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Category:Hunter region geography stubs

I understand that this category is supposed to list stubs related to the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia but it's only doing a partial job of that and I'm not sure what the correct solution to the problem is. The category has three current templates; {{LakeMacquarie-geo-stub}}, {{NewcastleNSW-geo-stub}} and {{PortStephens-geo-stub}} which correspond to Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the region. This doesn't seem enough as there are eleven LGAs in the region. This means that currently, eight LGAs are being missed, or rather, they are being listed under the general category Category:New South Wales geography stubs. The simple solution would seem to be creation of the eight missing templates but I don't see what the point of having individual stub types is since all that each of these templates does is place the article in Category:Hunter region geography stubs. It would seem more appropriate to create one template, {{HunterRegion-geo-stub}}, rather than have eleven templates that do the same thing. I see that in Category:Central Coast, New South Wales geography stubs, Category:Riverina geography stubs and Category:Sydney geography stubs, this is what has been done. It's only in Category:Hunter region geography stubs and Category:Illawarra region geography stubs that there are individual stubs for each LGA. My question is therefore, how do I start the ball rolling to fix this? --AussieLegend (talk) 14:05, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

You'd do that by proposing it at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals. From past experience, you'd may be better off proposing the remaining eight templates rather than combining things into one, though. If the number of stubs continues to expand we may eventually need separate categories for several LGAs. It's fairly standard practice to create a series of upmerged templates to one more general category early on, knowing that in time there will be a need to split the category up, and that making all the templates early will save a lot of effort later. It's a little of a grey area though considering that Riverina and Central Coast don't seem to have been split that way, so perhaps proposing creating a HunterRegion-geo-stub (and turning the current templates into redirects) isn't such a bad idea. Grutness...wha? 23:56, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Purpose of WPSS-cat

When I created Category:Wind farm stubs, Category:Renewable power plant stubs, and Category:Hydroelectric power plant stubs, I just took Category:Renewable energy stubs as a model without questioning its content, which included {{WPSS-cat}}. Now, thanks to a recent edit to the wind farm stubs which removed this template, I realized that I actually don't understand its purpose. The info about how to create new stub templates and categories is not directly relevant to an existing stub category. This and more should be readily available at Wikipedia:Stub. A link there is already in {{Stub Category}}, which I assume is on top of every stub cat already. — Sebastian 21:02, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but no link other than WPSS-cat gives details to people who think they know what they're doing without referring to WP:STUB. The {{WPSS-cat}} template serves as a reminder (and strong hint to those who do not otherwise know) of the guidelines relating to the proposal of stub templates and categories. The introduction of that template saw a fairly dramatic drop in the number of unpropoised stub types, and the number is still far lower than it used to be before the template was introduced. The template also indicates that a particular stub category is one of those patrolled and known by WPSS. Categories that are found without the template in place are more likely to be reported as "new discoveries". So the template serves three purposes - it links stub categories to the WikiProject, it announces the location of the proposal page, and it serves as an indication of whether a stub category is "official". Grutness...wha? 23:47, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

If it works, then who am I to complain? Only, does it really have to be above the more pertinent template? I would guess that only a small percentage of people who open an existing stub cat do so because they want to create a new one.

When you say it indicates that it is patrolled and known by WPSS it reminds me of our WP:SLR/bluebox. Unfortunately, in our case, we can't rely on its presense for patrolling since we would miss vandalism that removes the template. That of course should not be a problem in your case, since it's unlikely that someone vandalizes a stub cat page in the first place, and even if such a deletion got overlooked, it probably isn't as big a problem as when someone writes defamation in a BLP. — Sebastian 00:48, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Makes sense. And no, there's no reason why it shouldn't go below the other template - it's more a case of "that's the way it's always been done" rather than any necessity for it to go there. I don't think anyone would object too strongly if it was moved lower down. Grutness...wha? 01:26, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Art dealer stubs

I am trying to diffuse Category:Art stubs and am running across many stubs about gallery owners and art collectors, like Joseph del Pesco and Javier Peres. I think it would be logical to sort these under Category:Art museums and galleries stubs, but would like other input before I do so. Another frequent type of art stub I'm coming across relates to art awards, honors, and competitions- it may be good to have a stub category for these too. Lithoderm 01:17, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, so much for asking for help here. This project seems to be made up of editors who are more interested in administrative processes than in diffusing large categories. The Category book art stubs has at least 50 pages in it, not including its illuminated manuscripts subcategory. How's this for a proposal: a general stub category relating to art materials and techniques. That would cover many of the remaining articles in Category:Art stubs. Whatever happened to WP:BOLD? Lithoderm 15:21, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

The best place to propose things is on the proposal page, not here - make those suggestions at WP:WSS/P and youll get far more response than here. As for WP:BOLD, I advise you to read that page, especially the bit that refers to the need for caution with categories and templates. Grutness...wha? 23:30, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

On awards: there's a Category:Award stubs, with subdivisions for Film, Literary, and Sports awards, so if there were enough Arts awards to justify a new stubtype there's a nice place in the hirearchy for them. PamD (talk) 16:47, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Draft of new WPSS category notice

This stub category contains upmerged templates without categories. Articles tagged with such a template will fall into this parent category until the template is used on more than 60 articles. Please do not create a sub-category for an upmerged template without proposing it first at WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals. Thank you!

Please edit/improve as desired. Her Pegship (tis herself) 01:09, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Looks good.Judging by recent events with Category:Museum stubs we may also need a similar template to add to the top of parent-only categories explaining why there is no basic template for them. Grutness...wha? 01:20, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that is just what I had imagined. Is it possible that European museum stubs could remain so categorized, even if the template is changed back to the basic "museum stub"? Some cat. variable, that would be inserted like this: {{Museum-stub|cat=Euro}}? Lithoderm 02:11, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Best thing might be to leave it for now until such time as by-country types are made for all european countries. Stub templates aren't parameterised (for reasons too convoluted and messy to go into now, but there's been loads of discussion on it in the past). Grutness...wha? 04:35, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Strange goings on with Spanish regional stubs

I've been busy reverting a series of anonymous edits to various Spanish regional geography stubs which have in some cases seen regional stub types turned into redirects to Spain-stub or Spain-geo-stub, and in other removed dedicated categories and replaced them with the Spanish basic ones - in all cases requiring a considerable number of null-edits to get things back to normal. Does anyone know what's going on and whether there's some reason for it? The templates affected have been {{CanaryIslands-geo-stub}} (both removed from their dedicated categories and upmerged to the Spanish national categories) {{Plazadesoberanía-stub}} and {{Plazadesoberanía-geo-stub}} (both turned into redirects to the Spain equivalents). I've just done 50-odd null edits to try to get things back where they belong.

