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<big style="font-size:x-large">'''For creation of stub types,<br> see [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals]]!'''</big><br><br>The same page is for discussion of the hierarchy of stub categories.
 
== Forced sort works with categories but not stubs? ==
Archives material is available here by date of cleanup: [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Archive 1|Feb 2005]], [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Archive 2|Feb 15,2005]], [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Archive 3|March 2005]], [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Archive 4|May 2005]], [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Archive 5|June 2005]], [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Archive 6|March 2006]].
 
I know with categories you can force an article to show up under the right letter by adding a parameter to the category code -- for example <nowiki>[[Category:American horror writers|King, Stephen]]</nowiki> to make it show up under "K" rather than "S". I tried this with a stub (specifically with horror-film-stub on [[The Aftermath (film)]]) and it had no effect. Is there a way to do this? --[[User:Bookgrrl|Bookgrrl]] 22:07, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 
This has been discussed many times before, including [[Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Stub_sorting#Biography_sorting|earlier on this page]] (I would also suggest going through the archives of this page as well). It's a lot of extra work, not everyone does it, it messes up bot renames, the list goes on. In general, we pretty much avoid doing that. [[User:Amalas|<b style="color:maroon;">~ Amalas</b>]] [[User talk:Amalas|<span style="color:navy;">rawr</span>]] [[Special:Contributions/Amalas|<sup style="color:navy;">=^_^=</sup>]] 23:12, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
== Once again acheived ==
:Yes - change the coding on all 3500 stub templates, and probably grind Wikipedia's servers to a halt while you're doing it. Which is why it's never been done. Sorry, but until there's an easier way to do this, sort is by title pure and simple. It isn't perfect by a long way, but it saves both coders and probably techs several weeks'-worth of full-time work. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 23:17, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
:Since articles are '''supposed''' to eventually "grow out" of the stub size, there's little point in investing a lot of energy into making sure the stub categories sort correctly, is there? The same effort could be put into writing a longer article... -- ''[[User:Nae'blis|nae]]'[[User_talk:Nae'blis|blis]]'' 23:20, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
::well, it would be nice - it'd make it easier for editors to find the stubs. But it is a lot of work for not much reward, it's true. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 06:03, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 
Since it '''has''' been discussed many times before, and consensus suggests that for stubs it should be in "'''''article'''''" name order, why not make this an '''explicit''' part of the stub sorting instructions/guidelines? I came here today for exacty this information (my preference being LN,FN, for reasons already enumerated) and it was not an easy route to '''''enlightenment'''''. Thanks to those who asked, and those who answered (with their reasons). I will now go forth to help '''''order''''' the wiki--and, as always, hoping not to screw it up myself! [[User:RCEberwein|RCEberwein]] | [[User talk:RCEberwein|Talk]] 02:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
We have once again achieved full stub sorting. Currently, only those stubs that are candidate for deletion are under the category of stubs. We should keep up the tempo so that the number of articles in this category restrict to a bare minimun. -[[User:Ambuj.saxena|Ambuj Saxena]] ([[User_talk:Ambuj.saxena|talk]]) 13:14, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
:I think it would be better if you stopped altogether. Stub categories are category clutter. There are far too many articles marked as stubs for the system to be useful and there probably always will be. [[User:62.31.55.223|62.31.55.223]] 01:34, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
:I just sorted about 600 stubs to clear the slate again. &mdash;[[User:LrdChaos|LrdChaos]] 06:16, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
overnight we seem to have got about 800 new stubs! <small><i><font color="#990000">[[User:BL Lacertae|BL Lacertae]]</font> - <font color="#555555">[[User talk:BL Lacertae|kiss the lizard]]</font></i></small> 02:00, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
:I'm doing a wee bit of stub sorting tonight. Won't get the whole backlog done though, as these pesky "sleep" and "job" things get in the way. [[User:Panchitaville|Panchitaville]] 04:31, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
 
== Wikiproject links on stub templates ==
It's a little boggling to have so many show up so quickly. Anyone worked out "where" they've come from? Are people like the above nay-saying anon, and those on SPUI's "petition", not using any sort of sorted type? Or... hrm, I notice quite a number of them are being automatically stub-tagged as very short, by [[User:Bluebot]]. Perhaps a case of what AWB maketh easier with the right hand, gives us more to do with the left! [[User:Alai|Alai]] 17:25, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
:Yes, it's the work of a bot (at least 95+% of it, anyway). There was a secondary bot adding stub tags to articles and the occasional image page as well, but it didn't tag nearly as many because it was mainly fixing typos. Now if only a bot could be made to categorize these things... — '''[[User:LaurenMcMillan|<font color="#8080C0">Indi</font>]]''' <sup>[ [[user talk:LaurenMcMillan|talk]] ]</sup> 15:19, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
 
I've tried again to raise this issue at the [[WP:STUB|stub guideline page]]; please comment there, if you have any views on this. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 02:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
== {{[[:Template:Japan-myth-stub|Japan-myth-stub]]}} live ==
 
==Odd problem win NZ-geo-stubs==
The [[WP:Jmyth|Japanese Mythology Project]] has created {{[[:Template:Japan-myth-stub|Japan-myth-stub]]}} as per the proposal page (there was no opposition). I hope this is the correct forum to announce this. Please have a look and make sure it is properly sorted in the stub tree. Thanks! — [[User:BrianSmithson|BrianSmithson]] 17:33, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
[[Image:NZgeowhatlinks.jpg|thumb|left|180px]][[Image:NZgeocat.jpg|thumb|right|140px]]This one's an odd one - I'm not sure what's causing it... I'm busily replacing NZ-geo-stub with the region-specific templates. I started by going through {{cl|new Zealand geography stubs}}, but then realised that, since a lot of the regional templates still feed back into there, it would be easier to work from the "whatlinkshere" of {{tl|NZ-geo-stub}}. The odd thing is that a lot of the articles in that whatlinkshere list, ones transcluded with the template, ''don't show up in the category''. I've no idea why not, but the two attached thumbnails (fuzzy though they are - sorry!) should show you what I mean. Where in the cat is Alfred River, Allen River, Boulder River, Blind River or Aorere River? Since these will soon have different templates, the problem will disappear from these particular articles - but if it's a widespread problem elsewhere it's quite concerning. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 01:46, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
:Close enough. Normally you'd just note it with the proposal on WP:WSS/P. Both the template and category look well formed, too. Good work! :) [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 00:35, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
::Can't beat copy and paste. :) — [[User:BrianSmithson|BrianSmithson]] 00:41, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
 
:No idea what's happend but using a null-edit on them worked. Interesting. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]] / [[Special:Contributions/Valentinian|(contribs)]]</sup> 02:04, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
== The {{cl|South American politician stubs}} looks very odd ==
 
:Did you make sure to scroll through the entire "what links here" list? I've found that the "what links here" is NOT in alphabetical order. In fact, it's not in any order that I can discern. It's hard to tell from the screen shots if that is the case, but I just thought I'd throw that out there as a possibility. [[User:Amalas|<b style="color:maroon;">~ Amalas</b>]] [[User talk:Amalas|<span style="color:navy;">rawr</span>]] [[Special:Contributions/Amalas|<sup style="color:navy;">=^_^=</sup>]] 02:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm at my wits end with this one, and any help is *very* welcome. The stub template seems to work ok, but the category seems to bundle all stubs in one giant heap instead of sorting them by A, B, C etc. Both stub and category were modelled over similar stubs that worked well, so I really don't understand what's gone wrong here. Have any of you seen this one before? [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 23:39, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
::As far as I can tell, "What links here" is in the order in which the article was created, with the oldest articles being listed first. <span style="font-family:cursive">[[User:Caerwine|Caerwine]]</span> [[User_talk:Caerwine|<small style="font-family:sans-serif;color:darkred">Caer’s whines</small>]] 00:23, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
:Yup. Problem was the sort key was a space, so everything was being sorted identically. (<code><nowiki>[[Category:South American politician stubs| ]]</nowiki></code>) Categories appear to be indexed by sort key, not numerically, so anything beyond the first 200 is (temporarily) "lost".
:::Well, that seems like a strange way to sort things, but oh well. I think this got figured out. [[User:Amalas|<b style="color:maroon;">~ Amalas</b>]] [[User talk:Amalas|<span style="color:navy;">rawr</span>]] [[Special:Contributions/Amalas|<sup style="color:navy;">=^_^=</sup>]] 14:52, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
:On a broader point, I wonder if we should address the issue in the various pages that discuss coding stub templates, whether it's appropriate to use noinclude and includeonly stuff. Absent such a statement, it seems a lot of it gets added anyway, but not very consistently. Templates are excluded from the category, or sorted to the front (or not); "template categories" get added; mini-essays are written in noincluded. Which of the above do we want to encourage, which to discourage, and which to take no stance on? For my money: top-sorting the template seems potentially OK (though it does complicate the code, and can have nasty effects if done wrong); the rest I'd be happy never to see any again. Omitting templates for categories isn't good, and if especially bad if there isn't a link to the template from the category page itself. Stub-template-categories are pointless (and CFD seems to agree). Essays should go on ''category'' pages. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 02:24, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
:That's not the point. There are things in the Whatlinkshere which aren't in the category - and the category ''is'' in alphabetical order. None of those I mentioned above was in the category. In fact, I'd guesstimate that 1/4 of those in the whatlinkshere list weren't in the cat. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 05:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
::The solution, btw, is to change the above fragment to <code><nowiki>[[Category:South American politician stubs]]</nowiki></code>. I believe that you don't need to do the null edits to all articles now. [[User:Conscious|Conscious]] 05:28, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
:::Yes, I noticed that a couple of weeks ago. The updates aren't quite immediate, and I've observed thm "rippling" through a category over a matter of minutes, so I imagine the underlying mechanism is essentially unchanged, but there's an additional layer that propagates them in a similar article-by-article way to the null edits. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 07:30, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
:::Thanks for your help. I don't know how I managed to miss that one :) [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 10:58, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
 
:In the past, changes in a template weren't implemented until the article using the template was edited. The updating can be accomplished on an individual article basis by those null edits mentioned by Valentinian. Not very long ago, something changed so that this is no longer necessary, but it takes mayb a couple of hours for the updating to happen.
== Double-stub everyone ==
 
:Whether that is done by the wiki software, or some bot, or whatever, I don't know. But I suspet that what happened in this case is that the last edit to the template is moving it back into the Template namespace after somebody had moved it out. So the software/bot/whatever didn't recognize it as being a change to a template (it started outside of template namespace), so the automatic refreshing wasn't done. I just did a null edit to the template itself; don't know if that will be sufficient. But I strongly suspect that if you do a nearly null edit to the template, something like adding a space, which will show up in the edit history unlike a completely null edit, then come back in a few hours and your articles will be listed in the category. [[User:Gene Nygaard|Gene Nygaard]] 20:34, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I realize there are some people still enamoured of the quaint notion that there should only be one stub tag on each article, but I wonder if we should go further with our guidance on double-stubbing people. Almost every biographical stub should really have both a nationality stub-tag, and a type relating to their main notability, generally an occupation. Indeed, the whole biography hierarchy is organised on those two bases. Single-stubbing of people leads to inconsistency, where some people are only classified along one axis, and others only along another; and makes subsequent resorting or resplitting harder (for example the scads of US-bios that are actors, military, politicians, businesspeople, but not tagged as such, or likewise for existing occupation stubs not yet split out by country). Would anyone else be in favour of adding this as an open task/strategic objective here, and delicately hinting at [[WP:STUB]] that it's not such a bad idea? [[User:Alai|Alai]] 05:57, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
:Agree, but where an occupation has been split by nationality, for example {{tl|Italy-singer-stub}}, only one stub tag is necessary. --[[User:Bruce1ee|Bruce1ee]] 06:20, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
::Absolutely. I should have said to be more accurate, "stub everyone in such a way as to indicate a nationality, and an area of importance". [[User:Alai|Alai]] 07:26, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
I think this is a great idea for any stub supercategory that has been split orthogonally. I'm having difficulty keeping track of struct-stubs by nationality because the continent-struct-stubs keep being replaced rather than augmented with things like stadium-stub and bridge-struct-stub. Double-stubbing in these cases is a very important measure IMHO. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 08:01, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
 
::I just checked the template's log. Somebody did indeed make an unauthorized move of this template back in September, moving it out of template namespace. This was reverted a few days later. So the lesson seems to be that if ever a template is moved, we have to edit the result as well. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]] / [[Special:Contributions/Valentinian|(contribs)]]</sup> 21:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
*Support per nom. --[[User:Mais oui!|Mais oui!]] 08:55, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
:::Thaks for that - it's moot as far as this category's concerned anyway - as i said, I'm going through them all subcategorising them - I was just worried it might be happening elsewhere, too. You're right, it could well be the recent attempted move of the template that caused the trouble. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 21:46, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 
==Multistub template==
*Sounds good, do you think we need guidance when there are [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Northern_Wars&oldid=43742980 10 stubs] as well? ;-) [[User:Bluemoose|Martin]] 09:45, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Hi all. A couple of days ago I speedied a template called stub-group, which was basically a multistub template of the form<nowiki> {{stub-group|x-stub|y-stub}}</nowiki>, which, when added to an article, would give it both x-stub and y-stub. I speedied it as basically a re-creation of a type of template we've had here in the past which has been deleted after a lot of frowning. Anyhow, I got into an [[User_talk:Grutness#template:Stub-group|interesting discussion]] with its creator ([[User:Jerzy]]) which quickly became too technical for me, but which might be of interest to anyone who knows a little about how markup and the like work - sounds like Jerzy would be interested in talking about its possibilities, if any, with someone who knows more about the technical side of things than I do. Feel free to read what was written on my talk page (linked above) and contact Jerzy about it if you've got any thoughts! [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 08:30, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
**Yikes! I think that's a record! [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 10:24, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
***Though like the Guinness Book of Records, I think we should avoid keeping track of records where setting it is likely to be hazardous to their health (or in this case, wikipedia's). [[User:Alai|Alai]] 19:15, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
*Support per nom. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 11:01, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
 
== Consensus, and the deletionLocation of "discovered" stub typesin article==
Where should the stub be located within the article? I've been looking to see if there is policy on this and can find none. Personally, I place them below the cateogires with 2 blank lines. They are usually above the other languages but not always. Your thoughts?--[[User:Thomas.macmillan|Thomas.macmillan]] 19:51, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
*Your placement is correct. I believe that very topic is mentioned a few places on this page and in the archives. [[User:Amalas|<b style="color:maroon;">~ Amalas</b>]] [[User talk:Amalas|<span style="color:navy;">rawr</span>]] [[Special:Contributions/Amalas|<sup style="color:navy;">=^_^=</sup>]] 20:13, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
**Yup - it's also on [[Wikipedia:Stub#Categorizing_stubs|WP:STUB]], and in the "virtual classroom" article I wrote on stub-sorting, linked from further up this page. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 23:28, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
 
==A merry Christmas/Season's greetings to all Stub sorters!==
A new stub type going through the proper proposal procedure requires consensus to create. However, AFAIK, a stub type that was not created after going through the proper channels requires consensus to delete once it is "discovered". This seems a little perverse - effectively, it means that a borderline case of a malformed or unnecessary stub type increases its chances of survival by avoiding the proper channels. Obviously AFD, CFD etc should always require consensus to delete. Stub types for deletion is different because there's no obligation to ask for permission before creating a new article or category; stub types are only useful because there is a hierarchy and system that they should slot into. Would it be sensible for there to be a reversed burden of consensus for deletion (i.e. consensus is required to keep) for a stub type that skipped the proposals page? [[User:TheGrappler|TheGrappler]] 14:44, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
The heading says it all, really - compliments of the season to you all - may it be a happy one for you! [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 02:08, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
:You too! [[User:Just H|Just H]] 04:26, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 
==Badness?==
It's somewhat perverse, yes, and certainly creates perverse incentives. Probably the only things that stop this from happening more is that, a) it'd be a shedload of work to do this on a large scale, and heartbreaking to have it all reverted (as people are never slow to poiint out ''after'' they've done so unilaterally); and b) surprisingly, most people are in fact ''not'' complete jerks, and are likely to make a good faith attempt to make nice with the stub-sorting project, where what they're going is indeed stub-sorting.
Just stumbled across <nowiki>{{actor stub}}</nowiki> and it seemed fishy. Thought I'd let yall know. [[User:Jengod|jengod]] 01:24, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
:mmm. whoops! Looks like I accidentally pressed the delete button. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 02:47, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
 
== {{tl|HeBible-stub}} revived ==
I suspect it'd be problematic to change. Stub creation is governed by "mere guidelines" (in the form of the [[WP:STUB]] page), and an even merer Wikiproject, in the form of this page-cluster -- and some people find even that much excessively burdensome. Deletion, OTOH, is a matter of ''policy''. Establishing a "consensus to keep" standard on SFD would require we either on the one hand, make a formal policy proposal (and wait for the fur to fly); or, change it after only local discussion and consensus (among "the stub people"), then start implementing it (and then wait for the fur to fly even higher).
 
awfully named. Ideas on renaming? <nowiki>{{tanakh-stub}}? {{hebrew-bible-stub}}? {{Judaism-bible-stub}}?</nowiki> - <b>[[User:Crzrussian|crz]]</b><small> [[User_talk:Crzrussian|crztalk]]</small> 17:25, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure we've ever defined in numeric terms what our consensus threshold is to be. I know at times I've been seriously tempted to "re-weight" votes (to the detriment of the creator, their chums, and other "keep it because I both like it and find it useful, and I have to Perfect Right(TM) to 'vote' to ignore guidelines"). OTOH, the people closing the debate are generally the same people arguing adamantly to delete the things in the first place, so that risks looking over-cosy if done too liberally.
:I've wondered that for a while. Problem is that it's the Hebrew Bible but also the Christian Old Testament, so any name used needs to reflect both. Which, come to think of it, the current one doesn't. Perhaps Tanakh-stub with redirect at OldTestament-stub? [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 21:53, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
::Tanakh is not quite the same thing as the old testament BTW... see {{tl|Books of the Old Testament}} for the full list of differences - <b>[[User:Crzrussian|crz]]</b><small> [[User_talk:Crzrussian|crztalk]]</small> 22:38, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
:::True - I should have said ''almost'' the same. The point is, though, that the template is used to some extent for items mentioned in both the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament. I don't see any way the two could be split from the point of view of stub-sorting. Having both names (perhaps Hebrew-Bible-stub rather than Tanakh-stub) would solve any potential overlap/exclusion. BTW, I don't know how big this category currently is, but if it were to be split, then Torah/Pentateuch would make a likely subcategory. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 23:13, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
::::388. Most of these are useless importations from Easton's PD bible dictionary (which is awful) and will eventually be deleted. - <b>[[User:Crzrussian|crz]]</b><small> [[User_talk:Crzrussian|crztalk]]</small> 23:19, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, any of the imperfect alternatives is better than the status quo. What shall I ask for at SFD, people? - <b>[[User:Crzrussian|crz]]</b><small> [[User_talk:Crzrussian|crztalk]]</small> 02:52, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
:Given the various category names, I'd suggest Tanakh-stub, with redirects to taste... just not from the current name, please! [[User:Alai|Alai]] 06:58, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
[[Wikipedia:Stub_types_for_deletion/Log/2007/January/14#.7B.7Btl.7CHeBible-stub.7D.7D_.E2.86.92_.7B.7Btl.7CTanakh-stub.7D.7D|Continued at SFD]]. [[User:Fayenatic london|Fayenatic london]] 08:18, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 
On balance, I'd favour we do one of the following. Firstly, we could "policify" WP:STUB, modifying or refactoring as necessary, to put that and SFD on more of an even footing, and establishing that the naming conventions, and the size criteria have that force. (I'd suggest we ''not'' try to make the Proposals page "mandatory", as people will probably see that as especially "unwiki", and personally, I think that if an unproposed stub is otherwise fine, we've nothing to complain about anyway.) Secondly (and either alternatively or additionally) we (try to) could establish speedy criteria to back up some of the more common problems, like undersized and obviously misnamed types. If we end up with the situation that unproposed and obviously problematic stub types can be deleted and renamed -- despite the "creator and chums" effect, and speedily or otherwise -- I'd be satisfied either way. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 06:25, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
: I presume this ugly, intrusive beast (which would be excellent on the talk page) is an example of the problem:
::<div class="boilerplate metadata" id="stub">[[Image:European flag.svg|30px|left]]<div>&nbsp;''This article about a [[Member of the European Parliament]] is a [[Wikipedia:Perfect stub article|stub]]. You can [[Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub|help]] Wikipedia by [{{SERVER}}{{localurl:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}|action=edit}} expanding it].''<br />
<small>Many MEP stubs can be expanded using the web site of the MEP. See [http://ffii.org/~bkaindl/MEPs/], [http://www.europarl.eu.int/addresses/offices/] and the [[European Parliament party group|MEP's group]] site. For a list of already expanded articles, see [[Wikipedia:WikiProject European Union/MEP stubs|here]].</small></div></div>
:BTW, wouldn't it be simple to write stub templates that are properly spare when used in the main namespace, and include instructions like the above when (also) used on the talk page? <br>--[[User:Jerzy|Jerzy]]•[[User talk:Jerzy|t]] 04:06, 7 April 2006 (UTC)<br>
::It would except for one small point - stub templates are ''never'' used on talk pages. Why mark an article twice?
 
::WRT the main question, though, I'd be overjoyed if Alai's suggestion - in some form or other - were done. However, there are more than enough users who already accuse people involved with stub sorting as being "stub-nazis" or similar - any move to make it easier to detele stubs that haven't been proposed is likely to lead to howls of protest. Although there is no ill-will or bad faith in 99% of stub creation that hasn't gone through "due process", there are already a few renegade wikipedians who use stub creation as a method of making a point. This would only stoke up their sense of righteous indignation further. For that reason I urge ''extreme caution''.
 
