long. Article assessments are another issue: Most are out of date, and not all projects use the same definition of stub-class as an assessment class.

For stub tags, I had in my head a few paragraphs, not a few sentences as this page says, but a screenful is well beyond that either way. Sometimes it is because stub tags get left behind when the article is expanded, other times it is a mistake. Either way they should be removed if an article clearly isn't a stub. Perhaps the accepted size is creeping though - Otto Miller (catcher) would be close to the borderline I have commonly seen used, and it is certainly more than a couple of sentences, and has quite a bit of info. Sometimes articles of about this length have tags, sometimes they don't. Much more prose text than that and I think a stub tag shouldn't be being added.

Headings, lists, pictures, references etc generally don't count, so 750 Motor Club is an example of a page which I would call clearly a stub, but is more than one page. Pages with big infoboxes and lists and lots of references can be deceiving in that sense. --Qetuth (talk) 05:05, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Over the last three or so years I've seen a few (perhaps no more than four) newbie editors happily working through a category and adding a stub template to every article, regardless of its current state: for example, adding {{GreaterManchester-railstation-stub}} to every page in the subcategories of Category:Railway stations in Greater Manchester (e.g. Manchester Victoria station). After dropping them a polite note, we found that they didn't know of WP:STUB but had assumed that they were helping out by making the article easier to edit.

So, see if you can determine whether it's an enthusiastic but ill-informed newbie, and assist them. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:22, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Stubs and sources

Hello, I'm looking for clarification on stub articles vs. non-stub articles and the requirement of sources. Can an article without any reliable sources be considered anything but stub class? (Start or above)? Thank you! Kelly Marie 0812 (talk) 03:23, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

aLst I checked, it can be Start, but nothing higher. It'd be pretty silly to call an articles that is ten screens long a "Stub" just because it was unrefernced, don't you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:22, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The reason I thought they had to have at least one source was that the Start class description at WP:ASSESS states "article should satisfy fundamental content policies such as notability and BLP, and provide sources to establish verifiability." But after being told start class articles don't need sources by another editor, I am confused. So I guess my real question is where does it say this, and/or should the instructions be a little more clear? Thanks for your help. Kelly Marie 0812 (talk) 04:34, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I would have thought all articles, save possibly some lists, 'need' sources, and that an article not having any sources was considered to be a temporary situation for an article still under construction (however long it may actually stay in that state in practice). Hence it would have to have the lowest level of assessment, which is called "stub". However, "stub assessment" class is not the same as "stub" article, so a project may assess an article which is clearly not a stub as stub class for this and similar reasons. In theory though, if an article has that much unsourced content, a lot of it should probably be removed or moved to talk, and this would result in a stub article anyway. --Qetuth (talk) 04:45, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the explanation. I think the confusion in my situation is that the content I've been dealing with is mostly regarding fictional characters, so there are articles with significant plot summaries (plot summaries have been determined to not need citations as watching the series verifies the content), so while I have been labeling any such articles without sources as "stub," some others feel they are "start." Is this truly a matter of opinion, or am I right to conclude that this page and WP:ASSESS policies show that any article lacking sources could not satisfy the requirements of start class? Any guidance on the proper way to solve this difference of opinion is greatly appreciated. I've held off working on classifying as to not start an edit war. I've asked at the wikiproject but have not received any feedback. Thank you. Kelly Marie 0812 (talk) 01:38, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Basically, should doesn't mean must. RFC 2119 is one popular description of the differences between those words. A B-class article always has references; a Start-class article should have references (indeed, even a one-sentence Stub should name its sources), but the presence of a list of sources isn't required.

In context, BTW, a plot summary is always considered to be implicitly sourced to the book itself, even if nobody types out a ==References== section and lists the book there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:18, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree that plot summaries are assumed to be sourced to the work. However articles "should" not consist solely of WP:PLOT and I came across this essay that might answer my question. "Note that regardless of the length of the page or the numbers of edits made to it, a page containing only plot summary is still a stub - an incomplete article." Kelly Marie 0812 (talk) 03:44, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

It's better two lines or no line?

I read: It is usually desirable to leave two blank lines between the first stub template and whatever precedes it, and another one after them before the interlanguage link. But someone rollback me twice. --Kasper2006 (talk) 20:04, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Personally, I don't follow that guideline rigidly. When there are no blank lines before the first stub template, I add one; where there are three or more, I reduce them to two. But if there are either one or two, I leave them alone. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:55, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the long standing consensus. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:46, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

I think that the blank lines are good, but fighting over that seems like a candidate for WP:LAME. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:20, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

I make it two lines whenever I am editing the footer anyway (unless I forget to), but something like this should not be a reason for an edit on its own I don't think - similar to changing the order of categories. --Qetuth (talk) 22:25, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Certainly whether it should be one blank line or two is not a tremendous deal, but a universal and uniform way (a policy) rather than a usual way (a guideline) would be an improvement. An alternative to making such a choice would to be to recode or reconfigure Wikipedia's MediaWiki such that, in the appearance of every page, stub notices coalesce in a similar manner as category membership indicators do. -- Lindberg 01:06, 17 September 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lindberg G Williams Jr (talk • contribs)

Opinions - When is a stub no longer a stub

When is a stub no longer a stub? I know in AWB's tagging fixes, if it sees a page with 500 words or more with a stub tag it removes it. Is this a general guideline? An upper limit? ·Add§hore· ^{Talk To Me!} 22:32, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