There also seem to have been some un-upmerged templates which should have stayed upmerged (we have an unhealthily small Category:Almería province geography stubs, which seems to never have been proposed). Also, at some time during the last year an anon (presumably someone from Spanish Wikipedia) has gone through and changed a lot of the Spanish regional stub templates over to asbox types - quite sloppily at times. I changed about 20 of them back before I gave up in disgust. Just to compound everything, there's a slow-rolling edit war going on at Catalonia-geo-stub. Fun times. Grutness...wha? 08:17, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I left a message on your talk page about this, but what exactly is the problem with using {{asbox}}? It's far easier to figure out what's going on with an {{asbox}}-based template than one which includes several lines of manually-specified divs and tables. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:19, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's far less flexible, for one thing. As I've just put on your talk page, there have been simmering rumbles about asbox here ever since it was launched on us. I know I'm not the only stub sorter who replaces asbox code if a template using it needs to be edited for any reason. Grutness...wha? 22:55, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Being less flexible is a pretty simple thing to fix if absolutely required. If you can drum up some use cases I can get the template edited. This seems to me to be an infinitely superior solution to having what appears to be a very good solution to the problem of standardising our stub output reverted on sight over rather fuzzy grievances with it. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:16, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Chris here, if anything we should be changing the stubs to using a meta-template. It won't affect any of the existing stub templates except making them more standardised with each other. Then if some change happens that effects the way stub templates are used, we can change all of them with one edit to one template instead of thousands. —Borgarde 08:09, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Update

I've pinged Grutness about this without any response. As such, I'd appreciate if in future conversions to use {{asbox}} are not summarily reverted in future; there doesn't appear to be any particular technical problem with the template, and it's a boon for maintenance and standardisation. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:19, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

• Mmmmm. Must have been one of the ten or so messages I got while I was in hospital - I didn't notice it. You're right - there's no technical problem - it just makes work here more difficult, which is why it is usually reverted wherever possible. Grutness...wha? 22:54, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

The question is why "it makes work here more difficult", and what can be done about that save for having a widely-deployed template being summarily reverted by the project most likely to make use of it. I don't see why the template can't be altered to accommodate any concerns. The current situation is suboptimal. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:51, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I'd appreciate it if they were all reverted, and the whole wretched mess deleted. In the name of "standardisation", this in effect is just introducing yet another non-standard coding. The problems with "standardisation" aren't at all technical, it's that people like to "improve" on the standard we supposedly already have consensus for. Many of these new or converted asbox templates have been done horribly in the extreme. It would seem a minimally sensibly thing to do to do the "accommodation of any concerns" before further conversions are sprung on us. Alai (talk) 11:26, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

EXAMPLES please. Really. I will address ANY issue you bring forth. I have multiple times over the past week invited people to provide feedback to the latest {{asbox}}, I have asked them what should be improved and why, and have gotten ZERO feedback thank you very much. The current design of stubs is just STUPENDIOUS beyond belief, and uses multiple deprecated CSS classes. This shows WHY standardization is needed, especially when it can be done with something as simple to use as asbox (though i agree it's documentation is horrendous). A status quo is not the same as a technical standardization that simplifies maintenance when we want to change the basic visual look of a stub. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:30, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

And to clarify i will personally recruit an army to convert the whole shebang when we finally agree on what an asbox is supposed to be. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:33, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree.

1. Converting the stub templates to use one common template is a good thing. The current handling with the outdated css styles and the id "stub" substituted into every stub template needs to be cleaned up anyway, and style classes will keep changing in the future. Centralizing the layout of stubs in one template is the way forward.
2. From everything I've seen in the different stub templates there are they can be very easily converted to use a template, and they can more easily be maintained using a template. I do not see what the difficulties are that require handling the raw code instead
3. The necessary restrictions from using a template are, in my opinion, a good thing. There's no witchcraft required for stub templates, they don't need a thousand options. But even if it is found that the extreme, untemplateable diversity is required: even if only the frame defining the div were centralized in a template it would be an improvement.

Amalthea 14:52, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

STUPENDIOUS, even? Thanks, that clears everything up. The liberal use of ALL CAPS was especially enlightening. I've just given you "feedback" on asbox, the same feedback I've been giving all along, as soon as anyone here was aware of it (i.e. sometime after Rich decided to start "test-deploying" it): let's not use it. Rather than begging the question of conversion to a metatemplate, why can't we take as a starting point discussion of what content we should be converting to? Personally I couldn't give a rat's arse about the CSS and the tags: if those are readily fixable, then let's by all means fix them. Talk of "maintenance", however, is more suggestive of a situation where there exists little notions of what new "standard" markup to move to, and we anticipate constant tinkering with something that'll have a million-odd transclusions, for bonus cloggedness of the job queue. (And yes, I've aware of the content of WP:TALKTOTHEDEVHAND before anyone throws that back into the discussion.) But what really irks me are things like wacky image sizes, sorting and oddball categorisation, which asbox and other meta-solutions not only do nothing to standardise, but seem to want to go out of their way to unstandardise. Alai (talk) 15:17, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

This is funny, first the thing is not flexible enough, and then you end your argument with that it goes out of it's way to make it too flexible... —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:54, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Yoga

Category:Stubs currently holds just one item - Supta Virasana. It seems to be a yoga position (the creating editor didn't actually bother to tell us so ...), and I can find no appropriate stub type. I think I've hit this problem before - any suggestions? We don't seem to have a useful umbrella like "Exercise" or "Physical training". PamD (talk) 11:59, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

mmmm. Good point. it's not bodybuilding or gymnastics, which are the two closest as far as exercise goes - one or two yogaa stubs are marked with {{Spirituality-stub}}, which is understandable but a bit of a stretch. Perhaps a proposal is in order...? Grutness...wha? 22:56, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Server lag?

