Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types/Archive/2005

Organization

I am wondering if, expecially for some of the larger stub categories, it might be best to increase the level of hierachy. For example, The arts, then Music stubs, then Book stubs (fantasy, sf, etc.), etc. For example:

The arts

• {{Music-stub}} This music...
  • {{Album-stub}} This album-related...
  • {{Band-stub}} This article on a band or other musical ensemble...
  • {{Composer-stub}} This article on a composer...
  • {{Musician-stub}} This article on a musician...
  • {{Song-stub}} This article about a specific song..
• {{Book-stub}} This book-related...

BlankVerse ∅ 06:17, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Probably a good idea. And book-stub would go under lit-stub. Make it so :) Grutness|^hello? 07:07, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've reorganised it - not quite as you suggested, but pretty close. Grutness|^hello?

It looks great. The one other thing I would suggest is dividing up the two Place-related categories into continents or regions. BlankVerse ∅ 08:23, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Template:Photo-request

Stumbled over this one, located in a Photo-request stub category. Is this a Stub template? Twthmoses 02:19, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Not really, and it shouldn't be listed as such - it's like listdev, sectstub expand and the other templates for decent-sized articles that could do with a bit more added. Grutness|^hello? 04:51, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This was recently created by User:Cwolfsheep (along with Category:Photo-request stubs), and is being put onto Wikipedia articles in the same place that a stub should be. There is already Template:Picneed (which is currently listed at WP:TFD) and Template:Reqimg (associated with Category:Articles that need pictures and Wikipedia:Requested pictures). It is better looking than Template:Reqimg, but there should only be one version of this template, and they all should be on the article's talk page instead of on the article's main page. BlankVerse ∅ 07:23, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, it certainly shouldn't feed a stub category. Listdev doesn't, neither does whatever the "request for expansion" template is. This shouldn't either. I see you've added it to tfd, too (if you hadn't, I would have!) Grutness|^hello? 11:15, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Template:SA-stub vs. Template:Sa-stub

Which one is the correct one? This page list SA-stub but that redirects to Sa-stub. The South Africa stubs category header also list SA-stub to be used, but Sa-stub is used far more. Twthmoses 13:33, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

SA-stub is a redirect, but it's far more in line with the naming of the others. I dunno, perhaps Sa- should be used more, but personally I'd prefer it if that was the redirect. It'd be more useful if all the naming was consistent. Grutness|^hello?

Template:Eris-stub

It seems to have survived a proposal to detelet it at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Criteria, so where should it be added to the stub listing? Does it count as a religion? Remuel 02:08, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

...or a myth? yeah, I suppose that's where it would go. Grutness|^hello? 07:46, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Small Stub Counts and article name space

In the case of small stub counts, inclusion of non-article name space items (i.e. wikipedia and template name spaces) can push the count bin higher, such as from <25 to <50 for instance. I would recommend for low-count bins that only article name space items be included in the counts. Specific examples where this has changed the count bin outcome: {{Fem-stub}}, {{SoapChar}}.

Courtland 00:46, 2005 Apr 4 (UTC)

Template:skateboarding-stub has no category

Just to let you know. Kappa 23:13, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sigh. Why do people do that? More work doing null edits on all its contents. Grutness|^hello? 00:07, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Econ-stub

A new stub category was added to the list today under econ-stub called ... econ-stub. Same spelling. Same target. Just different description. Was this a typo, or ... ?

--TheParanoidOne 05:16, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It was a typo - it was the new money stub - I copied and pasted the line but forgot to change the tl :) Grutness|^hello? 06:52, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Heh. OK. That makes sense. :) --TheParanoidOne 12:23, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

more stub categories...

I'm not sure if this is the right place to say it, but I think we need quite a number more stub types, especially in history. I'd create them myself, but I don't know how, or if that's the sort of thing a non-admin can do. My suggestions:

• Historical stubs by place, e.g. japan-hist-stub or US-hist-stub.
• Bio stubs by place, e.g. spain-bio-stub or russia-bio-stub.
• Historical biography stubs. I'm not sure exactly what to do about this, but I feel like people like Ben Franklin and Shakespeare, who've had actual biographies written about them shouldn't be in the same type of category as Minamoto no Noriyori whose historical significance is nearly nil. Is this really a "biography stub"? I'd rather there be a historical person stub, or something like that.
• Stubs of historical documents, political speeches, and the like. They're not literature, per se, and they're not simply 'politics' or 'history'... It'd be a lot easier to expand on treaties, speeches, historical manuscripts & annals, if they had their own separate stub category.
• Finally, rather than having stubs simply by Place, there needs to be culture stubs, e.g. Mexico-culture-stub for Quineanera, or Japan-culture-stub for bushido. If there's some way to distinguish between modern culture and traditional/historical culture as well, that'd be great. LordAmeth 21:27, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Okay - to take these on at a time.

• Separate area hist-stubs are a great idea. Africa, Japan, France, China all definitely need them (US already has one)
• Similarly separate bio stubs - I've actually got three awaiting comment on the criteria page (note at the top of this page it says to propose stubs there, not here!))
• Hist-bio-stub I'm pretty strongly against, for reasons explained elsewhere - (1) what is "historical"? When I was removing bio-stubs from the hist-stub category I found politicians who had left office within the last ten years listed as historical. (2) third variable - we already list people by nationality and occupation - adding a third variable (since it would be inevitable that we'd want to split it by hitorical period) just adds to the confusion. (3) we can probably assign most of these stubs quite well using the other two variables.
• Historical documents at the moment sit quite comfortably in hist-stub (or according to whichever country they are, e.g., US-hist-stub). Hist-stub doesn't have a huge category - about 800 stubs IIRC, although both this category and battle-stub would be the two logical things to split off it if it became necessary later.
• Culture-stub... depends on how big the simple country-stubs categories are. If, say, Mexico-stub became heavily populated, then working out whether a Mexico-culture-stub is viable would be a good thing to do. At the moment there are less than fifty stubs in there, though, so it's hardly practical. Grutness|^hello? 01:24, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What about a molecular biology stub, e.g. molbio-stub?

