Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Guidelines

Stub sorting guidelines

I sincerely believe that we really need to lay down the law in stub sorting, and really provide a guideline. I believe that we should all attempt to reach a general consensus by April 2, 2005 in a set of rules that we can follow. Once we have built a set of guidelines, we can formally create a policy out of those guidelines. We need to define what a specialized topic stub is, how many articles it should cover, when is it appropriate to create it, what defines its need for its creation, what defines its need for deletion, what criteria it should follow, what are the general steps should one take when sorting a stub, whether or not to start using subst: for all templates, whether or not use subst: for all templates created by the meta-templates, and any other matters that may come up in consideration. I thank jag123 for initially creating the subpage for the project at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Guidelines. Even though they have been discussed, I feel that we really need to confirm everything. For that, we should discuss each issue with its own sections, and raise a list of issues that we need to nail down before really continuing on. The English Wikipedia is nearly at 500k articles. Either the MediaWiki software needs to handle stubs such that they can be found with a simple union of categories, or the sorting is done manually by Wikipedians. Personally, I think the latter is less taxing on the server load, especially when we use subst:, which I think would help the Wikipedia out, performance wise. Please make your comments at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Guidelines. I apologize for making this somewhat of a spam notice, but since the project has more members, the project can finally decide on these important issues at hand. -- AllyUnion (talk) 23:22, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Creation of stub categories

In an attempt to start the ball rolling on this, these are the questions I ask myself before deciding on (or suggesting) a new stub category:

1. will the creating of this category help Wikipedians to find the articles (are the current stubs so buried in a host of other stubs that hunting for them is difficult)?
2. does the new category cover ground not covered by other categories, or does it at least create a reasonable subcategory of an area already covered?
3. will there be a significant number of stubs in this category (preferably at least 40)?
4. does the new category conform with existing stub hierarchies?
5. will the creation of this category help to reduce the size of any current stub categories that have a large number of stubs(*)? (* here I use an arbitrary rule of thumb - a reduction by between 10 and 50% for a category with over 200 stubs.)

Ideally an answer if yes to all five of these questions is needed for me to consider a new stub category to be an important addition to stub sorting. Grutness|^hello? 23:43, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

These are good; my vote is for them to become the guidelines on creation of new stub categories. I'd like to add that the significant state stubs do fit in all of these categories (5 a little bit of a stretch: the creation of a few will do this, but not one), especially number 1, which is the purpose of the stub notice anyways. --YixilTesiphon 00:00, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

I must admit, I do often use 5% as the cutoff, and a lot of that's guesswork anyway. Perhaps that would be a fairer lower margin? Grutness|^hello?

Those are good points. When you say Wikipedians, do you mean editors or readers? Stubs are designed for editors who wish to expand articles that are related. The guideline for categories is 100 - 1000 (preferably 500) articles. 100 is a bit steep, but it should be at least 60-70, if not more. In the same respect, creating a new category to reduce an existing one should be done if it meets the above criterias.

We should also establish, for the record, what are stubs. My definition, a way to flag and group articles for editors who wish to expand articles on a related subject. They should be used in cases where the article is obviously lacking important information, and not for articles that are not yet perfect. The length shouldn't be a factor at all; the focus should be the content.

Later this evening, if it's not done, I'll start organising and creating pages to clearly address every point that needs to be addressed. --jag123 00:03, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Good point, though defining a stub could be a tricky one! - by "Wikipedians" I meant editors, BTW. Grutness|^hello?

New topics

I've added some topics that should be discussed. I'm not really sure if we should set up a new page for every entry or if every point should be discussed on this talk page. I don't want to make this too bureaucratic or complicated that people won't be participate, but I'd like to keep it organised. I'm sure no one will agree on a definition of stub, but I'm sure we can all agree on some points of what should be or what isn't a stub. At the very least, that will narrow the definition. I'm not sure if you all want to vote on every point or just discuss the topic and take it from there. Suggestions would be appreciated. Feel free to add your definition/criterias under each point. --jag123 02:43, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Questioned stub categorizations for discussion

I don't want to pick on anyone (unduly draw attention to particular individuals, that is), but there are sometimes stub categorizations that I disagree with enough to serve as potential fodder for discussion. Perhaps others will point examples out for discussion as well.