This has been noticed twice now...Category:Hebrew Bible stubs was created to replace Category:Tanakh stubs, which was then duly deleted, but apparently there are still hundreds of articles linked to the latter category. I tried some null edits on articles, the template, and even the category, to no avail. I recently renamed several other categories under Category:European organization stubs, but this time did not delete the old ones, for fear the same thing would happen. Does anyone know a trick to get the server to do something to solve this? Or is it something in the category or template code that needs fixing? (Pardon my abysmal ignorance, but dammit, Jim! I'm an editor, not a programmer!). Cheers, Pegship (talk) 18:53, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Found the problem with Category:Tanakh stubs - turns out it was a link in the WikiProject Judaism talk page template. I'm hoping that'll clear up soon. Meanwhile, how about the org stubs? Pegship (talk) 19:12, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Server lag has been a huge problem with all stub categories since before Christmas. I'm having to do null edits on everything with every new stub type created. It's a right royal pain. Grutness...wha? 07:10, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Fayenaticlondon suggests I get someone with a bot to change over the templates manually (there are still 423 articles in the nonexistent Category:Tanakh stubs). Is there a procedure for that, or do I just go find somebody? Pegship (talk) 16:12, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

There's been a shortage of bots for WSS since Alai left... perhaps Wikipedia:Bot requests? Might even be worth suggesting that we'll need regular bot-work here until the lag goes away. Grutness...wha? 22:43, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Canadian History Stubs

Is there a specific reason why the Canadian history stubs have the Red Ensign as the image? (e.g. Rowell-Sirois Commission) I understand that the Red Ensign is Canada's old flag, so I guess it speaks to Canadian history, but it seems more appropriate to have the current Canadian flag, because after all, the articles dealt with are about the history of what we now know as Canada, and contemporary Canada is associated with today's flag. I also recall that when putting flags in articles of famous Canadians born before the contemporary flag was adopted in 1965 it is appropriate to use the contemporary flag anyways. I hope I'm posting this inquiry in the right place, please let me know if I'm not. -- The Fwanksta (talk) 19:50, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Yup, it's the right place, though probably asking about it on the template's talk page would be a better place to get support or objections for changing the icon. As for why it's used, you got it exactly right - it represents Canada, but is also clearly historical rather than modern. Using the modern flag certainly makes it clear it's Canada, but not that it's "old Canada". We haven't really standardised the icons of history stubs, since every country has something different which most succinctly says "this country a long time ago" - we've used everything from national war memorials to early postage stamps as icons on history stubs. Grutness...wha? 00:05, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Standardised stub messages

Any chance this project might take on the standardisation of format of stub messages? An "article" like Midlands Plateau is currently as messy as can be because of the poorly formatted stub messages - different justification, different line spacing. thanks --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:02, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

We do our best - problem is with individual editors and other wikiprojects altering stub templates once they're created. They're usually pretty standardised when they "leave the factory" as it were (as much as they can be given the wide range of subject matters). Unfortunately, every time we try to get them standardised, some well-intentioned editor comes along and "corrects" them to whatever they see as standard. Check out something like this to get an idea of the problem, and also how many times the templates in question have been "amended", "corrected", "improved", and generally just stuffed around with over the years, and then multiply the problem by the total number of stub templates. Unless you want to propose that they all be protected (which would be a huge advantage to this project, but would be only possible over howls of protest from other editors, most probably) it's a problem that won't go away, no matter how hard we try to standardise things. Grutness...wha? 01:35, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

It's back to standard again. How long for, though... Grutness...wha? 01:45, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

There is a standard: {{asbox}}. In general I try to roll it out wherever I can for the sake of standardisation. However, Grutness has as-of-yet unspecified issues with this template. Grutness, care to provide those yet, so that we can update the meta-template so that it better suits your purposes? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:46, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

A standard approach is to be applauded - I hope you can reach consensus. Thanks for doing what you do. --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:42, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

My theory is that the asbox code is counter-intuitive for those of us that aren't familiar with more complex wiki code, and that using the metatamplate subst method creates text that is easy for me to customize without having to know what goes on what line. There are so many stub creators that I wonder if they shy away from the asbox for that reason. I don't know about the technical issues, just the end-user ones. Just a thought - Pegship (talk) 21:50, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

It is massively counterintuitive for people who are writing-savvy first and tech-savvy 389th. Using the metatemplate is a lot easier for many people for exactly the reason Peg suggests. As to other issues with it, they differ from template to template, especially since its approach is to attempt to standardise things that often aren't intended to be standardised. The overall look of a stub template is intended to be a standard, but the minor details of it often can't be. Grutness...wha? 23:56, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

We have all seen enough examples of stub pages with ragged messy multiple stub messages to know that format standardisation is to be encouraged. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:11, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Why, exactly? The template code is not exactly complicated; the layout is essentially "this (prefix) article (suffix) is a stub". That's all there is to it! If it's that the documentation is unnecessarily complicated and intimidating then I can fix that in five minutes. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:12, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

(apologetically:) The template code, even with the documentation, is a bit intimidating to me, and believe me, I am not faint of heart when it comes to tinkering with code. If you could create an "idiot's version" for such as I, it might help. <g> Pegship (talk) 05:40, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I've added a "basic usage" section at the top of the documentation which should suffice for a great many stubs. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:43, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's quite as simple as that ... and I find it irritating when I apply two stubs and find that they're inconsistent in spacing etc and look a mess. Can't find an example, but it happens - even two "Foo-footy-bio-stub" (comes from X,plays for Y) don't always match. So I'm in favour of some sort of standard metatemplate which generates consistency. PamD (talk) 00:22, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't {{ asbox | image = Ambox style.png | subject = [[football]] | qualifier = about an [[Xian]] player who plays in [[Y]] | category = Xian footballers }} cover every case of that example? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:38, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Wait, where did that code come from? Is that an alternative to {{asbox}}? Pegship (talk) 05:40, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to, no. At least, it clearly doesn't work the way stubs are intended to. I just tried pasting it onto a userpage sandbox as a test, and it didn't put that page into any category at all. Yet user sandbox pages being used to create articles are supposed to go into stub categories, so that they can be worked on by other editors. So that example instance failed. I also tried to add a second category to a use of it in articlespace (which is common practice in cases where tenmplates are doubly upmerged. That didn't work either. So that's two problems just from one example (Xian footballers) of the template's use. And if they're of the form "this (prefix) article (suffix) is a stub, what about those where the word "article" is not used, such as "This biography of a Fooian Bar is a stub."? Grutness...wha? 01:11, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Template:Scotland-footy-defender-stub follows exactly this format, and works. Can I see your sandbox? As for your biography example, that could be trivially resolved with some modifications to the template, but I need a concrete set of use cases and suggestions in order to move on. I've been requesting such for a month now. The time to provide this kind of data is now, if we want to move forward with this. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 01:32, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I think it's about time we get around the standardising these using the asbox method as well. It's not hard to use, to me it looks a lot easier than the copy and pasting of other codes to create a new stub type. —Borgarde 09:35, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Technical issues