As this page says: "There is no set size at which an article stops being a stub ... As such, it is impossible to state whether an article is a stub based solely on its length, and any decision on the article has to come down to an editor's best judgement". The fact that AWB completely undermines this (and other) guidelines has been raised before, and brushed aside. So yes, to all intents and purposes, a stub is an article with fewer than 500 words. DoctorKubla (talk) 08:43, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually, 500 words is normally taken as a sign that the article is so far past the stub stage that nobody could realistically contest removal of the stub tag. (Automated actions and things that require judgment don't mix well.) Ten sentences, which commonly amounts to 150 words, used to be recommended as one rule of thumb. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:00, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

I use the 250 words rule. Reason being, 250 words is a miniumum requirement for an article to be able to be a WP:DYK. Stubs are not allowed as DYK for being too incomplete. So a logical conclusion is that the 250 word mark - for readable prose (so, not lists, infoboxes, tables, and such) moves the stub to start. I have tagged probably several thousand articles based on that rule... PS. DYK rules mentioned are here: Wikipedia:Did_you_know#DYK_rules. While they in fact talk of "1,500 characters of prose", A. Senthil Kumar (2011). Knowledge discovery practices and emerging applications of data mining. Idea Group Inc (IGI). p. 325. ISBN 978-1-60960-069-3. Retrieved 6 April 2013. and many other sources note that the average lenght of an English word is 5.1 letters, so I guess 300 words may be a better mark. I find words a better visual measure than characters, through this is a personal feeling; comments would be appreciated, through I think we can uncontroversially agree that anything over 300 words is not a stub. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:07, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

• If an article about a film, novel, etc, says "X is a film" and then has 500 words of plot summary but no further information about the film it's a stub. It's qualititative as well as quantitative. PamD 18:20, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Based on all these comments about this perennial question, I've expanded the text to list some of the common rules of thumb and to put the "no set size" rule in bold-faced text. There is no set size, and there is a significant diversity of quick assessment strategies. Perhaps this will be clearer than silence. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:14, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Where does the stub tag actually go?

I just tried to label my first page as a stub (Court of Justice of the European Union) and put the tag at the end as per the instructions on this page - that just made the tag appear at the end. Is this page wrong, did I do something wrong, or is every stub notification I have ever seen wrong?86.164.194.233 (talk) 18:14, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

It's supposed to go at the end, see WP:FOOTERS. I've fixed it. What makes you think that it should go elsewhere? --Redrose64 (talk) 19:32, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I've generally only noticed references to stubs at the top of the page, as on this one (probably because I generally don't look at the very bottom), and got a little bit confused.86.143.168.70 (talk) 15:02, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

That's the template itself, not a page which uses the template... the big green box is the template's documentation, and it does state (at Template:Stub#How is a stub identified?) "Place a stub template at the very end of the article, after the "External links" section, any navigation templates, and the category tags." --Redrose64 (talk) 15:13, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Stubcat and permcat

The guideline doesn't say that all France stubs should be in 'permcat' France. I guess that is taken for granted. Nor does the guideline suggest checking the permcats when a stub tag is removed, but that may be a good idea.

First, please confirm or correct my understanding. The latest edit of stub biography Mike Berenstain should be reverted. That page should be in both cats American children's writers and American children's writer stubs. (Stub categories are distinguished categories, I think we now say.)

User talk: HelicopterLlama and I are not sure about this. I have never checked the permcats when I have removed a stub tag, but I will try to remember to do that now. Perhaps the guideline should recommend it.

--P64 (talk) 18:58, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

See WP:SUBCAT:

"Note also that as stub templates are for maintenance purposes, not user browsing ... they do not count as categorization for the purposes of Wikipedia's categorization policies. An article which has a "stubs" category on it must still be filed in the most appropriate content categories, even if one of them is a direct parent of the stubs category in question."

DoctorKubla (talk) 08:30, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Removing stub status

Can further clarification be added to the Removing stub status section to explain how to remove a stub? What is the process? I've searched through Wikipedia but cannot find this information. Thanks. Physics114 (talk) 09:45, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

It already says "any editor may remove its stub template"; "the stub template may be removed" and "Be bold in removing stub tags that are clearly no longer applicable". What is missing here? --Redrose64 (talk) 14:21, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I understand how to do this now. However, yesterday, I couldn't find out where to find the stub code on the page and how to remove it. For relatively new editors, perhaps some clarification could be added, e.g. delete the stub code ({{journal-stub}}) from the page. Stub codes are often at the bottom of the webpage.Physics114 (talk) 14:40, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Physics114, for that very practical suggestion. I've added a sentence and hope that it will help the next person who wants to do this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:39, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

A disagreement over film stub tags

Please see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Film#Redundant_film_stub_tags. thank you, Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:37, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

User:Casliber/Stub contest

Right, am thinking of running a de-stubbing contest at User:Casliber/Stub contest (in the vein of the Core Contest), just as a one off alternative and see how it goes - similar prizes. Discuss on talk page. Cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:35, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Removing stub status permanently ?