• Pros: Would include new science fields such as proteomics, molecular medicine, molecular taxonomy, biotechnology. Proteomics articles, for example, cannot be appropriately classified according to present stub types.
• Cons: Some redundancy with cellbio, genetics and biochem stub categories, while none of these could be replaced by it - Mendelian genetics is not molecular biology, for example.

Dysmorodrepanis 22:42, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Turkish stub

I think a turkish stub should be created, not just a turkish geographical stub. - (Erebus555 13:41, 1 May 2005 (UTC))

Possibly... suggest it over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Criteria (which is where it says to at the top of this page! :) Grutness|^hello? 00:37, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Unlisted stub types

Can someone point me to a truly comprehensive list of stub types? I just used music-theory-stub, which wasn't listed, but it worked fine. (It's listed now because I just added it.) This leads me to believe there are plenty more stub types that aren't listed on the stub types page, including ones that could probably be quite helpful in the sorting process. Any help would be appreciated. --Jemiller226 19:01, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Currently there is discussion of some of the 'found' stub types. Some of these were incorrectly created (problems with the associated category) and some have problems with being too finely defined or not named per convention. Category:Stub categories does list all the stub categories that have been properly created, whether they are good ideas or not. RJFJR 19:20, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

What I should have said: you should probably stick to the list of stub-types until new ones have been discussed and added. RJFJR 19:29, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

They should all also be listed at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types page. Any that aren't are not "approved" stubs or are very new and not yet added. I think someone slipped up with music-theory-stub, though, because I recall discussion of it a while back. Grutness|^hello? 05:47, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Stub category for protests?

I'm not sure whether this is the proper place to ask, but... Is there a category that fits articles on protests, demonstrations, activism, etc.? In the approved list I've only found "socio-stub", which seems too general. See for example rent strike, or the protest article itself. If there's no fitting type, what's the procedure to propose a new one? --Pablo D. Flores 13:47, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There isn't one currently (a special stub type, that is). The procedure for making a new one is to go to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Criteria and propose a new stub type at the end of the current month's list of proposals (be warned, it's a fairly big page). There's generally about a week allowed for suggestions, counter-proposals, and the like, and if there aren't any objections by the end of the week then you can either make the template yourself (following the "how to" procedures on Wikipedia:Stub) or just wait for one of the regular stub-sorters to do i for you. By the way, since one of the usual criteria is having a lot of stubs it might be worth either looking for more stubs that can use the template or expanding the scope of the stub (say to include things like strikes and lockouts). Sounds like a rasonable proposal though. Grutness...wha? 02:26, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Substubs

We seem to have given up the use of the sub-stub category, as precise stubs are replacing substubs on even one-line articles; should I stop using "substub"? Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:10, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, it's up to you, but anything you assign to substub will simply edited and moved again. The argument is simply that the more precise subcategories are more likely to see articles grow than using a generic substub classification, and personally at least, I'd love to see substubs disappear completely. Grutness|^hello? 00:57, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

That's fine — it wasn't a complaint, I just need to know what I should do. I'll use stub templates in future. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:57, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, Mel. Retiring sub-stub altogether will take people changing their stubbing-behavior over time and I hope most people are as helpful as you are in seeking advice on and cooperating in the matter. Courtland 02:04, 2005 May 12 (UTC)

I agree - cheers Mel. And cheers to Courtland too - I know we don't exactly see eye to eye on substubs, but debate has remained courteous, so thanks go to you too! Grutness...wha? 05:28, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Representation of redirects with *R

I propose an alteration to the format for representing redirects on the stub types listing. I've put an example of what I propose at the {{col-stub}} listing, which redirects to {{color-stub}} in the Art category.

The difference amounts to using a short form

• {{color-stub}} ..blah blah..
  • *R {{col-stub}}

versus a long form

• {{color-stub}} ..blah blah..
  • {{col-stub}} Redirects to {{color-stub}} (*R)

The new format is meant to decrease the wording on the page and de-emphasize redirects versus "preferred" templates.

I'll not do any more damage :) until people have had a chance to speak their mind on this matter.

Regards, Courtland 16:26, 2005 May 14 (UTC)

Like it - good idea SoM 21:35, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

• Agreed. It looks far neater on the page, and *R is explained at the top, too (which is where anyone unsure of it would look). Grutness...wha? 00:42, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

conversion complete I was hoping that there might be some size reduction in the page as well, but after completing the conversion (and deleting the old tally hidden comments) I find the page when from ~23 to ~22 Kb, only 1Kb in savings. Courtland 14:53, 2005 May 15 (UTC)

New signage to indicate WP:TFD activity: *D

I've introduced a new sign, *D to indicate that a template is listed on WP:TFD, in other words that it is formally under consideration for deletion. I think this might contribute to dissuading folks from using the stub template during the formal voting process at WP:TFD, an addition to the use of {{tfd}} on the template itself.

As usual, if this change does not sit well with folks it can disappear with nary a whimper.