De-indenting this. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:38, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

My sandbox is, not surprisingly, at User:Grutness/Sandbox, and has the coding for "Xian footy bio stub" at the top. And the Scottish template doesn't address the other problemI mentioned: it can only link to one category. And as I keep saying, it's impossible to provide a "concrete set of cases", since every time an asbox stub template hasn't seemed to be working properly over the last year or however long it's been since asbox was created, it's simply been replaced with the older form which does work. I'm not sure whether there's anyone who keeps a list of the cases where it hasn't done its work. Given that there was a fairly strong feeling among several stub sorters (myself and Alai included) that the trial run of asbox was just that - a trial run, to see whether it worked and saved effort (it didn't, on either count, to anywhere near the level where it was worth continuing the trial) - and not intended to be permanent, there seemed no need to keep a list of the dozens of asbox-style stub templates which were replaced with the more effective ones. Grutness...wha? 23:09, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I've had a look at your sandbox, and it seems to work fine - if you're talking about the categories not showing up, it's because {{ambox}} has conditional code which means that article categories are only added if the template is placed on articlespace. Try previewing a mockup page in articlespace with your sandbox code and it'll get category:Xian footballers.

As for the categories, {{asbox}} currently allows for up to two categories, specified with the category and category1 attributes. If there's a demonstrable need for more attributes to be added then that's simple to do.

Finally, now that there appears to be genuine interest in moving more generally to {{asbox}}, this is the time to try getting said template fixed so that it covers all bases. So if there aren't any existing issues which prevent its adoption, that it should start to be rolled out, and if there are problems with it then they should be flagged (on here or on template talk:asbox) for fixing. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:38, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

(1) The categories need to be shown on usages of the template in user space and other spaces, for reasons which have been made clear before both here and elsewhere; (2) There are several upmerged stub templates that have more than two categories (I think there's one with four, but I can't say for sure). If these two problems can be fixed and there is a genuine call for it to be adopted, then that's fine. Alai's no longer on WP to complain about it, and I don't seem to be getting any support for my stand from other users who have complained about it in the past, so I'll grudgingly acquiesce. Grutness...wha? 23:01, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

If you unprotect the template I could fix both of those things. — CharlotteWebb 23:13, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes please !

What is the status of this ? I've been looking at some of this lately, and rediscovered (i discovered it last year as well), that there are some serious issues with the stub templates. Formatting is all over the place, they use class=notice and class=boilerplate, both classes that have been deprecated, they all use the "unique" ID: "stub", which is incorrect, because there can be multiple stubs on a page. In my opinion it is time we start getting serious about standardization here. I understand the argument of the "non-technical" enduser, but seriously, how hard is it to read documentation and specifying some options. In my opinion no more difficult than coming to this place to "propose" your stub. Also, the proliferation and abundance of the *mbox series and infoboxes over the last couple of years have significantly increased editors experience with these kinds of templates. In my opinion a good cleanup run of the stubs is overdue, and my hands are itching to do so. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 00:47, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Grutness dropped his opposition to the rollout, so as far as I'm concerned the path is clear to broader adoption. If you've got any suggestions as to how this might be expedited then I'm all ears. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:46, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I have a new suggested version of asbox Template_talk:Asbox#mbox here. What is needed next is likely a lot of AWB work. Which i don't have.... —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:26, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Stub tag script

I just discovered User:Ais523/stubtagtab2.js and installed it on my monobook.js page, but it doesn't seem to be having any effect. Before I pester the scriptwriter (he seems to be awfully busy), has anyone else used this script, and with what result? Cheers, Pegship (talk) 06:39, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Do we know how many geography stubs there are, total?

I don't know where to find this number, or if it's easily findable. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:08, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

There should be a tool on the toolserver, but those which seem to be in this area don't appear to work right now :( YMMV. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:08, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

The number is so large that most off such tools won't calculate it. At a guess I'd put it in the ballpark of quarter of a million, but that is simply that - a guessSuffice to say that it's a six figure number, and the first of those six digits is unlikely to be one. Grutness...wha? 20:50, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

326785. Alai (talk) 11:59, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Allowing for a slight increase since March, my ballpark figure wasn't too bad (assuming Alai didn't just pull that number out of thin air). Grutness...wha? 12:22, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

It was pulled out of a decidedly fat database. Alai (talk) 09:51, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Environment stubs - lacking green box in category pages

I'm not sure whether these 4 categories count as "Discoveries" or not: they all have the blue "This category is for..." box, but not the green "This category is maintained by..." box. Category:Environment stubs (282 pages), and 3 of its children: Category:Sustainability stubs (77), Category:Water supply stubs (100) and Category:Wind farm stubs (135). PamD (talk) 10:27, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Check the "whatlinkshere" link in the toolbox on each category, (and if necessary filter for links to wikispace). If they're listed in WP:WSS/P, then they're fine and you can add the green box. If itthey'res not, then report them at discoveries. IIRC, they're fine 9though I'm not sure about the wind farms one). Grutness...wha? 23:00, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

About Wagle Surname

Wagle Comes from Rogaland in Norway and originally written as Vagle.Branches of this family were established in both Denmark and Sweden,the Swedish branch having been ennobled by King Charles XIII. The family is of ducal origin. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.210.44.250 (talk) 13:38, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

With due respect, what - if anything - does this have to do with sorting stubs? Grutness...wha? 21:17, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

London Underground, London Overground and DLR

I have created one stub template that incorporates all three of these after some confusion between the DLR and the LU. The London Overground was relatively small as well (not the system, the number of stubs). After what can effectively be called a merger, stubs in all three systems, plus any other topic related if it is added, can be found at Category:London Transport stubs, with the change to new template of Template:London-transport-stub. Simply south (talk) 11:00, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Um...where was the proposal for this? Grutness...wha? 21:41, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

