Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Naming conventions/Redraft1

Improvements, listed in roughly chronological (i.e. not importance) order of their implementation:

Intro now discusses stubs and stubcats (similar edits elsewhere, when needed, e.g. in the summary at one point where only categories were mentioned)
Intro now tells people how and were these guidelines are used
Cross-reference to list of stub types is now formatted like a cross-reference
Fixed triple redundancy in the summary heading
Summary converted to bullet list; its points are not logically sequential, so need not be numbered
Replaced "guideline(s)" with "recommendation(s)" until such time as WSS/NG is in fact a Guideline per WP consensus; "guideline" is presently a misleading claim, and has led to a lot of counterproductive strife in SfD; it was also contradicted by the overall language of the original document anyway, which frequently discusses exceptions
Redundant wording fixes ("several of the most important" ⇒ "the most important"; "may later" ⇒ "may"; "entirely in lower-case letters" ⇒ "entirely lower-case"; etc., etc.)
Typo fixes
Removed repetitive use of "and redirect" after "stub template"; just address redirects once. ***TODO***
Replaced computer-geeky "foo" examples with actual ones.
Grammar/awkward wording fixes ("can have exceptions", etc.)
Logical wording improvements ("necessary" ⇒ "warranted", for example &mdash nothing here is strictly "necessary" at all; "intersection of two large categories" ⇒ "intersection of two stub-sorting topics" — doesn't intrinsically have anything to do with categories per se, nor their size which is a concern for WSS/P, not naming)
NPOV fix ("are more appropriate" ⇒ "more closely follow these recommendations")
Increased wikilinking
Reduction of implied WP:OWNership (e.g. removal of "by WP:WSS", as if only WSS can propose stub/stubcat renames)
Fixed overspecificity/contradiction, where "xx-stub [or xx-xx-stub]" without "etc." implied no xx-xx-xx-stub exists
Wordiness fixes (e.g shortened to "used where (and only where)", instead of "used where" followed by a later "no exceptions" explanatory passage; another example is reduction of "however, if necessary by" to "by"; and so on.)
Similar fixing of logorrhoeic constructions, e.g. "examples of these stubs are things like")
WP Manual of Style formatting fixes.
De-listified a list with only 2 very simply points that thus didn't need to be a list (also per MoS); used emphasis instead
Fixed it to make three points, because on close inspection it was in fact trying to make three, but as two list items
Confusing "Templates" heading (sounds like "Where to find the templates") changed to "Stub template naming")
Replaced confusing "xx-stub" and "xx-xx-stub" subheadings, which did not really apply to their content, with a unified "Components" subhead
Replaced confusing run-on "hybrid/complex/composite/compound" with "compound"; as the original said, "these terms are four names for the same thing"
Merged split-up discussion of compound stub type; was seemingly confusingly discussed in two different sections.
Combined examples where they offered no new insight and were thus redundant
Provided addition (real) illustrative examples.
Important logic fix, changing "allows for more consistent creation of complex stubs" to "allows creation of shorter compound stubs", because there is nothing at all more "consistent" about "name squishing"; if anything the direct opposite is true, among other problems not addressed here; meanwhile "shorter" provides a rational reason for the practice.
Reduced unnecessary and long explanation of "parent" and "child" nomenclature, by simply using the terms in situ naturally.
Reduced verbiage relating to multi-part topic names, to no longer state the obvious with regard to abbreviations, which are covered elsewhere already.
Eliminated unnecessary "Use of" in the usage subheadings, since we already know we are talking about usage
Changed "Lower case" heading to "Character case", since section is not about just lower case.

In order to maintain some consistency in the naming of stub templates and their corresponding stub categories, several recommendations for stub naming are used in stub deletion/merging/renaming, for new stub proposals, and by WikiProject Stub sorting while cleaning up stub organization. The following is a list of the most important recommendation to take into consideration when naming a stub template and its category.

For a full list of stub types in use, see theStub types list.

Summary

Stub template and redirect names should be in the form xx-stub (or xx-xx-stub, etc.), with the parts separated by hyphens
Capital letters should be used where (and only where) they are normally used - i.e., for proper nouns like personal or place names
Where a place name is part of the stub, this name is normally (but not always) written in full (exceptions are listed below)
Stub template and redirect names with three parts (xx-xx-stub) are normally used only when an existing category is divided into subcategories e.g., dividing biography stubs by nationality)
Stub category names should be in the form Category:England stubs, Category:Socialism stubs — not Category:England-related-stubs, Template:English-stubs, Template:Socialism-related-stubs or Category:Socialist-stubs
These are only recommendations, and may have exceptions where warranted, but the fewer exceptions there are, the better
Many existing stubs and their categories do not follow these guidelines, but some of these may be changed to names which more closely follow these recommendations

Stub template naming

Components

All stub templates should have names ending in "-stub". Please note that there is a hyphen not space before the word "stub", and that it is entirely lower-case and singular (not "stubs").

When the name has three or more parts (xx-xx-stub, etc.), hyphens not spaces are used between all sections. This usually happens in two cases:

When a compound "child" stub type is created by the intersection of two "parent" stub sorting topics (e.g. {{France-geo-stub}}, which is the intersection of {{France-stub}} and {{geo-stub}}).
When the subject of a stub and has two or more parts (e.g. {{DC-Comics-stub}}, {{opera-singer-stub}}; the latter type should be avoided, by running words together, as in EXAMPLE HERE, since this allows creation of shorter compound stubs, e.g. EXAMPLE HERE.