== Please sort a few stubs today ==
::As to the weighting used for keep or delete, in the majority of cases that come through SFD it is fairly obvious. As far as the others are concerned, it should be remembered that deletion process pages are ''not voting pages per se''. They are pages for discussion. This is the reason VFD was changed to AFD several months back. Because of this, the actual numerical value of comments is often far less important than the arguments of the voters. If a "vote" was 4 keep, 6 delete, but with valid and pertinent reasons given for keeping, I'd be far more likely to close the vote as a keep than if it was 5-5 with all the reasons for keeping being frivolous ones. In an ideal workd, I'd say 67% delete=delete, 50% keep = keep, anywhere between the two may require keeping the discussion open a bit longer to see whether there are any new opinions.
 
Over the last few days, it seems that every time I check [[:Category:Stubs]] it has more articles in it. If everyone reading this would sort, say, five of the stub articles today, we could probably clear the category and thus be able to keep it to a manageable size for a while. (The category is probably never going to be permanently cleared, but at least we could get it temporarily cleared rather than continuously expanding.) --[[User:Metropolitan90|Metropolitan90]] 17:15, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
::[[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 08:49, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
:Actually, a lot of us do clear a few stubs per day, it's just that (a) there are less of us around because of the holidays and (b) sometimes a huge batch of stubs comes in at once. As to it "never being empty", it is more often empty than not, so I don't think there's too much concern. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 23:25, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
::It appears that the number of unsorted stubs dropped by about half today. So I do appreciate the work done by the person or persons who made the effort. --[[User:Metropolitan90|Metropolitan90]] 06:08, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
:::And the rest of them have now been cleared out, too. Again, thanks to everyone who worked on sorting stubs over the last couple of days. --[[User:Metropolitan90|Metropolitan90]] 04:33, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
::::I am currently working on album stubs, sorting thereof (in conjunction with [[:WP:ALBUM]]). I have done A &ndash; P in the last couple of days and hope to have the rest done soon. [[User:Bubba hotep|Bubba]] [[User talk:Bubba hotep|hot]][[Special:Contributions/Bubba hotep|ep]] 17:18, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 
== Rename [[Template:Astro stub]] to [[Template:Astronomy stub]] ==
:::That's very reasonable -- in theory. In practice, if we had five "votes" to delete that were brilliantly reasoned in terms of the [[WP:STUB]] guidelines, and three were "I like it and find it useful despite it being three articles in size, a cross-categorisation, recklessly narrowly scoped, and badly named" (I exaggerate only by way of condensation), we'd ''still'' get "stub-nazi" gibes if we went ahead and deleted it. (I'm certainly very reluctant to do so if I'm the nominator, or have been characteristically loud-mouthed in arguing for it.) [[User:Alai|Alai]] 23:17, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
 
The subject pretty much says it all. Could [[Template:Astro stub]] be renamed to [[Template:Astronomy stub]]? It's a more logical name for it. Thanks. [[User:Mike Peel|Mike Peel]] 10:45, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
== Help me find a stub cat ==
:You should take it to [[WP:SFD]] for renaming. --[[User:TheParanoidOne|TheParanoidOne]] 11:33, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
 
== DEFAULTSORT ==
Tried and failed to find a stub category for this article: [[Stop, drop and roll]]. Ideas, anyone? - <font color="blue"><strong>[[User:Crzrussian|the.crazy.russian]] [[User_talk:Crzrussian|(T)]] [[Special:Contributions/Crzrussian|(C)]] [[Special:Emailuser/Crzrussian|(E)]]</strong></font> 02:09, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
:I was about to suggest {{tl|single-stub}} until I discovered you didn't mean the song! {{tl|health-stub}} is probably closest, but that isn't really that satisfactory. The stub types cover about 99.99% of possible articles. This might just qualify in the final 0.01%. It might have to stay as just {{tl|stub}} for now. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 02:36, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
 
We keep having requests to allow sorted stubs via pipes. e.g. <code><nowiki>{{stub|Last Name, First Name}}</nowiki></code>. Now it looks like we'll be getting them like it or not. So new it isn't even in the documentation yet, the software has a new variable as of last December 29: DEFAULTSORT. ([http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki?view=rev&revision=18629 link]) <code><nowiki>{{DEFAULTSORT:Last Name, First Name}}</nowiki></code> works on all categories in an article, including those supplied via templates, that don't specify a sort key of their own. I don't think we have any reason to get rid of this behavior, but we could by adding: <code><nowiki>|{{FULLPAGENAME}}</nowiki></code> to the category added by ''every'' stub template. <span style="font-family:cursive">[[User:Caerwine|Caerwine]]</span> [[User_talk:Caerwine|<small style="font-family:sans-serif;color:darkred">Caer’s whines</small>]] 19:05, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
It's inevitable this will happen occasionally, due to the somewhat "bottom up" way stub types are created, as against the main category system. If we had higher-level types like "safety-stub" or "health-stub" (which do have perm-cat equivalents), which in theory would normally consist entirely of sub-types, we'd have greater coverage of cases like this. I suspect they're not that uncommon, but the "majority of the minority" that would ideally have a more general type are crowbarred into a more specific one without ''too'' much of the old Procrustes being employed.
 
:I mentioned this on [[Wikipedia talk:Stub]] a few days ago, and included a link to [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-01-02/Technology report|Signpost article]] about the new feature. I see no reason not to embrace the use of the DEFAULTSORT magic word as standard procedure, and to regard any biographical article lacking it in much the same way as we regard an article with no permcats. —[[User:CComMack|CComMack]] ([[User talk:CComMack|t]]–[[Special:Contributions/CComMack|c]]) 20:26, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
It should be noted that the main cats are not without their 'issues' at the higher levels; if one asks, "what articles are underneath each of the 'top ten' categories", the answer is "all of them, under each". And that's to say nothing of inclusion ''loops''. But that's another day's -- and another wikiproject's -- work. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 03:07, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
 
::I see no problem with this, and it's a cleaner version of something I suggested it'd be possible to hack in parser functions. Mind you, it'll probably motivate further instistence that we add sort key parameters, for when the default behaviour for Cedric Middlename Smith and Cecil Double Barrelled, and more complex cases besides, Goes Wrong(TM). [[User:Alai|Alai]] 06:24, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
== Compact list of stubs ==
 
Of course, given a bit longer, and I ''do'' see various problems with this... I've commented somewhat at [[Wikipedia talk:Categorization#DEFAULTSORT]] (though perhaps here is as good or better for the aspects of this that are particular to stub types). [[User:Alai|Alai]] 16:08, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
The stub list is rather long, so I went creating a more compact list of all stubs, with only the specific relevant information needed to use them: [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/List of stubs]]. <sub>→<font style="color:#975612">[[User:AzaToth|A]][[WP:EA|<font color="green">z</font>]][[User:AzaToth|a]]</font><font style="color:#325596">[[User_talk:AzaToth|Toth]]</font></sub> 19:05, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 
YetAnd another list to keep updated. ItI'sve also unreadablymentioned wide.this at Can[[Wikipedia wetalk:WikiProject getBiography#DEFAULTSORT ridand of it, please?bio-stubs]]. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 2102:5130, 128 AprilJanuary 20062007 (UTC)
 
== Are all Stubs worthy of encyclopedic entry? ==
:We already have enough trouble keeping the current lists updated, so we really don't need any more administrative work (well, if we had say 50 more stub sorters ...) [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 21:56, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
I was browsing some of the stub categories and found Bus Stubs [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Bus_stubs]]
. What I do not understand is why some of these exsist. Their imformational value is limited and also dynamic, as bus routes tend to change. At any given time half of these references might be invalid. I've read the guidlines for stubs but I am still unsure as to whether a one sentence article defining a Bus route and schedule in a rural Austrailian town that may or may not still be active is deserving of an entry in an Encyclopedia. It might belong in an Almanac for the region its relevent to perhaps? [[User:Finfyd|Finfyd]] 08:57, 12 January 2007 (UTC)Finfyd
 
:We just sorts 'em here. If you feel any of them are unworthy of being on WP, take them to afd. Bus routes are right on the borderline - routes for large cities often survive afd, but ones for small semi-rural areas don't = you're right that they're not really WP material. Most articles in {{cl|bus stubs}} should, with any luck, be makes of bus and bus companies anyway, rather than individual routes! [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 09:06, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
== Question? ==
 
::I started out looking up something, which lead me to a stub that had a tag for sorting or deleting or something, which lead me to the project for sorting stubs which lead me all over trying to understand what stubs were. Kind of an intersting adventure. I appreciate the clarification. [[User:Finfyd|Finfyd]] 09:09, 12 January 2007 (UTC)Finfyd
Is this an actual policy of wikipedia or a guideline? I see nothing that indicates that this is anything more than a project that editors may or may not choose to follow. The process of proposing a new stub cat seems a bit red tape-ish. Please point out the errors in my logic. Cheers. [[User:Youngamerican| ''<font color="blue">young</font>''<font color="#CFB53B">american</font>]] <small>([[User talk:Youngamerican|talk]])</small> 17:16, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
 
==Why did this happen?==
:There is no error in your logic. But they are nice guys really, and it only takes a few days, even one day, to get a good stub approved, so you may as well humour them and follow their procedure. They really do do an excellent job and deserve a lot of thanks and respect. --[[User:Mais oui!|Mais oui!]] 17:38, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
I created "Category:Biochemist stubs" as a sub-category of "Biologist stubs", but it is listed under "'''μ'''" on the third page of Biologist stubs instead of under "'''B'''" on the first page. Is there something in the syntax that made this happen? [[User:Scolaire|Scolaire]] 15:31, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
:Heh. You added Biologist stubs into the category template as the permanent category - {{cl|Biochemists}} should have gone there. That automatically put the stub cat under µ at the end of the categories (which is where stub cats usually go in their parent permcats). Fixed. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 22:38, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
::Gotcha. Thanks for that, Grutness. [[User:Scolaire|Scolaire]] 19:04, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 
== Bot-populating {{tl|stub}}? ==
::Thanks. I have no problems with "humour"ing them, per se, I was just curious as to whether I would be doing so out of a choice to show deference to their hard work or because I actually had to. Cheers. [[User:Youngamerican| ''<font color="blue">young</font>''<font color="#CFB53B">american</font>]] <small>([[User talk:Youngamerican|talk]])</small> 17:50, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
 
No-one faint, but there's been a db dump this weekend. I'm currently crunching some data relating to uncategorised articles. I'm not sure I'll get any hard data before I flake out, but I very much get the impression that there's a very large number, and doubtless many of them will be very short. (Most of them will be articles created in the last two months, since the last db dump, plus any that have 'lost' categories in that time.) I plan to tag these this {{tl|uncat}}, but would WSS favour very short uncategorised articles being instead tagged with <s>{{tl|stubs}}</s>{{tl|stub}}? (I'd prefer to avoid tagging them with both at once.) If so, where would people favour putting the cutoff? At 250b? 500b? 1K? I should be able to report on the likely scale of this... well, stop press, right about now: over 20916 uncatted articles total; 2408 <= 250b; 5606 <= 500b; 10141 <= 1000b. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 05:25, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
:It's only a guideline. There are good reasons for it, though. Consider that, even with people proposing stub types (which most people do) there are already 1500 or so different types of stubs. Those types - in the vast majority - all have easy-to-work-out names that conform to a specific naming pattern, are all formed so that they work in the same way, and all lead to stub categories that parallel "main" categories. The vast majority of them also conform to a hierarchy so that we don't have vague or overlapping stub categories. All of them (should) have the sort of numbers of stubs which will leave editors with plenty of work to do but not with so many stubs as to baffle them. To keep all that running smoothly requires someone to double check everything and make sure that new stub types work as well as those already in place. WP:WSS aren't megalomaniacs wanting to pwn Wikipedia's stubs (well, ''most'' of them aren't :) - it's just a case of wanting to keep this monster of a system running as smoothly as possible. Also, since it's the stub sorters who do the majority of the stub sorting, it's good for them to know what categories they should be sorting them into! [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 01:46, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
:{{tl|stub}}, not {{tl|stubs}}, Alai - otherwise they'd be a LOT longer than 1k! :) More seriously, that's a ''huge'' number f stubs. It's probably worth putting stub on anything under (gulp) 500b, then all hands to the pump. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 05:38, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
::Well, if we're being nano-picky (howdya like that hyphenate?), that would only include the length of the ''wikitext'', which is what I'm measuring in the numbers quoted above, by 9 bytes... Of course, many of them will be mergeable, speediable/prod-able/otherwise deletable, disambigs not tagged as such, etc, etc. I'll wait at least a day before I start this (partly as the 'bot is tagging some of the longer ones right now), so if anyone else has a number in mind... [[User:Alai|Alai]] 06:07, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
:I've filed this as a bot task request for approval, here: [[Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Alaibot 3]]. Feel free to comment if you have thoughts on the wisdom or otherwise of such a course. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 02:16, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
::Ahh, job security. Stub away. [[User:Pegship|Her Pegship]] [[User talk:Pegship|<small style="color:green;"> (tis herself)</small>]] 15:06, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
:No comments on this at all so far at the request page, and no approval either. (Just a meta-comment on the talk page as to why some get approved in six minutes, and others don't get approved (or discussed?) in six days.) If anyone feels strongly about this either way, I'd encourage them to comment, especially as WSS is very much the "affected project" by this activity. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 03:50, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
::Looks like it was just approved. All hands on deck!! [[User:Pegship|Her Pegship]] [[User talk:Pegship|<small style="color:green;"> (tis herself)</small>]] 21:05, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
:::Populating the 'trial' batch now. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 01:36, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
::::Eek, Stubs 'r' us over there. Maybe the ''but still receives a few articles periodically'' text on the project page should be changed if this bot is going to be active? --[[User: Scohoust|<span style="color:#4478B4;">Scot</span>]][[User talk:Scohoust|<span style="color:#355F91;"><sup>t</sup></span>]] 14:59, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
:::::By all means, if you wish. I was just coming to say, that for those of you that feel that 100 articles is a "backlog", there 250+ at present, likely to grow if run another batch tonight. I think the "dead-end pages" people are tagging a fair number of these too. (I'm entirely flexible on this, though ideally I'd like to keep ahead of the updates to [[special:uncategorizedpages]]. (A fuzzy criteria, since that seems to have become somewhat irregular again.) I appeal to everyone, not to stay their hand if something looks like a deletion candidate (by whichever method), redirect-fodder, etc; and also to try to be as specific as possible in retagging things. (If we just move a shedload into {{cl|people stubs}}, it just increases the "backlog" there, and the amounnt of double-handling involved (not to say treble-, quadruple-, etc).) [[User:Alai|Alai]] 15:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 
::ThereState areof goodplay: reasons for4685 manyarticles pagesin that{{cl|stubs}}. are "only"I guidelines;should also thenote manualthat ofthere's style,currently thea reliable[[WP:BRFA|bot sourcesapproval guideline,request]] etc.for doing Sothis iton rathera dependsthrice-daily onbasis, wherefrom one[[special:newpages]] sets(as thewell bar foras "maywikify" orand may not"uncategorised"). [[User:Alai|Alai]] 13:1532, 212 AprilFebruary 20062007 (UTC)
:Comment - many of these recently added "stubs" aren't stubs at all. A lot of them (going from what i've seen so far, about 20%) are mislabelled dab pages. I like the idea of doing this from newpages, though - I was thinking along similar lines myself, although it will mean a huge number of new stubs all the time. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 23:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
::I could label them as "very short uncategorised mainspace pages", if that would make people feel any better... I'm not sure how worthwhile it'd be try to automatically distinguish between malformed dabs and quarter-written articles, but if anyone has any rules-of-thumb in mind that they'd be willing to stand over when the false-positive flak starts... I have mixed feelings about the newpages-based approach. Ultimately it should have much the same effect as doing it in batches, but it'd mean that it happens on articles within hours of their creation, as opposed to after they've already "slipped through the net" of people cruising the new articles manually. Which might be a good thing, or else it might just boost the size of the cleanup queues, I'm not clear which. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 02:33, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
And [[Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#Deletion_templates|here's]] a list of deletion templates for those of us new to the db world...[[User:Pegship|Her Pegship]] [[User talk:Pegship|<small style="color:green;"> (tis herself)</small>]] 00:59, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 
== {{cl|Lunar crater stubs}}: what to do with? ==
==Stub sorting proposal==
* If you are putting a <nowiki>{{"any_type"-stub}}</nowiki> on a page, place it two [[paragraph]]'s ([[¶]], [[pilcrow]]) (or a [[Newline]]) under the last line of text, for spacing.
 
On the one hand, the moon-stubs are down from oversized... to undersized (well, semi-good, at least). On the down side, in the process the Moon-crater-stubs are now at 1085. I've asked the people at the Moon wikiproject (see [[Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Moon#Lunar_crater_stubs|here]]), and they seem to think that these are "short but essentially complete articles", and it does seem that the bulk of these were tagged (originally as moon-stub) by one person (MER-C, whom you might recall from such incidents as having created a shedload of "planetary" stubs, most of which didn't make much sense at all). The wikiproject, and in particular the original creator of these articles, also didn't seem at all keen on the idea of merging these articles, and nor were they gone on the idea of further sorting. While personally I'm not crazy about "untagged permastubs", I'm not sure whether there's anything much else to be done in this case. Anyone have any bright ideas? [[User:Alai|Alai]] 12:11, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
I would like to ask other users (stub sorting users) if they could view my proposal, change it a bit, and put it on [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting#Stub sorting methods]] Genereal Rules.
:Aside from putting a needs photo tag on them and checking to make certain that the person(s) they were named after have [[:Category:People with craters of the Moon named after them]], I can't really see what might be added on most of these. Perhaps checking to make certain that any moon probes that landed in them link to and are included in the article, but that's more something for a WikiProject to worry about. Since there really isn't anything to add for most of these, then despite their size, they aren't stubs. However, if you can talk the Moon people into doing the task of deciding which ones aren't stubs, that would be good. <span style="font-family:cursive">[[User:Caerwine|Caerwine]]</span> [[User_talk:Caerwine|<small style="font-family:sans-serif;color:darkred">Caer’s whines</small>]] 22:01, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
 
== a little history ==
I have added this because stubs added one line after the text, are very close to the text, and it's easier to read if it is a bit spaced. This is simply for esthetic purposes, though this is an encyclopaedia it should also be pleasing to the eye, or it will be repulsive to readers.
 
I just expanded [[Wikipedia:History of Wikipedian processes and people#Stubs]]. There were a lot of things in pre-stub development I wasn't aware of until I went digging. WSS folk may find it interesting, and have something to add. :) - [[User:BanyanTree|Banyan]][[User talk:BanyanTree|Tree]] 00:58, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Example, one paragraph:
===Discography===
*''Album'' ([[2000]])
*''Album2'' ([[2003]])
*''Album3'' ([[2006]])
 
== What is this mania about categorizing everything over and over and over? ==
<div class="boilerplate metadata" id="stub"> ''This [[biography|biographical]] article is a [[Wikipedia:Stub|stub]]. You can help [[Wikipedia]] by [{{SERVER}}{{localurl:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}|action=edit}} expanding it]''.</div>
<div class="boilerplate metadata" id="stub">
{|cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-color:transparent"
|[[Image:musicalnotes.png|30px| ]]
|''&nbsp;This article on a [[musician]] is a [[Wikipedia:Perfect stub article|stub]]. You can [[Wikipedia:Stub|help]] Wikipedia by [{{SERVER}}{{localurl:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}|action=edit}} expanding it].''
|}
</div>
 
An article already tells us about its subject, like the one about George W. Bush that says he's from Texas, that he's a US President, that he was in the oil business that he was in the National Guard, etc. But that isn't enough, apparently, because then we have categories to tell us all over again that Bush is A Person From Texas, A Person Who's A President, A Person In The Oil Business, and A Person Who Was In The National Guard. And we litter his article with category-related grids with the names of Every Person From Texas, Every US President, Every Person In The Oil Business, and Every Person Who Has Been In The National Guard, because heaven forbid someone who wants any of those lists should have to expend effort clicking a link reading "president" or "National Guard" in the body of the article to get these lists from the article in which they logically belong. And in case all of that isn't enough, when an article is a stub, we have to say it's a Texan-US-President-National-Guard-Oilman stub because if we just said it's a stub, the reader would have no way whatsoever of knowing what the article is about or what it means for it to be a stub. Good grief. &#8212;[[User:Largoplazo|Largo Plazo]] 04:51, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
*No, because if "just said it's a stub", {{cl|stubs}} would be 600,000 articles long. I suggest you redirect complaints about categorisation in general elsewhere, as they're thoroughly off-topic here (if not to say, borderline un[[WP:civil|civil]]). [[User:Alai|Alai]] 16:45, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
**I would have responded by asking (a) why stubs need to be a category at all and (b) why it makes a difference if a category has as many entries as it logically contains. I would also have asked why the Talk page for a project is not the place for a discussion the purpose of the project. However, I just noticed, and do wish I had noticed yesterday, the section in this article called "Why is stub sorting important?" and now I do see the rationale. &#8212;[[User:Largoplazo|Largo Plazo]] 19:58, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
*Well, look at it this way. You're an editor. You're interested i, say, archaeology. You're looking for archaeology articles to expand. Which is easier, to look in a category containing 500 archaeology stubs and nothing else, or to croll through 3,000 category pages, each containing 200 article titles, to find the one in 1200 articles on archaeology there? Or, for that matter, to hunt at random because these articles aren't listed in any category? There are also technical reasons why really big categories aren't very good for Wikipedia - such as causing its servers to crash. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 04:25, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
***Besides, you missed People Who Own Dogs and People Who Can't Pronounce "Nuclear" correctly. <g> [[User:Pegship|Her Pegship]] [[User talk:Pegship|<small style="color:green;"> (tis herself)</small>]] 20:24, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
****among others. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 04:25, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 
: The categories are ok, but the notices "this article is a xxx-related stub" are simply stupid -- nobody needs them: readers already know they can edit wikipedia and it's not hard to see it's a short article. The sorting just gives something to do to some people who otherwise have too much free time on their hands. It would be more useful if those people would try to fix the actual articles instead of cluttering the page histories with their changes of stub categories.
: Some call the Germans "Nazis" for their hard-line policies (including the one of stub notices (Kurz-Artikels), which were removed), but that was a smart decision, as they focus on the actual encyclopedic content instead on mindless categorization of stubs... [[User:Bogdangiusca|bogdan]] 12:01, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 
FWIW, most of the peoplle involved in stub-sorting actually do a lot of work on expanding articles as well. And creating new articles, too. As for the message on the template, it is aimed at those editors who wouldn't otherwise consider editing the article (a lot of WP readers come here to do just that - read information, not edit). Those that do come here primarily to edit need some way of finding out where there articles are that need editing - hence the sorting of stubs. You can't have it both ways. It's a bit like expecting a sport season to go ahead without coaches, umpires, or physiotherapists, or a movie to be made without electricians and caterers. Someone has to do the behind the scenes work to keep things running smoothly. And, just for the record, most stub sorters do an enormous amount of work on article creation expansion as well, as well as on loads of other features of WP. I know that I've managed to help get four articles to FA standard, including being the primary editor on one front-page article, as well as adding literally hundreds of maps, illustrations and photographs to articles. I doubt I'm alone among stub sorters with doing a lot of work beyond the stub arena. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 12:25, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
or, two paragraphs:
:''"The sorting just gives something to do to some people who otherwise have too much free time on their hands."'' hahahahahahahahaha! if only!!!!!!! (sorry, got hysterical there for a moment) ''"It would be more useful if those people would try to fix the actual articles instead of cluttering the page histories with their changes of stub categories."'' Well, gosh, since so many stub articles have such scant sources of information, and since I'm totally not interested in, say, archaeology, that's kind of problematic. As a Wikignome, the best I can do is copyedit, tidy up, tag, and encourage others with more time on their hands than I to expand it. And I'm darn good at it, too. Every book in print has an editor, who didn't write the book but who led it through the production process, so please don't sneer at the Little People. </rant> [[User:Pegship|Her Pegship]] [[User talk:Pegship|<small style="color:green;"> (tis herself)</small>]] 15:24, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
===Discography===
*''Album'' ([[2000]])
*''Album2'' ([[2003]])
*''Album3'' ([[2006]])
 