There wasn't, i just did this. WAs i meant to? :E|Simply south (talk) 22:22, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Not without proposing it, as explained at WP:STUB, at the top of WP:WSS/P, and in the green box at the top of Category:London Transport stubs. That way it can be discussed to see whether it's worth doing or whether theree are any problems with it. if there are, it's going to take far more work to fix now than if they'd been sorted out during a proposal period. An ounce of prevention etc etc. In this case, the London Underground stub type was part of a system for similar metropolitan rail lines around the world, which now needs fixing... Grutness...wha? 00:09, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Should they be recreated as redirects or would this be a little unusual? I think i got a little annoyed with someone thinking that the DLR is part of the Underground. Simply south (talk) 18:20, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Best thing might be to list in on the proposals page WP:WSS/P and explain what's happened there - I think more people involved in the prokect watch that page than this one, so you're more likely to get a consensus on what to do. Redirects sound OK to me. Grutness...wha? 22:04, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

This seems to further muddle Transport in London, Transport for London, and London Transport, unfortunately. It's also somewhat cat-crossing, since normally the "Metros" and the "bus systems" are separate stub types (though whether that's the best organisation may depend on one's perspective). Alai (talk) 12:28, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Hungary history

I've just stubsorted Judith of Hungary, giving her both {{Hungary-bio-stub}} and {{Hungary-hist-stub}}. I'm mystified as to why she hasn't got intoCategory:Hungarian history stubs. Can anyone explain? Is there something forbidden about being both History and Biography (it seemed reasonable here)? Is the stub template broken in some way? Am I just missing something? Thanks, PamD (talk) 21:51, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Technically, historical figures shouldn't get a hist-stub template, only a bio-stub (if you want to look at it logically, all people worthy of articles are hiostorical figures, even if the history in many cases is modern history). In this case, though, what's going on is that there was a faulty edit on the {{Hungary-hist-stub}} template - someone had accidentally hidden the category link - which I've now fixed. Grutness...wha? 00:12, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Subst sfp tpl?

On April 4, a whole bunch of {{sfp bottom}}s on the Feb 2009 SFD page were subst'd by a bot. WP:SUBST says this template should always be subst'd; this is news to me, and I wonder if there's a change we stub sorters should know about. I can't find a discussion on it. I have no problem subst'ing; I'm just looking for information. Thanks - Pegship (talk) 20:22, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't know of any official rule for it, though I have mentioned at WPtalk:SFD in the past that substing would probably be a good idea. My guess is that a rule was brought in for AFD/CFD/TFD etc and was somehow automatically extended to SFD without any notification. Grutness...wha? 23:21, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

unpopulated baseball pitcher stub categories

These categories have been empty for over a month now. Is anyone working on this?

• Category:Baseball_pitcher,_1860s_births_stubs
• Category:Baseball_pitcher,_1920s_births_stubs
• Category:Baseball_pitcher,_1930s_births_stubs
• Category:Baseball_pitcher,_1940s_births_stubs
• Category:Baseball_pitcher,_1950s_births_stubs
• Category:Baseball_pitcher,_1960s_births_stubs
• Category:Baseball_pitcher,_1970s_births_stubs
• Category:Baseball_pitcher,_1980s_births_stubs

--Stepheng3 (talk) 17:39, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Heh. Looks like Waacstats made these but forgot to repoint the templates to the new cats. Hopefully they should start filling soon! Grutness...wha? 23:15, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Is there a specific cause for hope? Is there some way we could make sure that this happens? --Stepheng3 (talk) 03:13, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Tyhe cause of hope is that I have changed the link on the templates :) They may take some time to appear due to server lag. if youn want to speed up the process to make sure they appear immediately, you could go through the "whatlinkshere" of each template and do null edits on every article listed that uses each template.... lotta work, though... Grutness...wha? 06:58, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll wait for the server to catch up. Thanks! --Stepheng3 (talk) 01:27, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Redirects?

Has someone been deleting stub redirects lately? I'm trying to sort stubs, but I type things like {{NewYork-bio-stub}} and {{Australia-rugby-stub}}, and I get redlinks. I used to get useful pages, where I could go and figure out the more specific template that I needed. Now I'm left guessing.

Or... am I just out of sync today? -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:30, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Neither of those has ever existed - or if they have someone's expunged the deletions from the deletion log and histories. The rugby one would never have existed anyway - even as a redirect - since "rugby" is two completely different sports (try {{Australia-rugbyunion-bio-stub}} or {{Australia-rugbyleague-bio-stub}}. We also don't tend to have bio stub types for subnational areas for the most part (though we do have ones where there's a distinct tie to a place, like {{NewYork-politician-stub}}). Grutness...wha? 00:57, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I think I'm firing on five out of six cylinders today. I'm usually good at guessing names of stub templates. I notice that we have got {{Texas-bio-stub}}, and six other states, plus Puerto Rico. Do you think it would make sense to create the other 43 templates, but have them sort articles into Category:American people stubs? -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:24, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Mmmm. Dunno. May be worth proposing on WP:WSS/P. As for Puerto Rico, it (and the likes of Guam) are treated as separate nations from the point of view of stub sorting (if it's good enough for them to have an Olympics team, it's good enough for us :) Grutness...wha? 01:46, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

That may be, but if you look at Category:American people stubs, Puerto Rico shows up as a subcategory. It's over on the right, near the bottom. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:57, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Odd. It's in Category:Caribbean stubs and its subtypes for everything else. Grutness...wha? 04:30, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Reformatting

Howdy all - In an attempt to organize the To do page a bit, I suggest we 1. eliminate the "excess articles" section at the end, since it hasn't been update since October (and isn't likely to be), and 2. rename the "oversized categories to be split" to "categories to be re-sorted or split", which is frequently more accurate. In other news, at least one other WPSSer has noticed the backlog of work without our two main mop-wielders (Grutness and Alai) and I would like to ask everyone, in a seasonally appropriate baseball metaphor, to step up to the plate and do a little grunt work -- populating new categories, assigning new upmerged templates, etc. Thanks for listening. Cheers, Pegship (talk) 19:26, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Editor who puts stub tags at top

An editor is putting {{stub}} tags at the top of articles. I've pointed out that WP:stub says "By convention this is placed at the end of the article, after the External links section, any navigation templates, and the category tags, so that the stub category will appear last." and asked her to do this, but she first ignored me completely, and now says "I am trying to politely agree to disagree with you. You made your point the first time and have no need to repeat it several times. We disagree and that is it. I will continue to not reply in the future because I don't think it will benefit either of us to discuss the issue further.". Any suggestions for how we can encourage her to put the tags at the end? It makes stub-sorting more difficult when you have to hunt the stub tag and then delete it from the top, rather than just editing it at the end. I've asked a couple of earlier editors to put the tags at the end rather than the top and they've happily complied: I'm somewhat taken aback by the attitude I've now encountered! PamD (talk) 18:43, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