Courtland 16:32, 2005 May 14 (UTC)

Website-Stub Relocation

I was trying to stub-sort an article about a website, and I realized that the {{website-stub}} tag is only listed under "Broadcast Media." It seems to me that also listing it under "Computing and Telecommunications" would make sense. Or perhaps we need an {{Internet-stub}} tag to go there. MithrandirMage 21:46, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

Putting it under both headers sounds reasonable, be bold! Joe D (t) 23:19, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

I looked back over the history of the page and find that the first home of {{Website-stub}} was in "The Arts" and shortly thereafter it moved to "Broadcast Media", where it has been ever since. The actual parentage of the stub-category is Category:Computer stubs <= {{compu-stub}}. Considering the web is a broadcast medium, but isn't first thought of that way. I think that "internet-stub" was considered at one time, but was not made as it wasn't clear what would go in there specifically that would not go into either "website-stub" or another computer-related stub like "compu-network-stub". Right now, my gut says "website-stub" is the internet equivalent of "station-stub" for the airwaves. Therefore, I think it's ok to sit in "Broadcast Media", but should also sit as a child of {{compu-stub}} to reflect actual parentage. I'll place a reference there shortly. Courtland 23:24, 2005 May 15 (UTC)

Commerce subheading?

{{Corp-stub}}, {{Ad-stub}}, {{Airline-stub}}, {{Bank-stub}} , {{Product-stub}}, {{Business-bio-stub}}, {{Publish-stub}}, {{Record-label-stub}}, {{Retail-stub}} ... I think we need a commerce subheading on the list. Grutness...wha? 06:48, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good. A heading without an associated category or template, right? Courtland 14:19, 2005 May 22 (UTC)

Agreed. {{Econ-stub}} should probably be mentioned in this grouping as well. --Allen3 ^talk 16:42, May 22, 2005 (UTC)

OK - I'll do that (and no, no separate template or category). I've also moved the nobles to a separate heading under people, since I suspect this one might expand a bit. Grutness...wha? 02:51, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Tv-bio-stub

I've just moved this rom where it was listed as a child of actor-stub. The reason is that I'm sure quite a few Tv-bio-stubs are Television producers, executives, news anchors, writers, etc - it isn't just actors that are in there. Grutness...wha? 07:35, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Could we please have {{Tv-bio-stub}} as a child of {{actor-stub}} in addition to other parentage? Though there are people labelled with the tv-bio stub that are not actors, there are many many that are. My understanding is that the category system is meant to be inclusive rather than exclusive in that it allows and encourages multiple parentage to create a network rather than a simple hierarchy. Courtland 14:17, 2005 May 22 (UTC)

I'd be fine with it being there as well, but it is a little misleading not having it separate. Grutness...wha? 01:39, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

I take it, then, that you're looking at categories as exclusive rather than inclusive, yes? Courtland 02:37, 2005 May 23 (UTC)

Um, you're gonna have to spell that one out a little more for me, sorry... :) Grutness...wha? 05:59, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Brazil-stub placement under people-stubs

responding to removal of stub reference from page category

{{Brazil-stub}} is a child of {{bio-stub}} if you take a look at the category; therefore, it belongs where it is placed in my opinion, despite it's not following convention. Also .. why the exclamation point? It's not like I just broke a Ming vase or anything.

Following on from my opinion to some discussion of hierarchy organization ... Should the page reflect the actual parentage of stub templates and their categories or not? Further, should the page be descriptive or proscriptive, should it describe what the relationships are or should it be used to shape those relationships?

Courtland 13:03, 2005 May 22 (UTC)

A minor additional point ... I could have removed {{Brazil-stub}} from being a child of {{bio-stub}}, but I chose to leave it as it was, opting for a descriptive representation of the hierarchy on this page rather than a proscriptive one ... though I have changed some categorizations to fit what is on this page, so I've not been 100% consistent in being descriptive. I've added to the question above a second to reflect this. Also, I've not forgotten the roles that these pages and stubs in general play, so I don't need to be reminded of that once more :) . Courtland 14:13, 2005 May 22 (UTC)

The exclamation point was because it looked clearly incorrect in the hierarchy, and I still think it is clearly wrong there. If it's left there it seems to suggest two things - 1) that the only items that can go in it are biographies 9wrong), and 2) that there will never be a need for a separate brazil-bio-stub (also wrong). Since bio-stubs are likely to be the next thing to be broken out (as the largest stub category - four times the size of Category:Stub - I was simply "preparing the way" for the likelihood that they will be split in the same way that geography stubs were. Grutness...wha? 01:42, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

About language stubs and categories

I moved the language related stubs Lang-stub and Vocab-stub from miscellaneous to under Ling-stub (linguistics) following the example set in Astro-stub and other science stubs. This was because I didn't notice them while sorting and would've benefitted from this kind of tree order. Miscellaneous isn't really a good place for stubs that are related to eachother. Another possibility would be to create a language category on this page. Do people disagree with my move or can I move the stub categories also? Wipe 14:28, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. The shorter and more organised "Miscellaneous" is, the better. Grutness...wha? 00:46, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Ling-stub as a parent of Lang-stub also matches the regular article category relationship between Category:Linguistics and Category:Languages. I think it makes sense to try and keep the stub-category relationships consistent with those of standard article-categories.

One thing with respect to the Stub Types page ... what about expanding the "Literature and writing" section to "Literature, writing and linguistics"?

Courtland 02:56, 2005 May 28 (UTC)

Probably a good idea, although perhaps a better title would be "Language and literature". Grutness...wha? 11:32, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Sounds like a good alternative. Make it so. Courtland 02:06, 2005 May 30 (UTC)

Done - should typ-stub be listed there, too? Grutness...wha? 07:09, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes, probably so. Courtland 17:39, 2005 May 30 (UTC)

footnote functionality is broken across Wikipedia at present

The footnotes I've added are not working due to a global breakdown of the footnote template of unknown origin. Courtland 23:11, 2005 Jun 3 (UTC)

The {{ref}} and {{note}} footnote template functionality has been restored. Courtland 01:01, 2005 Jun 7 (UTC)

Excel?