Consider the article .csnet. It is very short, has no references – and has two stub tags. It is also accurate, complete, and useful. If I delete the stub tags it would seem likely that someone or some bot would only add them again – so I'll just leave those stub tags in place. Is there a "Not-a-stub" category or template? If not could someone create such? Or can an article be somehow packed to appear larger than stub-sized? Thanks,50.136.247.190 (talk) 17:54, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Is it complete though? When did it come into use and when did it become obsolete? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:43, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

The infobox says it was introd8uced in 1985. DES ^(talk) 20:34, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

I would be suspicious of any claim that an article of this length is "complete". If truly so, then it is mostly "useful" as yet another link in {{Generic top-level domains}} (and the other articles linked by that template) than as a standalone article. I didn't burn time looking, but surely this could even be merged somewhere? RadioKAOS  – Talk to me, Billy 02:04, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree with the general remarks in reply.

Now it is clearly incomplete in another sense; a sentence fragment has been appended. I know nothing about the substance and the fragment is suggestive, so I merely note it here. --P64 (talk) 20:43, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 January 2014

"emigrated to the United States in 1909." should probably be "...1919." 73.49.1.29 (talk) 16:28, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Wikipedia:Stub. Please make your request at Talk:Gleb W. Derujinsky; but please note that the article Gleb W. Derujinsky is not protected. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:48, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Total number of stubs on en.wikipedia?

Do we have a gross number of how many stubs there are in total on en.wikipedia? (I wasn't sure when and/or where we discussed this..?) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:49, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Category:All stub articles currently contains 1,841,901 pages. DoctorKubla (talk) 07:27, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

A stub tag, then, makes the person who places it feel superior -- this article is too brief. If 30% of articles have a stub tag, it is meaningless -- like the 20% that are insufficiently referenced. Rhadow (talk) 17:17, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Hip hop song stub categories by year?

• Is there a reason why stub categories for hip hop songs aren't separated this way? Other genres have them separated by year (yeah, I know WP:OTHERSTUFF, but still). Erpert ^{blah, blah, blah...} 07:26, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

First, how many are there? If there are not a minimum of 60 per year, a new category for a specific year cannot be justified. I see that {{2010s-hiphop-single-stub}} has 15 transclusions, so the possibility of having 60 songs for any one of 2010/11/12/13/14 are currently nil. Most period-based stub categories (such as those for albums or films) go to a particular decade; I'm not aware of any that are year-specific. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:42, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Bot update of stubs that are also redirects

A bot request, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BattyBot 43, has been open related to removing stub tags from all redirects. Community input is welcome at the request. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:45, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Stub Contest

...will be run again in August. Signups are at Wikipedia:Stub Contest/Entries. Cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 22:03, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Stubs and tags

I would like to propose including some advice about over-tagging stubs on this page. Here's a previous discussion between TexasAndroid and BradMajors on the issue which looks reasonable as a basis for advice. Any comments? ~Kvng (talk) 14:56, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Some tags added to stubs are quite ridiculous - {{Lead missing}} or {{lead too short}}, {{sections}}, {{expand}}. But I believe that stubs ought to have references from the start - a BLP stub will be deleted eventualy under PRODBLP if unsourced, and everything added to the encyclopedia ought to have a verifiable source. So {{unref}} seems to me to be one of the most important tags to add to a stub. I don't see much point in {{orphan}} myself, though as it's an accepted tag it applies to stubs as much as to anything else. {{Dead end}} too - almost every stub will have at least one link which could usefully be made. Also {{link rot}} - if there are refs with bare URLs they ought to be upgraded, from the start. I think that things may have moved on in the 7 years since that previous discussion, in terms of our current expectation that all new content will be referenced from the start. PamD 22:12, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

We used to have a special template {{unreferenced stub}} but that was merged to {{unreferenced}} five years ago, following Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2010 February 5#Template:Unreferenced stub. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:01, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

@PamD: I presume you're aware that your preference that stubs be referenced is not widely practiced. I agree that there is an issue with BPLs, for that we have {{BLP sources}}. The discussion Redrose64 has linked to is interesting and indicates there is enthusiasm for tagging stubs with sourcing issues. I guess this means I should stop removing {{unreferenced}} from stubs. ~Kvng (talk) 15:03, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

The {{BLP sources}} template is for BLPs which need additional references, so is more closely related to {{refimprove}} than to {{unreferenced}}. The BLP equivalent of the latter is {{BLP unsourced}}; but if it's a BLP, and it has no references at all, and it was created after 18 March 2010, give it a {{BLP unsourced}} and also a {{subst:prod blp}}. See WP:BLPPROD. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:10, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

@Kvng: The guidance at Wikipedia:Stub#Creating_and_improving_a_stub_article instructs the editor to add references. It may be "not widely practiced", but I think most established editors would agree that lack of references is a problem worth tagging, even in a single-sentence stub: that one sentence needs a source, and if the editor who has just created the stub is alerted/reminded of this ASAP they are perhaps more likely to provide it. Other editors will also look for refs, and also the reader will be alerted to the fact that this is potentially unreliable information to be treated with particular caution, as there is nothing to support it. PamD 21:08, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 November 2015

Add {{pp-vandalism}} 115.188.191.246 (talk) 22:24, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Done --I am k6ka ^{Talk to me!} _{See what I have done} 22:46, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Lists and tables

