Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/To do/2005-2008

Miscellaneous

Too many users do not realize that e.g. "5 pages" on WP:WSS/ST means ~1000 articles. The page should instead say "~1000 articles" for 5 pages, "~1200 articles" for 6 pages, et cetera. All sets over 1000 articles should still have distinctive formatting, though.

Is WP:WSS/ST generated by a script? --Unforgettableid | Talk to me 08:26, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

No, the stub list is hand generated by people doing updates, usually after sorting out a stub type that has been significantly affected by either the creation or deletion of other stub types. I have no objections, as I'm willing to live with whatever binning system is decided upon, but if you feel that it should be changed, make a proposal over on WP:WSS/P. Caerwine 18:21, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

• As noted in the edit history, it's now updated by hand, but with an online script doing the counting. Instead of counting things by hand, please take a minute to just run http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/WP:WSS/T and copy-n-paste the results across. In the same amount of time that it takes to count a single category, you can update all of the category counts. --Interiot 22:20, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

• Hi, I've got the sports stubs from 8 pages down to 5 if you want to update your front page. I was wondering if anyone knows of a rowing/boat (yacht) race stub I could use for a lot of the articles, i'm having problems searching. or if i should propose one. thanks! User:Mellery 15:58, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

• Got the stadium stubs down from 1500 to 700 articles mellery 19:45, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

• I knocked about 80 Name Stubs off, there are still around 100 left but most of those do not fit into either sub-category provided and I'm not sure where they should go. Lectricky 03:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)lectricky

Table format, and wonky templates

I notice that Interiot's script (for which, maximal kudos) in a few cases gets the template "wrong" -- I assume this is where several templates feed into the same category, and the first one the database returns isn't necessarily the canonical one. I can think of a medium-complex way to fix this, but... do we really need these in the tables at all? Firstly, let me fess up that's it's actually my fault: I created the original by cribbing from /ST, and massaging the results, and as the templates were included on that... But I suspect it's as much of a distraction as a help here; can we agree to drop it? (If Interiot will be nice enough to tweak the script.) Alai 04:55, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

It seems that this is still being a problem. The table as of right now contains the following spurious entries:

Stub categories in need of being split

Category	Template	Pages
Company stubs	{{Country_flag_alias_Kedah}}	13
Actor stubs	{{User_xiangqi}}	10
Economics and finance stubs	{{Country_flag_alias_Kedah}}	9
Business biography stubs	{{Crimean_region}}	8
Australian people stubs	{{April_2006_events}}	7
Novel stubs	{{Cite_press_release}}	7
Record label stubs	{{User_Bollywood}}	7
Baseball biography stubs	{{User_American_Footballer}}	6
Plant stubs	{{DATECOMP}}	6
2000s rock album stubs	{{Biotechnology_title_60}}	5
Anime and manga stubs	{{Caribbean topic}}	5
Christianity stubs	{{[[Template:|]]}}	5
Scottish people stubs	{{Phh:Reader/1}}	5
Website stubs	{{NBAPistons}}	5

Having looked at the latest diff, I initially interpreted the number of bizarre entries being made in it to possibly be some form of vandalism. But then I ran the script from the link on this page and it is indeed producing lines like the following:

Company stubs	13	{{Country_flag_alias_Kedah}}

This doesn't seem to fit Alai's theory about multiple templates in an article confusing the script considering that What Links Here for that flag template shows it only used by the To do page.

Time to either remove the template column from the table (easier) or fix the script (harder).--TheParanoidOne 05:30, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, my beautiful theory has been mugged by a bunch of ugly facts (though it did seem to be the case at one time). It may be caused by corruption of the toolserver's copy of the database, in which case it will hopefully eventually go away. I could do an update from an offline dump, but that'd greatly limit the frequency of updates, as said dumps are currently taking an aeon and a half for en. I'm fully in favour of dropping the template column; the category should link to the template in each case, anyway. Alai 16:31, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

The problems evidently continue. I propose to fix this by updating from the database dumps, starting from the next one. For simplicity I'll put them in the same format as User:Alai/Stub-counts, if that's OK with everyone. This'll mean that they won't be updated any more often than fortnightly, and probably more slowly than that, all depending on the vicissitudes of the dump schedule for en. If people really miss the template links, I can put them in too. Alai 19:27, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

exzcess articles in excess categories?

can someone explain to me what the last section of this page means please? BL Lacertae - kiss the lizard 03:04, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I think it's sum of (nuber_of_articles - 800) over all oversized categories. Or probably just the total number of articles in oversized categories. Conscious 06:34, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

It's the former. (The latter number would be ~80,000 higher, for obvious reasons...) So not counting the smallish number of articles double-stubbed into two oversized categories (and don't get me started on some of those), it's the minimum number of re-sorts required to get rid of all our types with more than 800 articles. Alai 16:38, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Problem with album stubs

Moved to WP:WSS/P

Table or list?