• Probiotic: this is stubbed to Category:Bacteria stubs, which is the distinguishing characteristic of probiotic foods. I'm wondering whether it would be better stubbed to Category:Food and drink stubs though, as the focus is on a type of dietary supplement. So in this case it seems that it is a choice between emphasizing composition or use (bacterial and food, respectively). Courtland 04:42, 2005 Feb 16 (UTC)
• Antifungal drug: this is stubbed to Category:Fungi stubs and I'm thinking it would be better stubbed to Category:Medicine stubs. In this case, peculiar to therapeutics, it's a choice between emphasizing the target or the context (fungus vs. medicine). Courtland 04:58, 2005 Feb 16 (UTC)

In cases like these, where several stubs could equally apply, I pick the one that is more in-line with the focus of the article (until more explicit criterias are established for stubs). In the first case, the emphasis appears to be on bacteria, not the food or medicinal aspect, so I'd leave it as is. For the second, since fungi is barely "relevant", I'd go for med. --jag123 05:24, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It's tricky, I stubbed probiotic as bacteria, as I thought microbiologists such as myself would be more likely to contribute to the article. 12:25, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Lists are addressed in a policy input request below content of block below suppressed but present in the page

• List_of_famous_discoveries

• Bastinado and Chinese raping chair: both of these have gotten stubbed to Category:Weapon stubs. However, the first is a method of torture and the second began as a method of torture but is thought to have become a "marital aid", so to speak. My thinking is that neither of these constitute weapons in the traditional sense and that there isn't a good category to stub either to at this time. Courtland 06:48, 2005 Feb 16 (UTC)

subst considered harmful.

I'm seriously against the use of subst. (That is, the use of including some static markup instead of dynamically including the template text.) The pages can be cached. This is an unacceptable reduction in functionality and flexibility to pander to what's really a coding problem, a database problem, but not a content problem. The kludge is unnecessary. grendel|khan 04:54, 2005 Feb 16 (UTC)

Hey maybe it won't matter after we get all that google hardware [1] ;-), If editors have to type in a whole lot of text rather than {{cleanup}} or {{Kiwi-stub}} ect.. then people will be less likely to edit. If it works in the same way as ~~~~ it will still clutter up the page. Onco p53 12:34, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

subst would work the same way as ~~~~. In addition to cluttering up the page, it also means that we can't change the stub text after we start using it without a lot of work. grendel|khan 19:17, 2005 Feb 17 (UTC)

Range of article count

I propose that the minimum count of article needed to create a new stub / stub category be 75, with the expectation that the category will reach a minimum 100 article in the near future.

Any objections? If no objections are made regarding this proposal within 10 days, it will be added as a guideline for this project. --jag123 15:50, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

hm. Not sure about that. I think that there is no need for a hard-and-fast number. I used 40 as standard when splitting up geo-stubs, but there were definitely cases where logic demanded a new category when there were a handful less than that - as happened with BritOT-geo-stub, which got the last 32 otherwise unsubcategorised geo-stubs. Seventy-five would be a bit high for my tastes in any case. Grutness|^hello? 05:38, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think the whole point is to pick a hard-and-fast number. I suggested 100 because it's listed here [2]. The purpose is not to subcategorised every article in a "catch-all" category so it's empty, but to create new templates when necessary, such as when a category has hundreds of articles and a new template could split that up significantly. In my opinion, 32 stubs is not enough to create a new category, especially when UK-geo-stub would have been okay. The BritOT-geo stub is specific, and it was a logical grouping, but that reasoning could be applied anywhere really. If there's no specific number, then anyone can create new stub templates to logically group 30 articles and we'll end up with 10,000 categories to maintain. --jag123 23:34, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, with 20,000 stubs, it'd actually be nearer 800 - and that's if all categories had only 30 (most would have far more). I'm just saying we should use common sense to know when a category is needed rather than thinking "hmm...this would be a perfect stub category, but it's only got 95 articles, so I can't create it". I'm sure I've seen guidelines elsewhere which suggest 20 as the number, but that would be far too few IMHO. Grutness|^hello?

What not to stub

I propose that lists, disambiguation pages (including pages that contain a list of definitions but not marked as disambiguation pages) and definitions of words, expression or slogans NOT be stubbed. Since these types of articles are expecteted to be incomplete (such as lists) or short (such as definitions) or lacking content (such as disambig pages), stubbing them is not necessary and redundant.