I've been challenged over the article on Arthonia. I think it is far too long to be considered a stub. But most of the content is a list, though the article does not announce itself as a list. I think we need clearer guidance on the issue of prose content as opposed to lists, tables etc. I am a humble stub sorter. I am not competent to pronounce on the quality of botanical articles. But I don't think they should be marked as stubs just because they are largely in list form. The same arguments apply to articles about football teams and the like. They often contain a lot of information in tabular form. That seems much more useful than trying to convey the same information in prose. I think articles should be considered as a whole. Excluding consideration of pictures, tables and the like seems perverse. But there seems to be a common view that in assessing whether an article is a stub only the prose content should be taken into account. Is that the proper policy?Rathfelder (talk) 00:19, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

This guideline does say "stub status usually depends on the length of prose text alone". However, my understanding of the guideline is that the article's length isn't the primary consideration – the more relevant question is "How complete is the article?". If there's a great deal more that could be written on the subject, then it's a stub; if there isn't, then it isn't. DoctorKubla (talk) 15:03, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Stub#How big is too big?, particularly the parenthesis "the user essay on the Croughton-London rule may be of use when trying to judge whether an article is a stub". --Redrose64 (talk) 17:50, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't think articles should be marked as stubs just because they are largely in list form. The same arguments apply to articles about football teams, elections, sporting competitions and the like. They often contain a lot of information in tabular form. That seems much more useful than trying to convey the same information in prose. I think articles should be considered as a whole. Excluding consideration of pictures, tables and the like seems perverse.Rathfelder (talk) 18:16, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

I would advise the "humble stub sorter" to make no changes to stub status and defer to the judgement of local editors when encountering this gray area. ~Kvng (talk) 16:20, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

This article is the longest stub in the encyclopedia. About 3 times bigger than the next biggest stub. It has annotated pictures and a vast list of species. It may not be complete or prefect. As an innocent in the world of botany it seems substantial to me. Listing the species in a genus is obviously an important part of any article of this kind. Surely the amount of information is a relevant consideration is deciding what is or is not a stub, regardless of whether or not the information is expressed in prose or in tabular form? Rathfelder (talk) 21:53, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Discussion of articles that can never be de-stubbed

I thought we had an essay, if not a guideline/policy on this topic, but I cannot find it. Can anyone link me to it (and ping me)? Thanks, --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:44, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Do you mean Wikipedia:Permastub, Piotrus? generic_hipster 15:34, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Seems about right, thanks! --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 22:21, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Has anyone ever heard or used this term? If so...or if not...make a comment at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Permastub.....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:51, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Related essay

I've put together a short but related essay at Wikipedia:Do not confuse stub status with non-notability. Please feel free to contribute.--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:49, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Stubs for creation

Stubs for creation (SFC) is a proposed task force for Articles for creation. SFC will assist new editors in creating useful stubs on notable subjects. Please feel free to discuss and expand on the idea at Draft:Stubs for creation. Cheers! -- 1Wiki8........................... (talk) 08:11, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Stub: Individuals

I really don´t get your boards issue with encyclopedic 1 paragraph overal coverage. Those are not stubs, they are ample and sufficient for any individual whom would review the section.

My opinion would be that your board would be looking for paparazzi grief, or worse, information to extort in populous form.

Kindly explain here why your thoughts are that an 8 inch flashcard would be a stub and that you just must sink the most reliable and pertinent information into a mush of swamping wordiness.

Very appreciative of your answer (that is, if you have what it takes to make and formulate a truthfull correct answer). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.91.63.146 (talk) 17:59, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Encyclopedia Britanica, written hardcover edition.

Within the encyclopedia britanica, written hardcover edition, an 86%+ (3SD+) of articles are short paragraphs no larger than an 8" flashcard. Many another, no larger then a 4" flashcard.

An encyclopedia must be concise and too the point, and in being so, not open to fast ´new age´ bible writ style wordy engineering. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.91.63.146 (talk) 20:16, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Removing stub-class assessment

I'm looking at the page Luc Plamondon. There's no stub template in the text itself, but on the talk page it mentions the assessment that was done and found that it was stub class. If that assessment is now outdated, should I edit it directly, or request a reassessment, or what? (Since it doesn't seem to be as straightforward as removing a template.) Flipping Mackerel (talk) 17:03, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

If you edit the talk page of a stub, you'll find "class=Stub". Change this to what you think appropriate. Then if the article has a stub template at the bottom, edit the page and remove it. If others diagree with your assessment, they are free to revert or use another class. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:23, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! I assumed there was some more official process to it, but nope. :) Flipping Mackerel (talk) 03:56, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

@Flipping Mackerel: remember this is the encyclopedia anyone can edit. :-) Peter coxhead (talk) 08:57, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

No set size?

I would suggest that the wording here be changed. The idea that "it is impossible to state whether an article is a stub based solely on its length" is simply absurd, there is for example no way an article of the length of article like United States could be described as a stub. There must be a limit on when an article can be described as a stub, especially when Wikipedia already recommends that articles should avoid exceeding certain sizes per WP:SIZE. I'm only saying that because someone has been tagging many articles (600-1000 words in prose) as stubs. While these articles can certainly be expanded, they are not in any sense of the word stub. The wording here just encourages people to stick the stub tags where they should not be. Certainly unless an article is of high importance like United States, the use of the tag for articles should be avoided over certain article size. Hzh (talk) 14:14, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