== New guy sorting tool stubs ==
 
Hi, there. I've decided to go through the tool stubs (I guess I'm sorting...) since I know a fair bit about that stuff. I've gotten up to the "E"s. I'm finding alot that don't meet the description of stubs (and thus removing the tag). Is that normal? [[User:Pjbflynn|Pjbflynn]] 04:23, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
<div class="boilerplate metadata" id="stub"> ''This [[biography|biographical]] article is a [[Wikipedia:Stub|stub]]. You can help [[Wikipedia]] by [{{SERVER}}{{localurl:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}|action=edit}} expanding it]''.</div>
:It's usual to find at least some that aren't stubs when doing sorting. <span style="font-family:cursive">[[User:Caerwine|Caerwine]]</span> [[User_talk:Caerwine|<small style="font-family:sans-serif;color:darkred">Caer’s whines</small>]] 05:15, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
<div class="boilerplate metadata" id="stub">
{|cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-color:transparent"
|[[Image:musicalnotes.png|30px| ]]
|''&nbsp;This article on a [[musician]] is a [[Wikipedia:Perfect stub article|stub]]. You can [[Wikipedia:Stub|help]] Wikipedia by [{{SERVER}}{{localurl:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}|action=edit}} expanding it].''
|}
</div>
 
==[[:WP:WSS/NG]] overhaul proposal (and first re-draft!)==
*The story: [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Naming guidelines#Redrafting, stage 1]]
*The first draft ''re-''draft: [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Naming guidelines/Redraft1]]
*What changed and why: [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Naming guidelines/Redraft1#First draft log]]
Took me about 7-8 hours, but I think it sings. Did not change a ''single'' substantive thing about it either, as far as how it works, what is recommends, what procedures are, etc., etc. It's just a massive cleanup. Please see first wikilink ("The story") for proposal on how to proceed, in stages, designed to prevent the process from descending into argument and editwarring. Goal: Have WSS/NG become a formal Wikipedia Proposal and then Guideline. At a guess this is stage 1 of 4. &mdash; <span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|contrib]]&#93;</span> <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">ツ</span> 11:03, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
:PS: Yes, this has something to do with being tired of arguing with Alai and Grutness in SfD and WSS/P, whatever the outcome of the argument, and instead wanting to work on something positive and cooperative in WSS, which is why I joined in the first place. :-) Toodles. &mdash; <span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|contrib]]&#93;</span> <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">ツ</span> 11:09, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
*Well done! A lot of work, but a much needed overhaul - that's the problem with these sorts of pages being built up gradually over time palimpsestuously (if there is such a word). One suggestions - since, as you say, 'recommendations" is more neutral term than "guidelines", but perhaps that term is a little too weak? Since the page is listed as part of Wikipedia's naming conventions, perhaps referring to them as stub naming conventions would be better - recommendations suggests that other names are allowable, yet we're doing what we can to stop that happening since it adds to confusion in the system. These naming styles are the conventionally used names for stub templates and categories, and they have been formed over a long period of time and considerable amounts of discussion, so perhaps it is a better name. The page may also need a new title, whatever is decided on that. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 23:08, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
::Thanks. Replied for real at [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Naming guidelines/Redraft1]] so the doc itself has a record of talk about it. :-) &mdash; <span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|contrib]]&#93;</span> <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">ツ</span> 01:29, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
===Redrafting, stage 2===
At [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Naming guidelines/Redraft2]] I have listed a bunch of unlikely-to-be-controversial improvements for the NG document. Most of these were already clearly identified in [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Naming guidelines/Redraft1|Redraft1]] as HTML comments, while a few come from [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Naming guidelines/Redraft1|Redraft 1 discussion]]. The HTML comments just mentioned are still (as of this writing) present in Redraft2, to indicate likely insertion points. Depending on when you read this, some of them may have alread been replaced with new text, or removed because controversial. I would propose that any item on the list that anyone feels is controversial in any way should be struck out and saved for Redraft Phase 3, the dealing with controversial stuff. Several of them may require a consensus discussion to determine what exactly they should say/advise. Let's do it! &mdash; <span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|contrib]]&#93;</span> <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">ツ</span> 04:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
 
== Top 30 most used stubs ==
You see the difference!
 
Hello everybody,
The example is related to music because I mostly do music related articles, but it's the same situation in any type of articles. For any questions or comments, [[User_talk:Death2|please contact me]]! [[User:Death2|Death2]] 16:58, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
 
I'm working on a script like TWINKLE's Speedy for Stub storting.
:I really rather not see any instructions of this sort on the project page. We get enough flak for perfectly reasonable requests as "instruction creep" as it is. The point of stub-tags has very little to do with aesthetics, anyway: one might argue that a bit of ugliness is an incentive to expand the article, to get rid of it. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 21:48, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
 
Obviously, I cannot include every stub type, they're too many: I need the most common 30, or the list will be too long.
:Spacing and other related layout should be handled with [[Cascading Style Sheets|CSS]], not by inserting redundant whitespace. It's unfortunate that with the default style on, the stub template appears too close to the previous paragraph (I don't know the reason to this). This is what an extra newline produces in the final XHTML page: "&lt;p>&lt;br />&lt;/p>". That's very ugly too from another point of view. [[User:Wipe|Wipe]] 02:04, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 
Can somebody provide me that?
== An alternative to stubs ==
 
Thanks,
Not sure if this is the right section, but as there are problems with stubs and stub-sorting, such as an article being categorized under several stubs (which can cause many different stub templates at the bottom of the page; [[Beth Nahrain|example]]), requiring a lot of time and wasted resources, and different-sized images for stub templates (e.g. RC-stub image is much larger than India-stub image), I'm offering a suggestion:
 
<i>Happy Editing by <b>[[User:Snowolf|<span style="color: darkmagenta;">Snowolf</span>]]<sup>[[User_talk:Snowolf|<span style="color: darkmagenta;"><small>(talk)</small></span>]]</sup><sub>[[WP:CON|<span style="color: darkmagenta;"><small>CON</small></span>]]</sub><sup>[[WP:COI|<span style="color: darkmagenta;"><small>COI</small></span>]]</sup></b> on </i> 16:25, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure if this is even possible programming-wise, but since all (or at least the great majority of) articles have categories, what if stubs were just signified in categories? The category pages maybe would then list the article with a bolded "'''s'''" similar to an "'''m'''" for minor edits or an "'''N'''" for new pages.
*The [[WP:WSS/T|To do]] page has a [[WP:WSS/T#Oversized_stub_categories_to_be_split|section]] that lists the most populated stub types as of the last time a bot is run that checks the stub categories for size. (The bot is run about once a month.) At present there are 28 stub categories listed as having more than 1000 articles and another 28 that have 801 to 1000 articles. That list changes considerably from update to update as stub types that have a lot of article in them attract the most attention of stub sorters and are generally the target of splits into smaller, more manageable stub types. <span style="font-family:cursive">[[User:Caerwine|Caerwine]]</span> [[User_talk:Caerwine|<small style="font-family:sans-serif;color:darkred">Caer’s whines</small>]] 17:25, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
*Can I ask you to clarify what precisely you're looking for, and what exactly you're going to do with it? (Your user page discussing this has a redlink to the .js, so it's not really clear.) If this is for script-based stub-tagging, it'd be of limited use, since 30 stub tags would give fairly poor coverage, and result in pile-ups in the liks of {{cl|people stubs}}, which really need to be much more "deeply" sorted. (For actual stub-''sorting'', this is even more the case.) Also, if this is the rationale, you don't want the 30 stub types that are ''currently'' the largest, since those are as much those that are the least sorted, as the most heavily used. (I could perform a somewhat deeper analysis of usage of whole hierarchies, but as I say even that'd be of limited value.) However, there's the seeds of something that could be very, very useful here: can't the whole stub type list be coded, but ''hierarchically''? Secondly, could this be used to refine an existing stub type, using the existing tag as the "root" of the sub-tree to be 'popped up', to be chosen from? I realize this is likely to be a tall order in coding terms, but it'd be something extremely interesting to work towards. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 02:52, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
::Alai, you're totally right about everything. I'll try do do such a thing, but don't expect to hear about it soon, it's not an easy work and I'm quite busy. Anyway, I hope to manage to develop the tool you're searching for. <i>Happy Editing by <b>[[User:Snowolf|<span style="color: darkmagenta;">Snowolf</span>]]<sup>[[User_talk:Snowolf|<span style="color: darkmagenta;"><small>(talk)</small></span>]]</sup><sub>[[WP:CON|<span style="color: darkmagenta;"><small>CON</small></span>]]</sub><sup>[[WP:COI|<span style="color: darkmagenta;"><small>COI</small></span>]]</sup></b> on </i> 15:24, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
 
== Arbitration enforcement filing relating in part to stub types ==
For example, [[Kinosaki District, Hyogo]] is under Category:Districts in Hyogo Prefecture, Category:Dissolved municipalities of Japan, and so on. On the category pages, [[Kinosaki District, Hyogo]] would have an '''s''' beside it to signify it's a stub. This way, instead of Hyogo ___location having its own stub page (Category:Hyogo geography stubs), categories themselves would show which articles are stubs.
 
As it relates in part to non-consensus scope changes to, and indeed edit-warring on, certain stub types, participants may wish to see [[Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement#User:Huaiwei and User:Instantnood]]. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 05:29, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
This has several advantages:
*Articles will no longer be categorized under more than one stub. The only stub template will be the standard "This article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it" which would somehow create the '''s''' thing beside article stubs on category pages (again, not sure if this is possible).
*People would spend less time (actually no time) tediously stub-sorting and more time actually contributing to articles.
*There will only be one stub template image, thus eliminating image inconsistency:
<div class="boilerplate metadata" id="stub"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-color: transparent;"><tr><td>[[Image:StPetersDomePD.jpg|35px|]]</td><td>''&nbsp;This [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholicism-related]] article is a [[Wikipedia:Perfect stub article|stub]]. You can [[Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub|help]] Wikipedia by [{{SERVER}}{{localurl:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}|action=edit}} expanding it]''.</td></tr></table></div>
<div class="boilerplate metadata" id="stub"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-color: transparent;"><tr ><td >[[Image:Flag of India.svg|30px| ]]</td ><td >''&nbsp;This [[India]]-related article is a [[Wikipedia:Perfect stub article|stub]]. You can [[Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub|help]] Wikipedia by [{{SERVER}}{{localurl:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}|action=edit}} expanding it]''.</td ></tr ></table ></div >
Here, the dome of St. Peter's Basilica is almost three times as big as the flag of India. This is awkward, to say the least...
 
== Stubsort template ==
--[[User:3345345335534|3345345335534]] 03:52, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
 
I've revised [[Template:stubsort]] to be more helpful to editors. Please comment on [[Template talk:stubsort]]. Thanks! <span style="font-size: x-small;">&mdash;&nbsp;[[User:jmorgan|<span style="padding : 0px 1px 1px 1px; border : 1px solid #8BA69C; background : #002857; text-decoration : none; color : #FFFFFF">jmorgan</span>]] ([[User_talk:jmorgan|talk]])</span> 21:03, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
:At first it does sound like a nice idea, simply having a code next to items in the categories indicating stub articles. But the major problem with that is that a large proportion of stubs have no category - probably 90% of those that appear in {{cl|stubs}}. It's often the stub sorters who add the categories in the first place. So no time would really be saved anywhere, and many things which arrive here simply marked with stub would never appear in any category, because stub sorters wouldn't be around to categorise them - in other words, they'd be lost to editors. Another problem is that there are currently closing in on 250,000 stubs. If all of them were marked with one template it would not just cause slight grinding of the servers but would likely cripple them beyond all repair. As for image inconsistency, it's no big deal. Let's face it, if you're worried because it makes the article uglier, that's what a stub template is ''designed'' to do to some extent. we're trying to get people to improve the stubs! As regards spending less time stub sorting and more time working on articles, most of us stub sorters actually spend more time working on articles than stub sorting (I'm in the process of getting what was a one-paragraph stub on [[the Catlins]] up to FA nomination standard). I doubt many of us would work more on articles if there wasn't stub sorting. So basically: nice idea, but not really practical. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 08:15, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
----
But that '''is''' saving time, isn't it? Instead of categorizing an article under a certain stub, then coming back and adding categories to it, why don't you just add the categories then and there? Why list ''article'' "A" under ''stub'' "B" then come back and add ''category'' "B" when you can just add ''category'' "B" without first adding ''stub'' "B"?
 
== A catch-all stub category ==
For example: [[Applestone]], it says he was a sculptor. I've added the {sculptor-stub} to it, and now its listed under Category:Sculptor stubs. All this is redundant, since I've also added Category:Australian sculptors to it. If I add the standard stub template, Category:Australian sculptors would then have an '''s''' beside [[Applestone]] to show it's a stub. People who look to expand stubs can just go to Category:Australian sculptors and look for the '''s''', instead of going to Category:Sculptor stubs.
 
Recently when having my bot run through [[:Category:Living people]] I was asked if I could do the stubs seperately so they could be auto-assessed as stub class. The difficulty, of course, is that a multitude of different stub templates might be in use, so building a cross-reference list wouldn't be the easiest task.
So essentially, you're just skipping the unnecessary step of categorizing the article under a stub. --[[User:3345345335534|3345345335534]] 16:22, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
:We don't add the stub then come back later and categorise. It's all done in the same edit, and it's the categorising that takes the time, not the stubbing. Have a look at the stub-sorting guidelines and you'll see that stub sorters are supposed to add apppropriate categories at the same time that they sort the stub. A dedicated stub sorter will already know a large number of the stub templates - they are unlikely to know more than a small number of the main categories in wikipedia. So currently, when a stub appears in category stubs, your average stub sorter takes five seconds to add the appropriate atub template, then a couple of minutes trying to find the appropriate main category. The whole process takes maybe 150 seconds. Just adding the template would reduce that time by 10 seconds - assuming there were people doing it, which if there was no stub-sorting wikiproject, there wouldn't be (uness a separate parallel wikiproject was set up and caught on). So your proposal would save about 6% of stub-sorting time if the stub-sorting project still continued, or would leave hundreds of uncategorised and unstubbed articles if it didn't. And it would cause enormous server drain, due to the simply phenomenal number of stubs that exist that would all need to be marked with one template, (i.e., {{tl|stub}}. Wikipedia's servers were severely affected a year and a half ago when there were 10,000 articles marked with {{tl|stub}}. I doubt they would operate ''at all'' with 250,000 articles marked that way. So although it sounds a nice idea, it's not worth it. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 05:41, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
 
This led me to thinking how useful to automated processes an ''additional'' catch all category for stubs would be, a [[:Category:Living people]] of stubs if you will. It would of course require an alteration to ''every'' stub template. Thoughts?
== Help! ==
 
In the meantime, it looks like [[:Category:Stub categories]] is catch all with subcategories. Is ''every'' stub (templated as such) guaranteed to be in a subcategory of this cat? --[[User:Kingboyk|kingboyk]] 16:52, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm trying to get more involved in sorting, so I am attempting to learn to create approved templates - South Asian history in this case ({{tl|SAsia-hist-stub}}) but it doesn't seem to be working like it should according to the creation guide. Request backup, please. [[User:Aelfthrytha|Aelfthrytha]] 01:15, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
:Guaranteed? Nothing is ever guaranteed on Wikipedia, but it should be, yes. It's one of the categories added by the standard {{tl|Stub Category}} template that provides the default blurb text for stub categories, and any customized variants should include it as well. <span style="font-family:cursive">[[User:Caerwine|Caerwine]]</span> [[User_talk:Caerwine|<small style="font-family:sans-serif;color:darkred">Caer’s whines</small>]] 21:23, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
:What's not working about it? -[[User:GTBacchus|GTBacchus]]<sup>([[User talk:GTBacchus|talk]])</sup> 01:18, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
::Aha. That's as good as I could hope for then, and will suffice for now. Thanks for the helpful reply! --[[User:Kingboyk|kingboyk]] 21:58, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
::I've gotten to the part of creating the category Category:South Asian history stubs and I can't get it to show up under Category:Asian history stubs as its own subcategory. Although, somehow, I managed to get it to show up as a subcategory of...itself?[[User:Aelfthrytha|Aelfthrytha]] 01:21, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
:::Found it. It was in the {{tl|Stub Category}} template syntax. In the "category=C" part, you aren't supposed to fill in the name of the stub category itself, but the name of some non-stub category that you want to add this stub category to. In this case, there is no [[:Category:South Asian history]] or [[:Category:History of South Asia]], so I just added it to [[:Category:History of Asia]]. Does that fix it? -[[User:GTBacchus|GTBacchus]]<sup>([[User talk:GTBacchus|talk]])</sup> 01:41, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
:::Yes, except it'd be nice if it showed up in Asia-hist-stub as an individual category, too. That was the biggest thing I was trying to figure out. Thanks! [[User:Aelfthrytha|Aelfthrytha]] 01:48, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
::::Hmmm. You mean you want [[:Category:History of Asia]] to show up on the page [[:Template:SAsia-hist-stub]]? You can just add the category to the template page, but I'd put <nowiki><noinclude></nowiki> tags around it to keep that category from getting automatically appended to every page with the stub tag on it, which wouldn't be ideal. -[[User:GTBacchus|GTBacchus]]<sup>([[User talk:GTBacchus|talk]])</sup> 05:04, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
 
:::Yes, that's overwhelmingly likely, since almost all will be directly subcatted, as CW says, and of the few that miss that out for some reason, they'll typically at least be a sub-category of some other stub category that is. Any that aren't in that tree at all, there's something seriously wrong with (say if they've been vandalised, or are "freelance creations" no-one's taken any notice of yet). Also notice that every stub should have a template transclusion of a fairly predictable form (again with a small number of guideline-free-zone exceptions, certainly). But I'm not sure I follow the original comment. By catch-all do you mean some sort of {{cl|living people stubs}} cat, as opposed to the existing {{cl|stubs}}? Or do you mean a catch-all for the ''talk page'' categories, along the lines of {{cl|Stub-Class living people articles}}? Or am I getting completely confused, and you're actually talking about some sort of {{cl|all stubs}} cat? (Which would doubtless be something like 3/4 of a million articles these days, or something like just a binary order of magnitude difference from an {{cl|all articles}}.) What'd be the purpose of such a thing? [[User:Alai|Alai]] 06:59, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
== Multiple Stub Tags ==
 