I wish that there was some sign of a slowdown in the creation of new topic stubs. I have been wanting to create an MS Excel version of this page as a resource and offline reference, but until there are signs of some stabilization of this list, I have been holding off. BlankVerse ∅ 09:04, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't blame you! I keep hoping to be able to sort through the backlog of recently discovered stubs and make sure they're all on the stub type page, but it's become a bit of a Frankenstein's monster. There are times I wish it was possible to have a one-month moratorium on the creation of any new stub types, just to give us all a chance to catch up. Grutness...wha? 11:06, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There is always the suggestion that I made about modifying the metastub and metapicstub templates that might make people more cautious about creating new stubs (or create really, really ugly new stubs for those not paying attention). I have been very tempted to Be Bold even though the proposal received little feedback. BlankVerse ∅ 12:55, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I can appreciate your frustration, but it brings to mind something I've been thinking for a while, that a companion phrase to "Be Bold" should be "Don't Panic". I would hesitate to impose technical hurdles to the expression of persons' desire to add useful (in their opinion) descriptors to their work, which is essentially what creation of a stub template and category amounts to. My feeling is that it's ok to be perpetually not caught up with this activity because being comprehensive is a "nice to have" while being useful is an essential requirement, and there is no doubt that the work here is useful. There's a lot of ragged edge activity that would be suppressed in a more controlled environment, such as the ability to create pages that are <100 characters in length or the ability to quadruple-stub articles; technical fixes can be put in place to block practically any activity one desires to, but I would consider the cost to be measured in what it means to "contribute" and in most cases I think the cost of not blocking is less than the cost of blocking in regard to this metric. So, in summary, "Don't Panic" and consider the remit of the Project to be utility rather than comprehensiveness. Courtland 13:11, 2005 Jun 5 (UTC)

"Don't Panic". Yes, a good piece of advice. Maybe we should try to get that put on the Main Page in big, friendly letters ;)) Grutness...wha? 13:31, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The original large stub listing page

The original stub listing page, [1], was gutted by User:Grm wnr today. Rather than wasting any more of my time on that page, which I'd been updating slowly, I just eliminated it altogether as a redirect here. It was useless after being gutted, so there is nothing lost in removing it altogether. Not happy with what happened, but, hey, why fight bold persons. Courtland 22:52, 2005 Jun 9 (UTC)

You obviously haven't been following the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Stub_sorting#Page_consolidation.2C_next_chapter, where the consensus was to reduce it to a minimum and add a note leading too the bigger list at WP:WSS/ST! Grutness...wha? 07:47, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You are quite right (acknowledgement to cap). Courtland 17:37, 2005 Jun 12 (UTC)

New page for redirect information created

Following from a discussion on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Criteria, I've created Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Stub_redirects. So far I've moved the footnotes that I'd created for a similar purpose from the stub types page, thereby cleaning the presentation a bit. I've put a link to this new page under the 'codes' section of the introduction for this page, but I've not added it to the main project page, though I have added it to the WikiProject category.

I hope you find this page useful. Suggestions would be helpful, up to and including "we really don't need this page". Thanks.

Courtland 16:45, 2005 Jun 15 (UTC)

This is an experimental draft page and I'm considering removing the transients from it and devoting it to only permanents. Courtland 10:18, 2005 Jun 17 (UTC)

Stubtypes

Having just done one, a stub message for flora and fauna (or one apiece).

Have you seen the animal and plant stubs on the stub types page? Aren't they sufficient? --TheParanoidOne 17:23, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

And before anyone starts worrying about Jackiespeel's original (unsigned) message, "just done one" does not mean "just created a template" :)! Grutness...wha? 02:00, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Proposed revisions to page format - aiming for cleaner look with less text

Without further ado, here's a before and after look of what I'm thinking about based on the top of the Broadcast media section:

Example

Before

• {{Broadcasting-stub}} This broadcasting-related... (C:Broadcasting stubs, <200 as at June 20 + <400 as at June 20 for station-stub)^[2]
  • *R {{Station-stub}}
  • {{BBC-stub}} This BBC-related... (C:BBC stubs, <100 as at June 20)
  • {{Canada-bcast-stub}} This article related to broadcasting in Canada... (C:Canada broadcasting stubs, <200 as at June 20)
  • {{Mexico-bcast-stub}} This article related to broadcasting in Mexico... (C:Mexico broadcasting stubs, <25 as at June 20)
  • {{Singapore-bcast-stub}} This article related to broadcasting in Singapore... (C:Category:Singapore_broadcasting_stubs, <10 as at June 20)
    • *R {{Singapore-tv-stub}}
  • {{US-bcast-stub}} This article related to broadcasting in the United States... (C:United States broadcasting stubs), <500 as at June 20)
  • {{UK-bcast-stub}} This article related to broadcasting in the United Kingdom... (C:United Kingdom broadcasting stubs), <200 as at June 20)
  • {{Radio-stub}} This article about a radio programme... (C:Radio programme stubs, <200 as at June 20)

After

• Category:Broadcasting stubs & {{Broadcasting-stub}} (*R, <200 as at June 20 + <400 as at June 20 for station-stub)^[3]
  • Category:BBC stubs & {{BBC-stub}} (<100 as at June 20)
  • Category:Canada broadcasting stubs & {{Canada-bcast-stub}} (<200 as at June 20)
  • Category:Mexico broadcasting stubs & {{Mexico-bcast-stub}} (<25 as at June 20)
  • Category:Radio programme stubs & {{Radio-stub}} (<200 as at June 20)
  • Category:Singapore broadcasting stubs & {{Singapore-bcast-stub}} (*R, <10 as at June 20)
  • Category:United States broadcasting stubs & {{US-bcast-stub}} (<500 as at June 20)
  • Category:United Kingdom broadcasting stubs & {{UK-bcast-stub}} (<200 as at June 20)