It's not simply absurd when "length" is taken to mean simply the length of the article and not of paragraphs of text. There are many articles on genera of organisms, for example, which contain lengthy lists of species, but are rightly classed as stubs because there is little or no other information – look at Agelena for example. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:28, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Even long articles can be stub if they are otherwise very rudimentary, per Wikipedia:WikiProject assessment#Grades: "It is usually very short; but, if the material is irrelevant or incomprehensible, an article of any length falls into this category". – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:37, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: Given that the preceding sentence says "their articles may still be stubs even if they are a few paragraphs long", that sentence is clearly referring to prose because the preceding sentence is its justification. In any case, if Agelena gives a list that is the size of the United States article, I would be flabbergasted if it is flagged as a stub. Using a word like "impossible" is simply unjustifiable and yes, absurd, when there are guidelines governing the size of article. There are ways of writing this without sounding unreasonable. In any case, I'm arguing for saying that if the prose content of an article passes a certain point, the stub tag would no longer be applicable and should not be used. Hzh (talk) 18:01, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

@Hzh: what you are arguing is quite different from the statement to which you object. You are arguing that it is possible to state whether an article is a stub or not based solely on the length of its prose rather than on its overall length. I have more sympathy with this view, but I still do not accept that prose length alone makes an article not a stub. For example, all species are considered "notable" as a matter of policy, so there would be no question of deleting an article about a plant species. If that article contained a long section on cultural references to that species but gave no description of the species, said nothing about its taxonomy or classification, or its distribution and habitat, it would be a plant stub regardless of its length. It might not be a stub to another WikiProject, but it would definitely be a plant stub. And as the agreed assessment criteria for WP:PLANTS stubs says "if the material is irrelevant or incomprehensible, an article of any length falls into this category". Peter coxhead (talk) 21:55, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: An article full of incomprehensible or irrelevant details would not stay as it is, and it would be trimmed back to the meaningful part. I have not seen any article that is the size of an article like United States and would be composed of entirely or nearly entirely irrelevant and incomprehensible details. It would have needed far more urgent tags added, and it being a stub would be the last thing I would worry about. This is an essentially absurd argument to justify the wording "it is impossible to state whether an article is a stub based solely on its length" (it should be said that the argument presented in the guideline is not the argument you made, still it is absurd to extend from "a few paragraphs long" to "impossible" which would imply this is applicable even when there are many tens of paragraphs or an infinite number of paragraphs). We are interested in reasonable guidelines, and you can always use wordings like "meaningful and relevant content of x number of words" should you so wish to do so, but saying it is "impossible" is just downright ridiculous. Change the wording to something that could be used as a reasonable guideline. Hzh (talk) 23:06, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

@Hzh: well, we must agree to disagree. For me, what matters is editorial judgement and, since assessments of class and importance are always related to WikiProjects, WikiProject guidelines. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:08, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: You can disagree with me, but at no point in this discussion have you defended this quote in the guideline - Conversely, there are subjects about which a lot could be written, and their articles may still be stubs even if they are a few paragraphs long. As such, it is impossible to state whether an article is a stub based solely on its length, which by extending the argument from "a few paragraphs" to the word "impossible" implies that prose of many many paragraphs (theoretically an infinite number of paragraphs) long that are relevant and pertinent to subject would still be stubs simply because more could be written (it at no point suggests that what's written may be "irrelevant and incomprehensible" as you argued, simply that a lot more could be written). What kind of illogical argument is that? I would have written it very differently even if I want to argue that the should be no set size (which I don't), for example: "It is difficult to set a precise limit on size as even prose of a few paragraphs long may not adequately introduce basic information on a subject about which a lot more could be written..." Hzh (talk) 10:27, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

@Finnusertop: That isn't what the part that say "impossible" refers to because the preceding sentence does not argue that. For a long rambling article full of irrelevant material you would use a different tag anyway if not outright proposal for deletion. Hzh (talk) 18:01, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Should we not consider an article as a whole. A policy which effectively says that any information in tabular form should be ignored is unhelpful. It leads to clogging up the list of long stubs with articles where it is sensible to include tabular information - and often there is not much else to be said. For example the genera articles about insects and many articles about sports teams. Rathfelder (talk) 21:26, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Sports teams I can't comment on, but there's a lot of information about a genus that needs to be included to stop it being a stub: a description of the features of the genus; taxonomy including classification, phylogeny, subgroups; distribution, habitat and ecology; and uses. A mere list of species tell the reader nothing about the genus itself. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:33, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Why are there so many articles about genera - often longstanding articles - which contain hardly anything but a list of species? Is there not somewhere an agreed description of the features? Could those articles not be moved into the Start class? Rathfelder (talk) 10:31, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

@Rathfelder: there are so many stubs because there are few active editors interested in many groups of organisms. Making a list of the species in a genus just requires looking at a major secondary source, usually an online taxonomic database. Thus for spiders or plants, where I do most of my editing, the species are listed in the World Spider Catalog, The Plant List or the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families. Describing the genus, explaining its taxonomy and classification, giving its distribution and habitat, and discussing the uses of its species requires an editor to look at a range of sources, and this takes much longer. In many areas of the tree of life, there are now only a handful of active editors, sometimes only one or two. Feel free to join in! Peter coxhead (talk) 10:41, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

I was made to give up biology when I was 12 I'm afraid. Rathfelder (talk) 11:01, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

Indenting

Howdy, for about 2 months, I've been indenting stubs on articles, as IMHO it's better visual optics. What are the views of others, on this matter? GoodDay (talk) 15:27, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Using what markup? If you're using : to do it, that's a no-go. It's abuse of description list markup for something that's not a list. WP:MOS and MOS:ACCESS have been advising for years to not use that markup in articles for visual indentation. The safest markup for something like that would be {{block indent| {{cooking-stub}} }}. MoS has no position on stub tag indentation; so it's up to people here if they object as a site-wide matter, and up to individual articles' editorial pools if they object there. The principal objection someone might raise would be inconsistency between articles, probably.