It's difficult. Some editors just don't listen no matter how ingrained in convention or policy something is. Not much that can be done really other than grin and bear it. Given their attitude to convention (and, by implication, to consensus), it's quite likely they'll fall foul of an actual policy at some point or at the very least find themselves at an RfC. Grutness...wha? 00:20, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

This wouldn't be User:Postcard Cathy, by any chance, would it? I've commented a couple of times to her about doing that, and she just deletes my message from her talk page without comment (and seemingly also the comments of anyone else who criticises anything she does). Grutness...wha? 02:37, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

In the scheme of things, it doesn't really matter, since it appears she's only misplacing unsorted stub templates, and does in fact put sorted stub templates in the conventional place, so that when someone else sorts the former, the matter's dealt with. Which in a way just makes it all the more bizarre, but further speculation would be in the realm of armchair psychology, rather than dispute resolution. I find talk-page blanking a deeply obnoxious practice, and if I were GodKing for a day, I'd ban it (except insofar as it clearly comes within WP:RPA). But since the incumbent GodKing does it himself... G. is correct that this all comes under "grin and bear it" (actual grinning optional), but it's somewhat indicative of the "we have amazingly lax standards, and don't even bother enforcing those" state of affairs around here (except when it comes to the clique-ish Disruptive Purge of the Month, such as on GFDL, userboxes, and spoiler warnings, say). Alai (talk) 10:11, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

As you may have noticed, Pam & I brought the matter up at AN/I, but it hasn't gone any further. Personally, I think that this user's attitude is likely to see her brought up for an RfC sooner rather than later, though that's a task for someone else to do rather than us. Grutness...wha? 10:31, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I hadn't, thanks for pointing that out. (Naturally, the user in question blanked yet another user's talk-page message on that, too.) It's now archived here, if needed for future reference. Alai (talk) 12:23, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Created a new stub

So I made a wee oopsie and created a new stub type with associated category without going through the process here. Sorry. So er... it's here. Thought you might like to know. I'm currently updating relevant articles with the new one. //roux   21:18, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Hm, well, it looks OK, but are there at least 60 articles it would apply to? If not, we may have to upmerge for now. Thanks for your confession. :P Pegship (talk) 21:42, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

If not actually 60, should be close. And as I'm on break from school, there will be a bunch more stubs coming over the next few days, so whether it's 60 now or not is kind of immaterial, as it will be shortly. //roux   21:47, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Category:Heraldry stubs is definitely one that is getting quite large, so splitting out one or two countries makes sense. The template looks well formed, so if it gets to 60 there'll be no problems. In future, though, it's as well to go to WP:WSS/P first! I'll see if I can find some stubs to add this to... Grutness...wha? 23:50, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Followup - I've got it up to 40 stubs. It's a start, but it still needs another 20. Grutness...wha? 00:16, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Well for one, 60's arbitrary and I'm highly inclined to IAR, given that sorting this way makes it a lot easier for me to structure my projects over the next little while. And I'm still churning through the category of heraldry stubs to nab the Canadian ones. //roux   00:21, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

You may be inclined to IAR, but it makes the work of stub sorting a lot harder if we start relaxing the number of stubs in a category. It also potentially creates more work for other editors (though a category of 40 (46 now, BTW) isn't too bad from this regard) For an explanation of why we set 60 as a standard, have a look at the first section of User:Grutness/Stub rationales. It's arbitrary, sure, but arrived at after a lot of thought and a lot of stub sorting. If the category can be got to 60, though, it's another matter, and with any luck it may get there fairly quickly. Grutness...wha? 00:54, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Stub MOS

Hi all - it's been pointed out to me that WP:STUB is the nearest we have to a stub manual of style, but that it isn't really in line with other MOS-type documents, and quite a bit which would be on there if it were a MOS document is actually in aa separate area (WP:WSS/NG). Is it worth revamping the Wikipedia:Stub page, possibly along the lines of this? -

• Wikipedia:Manual of style (stubs) - general overall comments about what a stub is (and with redirects from WP:STUB), with two subpages
  • Wikipedia:Manual of style (stubs)/Stub creation - details about how, where and when stub categories and templates are created
  • Wikipedia:Manual of style (stubs)/Naming conventions - the current WP:WSS/NG page

It would make it clear that the naming "guidelines' have been regarded as conventions for some time, and would make them a distinct part of WP:STUB, without lengthening the page. It would also make it easier for it to conform to the other MoS pages. (crossposted at Wikipedia talk:Stub - please make any responses there, not here) Grutness...wha? 06:19, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Major or minor

Hi, I'd like to help sort stubs, I find tedious repetitive stuff like this relaxing sometimes (no really...). When adding or replacing a stub-cat, should the change be marked as major or minor? Thanks Sasata (talk) 02:53, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

We must stop meeting like this ;) It varies from editor to editor, but I'd tend to regard them as minor if the stub template change is the only thing done. A lot of the time, though, sorting a stub is done at the same time as adding cleanup templates (e.g., {{wikify}} or {{orphan}}) or permanent categories. If there's that much work involved, then it's be more likely to be considered major. We can always use more stub-sorters, BTW, so welcome aboard! Grutness...wha? 07:00, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

promotional link in India-business-bio-stub

This stub has a promo link to http://invisionindia.com/services.htm {{India-business-bio-stub}}

How can this be removed?

I've rolled back the vandalism and warned the offending new editor. - Dravecky (talk) 15:17, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

To be fair (or perhaps somewhat over-generous, I'm not sure...) this may not be vandalism per se, as confusion as to what a stub template is, compounded by being unable to create a new article. Alai (talk) 15:22, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

There is a way to trace back a web link in Wikipedia. I forgot how to look for it... a pointer will help. :) ChiragPatnaik (talk) 15:28, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

You mean to find all WP pages with a given external link? IIRC there's a toolserver ap to do that, or else possibly a report stashed someplace -- or if there isn't, the data certainly exists on the toolserver, so a direct query would be another option. Alai (talk) 16:46, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Special:LinkSearch —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:28, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Clean slate, standardization once more ({{asbox}} proposal)

OK, i'm an outsider, and I just can't wrap my head around what you guys want in a stub. So some questions:

1. Should imagesizes for stubs be in a "bounding" box 40x30px? Should exceptions be allowed ?
2. Should multiple images be allowed ?
3. Should the templates in stubs categories always be defaultsorted to ' ' or to something else like '*' ?
4. Should pages with stub templates always categorize, or just when the stub is in Article or User namespace ?
5. Are something like "additional" notes desired for stubs ?