After 2 sets of suggestions

• Broadcasting stubs ({{Broadcasting-stub}}, *R, <200 as at June 20 + <400 as at June 20 for station-stub)^[4]
  • BBC stubs ({{BBC-stub}}, <100 as at June 20)
  • Canada broadcasting stubs ({{Canada-bcast-stub}}, <200 as at June 20)
  • Mexico broadcasting stubs ({{Mexico-bcast-stub}}, <25 as at June 20)
  • Radio programme stubs ({{Radio-stub}}, <200 as at June 20)
  • Singapore broadcasting stubs ({{Singapore-bcast-stub}}, *R, <10 as at June 20)
  • United States broadcasting stubs ({{US-bcast-stub}}, <500 as at June 20)
  • United Kingdom broadcasting stubs ({{UK-bcast-stub}}, <200 as at June 20)

Explanation - effects

1. Redirects would no longer be listed on the page but would be referenced to the "stub redirects" page that I put up as an experiment a while ago ... it woul need reworking and repurposing for this use.
2. The name of the stub category is usually more informative than the title of the stub template, and often just as informative or more so than the excerpt from the template text that is currently included. Therefore, category titles would precede template titles (both wikilinked) and the text snippets would disappear.
3. Sorting of items would be on Category title rather than on template text snippet
4. counts, *D and *W labels would not be changed

This would take a significant amount of work (I do volunteer to do my part) but I think it would both compact and clarify the page.

Thoughts?

Courtland 16:57, 2005 Jun 20 (UTC)

Looks like a vast improvement. When I created this page I never expected it to have as much information, or that the list would be this long. Anything that can make it look less busy and more usable is a good thing. I would suggest one slight change to your proposal though - I'd make it more like this...

• Category:Broadcasting stubs ({{Broadcasting-stub}}; *R, <200 as at June 20 + <400 as at June 20 for redirect)^[5]
  • Category:BBC stubs ({{BBC-stub}}; <100 as at June 20)

...putting everything except the category in the brackets, and further downplaying the redirects. Do you still intend to keep information about children categories? Grutness...wha? 23:35, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Good question ... I don't think so. However, in order not to lose much information we should maybe consider two "best practices"

• Float stub sub-categories to the top by using the "| " indexing term
• Make sure that the parent-child relationship shown on the Stub Types page is the most useful one, so that other relationships come naturally as secondary in importance

The first has two aspects: categorization by the stub template/category boilerplates and manual categorization. Looking at the boilerplate used in production of Category:Singapore broadcasting stubs it looks like the indexing is default (alphabetical). However, it seems that manual categorization to the redundant category (in this case Category:Broadcasting stubs) over-rides the template-driven categorization and allows addition of the "| " indexing term.

The second could require re-factoring the hierarchy, but I think the cost-benefit isn't high enough to do that retrospectively. Rather, I'd suggest that when new stub types are proposed or found that their categorization be considered; at present placement in the hierarchy is almost an afterthought, but can have side-effects on the user hunting for a stub type to work on who is using browsing as their navigation method ... i.e. a major reason for the existence of poly-hierarchical categorization in the first place.

Courtland 01:38, 2005 Jun 21 (UTC)

Perhaps we could make more use of the system currently used in the geographical section, where there are overall notices placed under the headings ("Many categories have children in..."). Grutness...wha? 04:22, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Some notes: The "Category:" at the beginning of each line is distracting, so we should use piped links (like I did with the "C:"). And, since we are only reshuffling the information in this case, not adding anything new like it was when adding the categories, this could possibly be done pretty easily with some regexp magic. -- grm_wnr Esc 14:27, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've added a 3rd view above with input from Grutness and Grm_wnr.

• Reshuffling information: We are only reshuffling information for those cases where the category name has already been added to the line. There is also In addition to information shuffling, there is information collapse (redirect lines go away) and deletion (the snippets of text from the templates would be going away as well). Perl regular expressions (the brand I use) would help but couldn't do it alone based on current page content.
• About section x-references: the use of the section x-references could be increased, yes.

Courtland 18:20, 2005 Jun 21 (UTC) updated with strikeout as category additions now completed by Grm_wnr Courtland 00:30, 2005 Jun 22 (UTC)

• Have a look at my sandbox, the regexp part and some of the other changes are implemented there. Needs more manual cleanup (the regexpes aren't perfect), which I won't do for a mockup, but at least 80% is done. -- grm_wnr Esc 13:26, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Nicely done, Grm_wnr. I'd say go ahead with implementation on the page and work out the manual things that remain as time permits ... 80% is good enough in this case, I believe. Courtland 14:56, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)
• Heeey. Looks good. Do it. Grutness...wha? 00:12, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Deliferate misgake?

I note that every line now ends in a double parenthesis... any reason? Grutness...wha? 09:21, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That was a undeliberate mistake, but easily fixed. -- grm_wnr Esc 10:59, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Operetta-stub

Another user has created a new stub type: Template:Operetta-stub. --BaronLarf 20:54, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

This was proposed on June 14th. As far as I can tell, there were no objections, and so it has been created. --TheParanoidOne 22:17, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"As at" versus "as of"

I changed all the "as at"s to "as of", but the change got reverted.