::::It sounds like what he's doing is having a bot go through {{cl|Living people}} and adding ''<nowiki>{{WPBiography|living=yes}}</nowiki>'' to the talk pages of articles that don't already have {{tl|WPBiography}} and that he's been asked to make that ''<nowiki>{{WPBiography|living=yes|class=stub|auto=yes}}</nowiki>'' for the articles that are marked as stubs. <span style="font-family:cursive">[[User:Caerwine|Caerwine]]</span> [[User_talk:Caerwine|<small style="font-family:sans-serif;color:darkred">Caer’s whines</small>]] 07:49, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Question. If a stub could fit in more than one section, is it better to give it two stub tags, or choose one so that the page looks nicer? On the one hand, having two tags would help it get unstubbed faster, but on the downside it would ruin the page. --[[User:Xhin|Xhin]] 05:28, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
:::::Sounds reasonable to me. &mdash; <span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|contrib]]&#93;</span> <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">ツ</span> 10:01, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
:Two, and even three stub tags are quite the norm these days. If it's a Bulgarian writer, and we don't have {{tl|Bulgaria-writer-stub}}, then use {{tl|Bulgaria-bio-stub}} and {{tl|Writer-stub}} and put the article into [[:Category:Bulgarian writers]] -[[User:GTBacchus|GTBacchus]]<sup>([[User talk:GTBacchus|talk]])</sup> 06:06, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
:::::Right. --[[User:Kingboyk|kingboyk]] 13:26, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
:Yes, the standard way is to give two stubs unless there is a "complex" form available. As you said, having two tags would help it get unstubbed faster, since more specialist editors will see it. As to "ruining the page", stubs are already usually ugly articles, a bit of short term further disfigurement to help them to grow faster isn't too big a problem. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 07:36, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
::::::OK. So isn't it simplest just to pattern-match against (say) <code><nowiki>{{(|.*-)stub}}</nowiki></code> in the wikitext? Examining the categories would require looking separately at the html-as-served (though if you did, it'd be equally evident from the form of the category). [[User:Alai|Alai]] 18:37, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
:::::::Not really, because AWB is list based, it's not a spider and it wouldn't even be loading the articles, just the talk pages. Of course I could write some plugin code to do this (load and examine article, then edit talk page), but to save reinventing the wheel I'd rather just cross-reference a list of biographies and a list of stubs and build myself a list of talk pages for the bot to process. --[[User:Kingboyk|kingboyk]] 19:46, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
::::::::Ah, I see. I thought that was exactly what your plugin did: obviously I had entirely the wrong end of the stick. I don't think reading the article immediately before editing the talk page would a "spider" make; if your bot is going to be doing hundreds of thousands of edits, a similar number of additional reads is almost a trifle (relatively speaking). (Doing it for ''every'' article in advance of doing any editing would obviously be a problem.) And if you're already working through a list of talk pages that you're going to edit anyway, then it's not any more additional reads than the same number of pages again. At any rate, you can get that list by traversing the stub category hierarchy, either via the live wiki, or from a db dump (rare creatures though those are these days; I could provide that, if you don't do the dumps thing). Making 3,000 template edits, adding a category to half our articles, and creating a thousand listings-page category in the process seems the painful way to do it (for both people and servers). [[User:Alai|Alai]] 01:01, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
 
== Top-sorting ofCategorising stub categoriestemplates... again? ==
 
I've only just noticed [[Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/UncatTemplateBot|this]] bot-approval request, to tag as "uncategorised" all templates not already categorised under [[:category:wikipedia templates]]. (Implying, evidently, that they ''should'' all be so categorised.) Obviously, this would include almost all of the stub templates, as typically these are "only" categorised in the {{cl|stub categories}} tree (except for those that have ignore [[WP:STUB]], and 'opted-out' of that, too). This seems like deja vu from the last time there was a flurry of stub-template categorisation, though this basis may be somewhat different. Maybe we should just protect all 3000+ of 'em as HRTs. :/ Is this indeed overcategorisation for little purpose, or am I just being the semi-proverbial Rioting Conservative Tribesperson? [[User:Alai|Alai]] 02:35, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Is there general consensus about top-sorting of stub (sub-)categories? If so, is there further agreement about whether we're using " " or "*" -- or indeed, anything else -- as the sort key (prefix)? I'll put in a weak vote for "*", and a strong vote for consistency either way. As the same applies to categories in general, I've also mooted this [[Wikipedia_talk:Categorization#Top-sorting.2C_again|here]]. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 23:48, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
:Can't speak as to this particular bot idea, but the general practice of categorizing stub ''templates'' in the stub ''articles'' category has always seemed silly to me, and appears to violate [[WP:SELF]], anyway (articles of whatever type shouldn't be muxed in the same general-use category as WP-internal-use templates that refer to them categorically (not I say general-use category; I have no problem whatsoever with article's talk pages being WPP tagged so that they appear in Category:WikiProject Foo along with WikiProject Foo's templates and stuff; that's for internal WPP purposes. I'm just speaking here of the actual article categories. The templates simply should not be appearing in them, by my readng of WP:SELF). In my view, the stub templates should all be categorized in some sub-category of [[:Category:Wikipedia templates]]. If the mentioned bot would do that, then it sounds good to me. However, I think it should be done not willynilly, but in some way that makes WSS happy, collectively. &mdash; <span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|contrib]]&#93;</span> <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">ツ</span> 02:56, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
:It depends - a blank space is often as useful or more useful - what I tend to do is use |*xxx for one type of split and |&nbsp;xxx for another when things are being split on two dimensions (have a look at [[:Category:United_States_geography_stubs]] to see what I mean). [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 02:40, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
::Those are two entirely separate issues (though evidently you agree with gist of the bot proposal, which is to do the latter). But as to [[WP:SELF]]: first sentence, "within Wikipedia articles". [[WP:SELF#In the Template and Category namespaces]]: "Limited use of self-references are sometimes found in the Template namespace and the Category namespace, such as with disambiguation and stub notices." Stub categories are in effect unholy hybrids of article-space and maintenance cats, and "what should go in them" should be an entirely pragmatic consideration. Making it as clear as possible what the populating template is, and most especially, making the "population" of upmerged templates visible seems to me a much more important consideration than trying to regard them as pure article-space categories. And likewise, categorisation of stub tags under {{cl|Wikipedia templates}} serves... what purpose exactly? I'm as much in favour of manic taxonomy as the next person, but these changes each (and this combination, even more so) strike me as increasing categorisation-for-categorisation's-sake, and following the admittedly rather general trend towards unnecessarily "esoteric" (generally meaning, spammy and spaghetti-coded), at the expense of functionality. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 03:28, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
:::I guess I don't see what functionality is provided by mis-identifying stub templates as stub articles, is all. :-) It really does not compute for me that most templates on the system are categorized as part of the templates category hierarchy, but these aren't. How is it helpful to do it that way? I realize it's been done that way for a while, but I'm not sure that's a very compelling reason to keep doing it that way. I don't feel tremendously strongly about it, mind you. Just seems kind of strange. &mdash; <span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|contrib]]&#93;</span> <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">ツ</span> 03:59, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
:::NB: Just to clarify, I think it would be remarkably silly, in the other direction, to start having categories like "Category:European biography stub templates" and so forth. One "Category:Stub templates" ought to be fine. &mdash; <span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|contrib]]&#93;</span> <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">ツ</span> 04:01, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
::::Where in the category name does it say "articles"? :) I personally don't see much point in the entire templates category hierarchy, at all. Are these cats really aids to navigation, or are they manifestations of an assumption that Everything Must Have a Category? On helpfulness: look for example at {{cl|Western United States radio station stubs}}. If the numerous upmerged templates were includeonly'd, it'd then be necessary to link them all from the category page. Extra spam, extra maintenance, extra inconsistency. Some category pages don't bother linking to their templates, including it in the category makes sure it's visible, somehow. (I think most of these have been fixed by now, but belt and braces doesn't hurt.) Equally, some template hide the category, and don't provide an explicit link to it instead, meaning you have to edit the template to find the cat. Hiding-and-linking is extra, IMO needless, template code complexity. (People then start feeling the urge to add mini-essays to the noincluded section, for information than would be better on the category page.) Incidentally, remarkably-silly-sub-categories is pretty much exactly what the previous scheme did (see my CFD links on the bot-prop page), though this plan seems to envisage something somewhat different. Of course, it's always possible that I'm suffering from a Grandpa Simpson-like mental spasm that 'you work hard to get things right, then what's "right" changes!' [[User:Alai|Alai]] 04:23, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
:::::Lacking a direct historical perspective on the question, I'm just going to remain neutral on it. Maybe I ''do'' think everything on the system should be in at least one category. I'm not sure. Hadn't ever really thought about it in those terms. I do find categorization of templates helpful, generally. If I see a template that ''almost'' suits the purpose I have in mind, I can often drop to the category level to find the one I really want. If they've been categorized. But I don't see that such reasoning is particularly strong when it comes to stub templates. &lt;shrug&gt; I'm firmly in the "eh... whatever y'all decide" camp on this one. &mdash; <span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|contrib]]&#93;</span> <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">ツ</span> 05:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
::::::Well, they currently ''are'' in categories: the stub cats. But if one is the view they shouldn't be in those, ''and'' that should should be some (other) category, I can see how one might arrive at the conclusion that they ought to be in the 'templates' hierarchy, for the lack of anything better to do with 'em. So I suppose the two are linked in that way, under that assumption. But that seems a pretty abstract line of thinking to me. But I wouldn't want to argue on the basis of a 'historical perspective', which is a pretty sure-fire recipe for something that "feels right" to the people that "have always done it that way", but may be "actually right" on no actual logical basis. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 17:01, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
:::::::It makes more sense in my head to have them under the template category hierarchy or even under the [[:Category:WikiProject Stub sorting]] space, and just article stubs in the stub categories. But of all the things I could care a lot about on Wikipedia, this really isn't likely to make the Top Ten. Heh. &mdash; <span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|contrib]]&#93;</span> <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">ツ</span> 03:29, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 
== Bot-populating: threshold OK? ==
:As long as the name itself is included, I don't think it matters either way. I've seen subcategories being sorted with just a '*' and while they all certainly appear under the '*' section, they appear with no other ordering (other than the order in which they appear in the database, I guess). --[[User:TheParanoidOne|TheParanoidOne]] 05:33, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
:Yes, I believe there is a consensus on top-sorting. I personally prefer using space for this, but some categories are top-sorted with an asterisk. And yes, as Grutness says, for some categories it's very useful to use both methods (for exapmle, films by genre and by nation). Surely, "| Stuff" or "|*Stuff" should be used instead of "| " and "|*". [[User:Conscious|Conscious]] 05:57, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
 
How are people finding the current cut-off for tagging uncatted articles with {{tl|stub}}? Anything being tagged that didn't look like a stub? Could the threshold stand to be raised somewhat? (It's currently 500 characters.) From either (or both) of the perspectives of the workload, and of the possibility of false positives... [[User:Alai|Alai]] 01:29, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I have no objection to using two characters for multi-dimensional splits (and I can certainly think of some that need it), but I'd strongly prefer to have some guidance on which it should be, otherwise, and in my recent experience, it ends up getting changed, left inconsistent within a category, getting changed again, etc, and other such petty annoyances. Can't we just pick one? (And I did note, as a prefix; I didn't suggest it be used as the entire sortkey.) [[User:Alai|Alai]] 14:15, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
:Seems fine to me, but it's probably at the top end of what we can do and keep it under control. The only false positives I've really noticed are quite a few dab pages, but I can't see any way that a bot could distinguish them from stubs. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 02:26, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
::My guess is that it's at the low end of what's an "actual stub", though: of the uncategorised pages, the considerable majority of them are going to [[CAT:NOCAT]], and perhaps something like a 1/4 to a 1/6 are going to {{cl|stubs}}. If they get tagged as stubs later on in their life cycle, it's potentially introducing a huge lag into their life-cycle if they have to wait for two or three months to get "processed" at the former. (And come to that, only really by chance after that.) I wouldn't want to be seen as twisting anyone's arm, though... [[User:Alai|Alai]] 03:07, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 
Since the reservation about this concerned throughput rather than false positives, and since the throughput at the other likely destination is that much worse, I've gone ahead and upped the threshold to 600 bytes on the latest run from [[Special:Uncategorizedpages]]. If anyone finds this is starting to get a little too marginal, please let me know. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 16:50, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
== [[Wikipedia:Stubs cabal|WP:SC]]? ==
 
AnotherOn entrysecond thoughts... Would this be better expressed in theterms contestof toamount workof out''text'' whatin [[WP:SC]]the article, excluding wikimarkup? And/or isas annumbers abbreviationof forwords/sentences? [[User:Alai|Alai]] 1502:5542, 629 AprilMarch 20062007 (UTC)
:[[WP:AWB|AWB]] counts the number of words (excluding some things like tables, I think). Anything over 500 words, and it flags it something like "long article marked with a stub tag". I'll take a look at it, and most often remove the stub tag. 500 words seems like a pretty reasonable threshold. [[User:Amalas|<b style="color:maroon;">~ Amalas</b>]] [[User talk:Amalas|<span style="color:navy;">rawr</span>]] [[Special:Contributions/Amalas|<sup style="color:navy;">=^_^=</sup>]] 14:36, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
:Hilarous... and given the usage of the term cabal, possibly speediable A6. But I'm quite willing to let FoN have his little joke :) [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 23:44, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
 
::That's working in the other direction, though: I'm looking for a threshold below which something is almost certainly a stub (unless it's a malformed redirect, disambig, etc), rather than a threshold above which it's unlikely to be. Is AWB offering to insert stub tags these days, and if so, what rule is it using for that? [[User:Alai|Alai]] 14:56, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
== Categorization of section stubs ==
:::Okay, I can see the subtle difference. And yes, AWB does autotag with {{tl|stub}}, but I always turn that off. I'm not sure what its threshold is, and it's not in the user manual. Perhaps one of us (NOT IT! =P) asks on the AWB page. [[User:Amalas|<b style="color:maroon;">~ Amalas</b>]] [[User talk:Amalas|<span style="color:navy;">rawr</span>]] [[Special:Contributions/Amalas|<sup style="color:navy;">=^_^=</sup>]] 15:13, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
::::It's a pretty big difference: if I tagged every 499-word-or-less uncategorised article from the impending (menace?) db dump, there would be untold wailing and gnashing of teeth. And OK, I'll ask at the project page... [[User:Alai|Alai]] 15:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
 
How about: 100 words or less, after stripping out all markup, including the contents of infoboxes and other tables? [[User:Alai|Alai]] 04:05, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
I have noticed that [[:Category:Articles with sections needing expansion]] has become very large. Could we put section stubs into different categories depending on the article they are in, like article stubs? '''''[[User:Schzmo#|<font color="#6495ed">SCH</font><font color="#3cb371">ZMO</font>]]''''' [[User talk:Schzmo|✍]] 21:37, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
:I was doing some stuff in AWB today, and 100 words or less seems like a reasonable threshold. [[User:Amalas|<b style="color:maroon;">~ Amalas</b>]] [[User talk:Amalas|<span style="color:navy;">rawr</span>]] [[Special:Contributions/Amalas|<sup style="color:navy;">=^_^=</sup>]] 15:49, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
:I would suggest editing the template to change the category to <nowiki>[[Category:{{{1|}}} articles with sections needing expansion]]</nowiki>. This should make no difference whatsoever to the existing articles, but will allow you to use e.g. <nowiki>{{sectstub|Biology}}</nowiki> to categorise as "Biology articles with sections needing expansion". [[User:Steinsky|Joe D]] [[User talk:Steinsky|(t)]] 21:43, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
::I've gone ahead and done this, but I'd be cautious about using the new system on too many articles - somebody may have issues or spot flaws. Additionally, if we do adopt this system it will require some coordination to make sure we don't end up with duplicate categories, or go to the other extreme and have a proliferation of categories with hardly any articles in. [[User:Steinsky|Joe D]] [[User talk:Steinsky|(t)]] 21:52, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
"Section stubs" aren't stubs. They are, as you point out, articles with sections that need expanding. As such, they're not dealt with by WP:WSS. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 02:03, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
 
==A problem/ST acrosssize thediscussion Tasman==
We have a template {{tl|Australia-university-stub}} and a category {{cl|Australia university stubs}}. Unfortunately, some (to use a local colloquialism) nong changed the name of th caategory on the template, so now there are 92 stubs swimming in a limbo called {{cl|Australian university stubs}}. I've reverted the template, but should we (a) null-edit the articles, or (b) rename the category? [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 12:14, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
 
For those of you who are as hap-hazard in 'watching' project sub-pages as I am, let me draw your attention to [[/Stub types#Some more proposals to cut the page size]]. The latterly-suggested ideas would be quite far-reaching (and a real pain to later undo), so prior consensus would be preferable to posterior reversion. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 18:03, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
:I think it is ok now. For whatever reason. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 15:29, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
 
==Why stub categories?==
==Stubs templates and WikiProjects==
why not just have a stub category for every normal category?
I have a question and I thought this might be the best place to ask. Is it acceptable to add a link to a WikiProject in a stub template? (eg. {{tl|digi-stub}}) [[User:Joelr31|Joelito]] 17:43, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Or just use the stub tag and automatically have the stub-category assigned by the page-category?
:I've seen it, so far as I know there's no established consensus ''not'' to do it. Though really, it makes more sense to me to put it on the stub ''category'' page, where there's the space for it. OTOH, that's the least of this template's problems: the use of "qif" to put these articles into one of two different articles is horrible, and really should be shot on sight. (I've reverted the coding, and I'm putting the "semi-stub" category up for deletion.) [[User:Alai|Alai]] 18:35, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
And if there is no page-category then one could be added if there were a preexisting stub-category.
::There was some discussion [[Wikipedia_talk:Stub#WikiProject_links_in_stub_templates|here]] about a month ago that failed to get anywhere. Suffice it to say that some people don't like them and/or will remove them, for various reasons; but there seems to be no formal policy regarding them. [[User:Kirill Lokshin|Kirill Lok]][[User:Kirill Lokshin/Esperanza|<font color="green">s</font>]][[User:Kirill Lokshin/Military history|<font color="#960018">h</font>]][[User:Kirill Lokshin|in]] 19:19, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
why not have a script do this?
:::I would like to propose some official policy regarding this matter. [[User:Joelr31|Joelito]] 21:14, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Has this been discussed before?
::I doubt you'd get one that worked. We can't even get a n official plicy on template ''creation'', let alone what's actually in them. In any case, the two camps are very nearly equally divided - the wikiprojects want the links, many other editors don't. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 01:03, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
--[[User:Tim@|Tim]] 18:08, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
:#Because that would result in the creation of thousands upon thousands of unused categories.
:#Someone would still have to create the actual category; this would result in the creation of thousands upon thousands of redlinks and uncategorized articles, and thus wouldn't actually sort stubs.
:#I don't understand your point here. I can't think of a stub category that should (or does) exist for which there is no corresponding article topic category (though the names do not always match and there is not a 1:1 relationship - many stub types "upmerge" into a larger stub category. E.g. there might be a stub for English towns and cities and a "English town and city stubs" stub category for it, but if there are only three stub articles in the "Wessex towns and cities" article sub-category, we don't need a corresponding stub and stub category for Wessex settlements more specifically; the stubs can just go in the larger "English town and city stubs" stubcat, even if the articles in question are in "Essex towns and cities" under "English towns and cities" in the article category-space.
:#Bots make mistakes, and stub template and category naming is esoteric and sometimes contentious as to details.
:#Yes.
:&mdash; <span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|contrib]]&#93;</span> <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">ツ</span> 21:44, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 
::Very many times. And the answers to "why not" are very simple, some, but not all of which have been given by SMcC.:
== [[:Category:Hotel stubs]] ==
::*from the point of view of stub sorting, it would require the maintenance and patrolling of literally tens of thousands of categories and templates. it is vrtually a full-time job maintaining the 1800 or so that currently exist. To maintain that many would be impossible.
::*From the point of view of general category maintenance, many stub categories would be permanently empty and therefore redundant (for example, how many articles in {{cl|Presidents of the United States}} are likely to be stubs?). Since they would be of no use, many of them should be speedily deleted - and the second they are, the whole system of a one-for-one correlation between stubcats and permcats disappears. as such, it is unworkable.
::*From the point of view of the people actually using stub categories to find articles to expand, tiny fragmentations of stub type are a bad move. It is for this reason that the stub-sorting wikiproject has set optimum sizes for stub categories. Consider, for example, that you are looking for articles to expand on a specific subject. Which is easier, to look through one category with 100 stubs, one category with 10,000 stubs, or fifty categories with two or three stubs each? It is far less work for editors to have categories to search that are of sufficient size to be useful, but not so big as to be overwhelming.
::*From the standpoint of the articles themselves, there is an optimum number of stub types that an article should have. There are frequently complaints if an article is marked with too many stub types, yet your proposal would end up with some articles being marked with ten or more different stubs. Consider, for example, the stub article [[Green-winged Pytilia]]. This makes for ugly articles, and the addition of many of the extra types would be counterprodctive for the editorial reasons given above.
::[[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 23:59, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 
Agree with all the above. Indeed, it's such a frequent topic that we should probably have a project page that explains some of the rationale for stub category organisation, in the form of an essay or a "FAQ" (or perhaps even in a guideline sub-page, if we ever get around to refactoring [[WP:STUB]], which I've suggested elsewhere). [[User:Alai|Alai]] 02:39, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Is this an offical cat or one that just happened to have been created? I think this is already covered by the offical [[:Category:Hotel company stubs]]. [[User:Vegaswikian|Vegaswikian]] 02:13, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
:ISTR the idea of an actual hotel-stub was rejected when hotel-company-stub was made, since hotels ar already well enough covered by struct-stub. This one prbably needs sfd'ing. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 08:34, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 
:Concur, and would further suggest that it can probably be done pithily enough to simply be integrated as a <nowiki>==Frequently asked questions==</nowiki> at [[:WP:STUB]]. &mdash; <span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|contrib]]&#93;</span> <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">ツ</span> 04:06, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
== new tool: StubSense ==
::Definitely not, IMO. WP:STUB is already the very antithesis of pithy, and is regularly cited (in good faith or otherwise) as a reason why someone didn't propose a stub type or otherwise did something "bold" (generally meaning, wildly counter-consensus) with a stub type. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 05:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
:Would having a [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Frequently asked questions]] be a reasnable compromise? There ''are'' questions which keep re-emerging (why do we have a threshold of 60 stubs, why do we use hyphens in some places and camelcaps in others in templates, why don't we use a single parametered stub template, that sort of thing). Having a set of canonical questions and answers (which could be found fairly easily by trawling the archives) would stop us from having to retype the same arguments each time. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 23:43, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
::Right. I'm not trying to say anything political about WP:STUB at all; just saying there should be a FAQ somewhere. WP:STUB was just the locale that first popped into mind. &mdash; <span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|contrib]]&#93;</span> <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">ツ</span> 00:59, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 
==So which is better?==
Here's a new toolserver tool, [http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/queries/stub_sense StubSense]. Give it some random category, and it will list the most frequently used stubs for articles under that category. --[[User:Interiot|Interiot]] 02:52, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
Just a consensus-gauging question: Is it better to have the [[Marlon Manalo]] article stub-tagged with both {{tl|Philippines-bio-stub}} and {{tl|Asia-sport-bio-stub}}, or split up {{cl|Asian sportspeople stubs}} into more sub-categories such that we'd have a unified {{tl|Philippines-sport-bio-stub}} (and others for Vietnam, etc.) but these stub categories would be underpopulated? I guess the question is really: Is it more important for the article to look better or for stub sorting categories to be well-populated? &mdash; <span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|contrib]]&#93;</span> <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">ツ</span> 00:52, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
:We're now largely using a compromise measure that is better than either, by which the solution would be to create an upmerged philippines-sport-bio-stub feeding into both the phillipines-bio and asia-sport-bio categories until such time as there are enough stubs for a separate category. This compromise, which has picked up the name of "The Alai solution", is becoming more widespread and may in the long run be the solution to this sort of situation. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 01:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
::The "upmerged template" (double- or otherwise) option is often mooted when there's already a large number of ''X''-''Y''-stub templates (''X''-sport-bio-stub, say), to the point where it might be a surprise if it ''doesn't'' exist for a given ''X'' (country, in this case), though it rather presupposes that someone will have the energy to create all the remaining templates to "complete the set". Or just when someone is gung-ho to create a particular type, but its potential population isn't large enough, or not yet clear it is, at least. "Double-upmerging" basically follows from that, when the proto-type would have two parents, though as noted, it does also reduce the amount of double (or so...). At one point I was scanning the db dumps for double-stubbings that were already over 60, but that stopped bearing much fruit a while ago. If anyone is mad-keen on systematically working these down, I could upload a list of those over some lower threshold. (I anticipate there being another dump relatively soon, just don't ask exactly when.) [[User:Alai|Alai]] 03:29, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
::Is there a particular threshold for how many affected stubs there needs to be? I know it 60 for a "real" stub, but I misremember with regard to the "up-stubs". I personally find the asia-sport-bio-stub to be so ridiculously [[WP:OC]] useless (in the sense of arbitrary intersection) that I find it practically noxious. :-) Might as well have blonde-sport-bio-stub for all the use that stub category actually provides. The two I'd immediately fork out and upmerge would be taiwan-sport-bio-stub and philippines-sport-bio-stub. That would reduce the actual asia-sport-bio-stubs by I think more than 50%, leaving a handful of Singaporeans, Vietnamese, Indonesian, etc., entries. &mdash; <span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|contrib]]&#93;</span> <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">ツ</span> 04:12, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
:::No, it wouldn't; the point of upmerged templates is to leave them in the same category ({{cl|Asian sportspeople stubs}} is much too small to actually split), but fed by different templates, for the reasons discussed. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 05:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
::::Right; I think you misunderstood me. It would reduce usage of {{tl|asia-sport-bio-stub}} (and, nicely, {{tl|philippines-bio-stub}} at the same time; of course if they're upmerged {{cl|Asian sportspeople stubs}} wouldn't get any smaller. :-) &mdash; <span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|contrib]]&#93;</span> <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">ツ</span> 05:26, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
:::::I think I understood what you wrote; what you meant I can't speak to. :) The categorisation doesn't change at all in such cases, so I don't see how "OC" issues figure at all, and I don't see what's at all "arbitrary" about "Asia": give me plate tectonics over China Naming Squabbles any day of the week. But it could be argued that this is one of those categories that should ''only'' have "upmerged" templates, and no "canonical" one at all.
:::::At any rate, there's no fixed "threshold" for upmerged templates. I've created some very small ones for the sake of "completism" (typically to cover all the subdivisions of some country (or indeed sub-sub-... of same, for US counties)). OTOH, Grutness has SFD'd templates that were some reasonable proportion of the way to threshold on the basis that their Feng Shui was wrong, or something like that... (Joke! It wasn't for this sort of "partition by subdivision" situation, in any case.) I'd suggest that once there's a majority of the ''X''s for any given such split, creating templates for the rest is an actively good idea. For example, if sorting a stub geographically (and likewise same for -bios and -geos) I'd ''assume'' those templates existed for any country, and if it turned out to be missing, go ahead and create it in upmerged in that form. I doubt (m)any of the occupation-bio-stubs are quite at that point yet, but creating them for anything with a present population in the dozens would seem entirely sensible. I haven't seen any objection on size alone, so I think it's mainly a a function of how much effort you want to go to in creating them, really. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 06:06, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
::::::Re: (mis)understand: I ''did'' originally write "asia-sport-bio-stub", which is a stub template name not a cat. name. :-) But enough of that! Anyway, this does get precisely at what I was after, so I shall proceed to effectively render the asia-sport-bio-stub template near-moribund (I'm sure someone could come along later and use it for Mynamar/Burma sportspeople, etc. - I'm only going to do upmerged ones for the extant stubs in there) &mdash; <span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|contrib]]&#93;</span> <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">ツ</span> 19:50, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 
== {{tl|Expand}} and {{tl|Stub}} ==
:Cool. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 11:01, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 
I've noticed increasing use of {{tl|Expand}} as a surrogate stub. There's no need for an article to have both T:Espand and a stub template, and we're probably missing quite a few stubs as a result of its use as a replacement for it.
::What's really great is that if this tool is used on a stub category e.g. {{cl|African politician stubs}} it's possible to see how many articles are double stubbed with e.g. {{tl|Nigeria-bio-stub}}. This'll make it a lot easier looking for possible child categories. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 13:36, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 
I'd like to suggest the following proposal (which would have ramifications beyond this page, so I'm double-posting this to [[Wikipedia talk:Stub]] and [[Template talk:Expand]]).
I've added a "list" feature, since I noticed that categories sometimes have many mis-sorted articles. For instance, looking at [http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/queries/stub_sense?category=Category%3AFaculties+by+university+in+the+United+States&num_pages=1000&dbname=enwiki Category:Faculties by university in the United States], there were 29 articles with {{tl|academic-bio-stub}} and 27 articles with {{tl|US-academic-bio-stub}}. Most likely, most of the former could be sorted into the latter (I'll sort these now... it's just one of the clearest examples of category-level stub-sorting I've found). --[[User:Interiot|Interiot]] 21:15, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
#{{tl|Expand}} should not be used on any articles with stub templates. A stub template already signals that an article should be expanded.
#{{tl|stub}} or one of its subtypes should be used on articles of stub length - if further expansion is required once an article is beyond this length, only then should {{tl|Expand}} be added.
Note that {{tl|sectstub}} and {{tl|listdev}} are not counted as stub templates in general terms, nor are they for the purposes of this proposal.
 