Here's a template demo, first with just the stub tag:

Now, with the template:

There are other indentation templates, but this one is a block element, so you can put more than one stub tag in it:

{{block indent|
 {{cooking-stub}}
 {{Egypt-stub}}
 {{health-stub}}
}}

All that said, given that people have been arguing for a decade on 1 or 2 blank lines before the stub tags, I doubt there'd be consensus to start indenting them any time soon.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  23:01, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Here are some examples, and yes, they use :. In addition to the markup concern noted by SMcCandlish, personally I do not find it visually appealing. It looks "off" somehow (misaligned), particularly when it appears immediately after references, which are already indented. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 00:49, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

1 or 2 blank lines

This edit on 5 November 2017 changed stub placement guidance from "two blank lines" to "one blank line". Given this issue has been discussed multiple times before, was there consensus for this change? -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 00:59, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Not in my view. I've removed this change. It needs to be discussed. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:25, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Just a thought, why don't we just build in the extra blank line in {{Asbox}}, thereby avoiding this issue altogether? I agree that 2 blank linkes are more visually appealing, but I can't fault any editor who (not knowing better) removes the 2nd line while in edit view. This seems like the type of thing that's easier to address through a technical solution than through policy guidance. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 20:06, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Can one article transclude multiple stub templates?

Example: Rape (film). This article is the only article in which I have seen it. Interqwark ^{talk contribs} 20:12, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

A quick look at other articles in the drama-film stub category revealed that most of them had a second stub category. If a stub can be classified in several categories, then it is a stub in each of those categories, although it may seem excessive to put in half-a-dozen stub categories. - Donald Albury 22:04, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

@Donald Albury: All right. Thanks for the reply! Interqwark ^{talk contribs} 22:06, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

From this very page: "If an article overlaps several stub categories, more than one template may be used, but it is strongly recommended that only those relating to the subject's main notability be used. A limit of three or, if really necessary, four stub templates is advised." – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:15, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

@Finnusertop: Oh, sorry. I should’ve read the entire page. Thanks, though! Interqwark ^{talk contribs} 22:29, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Template:Clear instead of two blank lines

I would like to suggest for the practice of adding two blank lines before the first stub to be replaced with Template:Clear instead. As per Manual of Style, stub templates are meant to be at the very end line of a stub article but sometimes it is not visually reflected when published. This is particularly true for those which have an infobox and for some reason it is longer that the entire article content (until references or external links section), and where there are no navboxes or anything that can indirectly function as a line break preceding stub templates. With the Template:Clear, these stub articles may have a more uniform visual with those in which the stub templates are naturally rendered at the very bottom of the article. Zulfadli51 (talk) 04:38, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

This suggestion is now more than two years old, but I would like to express my support for this idea as well. — Goszei (talk) 03:09, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 September 2018

Principal listed has spelling error. Should be Brian Young. Also there are two principals. Should read: Co-Principals Brian Young and Dina Marschall

Student Population is 550 on average 163.41.25.43 (talk) 15:44, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Wikipedia:Stub. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. —KuyaBriBri^Talk 17:03, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Why do we need two blank lines before the template?

I had not even known this was a thing before I had it pointed out to me when I was reverted over it by a user on an article today. I found being reverted over this extremely pedantic, and from looking back through this page it appears I'm not the only one. As others have pointed out, this guideline does not state why we need two blank lines at the end of the article before the template. I have never seen this enforced by any other editor, and honestly, it seems most editors don't care about it (quite appropriately, if I say so myself). I see it's been discussed here to death. There really needs to be consensus on this, especially if some editors are so pedantic about it they will revert "violations" of it. Ss112 23:30, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

@Ss112: as you note, this has been discussed before, and there's no consensus to change the guideline, so editors are quite right to uphold it. Personally, I don't care either way, but as with all stylistic issues over which there are differences of opinion, I do care about consistency, which is helpful to everyone, readers as well as editors. One rationale is that the stub template isn't really part of the article – it's a hopefully temporary message to editors that it needs to be expanded – so setting it off from the article has some justification. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:28, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Well, I would like to propose to make it one line. I know that this has been discussed before, but the argument never convinced me, and I find it unnatural to have one line at most between different part of an article, and suddenly, lo and behold, at the very end of the article there suddenly are two lines in front of a stub template. Completely inconsistent and should be removed from the recommendations IMHO. Debresser (talk) 21:42, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 May 2019

John Hoskin was an artist in residence at the University of Georgia from 1973-1974. He donated a sculpture to the Institute of Ecology. Lawrence Stueck (talk) 00:16, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: According to the page's protection level you should be able to edit the page yourself. If you seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. You should be able to edit the page John Hoskin yourself. aboideau^talk 00:24, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 June 2019

I am the current principal of the school (dkeller@staugustinehigh.com).