Doubtless it'll be another n weeks before the next database dump, for some large and uncertain value of n, but out of curiosity: would people prefer a numbered (or bulleted) list to the current table of oversized cats? Having simplifified the table format a bit, I now wonder if there's any point in a table as such. Alai 21:56, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I prefer looking at a table, at least, although editing a table is slightly more of a pain. Anyway, I'll put myself in as opposing listification. --CComMack (t•c) 10:15, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, I'll keep it as a table. Alai 00:51, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Also: at present it's sorted by size (to the nearest article), but only displays number of listings pages. Would it perhaps be more useful to sort by number of listings pages, and then alphabetically? At present it's in effect not maintainable by hand -- not that it's really necessary to do so, but I do occasionally notice people making moves within the list (as well as deletions from it). Alai 05:15, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd think the "pages then alphabetical" system would be easier to maintain since a lot of the sorting is done by hand. It doesn't make for much difference either way, though, really. Grutness...wha? 02:09, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Fodder for frustrated geo-stub splitters?

If anyone's dismayed at the (almost complete) lack of geo-stubs on the to-do list, here's the "four pagers", should anyone wish to get out in front.

• Category:Basse-Normandie geography stubs 772
• Category:Ireland geography stubs 717
• Category:West Virginia geography stubs 707
• Category:New South Wales geography stubs 697
• Category:India geography stubs 683
• Category:Uttar Pradesh geography stubs 675
• Category:Sweden geography stubs 672
• Category:Antarctica geography stubs 665
• Category:Switzerland geography stubs 664
• Category:Quebec geography stubs 662
• Category:Alberta geography stubs 659
• Category:Finland geography stubs 651
• Category:Sydney geography stubs 638
• Category:São Paulo (state) geography stubs 627
• Category:North Yorkshire geography stubs 626
• Category:South Africa geography stubs 607
• Category:Veneto geography stubs 604

(I should warn anyone thinking B-N's an obvious one -- as I was, until a short time ago -- that Orne has 22 articles, Manche 39, and Calvados... 708.) Alai 04:33, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Oversized Stub categories

How about expanding those articles. Kingjeff 04:37, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Listing templates and categories to be created

May I request that people be careful when listing stub types for creation? Often, only a template gets listed, and it becomes a guessing game whether that means the approved proposal is actually a stub category or an upmerged template (this tripped me up on the Russian buildings recently). I'd highly suggest that we explicitly list all approved categories and templates, listing both where appropriate. Thanks, CComMack (t–c) 22:57, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Resorting

• Amusement ride stubs - {{ride-stub}} (3 pages): {{Amusement-park-stub}} created

I just resorted all of these into the new category, and then deleted this request. --Haemo 10:25, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

The Stub sorting project vs. content area project assessment

Some projects (e.g.WikiProject Business and Economics) have a template that rates the status of the article. When that is coupled with assigning an article to a category, that effectively categorizes the stub.

So it would seem to me that there is a duplication of effort going on here. I'm finding myself vaguely frustrated every time I find a stub template on an article I'm assessing - I'm reinventing the wheel, but I have no choice because the two methods of assessing (stub sorting and project assessment) appear to be unrelated.

I think the stub sorting project is a great idea because the stub categories help people find articles to work on. However, it would see that we could make better use of our collective time if there was some way we could use the content area project tagging to generate the stub category assignment.

• we would save a *lot* of work.
• that way the stub list wouldn't have to recreate the regular categories
• articles on the stub page could be categorized by assessing project and importance to the project ---> it would be easier for a user to figure out which articles are most important and we would have a better chance of having the high priority articles filled out.
• content area projects would also be helped more by the stub sorting process. Stubbiness is sometimes in the eye of the beholder. For example, the psych article on Attribution Theory is start or B from a psych point of view. From the business (organizational behavior view) it is no more than a stub. It doesn't mention anything about how attribution theory has been used to explain everything from stock market behavior to hiring and firing policies.

Does anyone else see the merit in this? Is there any way to make this happen? Thanks in advance to whomever takes the time to respond. Egfrank 13:53, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

With stub templates on the article itself and the project assessment templates on the talk page, I don't see this happening at purely the template level. However not all hope is lost. There exists a template {{stubclass}} whose sole purpose is to be used by assessment templates (such as {{WPBiography}}) so that a bot can go through stub categories related to a wikiproject's are of focus and automatically apply an assessment template if it has not already been added, and alert editors that the assessment of the article as a stub for purposes of the wikiproject has been automatically done by a bot. Caerwine Caer’s whines 22:48, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Many hands make light work

As of March 3, 2007, Category:Stubs is empty! However, it will quickly fill up, so consider taking a look at it from time to time. Here's a list of deletion templates for those stubs which look dubious. Also consider marking with {{Move to Wiktionary}} if they are merely definitions unlikely to be further expanded.