From the point of view of stub sorting, the only difference this would make would be removing{{tl|expand}} templates from stubs as they are sorted.
== [[:Category:Blogging stubs]] ==
 
[[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 01:03, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
I was doing a bit of a tidy up on a random vlogger, [[BowieChick]] and was looking for some stub to throw on it. I found [[Template:Vlog-stub]] and the Category as shown above. However, vlog-stub has like 5 things in, and is probably too narrow a stub type. Whereas there doesn't seem to be a generic stub for bloggers is there? I could look further, but I really don't care much for blogs or blogging anyway, but would like to point this out to those stub fetishists who keep the WP running. - [[User:Hahnchen|Hahnch]][[Evil|<span title="WP:Esperanza"><font color="green">e</font></span>]][[User:Hahnchen|n]] 14:54, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
:This query was moved over from [[Wikipedia talk:Stub]] - [[User:Hahnchen|Hahnch]][[Evil|<span title="WP:Esperanza"><font color="green">e</font></span>]][[User:Hahnchen|n]] 20:48, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
::I'm moving it again, to its proper place at [[WP:WSS/D]]. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 03:48, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
 
:I've been deleting {expand} when I encounter it during restubbing (along with a description of why in the edit) except when the stub is good enough to not be a stub. I also have to question the utility of {expand} for articles that have assessment templates such as {WPBiography} on their talk pages. (Double posting this comment.) <span style="font-family:cursive">[[User:Caerwine|Caerwine]]</span> [[User_talk:Caerwine|<small style="font-family:sans-serif;color:darkred">Caer’s whines</small>]] 01:28, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
== A request about picture requests ==
 
::Strongly concur with Grutness and Caerwine (other than I think the Expand tag has it uses). &mdash; <span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|contrib]]&#93;</span> <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">ツ</span> 03:37, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Very many stubs lack pictures. Since the requested image procedure is underused (and, indeed, seems to be barely functioning) I have been working on a subcategorisation of [[:Category:Wikipedia requested photographs]] by ___location, especially relevant for buildings, structures and places. Hopefully people will add their local area subcategory to their watchlist and keep an eye on it from time to time to see if they can help out. At the moment the system is in quite a basic form - the USA is subcategorised by state, everywhere else by country except Africa (likely to be broken down soon) and Antarctica. The trick to sorting an article in this way is to use {{tl|reqphotoin}} or {{tl|reqphotoin2}} in the article's talk page, for instance: <nowiki>{{Reqphotoin|Australia}}</nowiki> adds it to [[:Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Australia]] and <nowiki>{{Reqphotoin|Canada|the United States}}</nowiki> adds it to [[:Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Canada]] and [[:Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in the United States]]. I am basically posting here for two reasons: (1) this sort of activity seems to be the thing that very many stub-sorters might enjoy, and (2) if stub-sorters did a little of this while stub-sorting (you're all likely to come across many articles fitting this description) that would be great too! If there is enough support it may even be worth setting up a dedicated WikiProject. Are there any stub-sorters who are interested in helping out with this task? Or others who wouldn't do it specifically, but may do a little whilst they are stub-sorting? [[User:TheGrappler|TheGrappler]] 23:27, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
:::Just to clarify, I do find {{tl|expand}} useful, but only on larger articles which are no longer marked as stubs. I don't see any point on it as an additional template on articles already marked for expansion by the use of a stub template. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 23:47, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
:::::Right! &mdash; <span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|contrib]]&#93;</span> <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">ツ</span> 00:53, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
::::I agree and think already read (somewhere) this is part of policy, that they should be either one or the other, never ever both. [[User:Goldenrowley|Goldenrowley]] 00:40, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 
==Group touch base on "DEFAULTSORT"==
== Cameroon-geo-stub ==
How does the stub group feel about DEFAULTSORT and if we're embracing it or not? I embraced it whole heartedly for about 2 weeks, and did the whole {{cl|art historian stubs}} category by adding default sorts so they'd all be alphabetized by last name, howver I realized it was cutting into my stub sorting time quite a bit, AND also could be hard to maintain. However if I don't do it the sorting inconsistencies will be more noticeable as time goes on. How do others feel? given a choice, or are we stuck with it? Should we embrace it? Is there a way to turn it off or BOT the entire thing? Shall we get a consensus? [[User:Goldenrowley|Goldenrowley]] 00:33, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
*I think we're going with it: to that effect I've been removing parameterised sort keys from several templates I've come across that use it, and replacing the uses with DS:. (Several of these actually broke the "default", so all the more reason to get rid of them.) But that's not to say I'm going out of my way to add them to ''every'' stub... though it should be done to every bio (and numerous other articles) sooner or later, stub type or not. But in the meantime, you're right, the inconsistencies will get worse before they get better. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 00:53, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
:Not sure I understand the overarching question. It's a feature introduced for a reason, and unlikely to go away. Seems kind of like asking "should we embrace the wikitable syntax?" &lt;puzzled&gt; &mdash; <span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|contrib]]&#93;</span> <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">ツ</span> 00:56, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
::The answer to that question is a firm "maybe", on the basis of the wholly erratic coding of stub templates. I assume the general gist is "should we override any DS: with the sorting in the stub template sort key", and/or "should we systematically be adding DS: to stubs in categories likely to be affected". [[User:Alai|Alai]] 01:25, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
:::Guess I just don't see what the big deal is. When I'm bored, I got from bio article to bio article (the main place that DS is of any use) and convert the cat. sorts to DEFAULTSORT, and I don't see how this relates to stub sorting; the same articles would get DS regardless of whether they are stubs or FAs. &lt;puzzled class="Still"&gt; &mdash; <span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|contrib]]&#93;</span> <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">ツ</span> 01:31, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
::::The only interaction is that prior to existence of DS, and to a large extent to this point since it's not yet "filtered through" bio stub, categories are "sorted" first name first (or rather, whatever starts the article-title-first). If ''everything'' were DS'd, they'd be sorted by last name. Unless we (as I mentioned above) we override the DS with an explicit sort key in the template, we're likely to see an open-ended "transitional" (i.e., until people stob creating new stubs, to wit, indefinitely) jumble between the two. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 01:40, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 
:::::Ah. I get it now. How serious a problem is this seen as? &mdash; <span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|contrib]]&#93;</span> <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">ツ</span> 02:01, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Per the United Nations definition of [[Middle Africa]], could <nowiki>{{Cameroon-geo-stub}}</nowiki> be made a subcategory of [[:Category:Central Africa geography stubs]] in addition to [[:Category:West Africa geography stubs]]? — [[User:BrianSmithson|BrianSmithson]] 22:30, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
:As you'll see from the wording in {{cl|West Africa geography stubs}}, we don't use the UN designations (although perhaps we should...?). I must admit bias, though - I'm not personally in favour of them because I feel Cameroon is culturally, politically and socially far more closely aligned with Nigeria and the rest of west Africa than it is with central Africa (my dad used to work in various parts of west Africa, so I have a little knowledge of the region). In any case, the way things are going it's a fairly moot point - give it a few months and most countries in Africa will rpobably have their own geo-stubs and the regional subcats will be unnecessary. There are a lot of African countries within a dozen or so stubs of reaching threshold. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 02:41, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
::What you say is very true for anglophone Cameroon but not for the formerly French-controlled part. South-central and southeastern Cameroon is much closer to CAR, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, etc. than it is to Nigeria. As for the stub, there already is a Cameroon-geo-stub; it just doesn't sort into Central African geography stubs. It should, in my opinion, be sorted under ''both'' West and Central African geo-stub categories, thus satisfying both the British POV (it's West African) and the French one (it's Central African). — [[User:BrianSmithson|BrianSmithson]] 17:18, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
:::Fair enough - sounds reasonable for places which have separate categories. ISTR that the Georgia and Turkey categories are in both the European and Asia ones in much the same way. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 00:49, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
 
::::::I fretted about it for a while, there was some discussion on it further up this page, and at [[Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Biography/Archive/February_2007#DEFAULTSORT_and_bio-stubs|the bio WPJ]], and I became convinced that the "don't worry about it" option was the one to go with. Sorting isn't really crucial for the intended function of stub types, anyway, it's really just a matter of tidiness. There's scope for using a bot to help ease things over, but the default cleanup action of AWB seems to do something similar (though I couldn't work out exactly when it was doing this, and when it wasn't), so I'm assuming it'll percolate anyway, which may encourage others to tidy up any stragglers. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 02:11, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
== "under-stubbed" people ==
 
:::::::I guess I am in the fretting stage. I can't find things alphabetically when its half sorted one way, half the other. It will be worse in a few months. I suppose Alai's right it is not the crucial to stubbing....[[User:Goldenrowley|Goldenrowley]] 02:15, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
I've compiled a couple of lists "un-double-stubbed" articles from two of the oversized people stub-types: the [[User:Alai/UK-under|UK-]] and [[User:Alai/US-under|US-bio-stubs]]. These are lists of articles that have no occupation or notability stub type, and no permanent category either (other than things like date of birth, death, the dreaded "living people", and various meta-categories). If anyone is stuck for something to do (as if!), they might take a batch of ten of those, double-stub (or perm-cat) them, and strike that block from one or other list. If this is a roaring success, I can upload similar lists for other categories, and of course if anyone has any input on the format, or the basis for generating them, please fire away. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 04:42, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
:where is this list? [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 07:00, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
::They're linked above. ([[User:Alai/UK-under]], [[User:Alai/US-under]]) [[User:Alai|Alai]] 07:29, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
:(slaps head) I thought they linked to the templates :) [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 05:59, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
 
::::::::Half one way, half the other is the worst it can ever be, but yeah, it'll get worse for a while, certainly. I'm ''assuming'' there's a point after which it'll get better...
== Double-stubbing using AWB ==
::::::::I'm in two minds about whether to propose "helping things along" with a bot task. Firstly, at present it's likely to increase the rate at which things "get worse", rather than actually make things "better". Secondly, it's pretty susceptible to scope creep, in terms of how "fancy" the bot could try to get to do this. I may wait until the clamour gets a bit louder, or someone else starts working on it. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 02:35, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
:::::::::Ah the possibility of a Bot to default sort by last names and the annoying "The" at the beginning of titles? Sweet. I hope and wait. In the meantime, I'll try and curb my compulsion for consistency and order.[[User:Goldenrowley|Goldenrowley]] 18:40, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
::::::::::I'd forgotten about "The"s; that would be a fairly safe one to automate, I suppose. Broadly speaking, I was thinking in terms of: i) extracting existing sort keys from individual categories on each article, and generalising that to a DS (with appropriate sanity checks); ii) working from manually-scrutinised and -filtered lists extracted from the unsorted portions of biography categories, with articles names (apparently) fitting the "Firstname Lastname" pattern. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 22:15, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
:::::::::::Please keep in mind that sorts and DS are used also to fix sorting "errors" (from a human readability stand point) introduced by the compterish sorting that happens by default. E.g. [[Ronnie O'Sullivan|Osullivan, Ronnie]]. &mdash; <span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|contrib]]&#93;</span> <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">ツ</span> 23:40, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
::::::::::::Some of we humans would find strict lexicographical ordering of character strings more readable than the Irish phone directory version, but that wouldn't be too difficult to add. However, it's less important that a bot deal with every case than that it handles a reasonable number correctly, and that it doesn't get any actually wrong (or less correct than they started, at least). [[User:Alai|Alai]] 01:28, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
:::::::::::::Well if we need a consensus you can count me in, unfortunatey I do not have any program skills but I could see the time saved, if a Bot went through and just default sorted. Truncating "The" seems very safe, sorting names sounds more risky. [[User:Goldenrowley|Goldenrowley]] 05:10, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 
Alai recently encouraged me to try AWB, and it seems like a pretty useful tool. Pardon me for asking a stupid question, but is there any easy way to use the find-and-replace feature to change an article from using one template to using two - e.g. from {{tl|SouthAm-footybio-stub}} to using both {{tl|Bolivia-stub}} and {{tl|SouthAm-footybio-stub}} ? My computer and I don't really agree on this one. Btw, don't bother fixing this example, btw, I'll do them by hand. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 23:05, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
 
==Cleared out the last few pages in CAT:STUB==
:Forget it :) It appears my computer and I have resumed diplomatic ties. The only thing that's slightly annoying is that simply using find-and-replace doesn't place the two templates on different lines so I do that by hand. If anybody knows of a more clever way, I'll be all ears. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 23:16, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
 
Well, we did it. We've finally got the uncategorised stubs back under control. We've gone from 200 or so stubs to one in less than a week.
::I'm not 100% sure what you're trying to do, but "\r\n" is what your computer will call a newline, I think that will help. [[User:Bluemoose|Martin]] 23:21, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
I went in today and cleared out the last 18--however, I've gone over [[User:Miltopia]]'s user page several times and I can't figure out how it got into this category. [[User:Chyel|Chyel]] 03:21, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
 
== An editor has begun protecting stub templates ==
:::I'm trying to replace one line of text with two (short) lines separated by a newline. Thanks for the tip. I'll give it a try. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 00:01, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
 
For everybody's information, <s>[[User:Qxz]] has begun putting "protection" on a large number of stub templates</s> <small>No I haven't. I'm not even an administrator. :) But the pages ARE protected – [[User talk:Qxz|Qxz]] 09:46, 23 March 2007 (UTC)</small>, something which seems to be rather over the top to me. Has this been debated at all? I doubt this is a very good idea, and if it is done, it should be done on a very small number of templates, but there is clearly no visible pattern here; {{tl|Poland-bio-stub}}, {{tl|Austria-bio-stub}} ???? [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|T]] / [[Special:Contributions/Valentinian|C]]</sup> 08:58, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
::::It worked like a charm. Thanks again. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 00:20, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
 
:Just got a message from him. Apparently, Qxz is just adding templates informing users that a number of stub templates had *already* been protected. My bad. But this still leaves us with the question about why on earth templates like {{tl|Austria-bio-stub}} og {{tl|Ukraine-bio-stub}} are protected in the first place? Several templates on this list aren't the least controversial and we have others that are much more used. Most of all, the list looks like a grab bag. Going through the log, it looks like [[User:Darwinek]] simply protected a number of templates around the 16th / 17th of this month. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|T]] / [[Special:Contributions/Valentinian|C]]</sup> 09:15, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
== category heading ==
 
::According to Qxz, the following stub templates are all protected. Could somebody go through it? Some of the entries clearly don't belong here; e.g. Finland and Norway.
When im putting a stub category in another category, what letter should it be in the alphabetical categorization? thanks, --[[User:Urthogie|Urthogie]] 11:12, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
:If you're putting it into a non-stub category, you'd normally use µ (although some people prefer to pipe it as "|stubs". If you're putting it into a parent ''stub'' category, you can use either a blank space followed by the name or an asterisk followed by the name - which you use will depend largely on what other stub categories are in there and how they're done (sometimes the two different types are used when two different forms of splitting are used, such as "by ___location' and "by type'). The question, of course, remains... what stub category are you categorising, and where to? [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 01:09, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
::Hip hop stubs to hip hop.--[[User:Urthogie|Urthogie]] 10:49, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
 
* <s>{{tl|Album-stub}}</s>
== need help finding a stub==
* <s>{{tl|Artist-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Australia-bio-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Austria-bio-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Band-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Baseball-bio-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Canada-bio-stub}}</s>
* {{tl|Christianity-stub}}
* <s>{{tl|Company-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Composer-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Compu-stub}}</s>
* {{tl|Croatia-bio-stub}}
* <s>{{tl|Diplomat-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Econ-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Explorer-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Film-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Finland-bio-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Food-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Footy-bio-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Footy-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|France-bio-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Germany-bio-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Greece-bio-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Hungary-bio-stub}}</s>
* {{tl|Iran-geo-stub}}
* {{tl|Islam-bio-stub}}
* <s>{{tl|Japan-bio-stub}}</s>
* {{tl|Judaism-stub}}
* <s>{{tl|Musician-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Norway-bio-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Org-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Painter-stub}}</s>
* {{tl|Party-stub}}
* <s>{{tl|Philanthropy-org-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Photographer-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Physics-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Plant-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Poland-bio-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Poli-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Politician-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Record-label-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Romania-bio-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Russia-bio-stub}}</s>
* {{tl|Sectstub}}
* <s>{{tl|Singer-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Software-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Song-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Spain-bio-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Sport-bio-stub}}</s>
* {{tl|Stub}}
* {{tl|Turkey-bio-stub}}
* <s>{{tl|Tv-bio-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|Tv-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|UK-bio-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|UK-politician-stub}}</s> semi-protected
* <s>{{tl|Ukraine-bio-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|US-actor-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|US-bio-stub}}</s>
* <s>{{tl|US-politician-stub}}</s> semi-protected
* <s>{{tl|US-writer-stub}}</s>
 