Change Motto: From:Jesus says we're allowed to kick your ass To: Persistence Pays

Change Authority: From: Jesus To: Diocese of Tucson

REMOVE Chaplain

Change Enrollment From: 140 To: 300

REMOVE Fight Song

REMOVE Nickname

Change Athletic Director From: Andrew Salazar To: Kyle Howell 24.249.172.61 (talk) 20:48, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: Not sure what article you're asking for these changes to be made on, but I'm pretty sure it isn't Wikipedia:Stub. aboideau^talk 21:37, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Meme

Given that "you can improve this by expanding it" became a meme, maybe this template should be reworded? 179.228.66.29 (talk) 14:20, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Why? —Nizolan ^{(talk · c.)} 22:02, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Not considered or secondary

My edit [2] was reverted. I explained my edit with the following edit summary: "Formulate this a bit more careful and a bit more correct.". No explanatory edit summary was provided by the reverting editor. That lack of etiquette notwithstanding, I'll explain my edit.

In my opinion "usually not considered" is less correct than "play a secondary role". It is pretty obvious that anything that is sometimes considered is practically always considered. I mean, how else would one know whether to consider it in any given case. The true meaning is of that phrase that it is always considered, just that it is not usually the decisive consideration. Which is precisely what I said when stating it is of secondary importance. Debresser (talk) 15:02, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Colon before a (lengthy) enumeration

In: Wikipedia:Stub#How_to_mark_an_article_as_a_stub / 2nd paragraph / 1st sentence there is a lengthy enumeration.
And before (such) a lengthy enumeration it is: good, generally helpfull considered and generally agreed upon style, to put a colon. Reference (e.g.): Thorndike Barnhart: Worldbook Dictionary / prechapters.
Therefore I added a colon in above article.
User:Collins Gatheru thanked me for this colon. Thank you CG.
However User:Niccast considered this colon to be: erroneous and confusing and, consequently, removed it.
Therfore I would like to come to know other readers' opinions on this issue.
This, by the way, does not only concern this article and location, but all articles here in the WP.
Steue (talk) 20:52, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

I had 2 issues with the colon. First, the part of a sentence that comes before the colon has to be an independent clause (a clause that'd work as a stand-alone sentence). Go to website www.scribbr.com/language-rules/colons/ and check out the part with the heading "Introducing a list" and, in particular, the 3rd & last example in the 'table'. Second (and the part that really made it confusing to me), you can't follow a colon with a list separated by commas and then continue the sentence after the list is done. If you want to keep the colon, this re-work might be an option: "Per the manual of Style, the stub template is placed at the end of the article so that the stub category will appear after all article content. It should come after: the External links section, any navigation templates, and the category tags." (Technically still violates my point #1, but I for one don't care if it's stylistically correct as long readers understand it.)Niccast (talk) 02:17, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Very good, Niccast! This solution has my complete consent.

I have seen many sentences, in which a list (mostly even without colon) was continued by the rest of the sentence. But I agree: in all these sentences it was not completely easy to figure out, where the list ended.

I will have to study your reference. Thank you for this.
Steue (talk) 02:42, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Stub is rather verbose

I'd like to suggest Wikipedia:Stub might benefit from an edit which strives make it more readable for beginning (or infrequent) editors wanting to create a stub article in an existing category, which seems like it would be the most common use-case.

Perhaps I'm wrong, is there another there a page I should look at to help me remember about creating stub articles? If so an info box linking to it at the top of this article would seem appropriate.

While topics like guidelines for creating new stub templates are important, it seems like linked topic could best address that sort of context rather than prose in this context. Burt Harris (talk) 00:44, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Unexpandable short stubs?

If an article meets the notability requirements, but the majority of what's known doesn't amount to much, does that still constitute a stub? — Fourthords | =Λ= | 01:09, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes. Because a stub is not necessarily a temporary status. Some articles are bound to stay stubs forever, and that is fine. Debresser (talk) 13:09, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

On the other hand: A stub that cannot be expanded, but can be better discussed in context of a larger topic that is clearly notable and not a stub, should be redirected (not deleted) to be discussed there. For example, we have thousands of stubby articles on named towns which we will likely never do this for, but due to past "notability" discussions on schools, probably hundreds of similar articles on high/upper schools that are stubs that could be merged up into the towns/cities that those schools are part of. --Masem (t) 13:16, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

True, merging is always an option, if there is a suitable merge target. Debresser (talk) 13:22, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Minimum size for stub categories

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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What should be the recommended minimum size for stub categories? Should an exception be adopted for accepted subcategory schemes, as for WP:SMALLCAT? –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 19:54, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

• [summoned by bot] - by "stub categories" do you mean categories containing stubs by subject (e.g. Category:Medusozoan stubs)? If so, what is the purpose of having a minimum category size if the whole point of having such a category is to facilitate its reduction to zero? Is the question about where to create those categories (as opposed to having a stub subcategory for every conceivable category)? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 20:58, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
• Stub sorter here. I don't know how the recommended minimum number was set (it was before my time), but as you may have seen, there are many stub categories which seem to fall into the 50-60 article range. Frequently editors seem to be eager to create stub types but not so eager to apply them, resulting in underpopulated categories. Anyway, my mind is open on the question of lowering the minimum and will encourage my fellow stub sorters to chime in here. Her Pegship (I'm listening) 04:12, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
• Maybe 200 characters. --ThesenatorO5-2^{argue with me} 04:38, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
• Comment The RfC template was removed by a bot due to inactivity. No consensus has been reached yet. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 18:56, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

?? The RFC first got advertised on November 3, 2020 North8000 (talk) 13:48, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

The question was apparently worded badly, since the reply "Maybe 200 characters" implies that ThesenatorO5-2 didn't understand the question. It took me till today to understand what the question was. Now that I do, my opinion is that no exception should be made. The regular WP:SMALLCAT criteria are low enough as it is, with 4-5 articles usually being enough. Debresser (talk) 13:53, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

I was invited by the bot. I don't have much of an opinion other than it seems like not a good time to close it. North8000 (talk) 00:08, 5 November 2020 (UTC).