"As of" is a common English idiom meaning that a certain condition existed at a certain time. "As at" is a grammatically incorrect oddity I have never seen before today. Perhaps what is meant is simply "at", but the word "as" is redundant at best. If people prefer "at" over "as of" then I'm in favour of changing to that. --Doradus July 1, 2005 02:45 (UTC)

"As at" is a perfectly acceptable idiomatic form meaning "at that time". The number of stubs shown is the number as it was at a particular time. "As of" means "since that time", and suggests that there have been no further additions to the list in that time, and is therefore incorrect. At on its own is simply ungrammatical. Grutness...wha? 1 July 2005 03:10 (UTC)

This sounds like a regional language variation at work. In my experience (primarily in the Southwestern US) "as of" is the preferred version with "as at" being unused. That said, I find no real difficulty understanding either variation. --Allen3 ^talk July 1, 2005 03:19 (UTC)

Grutness: I wasn't aware of the "as at" idiom. Perhaps "as at" and "as of" are equally valid here. (Dictionary.com hasn't heard of the former, but Google turns it up all over various uk and nz web sites.) Neither makes sense at face value -- the "as" is either redundant or nonsensical -- so their correctness relies on their idiomhood. I think in North America at least, the "as at" idiom is unknown and sounds like an error. Can we opt for the more neutral "on"? (As in "<200 on June 29"?) --Doradus July 1, 2005 11:38 (UTC)

I will not accept "as at" as grammatically correct (and natural) English for the context in which the phrase is used. "As of" and "as on" are correct, readable, and generally understandable. The word at is more often used in reference to a place, such as "the forum was bustling with activity as at Rome". Sometimes, "as at" is used in reference to a time, but for a natural voice the phrase is similar to "...as at 10:00 PM on Saturday". "As" is also useless in phrases such as, "As at the time of this writing..." Notice that in both of the latter phrases as can be removed without changing the meaning of the statements. I encourage simplicity in literal composition. Adraeus 07:55, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Please see my suggestion "below. Grutness...wha? 09:06, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

The phrase "as at" is equivalent to "as of" in various parts of the world (it's used often in, for example, accounting). Perhaps it is unnatural in Americna English. Shawnc 00:38, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Here in New Zealand we use pretty much the same English as the UK (with minor tweaks) - and "as at" means "at that time", whereas "as of" means "since that time". Since we haven't counted the stubs up since the times listed, "as of" is wrong in this part of the world, at least. However, as I said before, a better solution is to ditch the "as at/of" completely, and use something more like the suggestion I've put further down the page at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types#Shortening even further. Grutness...wha? 00:45, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I do not feel any compelling reason to change the usage of "as at" on the page, and I am a speaker of American English, born in the Midwest. The notion that you, User:Adraeus, believe you will make any changes that withstand consensus (and the current format is a consensus solution, not that of a single person) by stating your case as "I will not accept XYZ" is patently absurd. Courtland 00:45, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Tax stub

I've found many articles about taxes and sections in articles regarding taxes that I've often wanted to use a tax stub for tax related stubs. The Tax stub would fit under Government, law, and politics in the Law subsection. There is a need, even if its only temporary as the tax sections get expanded. - Inigmatus July 1, 4:00 UTC

Then propose it at WP:WSS/C, as it says at the top of the page. Personally, I don't see much use for it - tax matters are quite adequately covered by econ-stub. Grutness...wha? 1 July 2005 05:08 (UTC)

Does *R mean what it is supposed to?

Looking at the top of the page, I see the instruction: *R indicates that a template redirects to its parent within the hierarchy So, in the listing, I see things like:

Medicine stubs (*R | {{Med-stub}}

Is this supposed to mean that {{Med-stub}} redirects to {{sci-stub}} (its parent)? That does not really seem to make sense or reflect what is actually seen on examining those stubs. Can someone explain what the *R there is supposed to mean?

Really, I am just trying to clear up stub categories that are orphaned as on Category:Orphaned categories without adding unapproved or deprecated ones to Category:Stub categories. But honestly I have to say that for those who do not spend lots of time on the lifecycle of stubs, the processes for the sanctioned creation, merger, redirection, and deletion is very complicated (see m:Instruction creep). In the absence of a more clear authority, I am taking Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Stub_types as the authority on which orphaned stub categories should exist, and therefore should be added to Category:Stub categories. Please give me any other advice you can here. Thanks. --Tabor 2 July 2005 22:31 (UTC)

Good point. Page organisation was changed recently. R* in this casenow means that there are further template codes that can be typed which redirect to med-stub, and that these redirects are listed on a separate page (which can be reached by clicking on the R*. I'll change the information at the top of the page. Grutness...wha? 2 July 2005 23:31 (UTC)

Thanks for the catch and the fix. Courtland July 3, 2005 03:50 (UTC)

Regarding instruction creep ... I think that the processes are complicated because there are complications to stub templates that articles and categories don't share. For instance, every stub template has a corresponding category, unless the template is a redirect in which case it shouldn't have one. One source of orphaned categories are stub templates that once had categories then were converted to redirects and their originally associated category was not deleted, though it might have been cleared by restubbing leading to a movement of so-stubbed articles to a new category. The only orphaned stub categories that should exist are those that are associated with stub templates that are only used transiently (such as {{stub}}) and which might contain articles one day and none the next; and categories associated with templates that have been nominated and subsequently sentenced to deletion, in which case the category might lay empty for a bit after all articles bearing to the to-be-deleted template have all been restubbed and before administrative fingers move to erase the template and category from existence. Does that clarify anything, or is it all much muddier than it was before I waded into the stream? Courtland July 3, 2005 03:59 (UTC)

Family stubs

Are stub article about families (eg. political families) bio-stubs? 500LL July 5, 2005 12:35 (UTC)

I'd say yes, tentatively... I know the template says "a person", but these are still biographical articles. I'd like to hear other opinions on it, though... Grutness...wha? 5 July 2005 12:42 (UTC)

New stub category recommendations

You should add the stub categories: cosmology, quantum physics, and astrophysics.