[[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|T]] / [[Special:Contributions/Valentinian|C]]</sup> 09:35, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Could anyone help me find a stub for rowing and/or boat races? I'm having problems finding where to look, before I propose one. thanks [[User:Mellery|Mike]] 16:04, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
:I don't think there is one. ISTR that there were proposals for both Yachting and Canoeing/Kayaking not that long ago, but I can't seem to find them anywhere at WP:WSS/P. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 01:38, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
::You're maybe thinking of {{tl|Sailing-stub}}, which you nominated for deletion, and I deleted, unfeeling brutes that we are. Perhaps we should smoosh 'em all together as {{tl|boatsport-stub}}, until such time as they're seen to be viable in finer grain categories (duplicate/redirected templates from more obvious names also a possibility). Kudos on the clearing-out of the sports-stubs, Mike. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 05:28, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
 
: There may be more; these are just the ones I came across today – [[User talk:Qxz|Qxz]] 09:47, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
== Sportbio: a fly in the naming guidelines ointment ==
::I've struck out the ones that I unprotected. There are few that might need to remain protected, so I left them alone. If someone else feels otherwise, feel free to unprotect those as well. [[User:Amalas|<b style="color:maroon;">~ Amalas</b>]] [[User talk:Amalas|<span style="color:navy;">rawr</span>]] [[Special:Contributions/Amalas|<sup style="color:navy;">=^_^=</sup>]] 15:21, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 
I assume the logic of protection is that of [[Wikipedia:High-risk templates|High-risk templates]], rather than controversy as such. i.e., how much "damage" some vandalistic -- or just run-of-the-mill confused -- edit would do. (Both in terms of hitting the job queue, and collateral effects on the articles that transclude them.) Recently I came across a couple that had been blanked several weeks ago, and their categories subsequently speedy-deleted as empty... (Rather carelessly on the part of the deleter, I felt, but that's another matter.) I guess no-one was exactly making heavy use of those for expansion purposes. However, as far as I know we've never arrived at any particular formula for which should be protected, and which haven't. We could somewhat arbitrarily atart with those that are now, or have been in the past "over-sized"... (Over 800 transclusions.) [[User:Alai|Alai]] 17:16, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
I was trying to mentally compose some notes to add to the naming guidelines on current schemes, customs and practices, etc, etc, and it occurred to me: what to say about sportbio-stub, and children? Do we want to talk round that, and further systematise it as an exception, or should we rename the whole hierarchy in line with the more general -bio-stub scheme? I thought it better to flag this up here first, since you can be sure that nominating it as a SFR will produce the usual amount of reflexive "'''STRONG NO CHANGE WHATSOEVER''', this is the way we've Always Done Things" votes. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 20:49, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
:I'd be fine with protecting "over-sized" templates. Those can definitely cause damage. As long as we had a definite number, it should be pretty clear-cut. Also, apologies if I unprotected anything that would be considered over-sized. I was just aiming for unprotecting based on "controversial". I'd be perfectly willing to re-protect based on size. [[User:Amalas|<b style="color:maroon;">~ Amalas</b>]] [[User talk:Amalas|<span style="color:navy;">rawr</span>]] [[Special:Contributions/Amalas|<sup style="color:navy;">=^_^=</sup>]] 19:22, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
::Not a problem, we've never (as far as I know) had any systematic criteria here for this, and the general basis for protecting as an HRT has always seemed completely murky to me. While the total number of articles transcluding ''a'' stub template is very large in total, individually they're pretty small potatoes (especially in these days where some templates have tens and even hundreds of thousands of tranclusions (and the jobe queue is often sized to match), so I don't see this as especially urgent. OTOH, clearly there's so now many stub templates that there will frequently be some sort of undetected monkey business in some of them... [[User:Alai|Alai]] 20:21, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
:I've protected a couple of over-sized ones myself over the years, and also a few which are high rish for reasons of edit-warring (most recently {{tl|Cyprus-stub}}, as alluded to in a recent proposal at [[WP:WSS/P]]). A lot of the ones on the list don't make much sense, but things like Turkey-bio-stub - which Amalas seems to have been unprotected - and Iran-geo-stub (due to occasional deletion of Kurdistan stub types in the past) and ones which may be liable to vandals (e.g., Islam-bio-stub) are definitely candidates for protection. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 23:57, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
::I left Iran-geo-stub protected, and I went ahead and re-protected Turkey-bio-stub. [[User:Amalas|<b style="color:maroon;">~ Amalas</b>]] [[User talk:Amalas|<span style="color:navy;">rawr</span>]] [[Special:Contributions/Amalas|<sup style="color:navy;">=^_^=</sup>]] 13:02, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
 
Another one: [[Template:China-geo-stub]] is currently semi-protected. Just in case you want to do anything with that – [[User talk:Qxz|Qxz]] 12:55, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
:At the risk of being contrary, I think the sportsbio-stub system is the better of the two. The general rule is occupation-stub, followed by nation-occupation-stub. Where there is no one-word name for an occupation, the usual thing to do would be to create a concatenation from some descriptive term and "bio". The problem is that sports stubs do this by keeing the hyphen for the country split, some other occupations add in an extra hyphen. If you wanted total consistency you'd have to either drop the hyphen from things like academic-bio-stub or add "-bio" to things like explorer-stub. If we were going to do either, I'd favour dropping the hyphen. BTW, if you're looking for a bio-stub with hyphen problems that are definitely against our NGs, have a look at Hong-Kong-bio-stub! [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 23:03, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
 
:{{tl|US-politician-stub}} (and {{tl|UK-politician-stub}} should probably be at least semi-protected. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|T]] / [[Special:Contributions/Valentinian|C]]</sup> 14:13, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
::But the current name ''isn't'' sport'''''s'''''bio, it's sportbio. :) I disagree with your analysis of what consistency demands (as does current practice for everything else): elsewhere we either have "occupation-stub", or "topic-bio-stub", so far as I know, the sports are the only place we have "topicbio-stub" (correct me if I'm wrong -- oops, I can correct myself, mathbio is also cited on the BGs, but it's only a redirect). The first and second seem perfectly reasonable alternatives, but the combination of the second and third on an entirely ad hoc basis is needlessly confusing. Yes, you could systematically go for the third, than the second, but that would involve changing even more types. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 02:05, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
::Seems reasonable. Done. [[User:Amalas|<b style="color:maroon;">~ Amalas</b>]] [[User talk:Amalas|<span style="color:navy;">rawr</span>]] [[Special:Contributions/Amalas|<sup style="color:navy;">=^_^=</sup>]] 14:23, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
 
==Chemical compound stubs==
:I'd go for sport-bio-stub as it matches up with ''topic''-bio-stub that you mentioned. --[[User:TheParanoidOne|TheParanoidOne]] 09:03, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia has hundreds, if not thousands, of articles on chemical compounds, generally found in the many subcategories of [[:Category:Chemical compounds by element]]. Unfortunately, many of these are permanent stubs and low on content, such as those listed [[:Category:Wikipedia articles with topics of unclear importance from June 2006|here]]. [[Wikipedia:Chemical compounds]] has been created to discuss what to do with all this. Deletion is arguably a waste, but perhaps some articles can be combined into lists for greater comprehensiveness. Please join the discussion on [[Wikipedia talk:Chemical compounds]]. [[User_talk:Radiant!|<b><span style="color:#DD0000;">&gt;<span style="color:#FF6600;">R<span style="color:#FF9900;">a<span style="color:#FFCC00;">d<span style="color:#FFEE00;">i</span>a</span>n</span>t</span>&lt;</span></b>]] 16:24, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
 
== naming guidelines discussion ==
==Prussia geo stubs==
Hey all, I just stumbled upon this: [[Kreis_Jarotschin]] and discovered there's a boatload of these things here: {{cl|Counties_of_Prussia}}. Some of these would be germany geo stubs, some would be poland geo stubs, and all of them are historical. I am soliciting suggestions on how to sort these. - <b>[[User:Crzrussian|CrazyRussian]]</b><small> [[User_talk:Crzrussian|talk]]/[[Special:Contributions/Crzrussian|contribs]]/[[Special:Emailuser/Crzrussian|email]]</small> 16:14, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 
I started a discussion over at the naming guidelines talk page regarding stub categories. ([[Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Naming_guidelines#Countries:_adjective_or_noun.3F|Countries: adjective or noun?]]) It's an age-old debate that would be nice if could be settled. Please head over there and join the discussion so we can get more than just the "usual suspects" talking about it. [[User:Amalas|<b style="color:maroon;">~ Amalas</b>]] [[User talk:Amalas|<span style="color:navy;">rawr</span>]] [[Special:Contributions/Amalas|<sup style="color:navy;">=^_^=</sup>]] 16:43, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
:These are pretty problematic articles. It seems like somebody is creating "Kreis ..." for a lot of areas in Poland, without checking of the information is actually present elsewhere, (see the talk page of [[Posen District]]), so {{tl|Poland-geo-stub}}. Perhaps also: {{tl|Germany-hist-stub}}. If this is carried over the Danish border it'll get rather problematic, since e.g. ''Kreis Hadersleben'' (German) is exactly the same as ''Haderslev Amt'' (Danish), only the language is different. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 16:38, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 
== New draft of WP:STUB ==
:I'd treat them exactly the same as other historical regions - combination of X-hist-stub and currentlocation-geo-stub. That's how things like Roman Provinces are deal with. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 05:17, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
 
After concerns raised at WP talk:Stub about the complexity of [[WP:STUB]], I have written a rough draft to shorten it. The new draft contains the same information, but is 25% shorter. It also removes some of the information on how to create stub templates - information which is in part responsible for the large number of "discoveries" and is also responsible (due to the misreading by some editors) of the need to trawl the non-existent {{cl|B stubs}} for stubs "about A". Please feel free to make any comments, positive or negative on my new draft ([[User:Grutness/WP Stub rewrite (draft)]] at its talk page. ''(crossposted to WP talk:Stub and Template talk:Stub)'' [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 00:17, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
::I've sorted them this way. Actually quite easy they all relate to areas in modern Poland. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 10:36, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
 
== Stubs from April 1st db dump... ==
==Why?==
I'm curious about something. Do stub categories really attract experts to expand articles? Does anyone really look at the stub category pages for articles to work on? Or is it more just a tag to alert readers that the subject may not be complete? -[[User:Freekee|Freekee]] 04:16, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
*I'm sure it serves that purpose, but obviously for that, stub ''sorting'' isn't required, just any ol' tag would do. I think it has some utility in regard to attracting editors to subjects related to to ones they're already interested in (not necessarily experts as such), but obviously that's hard to quantify. Another benefit of stub types is as a placeholder for permanent categories; "bulk stub-tagging" and subsequent re-sorting will get an article into the general vicinity of an appropriate category, as opposed to being left to languish until the initial batch of editors think up an exact categorisation. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 04:27, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
**FWIW, a lot of editors on wikiprojects do use the stub categories for exactly this purpose, and it's quite clear from the fluctuations in numbers with every tally i do of the geo-stubs that a lot of articles do evebtually get expanded. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 06:06, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
 
Are now being bot-populated into {{cl|stubs}}. (No foolin'.) I don't exactly how many there will be by the time the run's finished, as the number of "words" in the article isn't available in the info I have from the db, and is being evaluated "live". (Let's hope my code for doing so isn't too flakey, ha-ha.) It's likely to run to a couple of thousand, though... [[User:Alai|Alai]] 01:45, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
=={{tl|Mascot-stub}}...==
...is busted. It was pointing to {{Cl|Stubs}}, which flooded that cat, and now it's pointing to the non-existent {{Cl|Mascot stubs}}. Would a maven plz fix it? - <b>[[User:Crzrussian|CrazyRussian]]</b><small> [[User_talk:Crzrussian|talk]]/[[Special:Contributions/Crzrussian|contribs]]/[[Special:Emailuser/Crzrussian|email]]</small> 18:23, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
 
==Classifying articleUncategorised as "stub" templates ==
What criteria are involved in deciding whether or not an article is a stub? Wikipedia articles are obviously not all the same length: a famous world politician is going to merit several pages, whilst a minor 15th century composer about whom little is known may be worth an entry in Wikipedia but is never going to make it beyond a "stub". Yet the "stub" tag will remain there for ever because the short paragraph is really all that is commonly known about him. Does this matter? [[User:Hikitsurisan|Hikitsurisan]] 06:36, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
:It's not ideal for that to be the case, but it does tend to happen to an extent, I'll grant. Another option in many cases would be to merge, though a suitable target isn't always clear (minor 15th century of <blah> genre/country?). If a topic has been well-researched, isn't deletable as insufficiently notable, and can't reasonably be merged to some larger article, then in theory it shouldn't be tagged as a stub (though if it's ''very'' short, others may somewhat reflexively add it back again). I'd try to avoid a long-term "full article" being less than 500 characters, at least. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 07:03, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 
We seem to have prevailed on a bot tagging templates as "uncategorised" if they don't have a category under {{cl|Wikipedia templates}} to skip stub templates, on the basis that they're already categorised by topic via their stub categories. However, getting on for two hundred of them aren't in any category at all, as it turns out: see [[User:Alai/uncatstubtemplate]]. This is presumably via a mixture of complete omission of a cat, and "creative" stub template coding (the (n)ever-popular "includeonly the category, noinclude a paragraphy of chit-chat", most likely). If people want to help go through these, and fix them up/standardise them, I'd be obliged. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 04:35, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
:Presently far too many articles are classified as stubs, I think some people add a stub tag to any article that isn't finished -- which is the vast majority of our articles of course. The problem with this is that it totally defeats the point in actually using stub tags, i.e. how do stub tags help you identify very short articles when about 40% of all articles are stubbed? To me a stub is any article that is just a couple of sentences, we should be much bolder about removing tags from articles that are much longer than this. [[User:Bluemoose|Martin]] 09:19, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 
:People were probably inspired by seeing the look of {{tl|Stub}}. We might as well start by cleaning that one up so people don't get the wrong ideas. I've done a few of them, but most of the list looks like SFD fodder.[[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|T]] / [[Special:Contributions/Valentinian|C]]</sup> 07:24, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 
::That's a good point, I was in two minds about that one. (It didn't appear on the list purely by dint of being upper-case "S" on the draft list of all uncategorised templates, which I then filtered for "stub".) OK, let's also have {{tl|stub}} conform to [[WP:STUB]], though possibly after the current population has been depleted. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 15:51, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
::Some editors add a stub template to everything, but I'm pretty sure they're a minority. I find the situation a bit more complex. [[WP:STUB]] defines a stub as:
::''A stub is an article that is not long enough to be a full article. In general, it must be long enough to at least define the article's title, which generally means 3 to 10 short sentences. Note that even a longer article on a complicated topic may be a stub; conversely, a short article on a topic of narrow scope may not be a stub.''
 
== Please replace a stub image ==
::''Another way to define a stub is an article so incomplete that an editor who knows little or nothing about the topic could improve its content after a superficial Web search or a few minutes in a reference library. An article that can be improved by only a rather knowledgeable editor, or after significant research, may not be a stub.''
::I pretty much try to go by the three-to-ten short sentences rule. If the article has this length and is clearly too short or incomplete, I tag it as a stub. But I'd like to hear more input on this one. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 20:07, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 
Orkney has got a new flag, so could somebody replace the image on {{tl|Orkney-stub}} with [[:image:2007 Flag of Orkney.svg|this one]]? [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|T]] / [[Special:Contributions/Valentinian|C]]</sup> 14:30, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
:::That'd be pretty much what I do. OTOH, I'm possibly a little less blithe about ''removing'' stub tags -- and I'm sure I'm not the only one, give the 40% figure (which probably also misses quite a few that ''are'' very short, but aren't tagged at all). This is especially so if I'm "mechanically" restubbing things in bulk from StubSense- or dump-originated lists, using AWB, though if I get a "long stub" alert, the article's been perm-catted in such a way as to make the stub type redundant from that aspect, and there's not anything else flagrantly stubbish (like 90% of the article being a table, or a suspicious-looking splodge of unwikified text). If I'm editing the article "manually", I'd generally be quicker to de-tag it if it seems to have edges from "stub" to "start" (or better).
:Looks like it's been done. [[User:Amalas|<b style="color:maroon;">~ Amalas</b>]] [[User talk:Amalas|<span style="color:navy;">rawr</span>]] [[Special:Contributions/Amalas|<sup style="color:navy;">=^_^=</sup>]] 15:29, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
:::One thing that's possible is to automatically generate lists of long stubs, and have people examine them systematically for "tag lag". I believe BlueMoose was producing these at one point; if he's stopped, I could do so. CatScan also has facilities for this, if you find it working on any given day. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 23:31, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
::Thanks anyhow. I was a bit surprised seeing that this template was still protected. The edit war primarily dealt with the unofficial yellow/red flag, but the new official flag is also a Nordic Cross flag, so I don't think the image will cause any more problems. The second part of the revert war was about if the text should read "Orkney, UK" or "Orkney, Scotland", and {{tl|Shetland-stub}} reads "Shetland, Scotland", but I'm not going into that mess. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|T]] / [[Special:Contributions/Valentinian|C]]</sup> 15:40, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
::BlueMoose was doing this - he had lists of long stub-tagged articles and short un-tagged articles. The problem with simply going by length is that in many cases some things are clearly stubs even when they seem very large if you're going by length alone. I regularly come across articles with one short sentence of text followed by an infobox, a list of examples, and a navigation box. That adds up to quite a length, but the basic article is just the one initial sentence, so it's still clearly a stub. On the other hand, we have things that clearly aren't stubs even though they're short. The article on the village of [[Croughton]], where I used to live, is short and isn't a stub, simply because the village itself is very small. The same length of article on [[New York]] would be embarrassingly stubby. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 02:47, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
:::Why not simply "Orkney"? While Shetland at least has the excuse of having a disambiguation page, Orkney doesn't even have that. <span style="font-family:cursive">[[User:Caerwine|Caerwine]]</span> [[User_talk:Caerwine|<small style="font-family:sans-serif;color:darkred">Caer’s whines</small>]] 23:12, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
::::Works for me, and one person at the template talk page already agrees. If there's no bunfight there tom-- eh, later today, I'll edit it accordingly. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 02:58, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
:::::Sounds like a good idea. Mais oui! didn't like the yellow-red flag and replaced it with a copyrighted IOC flag, also adding the ", Scotland" thing. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template%3AOrkney-stub&diff=71117588&oldid=68148587]. This was in turn reverted by Mallimak to the yellow-red flag and a ", UK" suffix. We might as well remove the ", Scotland" from {{tl|Shetland-stub}}, I don't think anybody will confuse the Scottish isles with the South Atlantic. However, after seeing the edit history of Mallimak's user page, I'm getting somewhat in doubt as to whether it is a good idea to unprotect the Orkney-template. Which reminds me, we never got around to placing {{tl|Orkney-bio-stub}} on SFD. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|T]] / [[Special:Contributions/Valentinian|C]]</sup> 09:36, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
::::::Is the bio-stub being overused? If in deleting it would just end up retagging all the Orkney-bios with Orkney-stub, where it feeds anyway, I'm not sure I'd bother. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 18:57, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
 