This is particularly notable with Hybrid/complex/composite/compound stubs (see below), although they also occasionally occur when the subject matter of the stub has more than one word in its name (e.g., DC-Comics-stub, Opera-singer-stub). The latter type should be avoided, however, if necessary by running words together. This allows for more consistent creation of complex stubs later.

Use of lower case

In general, stub names use lower case letters (although the first letter of any template name is not case sensitive, so this may be upper or lower case). The main exceptions to this rule are cases where Proper nouns are used - the names of people or places which get capital letters when written normally. The following are some of the exceptions:

US-stub and its children (e.g., US-geo-stub)
UK-stub and its children (e.g., UK-bio-stub)
NZ-stub

Use of abbreviations

Abbreviations are acceptable in the name of stub templates - they are for the benefit of the editor, not the reader, and the template names do not appear on screen in articles. Ambiguous abbreviations should be avoided however.

For this reason, names like football-stub (which could refer to any of several sports) are not appropriate. Similarly, ISO codes for country names are generally regarded as inappropriate, since geography stub templates can refer to either countries or regions (many of which share two letter abbreviations - Gabon and the US state of Georgia both use GA, for example) and non-geography stubs can refer to things other than country names (for instance, UA could refer to Ukraine or United Artists, and AI to Anguilla or artificial intelligence).

Of current stub categories, the most ambiguous are probably bio-stub (biography, not biology) and geo-stub (geography, not geology).

Order and usual form

In general, composite stubs are formed by subdividing a major category into smaller sections, often by location. Thus, the vast majority composite stubs are formed by a combination of a geographical location and one other type of stub. We have UK-hist-stubs, Australia-bio-stubs, and Canada-geo-stubs, to give just three examples. In each case, a standard form should be used for the subdivisional component, and a standard form for the major component. These forms are as listed below:

The subdivisional component

Subdivision of existing categories is most commonly done by location, either by country or region. With most countries and regions, the common name of the area is used as the geographical component. Stubs about Argentina receive Argentina-stub, those about India receive India-stub, and so on. For some countries, however, an abbreviated form of the name is used. If a country has a two-word name, then occasionally this name will be written in full and concatenated (e.g., HongKong-geo-stub)The following are the abbreviations or alternatives currently in use. Note that those cases in italics may soon be deprecated, replaced by more acceptable alternatives:

Africa:

AfricaC - Central Africa
AfricaE - East Africa
AfricaN - North Africa
AfricaS - Southern Africa
AfricaW - West Africa

Americas:

CentralAm - Central America
Salvador - El Salvador
SouthAm - South America
US - United States
- NYC - New York City

Asia:

CAsia - Central Asia
Kyrg - Kyrgizstan
MEast - Middle East
SAsia - South Asia
SEAsia - Southeast Asia
Taiwan, or ROC (or Roc) - Republic of China (Taiwan)

Europe:

BiH - Bosnia and Herzegovina
Czech (or Cz) - Czech Republic/Czechia
Euro - Europe
- EU - European Union
UK (or Uk) - United Kingdom
- NI - Northern Ireland
- BritOT - British overseas territories

Oceania:

NZ (or Kiwi) - New Zealand
PNG - Papua New Guinea

Non-geographic subdivisions:

reli - Religious/Religion
tv - Television

The major component

The following terms are used for the middle component of three-part stub names, and usually refer to the category which has been split to make the new subdivision:

-actor- (actor)
-album- (album)
-bcast- (broadcasting)
-bio- (biographical article)
-book- (book)
-compu- (computer)
-corp- (company or corporation)
-cvg- (computer and video game)
-edu- (education)
-film- (film)
-geo- (geography)
-gov- (government)
-hist- (history)
-myth- (mythology)
-noble- (nobility or royalty)
-org- (organization)
-party- (political party)
-poli- (politics)
-politician- (politician)
-road- (road)
-school- (non-university schools)
-sci- (science)
-struct- (building or structure)
-theat- (theater/theatre)
-tv- (television)
-university- (universities)
-writer- (writer)

Mix and match

From the above lists and from the actual names of countries not listed) a large number of potential stub categories can be created which fit into a standard pattern. A few examples of non-existent but plausible stub categories should demonstrate:

MEast-poli-stub (Middle East politics)
NZ-tv-stub (New Zealand television)
Canada-myth-stub (Canadian mythology)
SouthAm-actor-stub (South American actors)
Reli-hist-stub (Religious history)

Exceptions

There are, of course, many exceptions to these rules. Some of these are due to the stub template being made by someone from outside the WP:WSS project. Others are for convenience of editors, or because the name was the most logical one. WP:WSS is actively pursuing the renaming of some of these stubs, although many of them "work well enough" that this may not be necessary. The following are some of the most common (this is not an exhaustive list):

Children of {{Compu-stub}} and {{Music-stub}}, {{Geo-term-stub}}

These groups seem to work backwards to the normal system, with the main parent category appearing first. These make sense, however, since in common speech phrases like "computer software", "musical instruments", and "geographical terms" are named in this way.

Redirects

Redirects are used far less frequently with stub templates, but still exist. Redirects follow the same guidelines as the templates the redirect to, and because the naming guidelines are fairly prescriptive, there is less opportunity for properly named redirects to exist.