"Get rid of stub tags"?

Maybe I missed something, but until I saw it in the Spotlight I didn't know about the discussion at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Get_rid_of_stub_tags which began on 21 June. I hope the rest of you did. PamD 18:39, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

First I've heard of it. Her Pegship (?) 20:35, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

RfC: What should be the minimum size?

The last RfC closed as no consensus due to inactivity. Using feedback from the "closer", I will try again as follows:

On determining if a stub type is useful, Wikipedia:Stub currently reads:

4. Will there be a significant number of existing stubs in this category? (Ideally, a newly created stub type has 100–300 articles. In general, any new stub category should have a minimum of 60 articles. This threshold is modified in the case of the main stub category used by a WikiProject.)

1. Should the recommended minimum of 60 articles be lowered to 25? (This number may be subject to further revision.)
2. Should an exception be added for standard subdivisions of large stub types, e.g. dividing Category:Aircraft stubs into decades?

RfC extended –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 05:21, 5 December 2020 (UTC) originally opened –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 23:10, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

• IMHO, we could lower it by a smaller increment, perhaps to 50 articles, and see whether that solves any of the backlog problems. Her Pegship (?) 00:13, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

  Pegship, which backlog are you hoping to solve? The existence of unsorted stubs (which would get worse by having narrower stub types) or the existence of "too many" stubs, with too few editors expanding them? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:16, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing - I was thinking that, if I were an editor, I might be daunted at the humongous size of stub categories and try to find a smaller category I could whittle away at. (Recently I sorted a bunch of West Bengal geo stubs because the India geo stubs looked overwhelming.) I admit that that's more of a psychological issue than mathematical, but that's how I roll. :D Folks seem to like creating stubs by the thousands rather than expanding those we have; I'm just wondering if splitting stub categories would make them more bite-sized. Her Pegship (?) 23:11, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Were you doing stub-sorting, or were you trying to find an article to expand? I'm not sure that what makes it more appealing to sort stubs is a good marker for what makes it easier to find an article to expand.

I do, however, agree that there are some practical limits: a stub category with many thousands of articles is nearly useless for direct use. (It might still be useful for searching or PetScan results, but who's going to look at page 23 of a huge category's contents?) A category with hundreds of articles is not bad. I might suggest the West Bengal stub cat, which lists less than 800 stubs (and therefore 4 pages), as an example of a cat that's nearing but maybe hasn't quite reached a plausible upper limit. (Thank you for the ping.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:15, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing - I admit that I rarely do more than correct grammar and punctuation, fix redlinks and redirects, and sort stubs; editing per se is not really in my wheelhouse. Thus I am not the best judge of what might appeal to an editor, I suppose. Cheers! Her Pegship (?) 06:55, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Correcting grammar and punctuation definitely counts as editing. :-)

If I'm looking for something to do (which is rare; work tends to find me, rather than me looking for it), I usually use a tool like https://bambots.brucemyers.com/cwb/bycat/Medicine.html (warning: huge page), instead of looking for stubs to expand. I wonder whether that kind of work is more typical of newer editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:23, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• This should definitely be lowered. The regular WP:SMALLCAT criteria don't mention any specific number, but 4-5 articles is common practice. I see no reason why stub categories should be any different. Even if a higher number will be decided upon, I agree with the second part of the proposal, that a lower number should be acceptable for categories that are part of a tree, like per year or decade or country or state categories, etc. Debresser (talk) 12:01, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
• No to permitting significant smaller stub tags, and No to dividing large categories. There is nothing about aircraft from different decades that would make someone interested in 1950s aircraft be uninterested in stubs about 1960s aircraft. There isn't anything wrong with having large stub categories, and there is something wrong with having editors spend hours figuring out whether a particular stub is "really" late 1950s or "really" early 1960s. Stub tags are not a primary categorization system. Fine granularity is not as desirable as maximizing the number of editors who see the stubs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:33, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

All excellent points. (However, in the case of Category:Aircraft stubs, it might have been more productive to split by type or era.) Her Pegship (?) 23:49, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

• Question (dumb kind) What are the stub types for? If they are so that editors find articles needing work that exist in their areas of interest, then it makes sense to have stub types that match those areas of interest. These areas should be as wide or as narrow as necessary to suit the population of editors in that area. So item 4 should probably read something like Will there be a workable number of editors interested in articles fitting this category? I suspect that WikiProjects or other organised collections of editors should define workable to suit their specific project. So, if there is a project or a group within a WikiProject specifically covered WW2 aircraft, then there should be a matching stub type {{WW2-aircraft-stub}}. — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 17:50, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
• With the caveat that I'm not a stub sorter and thus not super experienced in this area, I find WhatamIdoing's argument above convincing, so I'm inclined toward no. Ghost's point about workability above makes sense, but I think we should have a number, which is more definitive than a qualitative measure. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 09:27, 25 November 2020 (UTC)
• Comment RfC tag removed by bot due to inactivity. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 05:20, 5 December 2020 (UTC)