:::::Why have we even got an Orkney-bio-stub? We don't normally have bio-stubs for subnational entities... BTW, regarding de-protecting, ISTR that the [[orkney islands]] page has suffered frequent bouts of POV pushing and even a fork in its time, which may be worth thinking about if the stub template is unprotected. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''[[User_talk:Grutness|<small style="color:#008822;">wha?</small>]]'' 23:51, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
==Sex bias in bio-stubs==
::::::Doesn't appear to be much overused. Mostly Earls of Orkney back when Orkney was independent of Scotland, and other persons who have a connection beyond simply birthplace. Indeed, there's almost enough to warrant giving it a category of its own except that we'd be left with less than 10 stubs feeding into Orkney stubs. Perhaps once the Orkney and Shetland geo stubs get large enough to have separate categories. <span style="font-family:cursive">[[User:Caerwine|Caerwine]]</span> [[User_talk:Caerwine|<small style="font-family:sans-serif;color:darkred">Caer’s whines</small>]] 00:01, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm concerned with the use of male icons in bio-stub messages, which are both androcentric and reinforce stereotypes. For instance, it seems to say that the person depicted in the image is what a "typical" Korean or "typical" American politician looks like, and reinforces the idea that women are a less perfect representation of a group than a man (in the same way that "man" used to be used to represent everyone). My suggestion is to prohibit the use of images of people in bio-stub templates. [[User:Sarge Baldy|Sarge Baldy]] 18:44, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
::::::We have it because of an Orcadian editor. It is a very unusual scope, on the other hand, how should we tag these earls; with {{tl|Norway-bio-stub}}? AFAIK, the area was part of Norway at the time. At least technically. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|T]] / [[Special:Contributions/Valentinian|C]]</sup> 00:50, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
:This isn't a proposal for a stub ''type''; WSS talk page, please. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 19:09, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
::Apologies, I thought that "reorganization of existing stub types" might including these sorts of broad changes. [[User:Sarge Baldy|Sarge Baldy]] 19:17, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
:Rather than removing all the icons, perhaps more thought should be given to addressing the balance by simply replacing some of the male images with female ones. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 02:00, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
::Personally, I've always found the majority of sex bias issues rather silly. The icon isn't meant to represent anything but one of the more well-known examples of a group, to make a stub template look pretty. For example, Abraham Lincoln, who if I recall correctly is the US politician icon, is among the first people many think of when considering US politicians. I think you're making an awfully big deal out of an awfully small icon. [[User:Crystallina|Crystallina]] 03:52, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
:me too - but although neither of us think it's a big deal, some people do, so it's still worth thinking about. And let's face it, if just adding an icon of Marie Curie to chemist-stub or Marian Jones to athlete-stub is going to keep more people happy, I say it's not too much to ask. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 05:38, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
:Well, I just thought an overall policy might be useful when you have stub icons such as this one: [[:Template:Korea-bio-stub]], generalizing an entire people as male. I mean, even without the overwhelming male bias on Wikipedia, can you really picture someone thinking to choose the depiction of a woman to represent the people of any country? Using a more "affirmative action" sort of policy would be much better than things are now, although it seems a bit more difficult to implement, and I don't think there's all that much of a value in the picture icons anyway; they often just look tacky. [[User:Sarge Baldy|Sarge Baldy]] 18:11, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
::Sure, I can think of a region that chooses [[Marianne|a woman as a symbol of the contry]]. The value of the icons is that their meaning is more quickly recognized when an article is just scanned and not read in depth. Without icons, the stub notices tend to blend in with the article text. [[User:Slambo|Slambo]] <small><font color="black">[[User talk:Slambo|(Speak)]]</font></small> 19:00, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
:::That's pretty common, actually: the whole abstract-nouns-are-female thing, essentially. It doesn't mean there's a presupposition that the (stereo)typical French person is female: she's a symbol of the nation, not of the citizen. Using Indira Gandhi or (ahem) Maggie Thatcher would be more in line with G's suggestion. Should we be using them at all: I've lost track, what's the current word from the devs and site people on the server load issue, for one thing? [[User:Alai|Alai]] 01:14, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 
==Double catting of football (soccer) players==
== Sharing common code ==
I seen some players were double catted, some were born outside their native countries and spent his career on both countries, so i keep it in both catted. But should it be only catted in their own country which he played international match (the national team), despite some of them never played for the local clubs, like, [[Owen Hargreaves]]. [[User:Matthew_hk|<span style="color:yellow; background-color:black;">Matthew_hk</span>]] [[User talk:Matthew_hk|''<span style="color: Blue;">t</span>'']][[Special:Contributions/Matthew_hk|''<span style="color: red;">c</span>'']] 19:27, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
:I don't think there's anything at all wrong with the double-catting as long as it's not based on ethnicity/ancestry ("Pakistani" being applied to a Pakistani-British UK-born UK citizen who's only played for the UK, for example), not based on temporary/practice residency (c.f. [[Thorsten Hohmann]], a German who is lately a resident of Florida but still plays as a German rep), or other nonsense. I mostly deal with [[cue sport]]s, and since there are few team-based events in question &mdash; the [[Mosconi Cup]] is pretty much all there is, and MC has yet to see the kind of inter-nation crossover you speak of &mdash; others may need to weigh in on this issue.
:I can offer [[Alex Pagulayan]], a Filipino-Canadian (Philppines-born, Canadian citizen since early childhood, and rather recently a Philippines re-immigrant seeking citizenship there). ''Regardless'' of those legal residency issues, he has ''officially played'' as both a Canadian and a Filipino in different periods, and I would defend to the death his dual categorization (and dual stub tagging). In his ''particular'' case, I would cat him under both the Canadian and Filipino sportspeople categories because of what countries he's officially represented, ''and'' in both the .ca and .ph "People from..." categories, because he really is "from" both countries in a substantial sense (the latter because of his birthplace not his attempt at repatriatization though its eventual success would strengthen the case, and the former because of his long-standing legal citizenship and life history). If some German footballer jumped to the Austrian team, I'd personally lean toward putting him in both of the national sportspeople cats, but enforcing his absence from the "People from &#91;somewhere in&#93; Austria" cat unless/until he obtained actual Austrian citizenship, or he spent a sizable portion of his career not just playing for the Austrian team but ''living there permanently'' as well (and, yes, he would also remain in {{cl|People from Germany}}, or something more specific). — <span style="font-family:Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|cont]]&#93;</span> <span style="color:#900;font-weight:bold;">‹(-¿-)›</span> 12:15, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
 
Just someone cat a player from colony, but just sloely played on Portugal and their national team to double catt. (assume [[Eusébio]]). [[User:203.185.57.117|203.185.57.117]] 11:34, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Hi guys,
 
==[[:Category:Stub categories]] for ''all'' stubs?==
after fixing {{tl|Italy-politician-stub}} I have noticed that all the other templates in the European Politicians category have similar problems. Many of them diverge into their own style, with variations in italicization and/or image size. Would you mind if I factored out all the common code and made each template just forward to the master one? Note that all these templates are already meta-templates, so factoring out common code can only improve consistency and make maintenance easier. —[[User:Gennaro Prota|<span style="color: #000080; font-weight: bold;">Gennaro Prota</span>]][[User talk:Gennaro Prota|<sup style="color: #006400;">•Talk</sup>]] 12:14, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Should ''every'' stub appear here, or only those that are a) top-level, or b) have not been more narrowly categorized? I s'pect the latter, since otherwise the category would be so huge as to be useless. — <span style="font-family:Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|cont]]&#93;</span> <span style="color:#900;font-weight:bold;">‹(-¿-)›</span> 12:15, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
:Current practice is the former, given especially that that's what {{tl|Stub Category}} does. I've wondered about the wisdom of it myself, though. We might consider adding a "top level stub categories" cat, or indeed, higher-level containers by topic of various, in addition to that for the time being, and review in due course whether we need the "kitchen sink" version. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 18:46, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
::I'd never noticed that the template was doing that. Wh'appen' was I ran across an apparently rather aged stubcat, and it had something approximating the text of {{tl|Stub Category}} but wasn't actually using that template, and had [[:Category:Stub categories]] manually added to it; was the first time I'd ever seen [[:Category:Stub categories]] in a stubcat's code, thus I asked the above, thinking it might be something new that I'd missed, this adding of this supra-cat to stub-cats. :-) I went and replaced the old code with {{tl|Stub Category}}. This was at {{cl|New Mexico geography stubs}}. — <span style="font-family:Tahoma;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">[[User:SMcCandlish|SMcCandlish]]</span> &#91;[[User_talk:SMcCandlish|talk]]&#93; &#91;[[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|cont]]&#93;</span> <span style="color:#900;font-weight:bold;">‹(-¿-)›</span> 19:30, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
:::Generally it's only added explicitly when the {{tl|Stub Category}}'s been subst'd, or there's a hand-coded variant, as is sometimes the case where there's a "specialised" alternative to the newstub parameter. Though thinking about that, why don't we just add an alternative parameter for such cases? Mind you, I've seen quite a few cases where it's been added ''as well as'' the template, for no real apparent reason. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 21:26, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
 
== Housekeeping (boring, but read it anyway) ==
:The standard flag size normally 30px, and I updated a very large number of national templates this standard around 1 month ago, and I haven't noticed any massive changes since then. I used the 30px as a guideline since this was / is the most used variation. Indeed, exceptions exist - e.g. the Norwegians, but in this particular case, it has to do with graphics problems for this flag. Other examples probably exist. I like the idea about a standard flag size, but the standard should remain at 30px to avoid more work than necessary. Regards. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 18:14, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
::Btw, I'm pretty surprised if the code diverges as much as you say. For the simple reason that I've created virtually all the politician-templates you mention, and almost all of them were copied from the same original. I've never noticed any stub tag that does not have the same ID, ''stub'', following the "recipe" listed at WP:STUB. Did I completely miss something? [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 18:20, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 
When one is proposing a stub template and/or category, it would help those of us tidyers who list and close and update if the proposed template and/or cat names were listed. I don't want to have to guess at spelling, CamelCase, etc. when I list items for creation or archiving, An added bonus is that if you use the wiki code (i.e. <nowiki>{{tl|housekeeping-stub}}</nowiki>), when that item gets created, the link shows up and I feel confident about archiving the discussion.
:::And copy-and-paste is indeed the error. Believe me, it is the worst enemy of programmers and anyone who has to maintain a code base: it creates a zillion copies of one simple thing and give them a zillion of autonomous lives. The creatures will be all in sync at the beginning but at some point in time they won't. Guaranteed. And if you need a change you have to do it in all copies (admitting you have a way to identify/find all copies). As to the ID, I guess you took it the other way round: I meant that we should *not* use the same id (actually, I don't see why we use an id at all) because when you have multiple stub tags in the same article they clash: ids must be unique within a document. —[[User:Gennaro Prota|<span style="color: #000080; font-weight: bold;">Gennaro Prota</span>]][[User talk:Gennaro Prota|<sup style="color: #006400;">•Talk</sup>]] 19:24, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 
Don't make me send the flying monkeys...[[User:Pegship|Her Pegship]] [[User talk:Pegship|<small style="color:green;"> (tis herself)</small>]] 06:05, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
::::I'm no programmer, but I understood this one. I can only agree that copy-paste creates its own problems. I'm still somewhat puzzled why you've removed the italics from {{tl|Italy-politician-stub}} since this makes the template rather unique, but this is irrelevant to the main point. I've done a sampling of around 15-20 stub templates and as far as I can see, all stub templates use the same ID, regardless of their topic matter. You seem to know a lot more about the technical side of the templates than most of us here. If this is a problem in need of fixing, it seems to be a universal problem for all stub templates. Unfortunately, we've been told that mass edits to the stub templates is not the most welcome behaviour since it apparently causes a lot of strain on the servers. For this reason, we need to be absolutely sure about which approach to take, so any new policy - if implemented - will only require 1 edit per template. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 19:59, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
:::::The id was probably introduced to have a chance to switch stub tags off via CSS. [[User:Conscious|Conscious]] 20:10, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 
::::::Hi guys, and sorry for the late reply. First of all I'm happy to see that I'm talking to smart people. I assure you there are tons of IT "professionals" who don't understand the evils of copy-and-paste. And last time I was on commons, I found a template which had different docs in three different places. When I asked what was the most up-to-date documentation someone ''peremptorily'' replied: "Don't touch them, they say basically the same and '''redundancy is good'''". Ok, back to the point... I'm a programmer (C++) but I'm no wiki-template or HTML expert. Removal of italics was unintended: I guess I removed the first two <code>'</code> characters when removing <code>&amp;nbsp;</code> and then found an unmatched <code><nowiki>''</nowiki></code> at the end, which I removed as well, thinking I had introduced it. Oh, let me also suggest to never let you ''frighten'' by someone's appearant competence: it could be completely false. I can explain what's going on, there's no need to believe me "on faith" :)
 
::::::The <code>&amp;nbsp;</code> solution is faulty because it adds a space before the first word *only*; thus if you make the browser window small enough you'll get something like:
:::::::<tt>&#124;&nbsp;this is<br>&#124;a stub</tt>&nbsp;''(no space before "a")''
::::::instead of
:::::::<tt>&#124;&nbsp;this is<br>&#124;&nbsp;a stub</tt>
 
::::::IDs must be unique within a HTML document as per the HTML standard. Browsers usually ignore duplicated IDs when rendering the page but technically speaking the behavior in presence of duplicates is undefined. And that will cause troubles for Javascripts that try to find an element of the page by ID, of course. What [[User:Conscious|Conscious]] says is already taken care of by the metadata class (try a print preview on the template). Actually I'm against hiding the whole message in print. Those who read the article on paper should still know it is a stub, IMHO. I also don't like when many stub tags are added to a single article, such as in [[Luigi Einaudi]]: you see it's a lot of duplicated info; I would rather prefer something along the lines of:
<table style="background-color: transparent; margin-left: 20%" summary="Stub notice">
<tr><td>''This article is a [[Wikipedia:Stub|stub]] belonging to the following categories:
<!--
-->{| style="background-color: transparent; margin-left: 5%"
|[[Image:{{Country flag alias Italy}}|12px|Flag of Italy (small picture)]] Italian politician stubs&nbsp;• [[Image:Liberty 1 by bencwright.jpg|12px]] Liberalism stubs
|}</td></tr>
<tr>
<td>''You can [[Wikipedia:Stub#Ideal stub article|help]] Wikipedia by <span class="plainlinks">[{{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|action=edit}} expanding it]''</span>.</td></tr>
</table></div>
 
::::::When printing, I would prefer to short everything to "This article is a stub/you can help", without the table. I'm not a big fan of the images either.
 
::::::As to the reason why there's no accepted width for flag images, I think it's because they have different ratios. Wiki-markup only allows you to choose the width: the height is chosen respecting the original image ratio, so it may end up being too high or too small for some flags. <small> (unsigned comment by [[User:Gennaro Prota]] </small>)
 
:::::::Well, for one thing, your proposal would definitely remove the duplicate "this ...-article is a stub ..." messages we've been criticized for. This in turn might remove some of the opposition to the double-stubbing of articles, we've encountered. I did notice the missing space before the A occationally, but I actually thought it was yet another bug in IE, so I guess I owe Bill Gates an apology. You are right about the flag size problem, and it would have been a lot easier if we could simply assign a standard vertical size instead of a horizontal one. Your proposal is very interesting, but I'd like to hear a bit more input from other stub sorters. To play the Devil's Advocate, the first issue that jumps to my mind is that a new mother of all (stub) templates would need to be fully protected since any edit to it might affect more than 100,000 articles (and this is a low estimate.) I'm a bit nervous that the server people might have a fit hearing about such a template. All in all, I feel this proposal merits a bit more thought (on my behalf anyway). I have no clear favourite regarding how the articles / stubs should look in print, but your example looks good as an on-screen version. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 17:37, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
 
::A couple of questions - a) is there any reason why 30px is used for the flags, not 40px as with country-stubs and geo-stubs? b) is there any reason flags are used ''at all''? Up until recently we've been using a famous politician for many countries, which I think is a far better idea; 3) is there any reason why the text of the template isn't italicised? [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 01:58, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
:::As far as I can see, the 30px is the most used version all around, but if 40px can be agreed upon, then by all means. Some of the European material used 25px, and I've changed them to 30px (I'm a bit usure about the Brits, btw.) I simply think it would be easier to make as few changes as possible. I just took another sampling of county- and geo-templates and the vast majority use 30px. 2) Using famous politicians as stub icons was my preferred version as well, but introducing them usually resulted in a few less-than-enthusiastic comments. Some editors felt it was confusing that the image was a different person than the topic of the article. Others disapproved for more partisan / historical reasons (see e.g. the edit history of {{tl|Czech-politician-stub}}. {{tl|SouthAfrica-politician-stub}} and the U.S. material seem to be uncontroversial, on the other hand. 3) No matter which code is used, the template should be italicised, so I'll changed that back. But the main issue still seems to be what to do with a "standard" code, and if all templates should use the same ID or not. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 09:06, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
 
V is right about his estimate being low: 400,000 would be closer. GP's correct on the SE principals, but there's no way this could be implemented using meta-templates: every time the master were edited, the server would fall over for a week (and the perpetrator would be banned for a year). The only way to do this would be do maintain a centralised list of template parameters, and when a change is to be made, to propagate it to the individual templates in a gradual fashion, by bot. Even that would have to be very tightly controlled, as a single stub template edit could be very "expensive" (bear in mind that UK-bio-stub is transcluded 3,000 times), which is likely far too much "democratic centralism" for the tastes of our numerous critics. Continued semi-controlled quasi-consensual anarchy is far more likely to be the order of the day for the foreseeable future. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 01:22, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 
:In that case, it seems like the implementation of any such policy - nomatter who appealing the theory sounds - would be contain all to much risk of sending the servers back into the stone age. It seems like we'll need to stick to a cumbersome but low-risk system. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 15:31, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 
== Not sharing common code ==
 
Yes, this is not a typo. I think a completely different approach should be used for stub marking. The current situation is a total mess where even experienced users find it difficult to choose the appropriate stub tag(s) for a given article. Actually, we already have categories, so why having "stub categories"?. If an article is, let's say, an Italy-related article and it is a stub then it is, as a plain logical consequence, an "Italy-related stub". Therefore, MediaWiki should manage everything. We should only mark the article as stub and the software should provide a way to browse either all stub articles or all stubs by categories. And it could use a special symbol (let's say <tt>'''[stub]'''</tt> or <span style="cursor:default" title="This article is a stub"><tt>'''[s]</tt>'''</span> to indicate stubs in categories pages. The current "solution" is absolutely unmaintainable and error-prone and wastes everyone time. —[[User:Gennaro Prota|<span style="color: #000080; font-weight: bold;">Gennaro Prota</span>]][[User talk:Gennaro Prota|<sup style="color: #006400;">•Talk</sup>]] 17:15, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
 
:This comes up periodically, and indeed, there's certainly some redundancy between the two. But firstly, mediawiki ''doesn't'' manage any of this, so this'd have to go via the developers.
 
:: So?<sup>(gp)</sup>
 
:Secondly, if you think the stub sorting system is a total mess... have you seen the permanent categories lately? Stub-sorting is at least marginally easier than categorisation, as the range of options is a good deal smaller, and at least somewhat managed; and because tagging with a template is a little more convenient than with a category.
 
::This argument is moot. Categorization is a concept on its own. What if someone then comes with something like <nowiki>{{Italy-politician cleanup}}</nowiki>, <nowiki>{{Computer software cleanup}}</nowiki> etc.? I simply think MediaWiki has been developed without any stub marking idea in mind. Fortunately that's trivial to add. About the granularity issue, it's up to the reader to decide how deep in the tree he wants to go. And if categories are a mess that's another problem.<sup>(gp)</sup>
 
:Lastly, it wouldn't achieve the same effect. Perm-cats are allowed to be small to the point of silliness (I've in the past nominated singleton cats for deletion, and had that opposed), and filtering for the stubs only would exaggerate that: you'd end up with a very deep, "stringy" system, very different from the situation of having only "viable" stub types with at least 60 articles in them each (supposedly -- naturally some people aren't happy when their "pet" over-categorised stub type is culled on grounds of mere size). [[User:Alai|Alai]] 22:39, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
 
::Now you are totally inventing rationales, sorry.
--
(gp)=[[User:Gennaro Prota|<span style="color: #000080; font-weight: bold;">Gennaro Prota</span>]][[User talk:Gennaro Prota|<sup style="color: #006400;">•Talk</sup>]] 12:06, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
 
I am not "inventing rationales"; please [[WP:AGF|assume good faith]]. I've also no idea what you mean by your reply to my second point; I think I've demonstrated that the issues are far from "trivial", but as you don't address any of my points, further comment would seem, well, pointless. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 14:35, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
 
:It was not meant to be offensive. You are doing that in good faith, but you are inventing rationales, in the sense that what is allowed/what is not isn't written anywhere: you just said what you *imagine* to be the rationale for having a separate stub classification. And even if it is written somewhere, it is absolutely unfeasible, so it was an experiment which failed. As to the second point, I meant that if we want a separate tassonomy for stubs, why not having one for articles to be cleaned up too? And then why not a separate one for articles that have a bad punctuation? You see, this is an unmanageable approach. The fact that an article is a stub and the fact that it belongs to a given category are totally orthogonal (read: independent); thus the corresponding markers should be independentely applicable and usable. I also don't understand why each time a software modification is required everyone seems to be afraid. If Mediawiki developers refure to implement features which improve our work on Wikipedia we can always create a fork; MediaWiki is free software. Please, let me know if I have still not addressed all your points. —[[User:Gennaro Prota|<span style="color: #000080; font-weight: bold;">Gennaro Prota</span>]][[User talk:Gennaro Prota|<sup style="color: #006400;">•Talk</sup>]] 15:09, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
 
You haven't addressed the main concern - which is the viability of stub categories on the basis of size. You may look on it as inventing a rationale, but it is the main single reason why stub sorting exists. Otherwise we'd have done it by the method you suggest or similar ages ago. There is simply no point in calculating and marking stubs in cases where there may be one or two stubs per category. The whole purpose of stub sorting is to help editors to find stub articles that they can expand. To do that, it is no use to list the one or two stubs per category that need sorting - it is far more useful; to have reasonable numbers of stubs assembled into one place. Stub sorting does that by creating categories only when the number of stubs hits a reasonable threshold and splitting these categories only when the number of stubs becomes excessive. That can't be done by the methods you suggest, which is why similar suggestions have been rejected in the past. Look at it this way. You're an editor looking for stubs to expand. You might be able to expand 1/10 of the stubs around in a moderately broad subject area. Which is easier - to look through a category containing 100 stubs, picking out the ten or so you can work on, or looking through five to ten main categories each of which have one or two stubs before even finding one that you can edit? [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 01:19, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
 
:I'm wasting my energies in a pointless discussion. Please, cling to your ideas. Given that stub categories don't even follow a consistent naming convention, 80% of the times I'll not know what name to use and I'll just attach {{tl|stub}}. Then, maybe, someone else who has tons of time to waste will sharpen the category. Some of the people who contribute to Wikipedia subvert all the good rules of data processing and are even so pretentious to state they are right. What's more, they do that in a tone that almost mocks at the person who is trying to highlight their errors. What could we do? Either we should reserve maintenance tasks and design choices to people who understand how to maintain an enormous information base such as Wikipedia is (and that computers have been created to spare time, not to waste it) or we have to be contented with the a bloom of parochial approaches we already have and which don't help anyone. —[[User:Gennaro Prota|<span style="color: #000080; font-weight: bold">Gennaro Prota</span>]][[User talk:Gennaro Prota|<sup style="color: #006400">•Talk</sup>]] 17:08, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
::Is that another way of saying that - rather than answering the points raised - you'd prefer to attack the people raising the points? The stub categories follow as logical a naming convention as we can - every time we find a new one that someone has created out of process with a dumb name, we try to rename it according to the standard stub naming guidelines. That we have trouble keeping up is not our fault. In any case, you don't need to know the names of the categories to add stub templates. All you need to know is the names of the templates - which again are as logically formed as we can make them (you should see the fights that have occurred here in the past with people who have arbitrarily named stub templates any olfd thing rather than try to follow and easily understandable pattern!) And no-one here has made any attempt to mock you. Then again, you haven't "tried to highlight our errors", either - all you have done is point out to us a system that would not perform the same tasks as we are trying to achieve. If you can come up with a method which fulfils all the requirements of stub sorting (which so far you haven't done), come back and we'll listen. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 23:26, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 
== Transclusion on [[WP:WSS/P]] and [[WP:SFD]] ==
 
I have a proposal to use per-month trancluded pages for [[WP:WSS/P]], like [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals/June 2006]]. Hopefully this will simplify archiving and reduce the size of the page you load when editing.
 