Any objections? If no objections are made regarding this proposal within 10 days, it will be added as a guideline for this project. --jag123 15:50, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• "definitions of words" ... these should be tagged for transwikification to Wiktionary (Template:Move to Wiktionary (placed on the article's discussion page, I think). Courtland 18:30, 2005 Feb 16 (UTC)

• Agree on disambiguation pages - these should not be stubbed. And agree with Courtland on definitions. But lists? Have a look at List_of_cities_by_longitude - you telling me that's not a stub? I think the same rules should apply to them as to articles in general - if there's clearly a shortage of items on the list, or if whole sections of information are clearly missing, then it's a stub. Grutness|^hello? 05:44, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • The List of cities by longitude is short, but at what point will you consider it not a stub? 50 cities? 100 cities? 10% complete? 75% complete? How will you even determine that? Do you know the amount of cities on the planet? Assuming the list contains 500 items, but mostly from one area, like the United States, then there is still a clear shortage of items. Either way, a city today could be amalgamated tomorrow, or seperated from a previous fusion (like in Montreal). A list like this will eternally be incomplete and contain some incorrect entries. If stubbed, it would have to be permanent, and that defeats the whole purpose of stubs. --jag123 16:32, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Use of subst

I propose that "subst:" not be used. There does not appear to be much support for it's use and other alternatives should and can be explored.

Any objections? If no objections are made regarding this proposal within 10 days, it will be added as a guideline for this project. --jag123 15:50, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• good move. All that substub does is break Category:Stub in two according to length of article - hardly the most useful criterion. Grutness|^hello?
• Agree I've wondered why someone would use "subst:" when "stub:" seems to cover things all the way down to a handful of words. Will a bot be run to convert them, or will this be a manual re-categorization process? Courtland 04:00, 2005 Feb 18 (UTC)

Category criterion

A suggested addition to the "what is a stub" - irrespective of length, any article is a stub if it hasn't got at least one category (Ideally, a category should be found rather than a stub message added, but this isn't always possible). This ensures that all the articles are listed somewhere other than the complete list of articles, rather than "free-floating in cyberspace". This, technically, could come under "article missing important information", since its place in the category hierarchy is important information. Grutness|^hello? 02:39, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Categories are cheap and easy to make and I'd seriously be surprised if there is a topic that doesn't already have related categoriess. I believe there is an uncategorised pages project (if not, there are definitely people who do this) which handles the task of categorising pages. If anyone finds an uncategorised page, I certainly encourage them to categorise it but I think stubs should be left for articles that are lacking content. --jag123 02:57, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Number of stub categories

If there are, in fact, 20,000 stub articles then interestingly enough if they are evenly divided into stub categories each with the minimum of 100 articles that would be 200 categories... Which happens to be the number of categories displayed at once at . What a coincicdence. RJFJR 03:50, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

Division of biography stubs?

Inspite of the fact that I'm a big proponent of merging stub categories I'd like to hear if there is interest in splitting bio-stubs into two categories: modern-bio-stub and historical-bio-stubs. It sounds like they'd be worked on by editors with different interest. I'd suggest that if we did then we could arbitrarily make 1900 the dividing line. People who's notable contributions were mainly before then would be in historical and if after that would be modern. Comments? RJFJR 03:50, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

Judging by comments on stub sorting in general there seems to be more of a move to divide bio-stubs by profession and/or nationality. I agree that they need to be split up, and thie historical criterion is a viable one, but I think I'd prefer the other ways of splitting the stubs up. Grutness|^hello? 05:34, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Me too, I'd prefer other ways of sorting. There's some problem with picking an arbitrary dividing line as there are historical eras that are better categoricals for binning biographies. For instance, rather than 1900 for the dividing line between "old" and "new", a fuzzier "Industrial Era" category for modern biographies might be better. Further, one could go farther back along generally accepted era boundaries in the West and East, etc. This provides and orthogonal and alternative axis for sorting to the profession/place-in-history categorization that is currently in place; I wouldn't say it replaces that pre-existing axis. Courtland 00:26, 2005 Feb 19 (UTC)

I prefer other ways of sorting. Dividing people by era seems unnatural. I think it's more likely that someone will have knowledge of scientists or army generals or authors who've lived in any century than someone with knowledge of all kinds of people who've lived in so-and-so time period. --jag123 00:36, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Beginner Mind

As a brand new user of Wikipedia,I would like to say that it is an amazingly wonderful and valuable thing you are all creating. I came here for information on English pronunciation, particularly phonology and I found a lot of useful stuff. I also found some valuable related info on a page noted as a "stub," which I followed to get a definition and later encountered this discussion. I have no technical expertise to offer, but in the debate on whether to kill stubs or not, it does not seem like a good idea since much valuable information might be lost. Would it be wishful thinking to hope for gathering this related info into a master document? Remember, I said I brought no technical expertise, but perhaps there is something in this beginner's perspective that can help you in this complex discussion. Keep up the good work! --Lamusette 19:41, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)