You can propose them at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Criteria. --TheParanoidOne 6 July 2005 08:26 (UTC)

Intro update

After reading "please discuss all new stubs at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Criteria" in the intro paragraph, I went there and spent a while before understanding that it was intended for new stub categories rather than stub pages. So I'm about to add the word 'categories' to clarify. Hv 13:54, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Oops, it's actually brought in by the 'newstubs' template. I don't know how to update that. Hv 13:54, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

I have added the word "types" for a little more clarification. This word has been used rather than "categories" because a stub type encompases both a template and a category. --TheParanoidOne 20:41, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

{{Wikipedia-stub}}

Is {{Wikipedia-stub}} for articles about Wikipedia (History of Wikipedia, Esperanto Wikipedia...) or for [[Wikipedia: ]] pages? CG 08:38, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

Good question - this one was not created by WP:WSS, but seemed useful enough to keep. The template says "For Wikipedia-related stubs", and seems to be being used for both articles in the article space about wikipedia and also for short pages in the Wikipedia space. Given the number of pages it's used on in total, I don't see too much problem with it being used for both. Stub categories as a whole as a bit of an anomaly as far as "article or wiki-space" are concerned, anyway, becaause they're primarily for the use of editors rather than readers, so having one category that crossed between the two spaces isn't likely to be a huge concern. Grutness...wha? 09:22, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Splitting up page?

The page is getting fairly large (current 93 Kb). How about moving each "top level" section to a seperate sub-page and just provide links to them (along with some descriptive text and such) the main "stub types" page. Granted it might be a little over the top for some of the smaller sections, but for the sake of completenes I think they should all be moved rather than some kept on the main page while others are moved. Just a thought. --Sherool 00:22, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, you're right that it is getting very long, but the whole point of creating the page was to have all the stubs listed on one page. So splitting it up kind of defeats the purpose. Perhaps someone can come up with other possible solutions? Grutness...wha? 07:55, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

The only solution I can think of would be using transclusion. Have seperate pages for all the top categories, and then have this page include those. But the only reason i'd see for doing that would be if people were running into collisions often when editing it. Unless some people run into problems viewing this page because it's so large? --Mairi 04:36, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps it's actually time to start pruning the list, somewhat. For example, {{netball-stub}}, {{kazakh-stub}} and {{inca-stub}} have all been at <10 for about 3 months (or more). I'm sure there are a number of others in the list that have very low counts that could easily be merged with a parent. --TheParanoidOne 05:29, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Probably is. Of the three you name, note that Kazakh-stub would be covered by the currently proposed CAsia-stub. Grutness...wha? 06:51, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Correction

Corrected less-than sign ( < to <, U+003C ) (see presedence of × vs x at monitor resolution).

...Not. So there's a minus sign and figure dash (and more... - ⁻ ₋ − ‒ – — ), but the less-than sign is the same as the html address character. Great, how will WP communicate its superiority now? {Seas 08:59, 1 September 2005 (UTC)}

Um, what? --TheParanoidOne 19:38, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, it baffles me, too. In any case, the less-than sign is only part of an URL if it's in a string ending with a more-than sign - which none of these are. Grutness...wha? 00:45, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

A suggestion

Please get rid of the parentheses and the comma in the lists to make it much easier to copy and past stubs. Current listing:

• Art stubs ({{Art-stub}}, <600 as at August 27)

Suggested versions:

• Art stubs {{Art-stub}} <600 as at August 27
• Art stubs - {{Art-stub}} - <600 as at August 27

What does everyone think? BlankVerse ∅ 19:09, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I've seen a number of new entries added to the list which have missed out the closing parenthesis. With the number of types of braces involved ( '[]', '{}' and '()') I can imagine that it would be easy to miss out the last one. This change therefore makes sense to me. I prefer the hyphened one myself, as it gives a nice clear seperation of the three items of information. --TheParanoidOne 19:31, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I frequently copy tags from the list, and almost always have to manually delete the extra comma and paren, as they are typically automatically included in the highlighting, and this adds time and a possible odd result to teh stub-sorting process. DES ^(talk) 20:04, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

There are also a few that are missing the openning parenthesis. I like the last one with the hyphens best, as it does seperate the information nicely. --Mairi 22:10, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I like the idea of the hyphens, too - a further possibility is this:

• Art stubs: {{Art-stub}}, <600 as at August 27

Whichever, the version with the parentheses is messy, so you're right that it should go. Grutness...wha? 00:45, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Support dropping both comma and bracket. Alai 05:02, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree, browsers such as internet explorer have a problem with copying specific mounds of text, so the parentheses and commas are left in. Drop them. Something like Category: Bio-stubs works well too. Xhin 15:07, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Shortening even further

Why not just:

• Art stubs: {{Art-stub}} - <600 (Aug. 27)

Grutness...wha? 00:43, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

That could be cleaned up even further if we used a template for the category and template links, and the status and date of last status change. For a large database-like project, we shouldn't even be dealing with asterisks, brackets, colons, dashes, parentheses, or phrases (i.e., "as at", "as of", "as on") in each entry.

Example: {{ctl|Art-stub|600|27 August 2005}}

Adraeus 10:46, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

True, but appearance on the page is also important, and that's what I'm trying to suggest a change in here. It could be done by template, but that would need us to change the way we count stubs - I can't see any easy way of using the current method of counting up to 800 stubs in buckets and then counting by pages above that (which is very useful for spotting which categories need splitting). In any case, my suggestion is more a way around the problems with "as at", "as on", and "as of", which seem to be subject to regional differences and add unnecessary text to the page. Grutness...wha? 11:07, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

geographical place related vs general place related

What is the distinction between the general place related categories, and the geographical categories. For example, US-stub vs US-geo-stub. I gather that rivers, hills, mountains, and other geographical features would be under geography, unless there is another more specific category, but what about town and cities, and settlements in general. Silverfish 12:53, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

They would go into the geo-stub. Note that US-stub is not about places, as you have assumed (based on your "general place related"). Have a look through Category:United States stubs to see what kind of things have been placed there. --TheParanoidOne 13:39, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. By place-related I just meant related to a particular area, such as US, UK, etc. Silverfish 14:00, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

Time to update?