If someone can please answer, then I can get to work on creating a custom tailored template that will suit your needs. I'm really not convinced by Alai's arguments that:

{{subst:MetaPicstub|image=example.jpg|size=40|article=football related article|category=Football}}

is any easier than:

{{asbox|image=example.jpg|article=football related article|category=Football stubs}}

A metatemplate can be protected against vandalism, and templates are many times more efficient than they were 4 years ago (when metatemplates indeed were a potential problem). We make regular changes to high transclusion templates these days, without many people ever noticing it. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:10, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

• My opinion as a heavy-duty stub editor, but not a code person:

Should image sizes for stubs be in a "bounding" box 40x30px? Why not. Should exceptions be allowed ? Yes, in cases where an image is not completely square. (Unlike me.)

Should multiple images be allowed ? Not necessary.

Should the templates in stubs categories always be defaultsorted to ' ' or to something else like '*' ? As long as it gets top-sorted, I don't care what the character is.

Should pages with stub templates always categorize, or just when the stub is in Article or User namespace ? No opinion.

Are something like "additional" notes desired for stubs ? I don't think so.

Just my 2¢. Pegship (talk) 15:29, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your opinion Pegship. For your information: The sizing 40x30px is a bounding box, and it will always scale an image "square" to fit within that box. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:49, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Aesthetically speaking, that can be problematic for country images like Sweden, which is definitely oblong. Perhaps we should just use the WP stub icon universally on all templates? (This might also address the wild variety of opinions on stub images...) Pegship (talk) 18:04, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I meant to say "square scaled", as opposed to stretched scaled. Not as making everything a square figure. It enlarges or thumbs to either 40px wide OR 30px high, whichever of them it encounters first, without warping the relative shape of the pictures. (Technically, I was speaking about pixel aspect ratio and you were talking about image aspect ratio). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:38, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I suspect the icon on Chile-geo-stub will almost totally disappear... Grutness...wha? 00:40, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

• My opinion as a regular stub-sorter: please do something which will standardise the space around stubs - the pair on Clitoridectomy look OK now (except for different image sizes, and inconsistent links: why should one link "help" and not the other, one link to the page in edit mode and the other not, and they even link to different "stub" articles!), but if the order is reversed there's white space between them. In fact they perhaps make a nice example of inconsistency of current stubs. I think keeping to one image per stub probably looks best. PamD (talk) 18:36, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
  • In this specific case, there was just too much whitespace in {{Surgery-stub}}. A metatemplate can not avoid errors as these. However, adding centralized margins (as we now do for navbox for instance), might eleviate people "adding" this kind of whitespace in order to avoid a problem of spacing that should not exist in the first place. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:43, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

My opinion as a heavy-duty stub sorter:

1) No box. the purpose of a stub message is to be discreet, not to draw attention to itself. That's the reason why stub messages have nevert had boxes and why the suggestion has been rejected so often in the past. But there are always likely to be exceptions.

2) I personally don't like multiple images, but there are occasions they may be necessary. In general terms, if one doesn't serve the purpose, either make one, leave it without an image, or choose the best available. But there are always likely to be exceptions.

3) There should usually be default sorting - and both ' ' and '*' (and a few other non alphanumerics) can be used where appropriate. It's often useful to sort templates at the beginning of a category on two or more axes (e.g., where a split of bio-stubs is by both nationality and occupation). In some cases, though, it makes as much sense to still have the templates sorted under T rather than using default sorting.

4) Pages with stub templates should always categorise. If someone is putting a stub template on something other than an article or category, they obviously intended some other template or for the stub template to be elsewhere - as such it's important that we are able to (a) correct the inappropriate placing of the template and (b) inform the editor of what they didd wrong so that they don't do it again. I've frequently found categories marked with stub templates and changed them to {{popcat}}. This wouldn't have been possible if these pages hadn't been listed.

P.S. It would be VERY easy to put all stub templates outside article and user space into a single cleanup category with {{asbox}}. Would probably simplify maintenance a lot. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:33, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

5) In general terms, no - if any additional notes are needed (e.g., a WikiProject link), it is better in the category. But there are always likely to be exceptions - sometimes there need to be notes on controversial topics to stop the use of a template causing an edit war.

As you can see from my responses, a hard and fast answer is not possible on four of these questions, since it is impossible to say exactly what will be needed on all stub types. For this reason - as well as for other reasons relating to ease of use - I'd ask you to please stop this idea of creating a standardised asbox template. Alai is right - the current system works very well, and is likely to work far better than any uniform method which will be both reinventing the wheel and straitjacketing us into a system which may not always be appropriate. Grutness...wha? 00:38, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

1) Sounds you are thinking about a visual box with background and borders. This is not what I was talking about, i was talking about a "dimensions limiting" box. A box that only has positional effects you could say.

This is very easy. I just remove all categorization functionality, and we keep that in metapicstub/metastub. All the visual layout is then meta'd, whereas most functional activity is not. {{Smbox}} has just two options:

image = Accepts all types of image specifications [[File:Example.jpg]] or Example.jpg (autosized 40x30px) or [[File:Example|50px]] or [[File:Example.jpg]][[File:Example2.jpg]]
article= same as article for metapicstub/picstuc

And then notes and categorization can all be done in the individual templates. {{Germany-stub}} now uses this style. See the difference between original and smbox style. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:03, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Looking at the edit mentioned, again as a non-coder, the only diff that strikes me is that the asbox version looks tidier. I understand that there are functions that can't be seen by the uninitiated, but I'm not sold on the idea that we need to change, either because of the format or, as Grutness points out in a bottom-line fashion, because it will somehow encourage editors to quit cobbling together their own templates and use only this. Hmm. Pegship (talk) 14:42, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