(Moved from project page. Alai 03:07, 8 April 2007 (UTC))

Long list of red...

"Categories approved, yet to be created" is getting very long, especially for an unstructured list of redlinks; might we consider some sort of time-delineated subsectioning, the better to group related topics, and to make clearer what's a long-standing non-creation? Several of these are likely to be "proposer wandered off and lost interest", or "that type was split by other means", which I'd be tempted to prune out after a certain point, or at least flag as such in some way. Alai 05:47, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

That's what the archive lists are for, I guess. I moved all those to the "to do" page in a fit of pique at the phenomenon described above. Perhaps there's a way to tell which are really crucial and which are just "gosh, it seemed like a good idea at the time." Any way to tell from the Data Dump(tm)? Her Pegship (tis herself) 14:00, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I will be doing the creation of Categories and I would also do the Templates as well if I knew how. Kathleen.wright5 21:22, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Australia-stubs Sorting

Category:Australia stubs resorting  Done now down to 348 stubs (2 pages) Kathleen.wright5 01:45, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Article counts

Originally, I went with listings-page-count rather than exact number of articles since I only update this when there's a db dump, so obviously the latter will change relatively rapidly compared to that. However, I can put them in as well as, or instead of, the page-counts, if people find them useful, in future updates. Alai (talk) 20:56, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

It would save me some housekeeping...:P Her Pegship (tis herself) 23:13, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I think the point is that it adds to the scope for housekeeping... OTOH, if it's something you're going to be doing anyway... Alai (talk) 01:07, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I dunno...I thought people might like to see the actual counts before tackling them, but maybe that's just me getting psyched by the numbers. Any other opinions? Her Pegship (tis herself) 04:53, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to see some other opinions too, if only to convince myself that anyone else is paying attention to the whole list! Alai (talk) 13:28, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I think there is a big diffrence between having 801 articles and 999 articles which the page counts don't pick up on. As long as there is a note that the article count may be out of date etc I think having the article numbers would be of help. Out of curiosity do the article counts (here and on Alai's big list) include the templates that feed the category, normally this would make little difference but Category:European sports venue stubs has 11 templates and it could make a differnce. Waacstats (talk) 07:56, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, I shall include them in later updates. Feel free to caveat-craft in the meantime. My numbers (that the page counts are derived from, and that appear directly on the Big List(TM) include only article-space pages. Alai (talk) 13:41, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Captain Slog... Supplemental.

Just in case anyone was getting cocky about apparent progress on the project page: to celebrate the renewal of my toolserver account, I just ran a query to find stub category sizes on their image. I was going to put these in a subpage while I work through them, but I thought I might as well share. Long-term I might try to write a script to integrate this into the front page, but for the time being here's what seems to be in with a bullet:

• Category:Poet stubs 801
• Category:Chinese people stubs 801
• Category:Religion stubs 802
• Category:Electronics stubs 802
• Category:Florida Registered Historic Places building and structure stubs 802
• Category:British television biography stubs 803
• Category:2000s heavy metal album stubs 803
• Category:Australian rugby league biography stubs 805
• Category:Australian people stubs 807
• Category:United Kingdom company stubs 807
• Category:Story stubs 808
• Category:Virginia geography stubs 809
• Category:Queensland geography stubs 809
• Category:United Kingdom writer stubs 810
• Category:China stubs 816
• Category:Canadian people stubs 816
• Category:Scottish people stubs 817
• Category:Irish people stubs 817
• Category:Japanese people stubs 818
• Category:United Kingdom bishop stubs 819
• Category:United States writer stubs 826
• Category:Artist stubs 826
• Category:Medical biography stubs 833
• Category:Brazil stubs 864
• Category:American jurist stubs 868
• Category:Television stubs 892

Enjoy! And/or don't let the... m grind you down! Alai (talk) 15:25, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

A new list to starton goody, Brazil-stubs reduced already.Waacstats (talk) 22:55, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Well held, that man. Sorry about the duplicate deletions you had to make when I updated the project page: must be a significant amount of replication lag in the loop, again. Alai (talk) 11:37, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Antarctica geo stubs

Sorted, and oversized stub table updated by hand. Unfortunately one of the new stub categories is still well oversized: East Antarctica geography stubs. The ultimate solution for that would be merging many articles, rather than more stub categories! I will get started on that... later. Right now my wrist is in pain from 1600 stub sorts. Fleebo (talk) 04:27, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I thought we'd decided to ditch that split... ah well, they needed a split of some form anyway, so good work that Fleebo :) Grutness...wha? 13:07, 15 August 2008 (UTC)