There are a lot of new stub sub-categories in their respective categories. For large pages such as Category: Bio-stubs, wouldn't it be better to have a listing of the sub-categories as well? Xhin 15:07, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't quite understand this. All the official subcategories are listed. If there are any which aren't then they're ones that haven't gone through ddue process and haven't been discovered yet by WP:WSS. Grutness...wha? 00:08, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

I mean to list them on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Stub_types, like how some, but not all stub categories are listed there. Xhin 00:58, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

As I said, all the official ones are listed there. If there are any which aren't then they're ones that haven't gone through due process and haven't been discovered yet by WP:WSS. Grutness...wha? 01:31, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

And if you know any that aren't on there, please list them at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Discoveries (assuming they're not already listed there). --Mairi 03:12, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Switzerland-bio-stub

Why isn't {{Switzerland-bio-stub}} listed? It has 39 in it. It's... Thelb4! 16:31, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

In fact, there are quite a few categories not listed! It's... Thelb4! 16:33, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

It's not listed because it wasn't proposed. However, it's already listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Discoveries. If you know of any other stub types that aren't listed here, on WP:WSS/P or the Discoveries page, please list them on the Discoveries page. --Mairi 22:54, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Standard procedure is to list things on the "Discoveries" page if they havn't been officially cleared by WP:WSS. That gives the project an opportunity to debate them (which should have happened before they were created). From there, one of three things happens: they can be logged as accepted and added to the official list, amended or redirected to fit in better with the stub hierarchy, or sent to WP:SFD for a vote on deletion. In the case of Switzerland-bio-stub it will almost certainly be accepted, and sooner or later will be logged and added to the tree - probably when the Discoveries page is next archived. Grutness...wha? 02:08, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Vehicle stub

Hey folks. Isn't there a way to come up with the top level Template:Vehicle-stub real fast and then work on refining that into its sub-stub templates as things get sorted out? That way I could replace the embarassing Template:Van-stub that now resides at Tank truck. Thanks, --hydnjo talk 21:04, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Advice on stub

I'm working on some articles dealing with so-called demogroups and a lot of the articles about these groups are currently very sparse. Unfortunately, there's not a suitable stub-category for these groups and people doing stub sorting keep putting them in all kinds of different categories, such as org-stub and bio-compu-stub. Is it a good idea to create something like a computer culture category for stubs? Let's say compu-cult-stub for instance? This could also house all kinds of other hacker/computing culture stuff. Nmrd 13:41, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I've copied this to Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals where it belongs. --Alynna 15:55, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Race Horces

Do stub bios of race horses go under animal stub, sports stub, or something completely different?

Chemturion 21:34, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

{{Horseracing-stub}} would probably be what you're looking for. Grutness...wha? 00:27, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

A case could be made for a triple stubbing as {{horseracing-stub}}, {{sportbio-stub}}, and {{mammal-stub}}. I know that I personally have been double stubbing animal actors with {{actor-stub}} and {{animal-stub}} (using sub types as appropriate). Proposing additional sub types of {{sportbio-stub}} is on my to do list nce I finish my cyrremt efforts with history stubs. Caerwine 02:37, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Has attention been given to whether this practice of referring (in the context of stub-sorting) to "bios" of animals creates confusion about what i believe is clear re WPrj Bio (and what i know is clear re List of people by name -- which the project treats, along w/ Category:People, as fundamental), that only non-fictional humans need apply?
--Jerzy•t 17:09, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

It's abit off-topic, but Category:Fictional characters has Category:People by status as a parent... Mairi 03:28, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Music stubs hierarchy

Category:Music biography stubs appears to be part of the Music stubs hierarchy, yet it is not listed in WP:WSS/ST. It has no template, no articles and is the parent of Musical group stubs (parent should be Musician_stubs), Musician stubs (parent should be Music_stubs) and Composers stubs (parent should be Musician_stubs). Do we need it? --Bruce1ee 07:43, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

If it's not already listed at WP:WSS/D, note it there. At a glance, it appears that there was a template that was redirected to {{musician-stub}}... --Alynna 21:32, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I've listed it at WP:WSS/D. --Bruce1ee 08:11, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Actor Stub Naming

moved from the top of the page

I was replacing the Daniel Emilforkpage's stub. He was born in chile, but acted in France (and was of Russian and Jewish acsent). My problem is, are actor supposed to be classified by where they born (so he would be placed under Actor stub) or where he acted (so the French actor stub will be used). Right now he is under Actor Stub.

Is he better known as a Frenchman or as a Chilean? Use whichever the answer is. Double-stubbing would also be possible if he's known as both. I wouldn't bother with his ancestral links though, for the purposes of stub sorting. Russell Crowe was born in New Zealand and works in the US - but he's usually thought of as either Australian or a New Zealander, so double stubbing with Australia and NZ would be right for him. Yul Brynner was born in Mongolia (IIRC), but was known as an American actor, so US-stub would work for him. Ah-nold would get both Austria and US (and would also get California-politician-stub)... and so on. Grutness...wha? 00:24, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Marketing stub/Marketing bio stub?

Why does {{marketing-stub}} claim to be about biographical articles? Is that really what it's for, and if so, why not call it {{marketing-bio-stub}}? -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:02, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

It was only recently changed to specify biographies only, most of the articles it's used on aren't biographies. I've changed it back to any articles about marketing. --Mairi 04:35, 9 December 2005 (UTC)