And what about templates where 30x40 is standard, as it is with a lot of vertical icons? Also, please note that while other pictures are standardised to 40px, flags are standardised to 30px, so the germany-stub test has made the image the wrong size. Grutness...wha? 11:58, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Like I said above. You do this instead. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:00, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I add my vote of support for standardisation of format. Stub tags are one of the messiest elements of wikipedia right now and it cannot be rocket science to get & keep them under control. --Tagishsimon (talk) 10:27, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Rocket science, no - herding cats, yes. For a lot of stub-sorters, it's a full-time task trying to keep stub types standardised (that's why we try to make it a necessity for people to propose stub types before creating them - at least then we've got a chance of making the templates standard). And the current methods would be able to do that, if it wasn't for the proliferation of non-standard stubs, largely made without proposal by people outside the project. The current methods are fine for creating standardised stubs - unfortunately, we don't have carte blanche to stop people making their own stub templates (even when we try to enforce stub guidelines of template creation, we are called every name under the sun). Simply adding a new way of making stubs, i.e., asbox, will not standardise anything - it will simply mean that there one more way that people will make stubs. The less ways there are that stubs can be made, the better. Adding one more new way won't solve anything - it'll make the situation worse. The only way that asbox will standardise anything is if you put out an APB to every single editor there has been and will ever be on Wikipedia and tell them not to use any means of stub template creation but asbox. We tried that with metapicstub, by way of having detailed instruction on 'WP:STUB on how to create a stub template. It did no damn good at all. Asbox will do exactly the same amount of good. Grutness...wha? 11:58, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

You complain about user errors. Indeed, asbox or smbox won't change a thing there, it cannot and will never do so. However it will make maintenance and detection of such errors, for you and other maintainers much simpler. I promise you. And this would not be a new way, it would become the only way. That is what we are talking about here, a full allround replacement. That's also why I wanna make sure that it suits everyones needs as best as possible. Not only my and other CSS and template maintainers, but also the needs of the stub sorters themselves. Template code has come a long way in the past 2 years. My primary concern is to standardize the table and CSS code ({{smbox}}), but if stub sorters want to standardize categorization and other things, I'm willing to do that as well ({{asbox}}). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:41, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

The only way? Are you seriously trying to tell me that as soon as asbox comes in no user will ever try to form a stub in the way that stubs have been made in the past? If you can absolutely guarantee that, I might support it - assuming that all the other problems I and Alai have mentioned can be sorted out. If not, then it's simply creating another way of doing the same thing, and is therefore of no use in uniformity whatsoever. Grutness...wha? 00:22, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

.... sigh in utter disbelieve.... Ok, reluctantly I withdraw my proposal, because I don't feel like wasting any more time talking to you and Alai anymore. Instead I have made a request to AWB users to fix the classes and ID. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:02, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I have reverted the one smbox usage and deleted that template, to prevent future use. I have fixed the CSS on {{MetaPicstub}} and {{Metastub}} and brought the CSS/HTML of asbox as much in line with those as possible. A bot can now go in and subst every Asbox usage, and then asbox can be deleted. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:34, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

You should consider bringing asbox to TfD. Otherwise it will remain to linger around, and people will continue to use it. On TfD there are people who know how to remove templates like these. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:39, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I'll oppose any deletion or substitution of the Asbox template, it is a good step towards standardisation and should continue to be implemented, the opposition spoken against the template is because people don't understand what is happening. Standardisation is a good thing, and a meta-template is the best way to keep thousands of these templates standardised. Borgarde (talk) 13:39, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Humm, I was just coming here to suggest a change to start using {{ambox}}'s (or {{asbox}}'s, I guess). Good think that I looked over the talk page first. I almost missed this discussion (which is why I modified the title slightly).
I think that if those of you who are against this proposal would just take a breath, and take a step back, that you would see the merits of what TheDJ is proposing here. Aside from the technical merits of what TheDJ is proposing (Which are significant, by the way!), the fact is that the rest of Wikipedia has basically standardized on their look and feel. Personally, I believe that their overused, but since they are used (and the stub "community" is a heavy user) they should all use a standard look and feel.
Ω (talk) 05:06, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

• As I've been asked to edit the 2500+ some-odd stub templates to add alternate text for the images, I am amazed that people are against using a meta-template to standardize stubs. Can you please re-explain your reasoning against it? As far as I can tell the only reason is "security through obscurity" i.e., the meta template makes it easier for people to create stub types without discussion? That's not a good reason. The only other reason is that some stubs might not shoehorn into the template. If this can't be solved by clever template coding, those stubs can be hard-coded. I think a straw poll is in order here. –xeno^talk 13:10, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Straw poll on standardizing with a meta-template

The proposal is to convert existing hard-coded stubs to use the Template:asbox, where possible.

Support

• Obviously. Meta-templates allow large-scale changes to be deployed without having to have a bot maintain these beasts. –xeno^talk 13:16, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
• Makes maintenance possible and design consistent. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 13:31, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
• Yes. The issue of "it will make it easier to create rogue stub templates" is not one that any template can deal with; that is a social problem, not technical. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:36, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

  I would like to point out that rogue stubs using the template would be even easier to monitor: a bot could be created to take stock of the existing approved usages, and report new ones. –xeno^talk 13:45, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

  Frack— I was just going to point that out. Should be fairly simple to maintain a protected list of approved templates and monitor the template usage. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:55, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

• Strong support, for ease of maintenance and consistency. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:56, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
• Strong support. Dodoïste (talk) 14:22, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
• My position on this is obvious I think. I do note that any conversion should be done in a proper way, to avoid having to run bots again. I think my earlier proposed changes to {{asbox}} were pretty reasonable. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:35, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
• Definite support. The merits of being able to make sweeping changes to the appearance of all stub templates, both to correct sometimes-serious errors and to improve functionality, are compelling. If you want a consistent look and feel for stub templates, you want a meta-template. You cannot use technical decisions to fix human problems. Happy‑melon 16:23, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
• Great idea. Just don't let asbox get bloated with features that would lead to less standardization (e.g., style parameters). --- RockMFR 22:24, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
• Strong support. For maintenance and consistency it makes sense. Borgarde (talk) 09:29, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
• Yes, makes stub template improvements much easier to implement. Shubinator (talk) 21:04, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
• Definitely, for all the reasons I've intimated on here for the last few months. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 01:00, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
• Support - especially since it puts namespace restrictions on auto-categorization, so a WikiProject page that is displaying an example of their stub template doesn't get categorized as a stub, itself. --Funandtrvl (talk) 01:26, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
• Certainly, as argued before. Not necessarily using the existing {{asbox}}, but standardize it already. I'll help with anything that needs to be done. Amalthea 21:01, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
• Support, strongly. I can't imagine why we don't do it that way already. The Earwig (Talk | Contribs) 15:21, 30 July 2009 (UTC)