Another proposal is to change logging scheme for [[WP:SFD]]. Currently, closed discussions are cut-and-pasted to the logs. What about transcluded per-week logs? I think that per-day logs (similar to [[WP:CFD]]) would be clearly too short (sometimes there are 0-1 nominations per day). Per-month logs, on the other hand, are going to be too long (about the combined size of [[Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion/Log/Deleted/April 2006|these]] [[Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion/Log/Not deleted/April 2006|two]]). We can also create templates similar to {{tl|cfd top}} and {{tl|cfd bottom}} to mark closed discussions. [[User:Conscious|Conscious]] 07:47, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 
:The first, on /P, seems a clear win; it doesn't materially affect the appearance of, or procedures on, the page, and should make things easier all 'round. The second I'm not quite as sure about; it'd involve significant changes to how the page operates; in particular, actually closing discussions inside of a week, admittedly no bad idea in itself. Perhaps we should start off with the closed-discussion templates as a first step. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 15:17, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
::I'd definitely support it on /P. Not sure it's really necessary on SFD - it's relatively short - but {{tl|sfd top}} and {{tl|sfd bottom}} would be worthwhile, I'd think. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 23:14, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, is there any sense it {{tl|sfd top}} and {{tl|sfd bottom}} if one has to move discussions to logs anyway? I mean, the discussion is closed if and only if it's been moved to the log. [[User:Conscious|Conscious]] 20:03, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
:Not strictly so; the discussion can be closed, and still be awaiting orphaning, or deletion, which currently involves c'n'p within the page. If we're going to go with transclusion, I'd also like to see the closure tags already in place and seen to be working smoothly, rather than changing several experimental variables at once, as it were. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 20:29, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
The reason I think they'd be useful is because of the number of times that discussions have been moved down to "old business" and been ready to deal with, then someone comes along and adds further comments. Most of the time the extra comment isn't helpful (some times, if it's a close call it may tip the scales one way or the other, but usually it makes no difference at all). [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 01:15, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
:I've created the templates. Artists, feel free to change the colour. [[User:Conscious|Conscious]] 07:01, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
::looks good - but is there any way of making the text a little darker, or is it a standard "deletion template grey"? It's a bit difficult to read against that background. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 10:43, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
:::The text is black, so it would make sense to change the background colour. [[User:Conscious|Conscious]] 19:21, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
::::Once its in the box it appears as mid-grey on IE. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 08:35, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
 
What about three-day logs, by way of an admittedly arbitrary compromise between the possibly-too-short per-day, and the possibly-too-long week? [[User:Alai|Alai]] 18:40, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
:Well, first, do we agree that it's a good idea to have transcluded logs at all? Re your question, I'd favour weekly logs. In addition, they could use names like /Log/2006/Week 23, generated with <nowiki>{{CURRENTWEEK}}</nowiki>. [[User:Conscious|Conscious]] 19:21, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
::Agreement in principle's hard to factor out from agreement on the practicalities, since the whole point is what'd be the better in practice. In particular, weekly logs would mean that some items would ''necessarily'' go unlogged for that long, and half a week on the average (as opposed to the current "however long it takes", admittedly often longer). It'd also mean that any unclosed items for the whole week would hold up ''all'' those, making that both more likely, and making it affect more items when it occurs. So my current feeling is, "not if it means doing them on a weekly basis". [[User:Alai|Alai]] 20:22, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
:::And I just don't understand how 3-day logs would be implemented :) [[User:Conscious|Conscious]] 06:13, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
::::It's not clear to me how much work said generation of names would save, but hypothetically, why not <code><nowiki>/Log/{{CURRENTMONTH}}/Period {{#expr:({{CURRENTDAY}}+1)/3 round 0}}</nowiki></code> or something along those lines? [[User:Alai|Alai]] 11:30, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
:It's not really clear to me that it would be that helpful on WP:SFD, which isn't the largest of pages. I'd be far more pleased to see it used at WP:WSS/D. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 11:37, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
::I don't see that logging on any given schedule is much of an issue at /D (which is the real point of transclusion, not size). [[User:Alai|Alai]] 11:55, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
:::Size not an issue? You don't have a dial-up modem, by the sound of it! I start loading the page, then make a cup of coffee, come back and it's still loading. Size is a ''big'' issue as far as I'm concerned. On WP:WSS/D, where you really only need to see the latest items at the end of the page, individual month transclusions would be extremely useful. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 12:31, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
::::That bears no resemblance to what I actually said. What /D needs is to be archived slightly more often than at ten-monthly intervals; that's hardly an argument for transclusion, especially if people ''continue'' not to archive. SFD, however, actually ''is'' logged on a semi-regular basis, but doing so by copying and pasting on an item-by-item basis is distinctly tiresome, and transclusion on a sensible basis could help with that. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 12:51, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
:::::There's no doubt we have a problem with /D. It needs to be archived at the very least, many of the entries are resolved. But what about abandoning it at all in favour of a stubberg-type list? Alai and I maintain [[User:Conscious/Subpage|such a list]], it is generated from each database dump and contains all stub categories not listed at /ST. Discussions at /D aren't generally very lively, and aren't binding. Now imagine we transfer this load to SFD (I mean, people take some categories from stubberg to SFD from time to time). What do you think? [[User:Conscious|Conscious]] 13:02, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
::::::I'd broadly agree with your diagnosis, not quite sure about the prescription. While I think the "unlisted list" is very handy, trouble is it's sufficiently large (approximately 450 entries) that it itself presents "management issues". Separate lists of each batch of new unlisteds from each dump might be more digestable, and would be handy both for spotting the "incoming", and as a means of tracking the undersized-but-might-grow contingent, several iterations along. We probably would still require some sort of discussion page, but if we move away from the not-very-successful model of a "tracking system" at /D, we'd probably be ahead on the deal. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 13:46, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, a good consideration is needed. For example, a list to watch shouldn't contain newest entries (newer that 2 months, for example) or should just be sorted by date of creation. I'm just throwing in an idea, maybe there's a way to get /D straight. [[User:Conscious|Conscious]] 14:11, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
 
On third thoughts, I'm inclined to say that we should actually go with per-day transclusion and logging. It's potentially slightly more work, but equally one should be able to do a number "at one gulp" pretty readily, without the complication of a whole week being held up by one "problem case". [[User:Alai|Alai]] 03:39, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
 
We seem to have stalled somewhat: I suggest we implement some version of this, starting on the 1st August. If I'm left to my own devices, naturally it'll be done my way... I'll leave a note at WT:SFD, too. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 22:23, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 
== {{tl|stubbox}} ==
 
What do we think of the above? The coding looks dodgy to me, given the unclosed div tag, and I'm not too sure about the visual appearance, but the general idea seems to be on the lines of something we've been discussing for a while. The main stumbling block seems to be that unless we start messing around with the coding of the stub types themselves, or duplicating same, there's still the same amount of spamming with redundant information (this is a stub; please expand; yadda). If anyone has any bright ideas on how to improve... [[User:Alai|Alai]] 01:50, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
 
== Untagged stubs ==
 
I hestitate to do this, since we've plenty to do as things stand, but... Preliminary poking around in the db dump indicates over 10,000 very short articles not tagged as stubs. I'm going to try to produce a cleaned-up list, possibly after the next en. db dump, but before I do so I thought I'd better check a) are people ready for the shock, and b) exactly what criteria should be used? Bluemoose was previously using a size threshold of 350 bytes; I'll use the same, unless someone has strong preference otherwise. He was also excluding any page with a template inclusion; I'm more likely to exclude on the basis of category membership. In particular, anything that looks like a disambiguation page, copyright violation tagee, deletion or wiktionary candidate. More marginal would be categories indicating a lack of sources, expansion request, merger, cleanup, incomplete lists, wikification, context, verification, and importance. I'll include or exclude these or the basis of whatever feedback I get here. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 03:50, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
:I'd exclude dabs, redirects, listdevs, and deletion candidates (CV or AFD) but include the rest. it'll be a long list and there are bound to be non-stubs on there, but it's more likely to get all the ones that are stubs. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 05:13, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Further investigation indicates about 7,500 of these without ''any'' categorisation, so that aspect's something of a nicety: plenty to be going on with, possibly excessively so. I won't upload those for the time being unless there's a major clamour, as it's by this stage about 12 days out of date, and I don't want to get a pile of hate-mail about whipping you into a frenzy of action(?) on the basis of possibly dud info (though I'd be surprised if it's changed ''that'' much). My crystal ball's a little misty as to when the next en. db dump will be (and no-one on meta is letting on); presumably not until after a de. dump has finished, which itself will take a number of days, and it's not yet begun; but I won't in any event be downloading it before the 7th. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 00:42, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
 
=={{cl|Stubs}} rising fast==
All hands to the pumps! {{Cl|Stubs}} is back to almost 400 articles... [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 06:48, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
 
==Misuse==
Seems that [[User:220.253.3.186]] has discovered a new way to vandalise using stub templates. Have a look at [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hopkins_School&oldid=55873348 this]. To paraphrase the great [[Alexei Sayle]], "Stub templates are very important to this story - see how many ''you'' can spot!" [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 08:37, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
 
==Icon discussion at VP==
The following discussion at the pump about a mysterious glitch with stub icons has produced the answer to a question I've wondered about for a while. It'll be worth keeping an eye out for any other icons that have this problem!:
 
----
Putting the politics and economics stubs together indents the second one. Is this attributable to the size of one of the graphics?
 
<div class="boilerplate metadata" id="stub">[[Image:Society.png|45px|left| ]]''This [[politics]]-related article is a [[Wikipedia:Perfect stub article|stub]]. You can [[Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub|help]] Wikipedia by [{{SERVER}}{{localurl:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}|action=edit}} expanding it]''.</div>
 
<div class="boilerplate metadata" id="stub">
{| cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-color: transparent;"
|-
| [[Image:Many coins.jpg|35px]]
| ''&nbsp;This [[economics]] or [[finance]]-related article is a [[Wikipedia:Stub|stub]]. You can [[Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub|help]] Wikipedia by [{{SERVER}}{{localurl:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}|action=edit}} expanding it]''.
|}</div>
 
[[User:RyanEberhart|RyanEberhart]] 01:41, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
 
:We've had that problem with some stub icons but not with others. You might want to ask this question over at [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting]] - because it's worth finding out which templates cause that problem and fixing them. I think it is a size thing, but I'm not technoboffin enough to know for sure. (BTW, I "substed" those templates to remove the categories). [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 05:33, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
 
::It's the "left" in the image link for the first template (removed below). This causes the image to "float" left, allowing subsequent text (and images) to flow around it. -- [[user:Rick Block|Rick Block]] <small>([[user talk:Rick Block|talk]])</small> 01:47, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
 
<div class="boilerplate metadata" id="stub">[[Image:Society.png|45px| ]]''This [[politics]]-related article is a [[Wikipedia:Perfect stub article|stub]]. You can [[Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub|help]] Wikipedia by [{{SERVER}}{{localurl:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}|action=edit}} expanding it]''.</div>
 
<div class="boilerplate metadata" id="stub">
{| cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-color: transparent;"
|-
| [[Image:Many coins.jpg|35px]]
| ''&nbsp;This [[economics]] or [[finance]]-related article is a [[Wikipedia:Stub|stub]]. You can [[Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub|help]] Wikipedia by [{{SERVER}}{{localurl:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}|action=edit}} expanding it]''.
|}</div>
 
:Excellent. Thanks for that - I'll try to remember that if I see it happening again! [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 00:00, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
----
 
==Shorten me==
The template {{tl|GuantanamoBay-detainee-stub}} is quite long, well over one line on my small screen. Ideas on shortening it are appreciated. - <b>[[User:Crzrussian|CrazyRussian]]</b><small> [[User_talk:Crzrussian|talk]]/[[Special:Contributions/Crzrussian|contribs]]/[[Special:Emailuser/Crzrussian|email]]</small> 15:56, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
:Thanks, Alai. Looks good. - <b>[[User:Crzrussian|CrazyRussian]]</b><small> [[User_talk:Crzrussian|talk]]/[[Special:Contributions/Crzrussian|contribs]]/[[Special:Emailuser/Crzrussian|email]]</small> 18:31, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
:(ec)And on mine too, at least at the default browser width. I've had a go. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 18:33, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
 
==Stubsense down?==
Looks persistently fried. Anybody know what's up? - <b>[[User:Crzrussian|CrazyRussian]]</b><small> [[User_talk:Crzrussian|talk]]/[[Special:Contributions/Crzrussian|contribs]]/[[Special:Emailuser/Crzrussian|email]]</small> 00:28, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
*Wish I did. I'm guessing more problems with toolserver's database replication, but I have no more information than you. Asking on meta rarely produces much of a response. If anyone's ''really'' stuck, I may be able to run off-line queries to give similar results, if people can describe exactly what they want, and don't mind seriously ad-hoc turnaround times. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 18:11, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
**I took a peek at Interiot's page, and it looks like they are attempting to reload the corrupted data to the toolserver. It looks like they've taken the toolserver's entire en-wiki database offline until they've finished with the experiment. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 21:17, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
 
== Renaming "stubs" to "Ready references" ==
There is an active discussion at [[Template talk:Stub]] about changing the way stub templates are worded (originally the suggestion was to change all references to the word "stub", but that seems to - thankfully - have died down. The gist of it is that templates saying "This article is a stub" are not instantly understood by casual editors, who would be far more likely to understand something like "This article is short and undeveloped". Input from more of the old hands would be welcome! :) [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 08:36, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
 
== tl and cl ==
 
Since I know how heavy a use this WPmakes of them, I thought I shouid point this out: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29&diff=55538604&oldid=55537496] (For those who don't know, Brion is the Wikimedia Chief Technical guy...) - [[User:SoM|SoM]] 10:51, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
:I wish he'd make up his f!@#$%^g mind. First he says "no problem", then he says this. How long before he gives a third opinion on it? [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 14:56, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
::I guess we're all complete and total idiots. So much for assuming good faith. [[User:Crystallina|Crystallina]] 04:02, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
:::Since clearly being Wikimedia Chief Technical Guy exempts one from normal considerations such as consensus, civility, and answering a simple question in a straight way, I dast not speculate. I'm no strong objection to them being subst'd, but if it's not an efficiency issue (and I thought that the main hit here was in regards to 'editing' heavily-used templates), then it's a little pointless to flip this from "must not" to "must" in any particular hurry (cvue robots making tens of thousands of edits). [[User:Alai|Alai]] 18:08, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
::::Let's not fall into the trap of returning incivility with the same coin. I *presume* he just had a bad day. I couldn't care less if we stubst these themplates or not. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 20:35, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 
== Proposal: [[:Category:stub templates]] ==
I was searching for a stub template name recently and it took a while to find it. I had a look for something like [[:category:stub templates]] (like in our [[:tr:Kategori:Taslak_şablonları|Turkish Wiki]]) but found nothing. I went to #wikipedia on IRC, had a chat and they proposed to ask a bot to do some work...
 
If one analyses for example [[:Category:Animal stubs]] one needs maybe one [[:Category:Animal stub templates]] category for all those stub templates listet there but it would be nice to have a bot do it because it may be way too much work to add a '''<nowiki><noinclude>[[Category:stub templates]]</noinclude></nowiki>''' (or even sub categories) to every single stub template. Any ideas? --[[User:Katpatuka|katpatuka]] 10:07, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
:(maybe better in [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Proposals]] ?)--[[User:Katpatuka|katpatuka]] 10:07, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
 
::A user has tried this one before but opinion was pretty strongly against, so the categories were deleted again. I don't think the situation has changed since then. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 10:31, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
:::I think this would be fairly profoundly redundant; they're listed on [[WP:WSS/ST]], an automatically generated list is produced by a script Conscious runs to detect the "unlisted" ones as well as the above, and they're included in the ''stub'' categories themselves (both rooted at {{cl|Stub categories}}, and comprehes. Yet another method seems unnecessary, work to maintain, and clutter in the templates. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 18:35, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
 
== Stub Category templates ==
 
We have {{tl|Stub Category}} and {{tl|regional stub category}} to provide some basic boilerplate for categories. I'd like to propose a third {{tl|Biography Stub Category}} to provide boilerplate that would be appropriate for all the stub biography categories. I have a proposed version at [[User:Caerwine/Template:Biography Stub Category]] that in addition to what {{tl|Stub Category}} does, includes text recommending the three basic categories all biographical articles should ideally have, year of birth, year of death/not dead yet, and what they are. Any thought for either possible improvement or abandoning this idea? <span style="font-family:cursive">[[User:Caerwine|Caerwine]]</span> [[User_talk:Caerwine|<small style="font-family:sans-serif;color:darkred">Caerwhine</small>]] 01:13, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
:Seems a good idea to me. I think as well as a comment on categorisation, this might be a good place to note that occupation-based stubs types should also have a regional tag, and vice-versa. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 01:53, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 
== Commons stub pictures ==
 
Over on the Commons they have a category [[:commons:Category:Stub pictures]] that has some nice pics that people might find useful for stub templates, especially the ones that mix a picture with a wiki puzzle piece. <span style="font-family:cursive">[[User:Caerwine|Caerwine]]</span> [[User_talk:Caerwine|<small style="font-family:sans-serif;color:darkred">Caerwhine</small>]] 03:13, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 
== Centralised discussion of "undersized" types? ==
 
I'm wondering if we should have a designated place for "noting" that a stub type is undersized. At present, if a stub type is already on the list, or has been proposed, or has already survived an SFD, it's not really a "discovery" any more, though we could use that page regardless certainly; or else a section on the todo page (long-standing undersized types). I suggest this as it seems that often we take a "tiny" type to SFD, whereupon it's either populated, there's suggestions we might wait and see if it grows, or else there's protestations that it's soon to be. A less formal process might have similar effects, and perhaps with less agro on occasion. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 22:03, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
:A couple of points - firstly, what you describe is a very similar thing that happens on AFD - articles taken there are either deleted or "saved" by sudden rapid growth, so i don't see that as too much of a problem. As for a list of small stubs, I though someone (actually I thought ''you''!) kept a list of those on a user sub-page. If so, that page could easily become a ''de jure'' part of WP:WSS just by adding it to the WP:WSS category, same as I have with my geo-stub count and splitting lists. If necessary, mover the user subpage to an official WP:WSS pagename. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 02:33, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
::Yup, I do indeed (I assume you're referring to [[User:Alai/Stub-counts|this]], which is at any rate the most recent incarnation of much the same thing). I could certainly move it to the WSS project-space if people would find that useful and convenient. (Can't do much about the update rate, though: I'm at the mercy of whatever the ''heck'' is going on with the db dump.) That doesn't track creation date, whether there's a wikiproject, whether it's already been on SFD, etc, etc, so it's not a complete or integrated solution. I'm not suggesting types being populated while on SFD is a "problem", or otherwise a bad thing at all, I'm just wondering if there's a better way to get the same ''good'' result. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 02:50, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
Actually, reversing myself yet again, {{tl|popcat}} pretty much covers this. On the other hand, might it be worthwhile splitting out the stub types, say with {{tl|popstub}}? (With associated category, which one could of course then request to be populated...) [[User:Alai|Alai]] 22:36, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
:I've gone ahead and "forked" this as {{cl|Underpopulated stub categories}}. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 06:45, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 
== Fooian X stubs vs. Foo X stubs ==
 
We have a mess here, especially in, but not limited to, UK and US stub types. I'd like to suggest the following additions to the naming guidelines.
# If the parent non-stub category is ''Fooian X's'' that the stub category be ''Fooian X stubs''.
# If the parent non-stub category is ''X's in/of Foo'' that the stub category be ''Foo X stubs''.
:<small>I realize that this won't matter much to Grutness since for some inexplicable reason, Wikipedia uses New Zealand rather than New Zealander as the Fooian of New Zealand in the main categories.</small>
Anyway, this is nice and straightforward, and I hope it will attract the support of others. <span style="font-family:cursive">[[User:Caerwine|Caerwine]]</span> [[User_talk:Caerwine|<small style="font-family:sans-serif;color:darkred">Caerwhine</small>]] 15:36, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
:<small>Well, Wikipedia's correct in that. New Zealand is one of those rare countries where the correct adjective is the same as the country's name. It's only the noun form of the people who live there that is different. I'm a New Zealander, that is, a New Zealand person, who lives in a New Zealand house in a New Zealand city. </small> Oh, and '''support''' BTW, although it'll probably mean a lot of renaming. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 06:45, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
 
::I thought this for a long time, wondered whether it was all due to a peculiar technical rule :-) [[User:TheGrappler|TheGrappler]] 10:42, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
:<nowiki>:)</nowiki> BTW, another reason this should be done is that we're slowly getting more flak in places like CFD for the differences between stub ncategory names and non-stub category names. Things like [[Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions %28categories%29#Stub categories|this]], for instance. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 12:49, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
 
:Strongest possible oppose. This would ''institutionalise'' the pointless flip-flopping we already see between for example, "France this" vs. "French that" on no rational basis, rather than actually do anything to fix it. Does anyone really think that {{cl|France buildings and structures stubs}} is an especially sensible name for a category? Why on earth should we utilise awkward-sounding names that would never fly in the permanent category space, to purport to be consistent with same? While not actually being so, of course, since we'd be rearranging the component words with blithe disregard to what's in any way a customary usage. To take the implications of this scheme on its face, if "geography of France" were renamed to "French geography", we'd then flip between from "France geography stubs" to "French geography stubs"? That makes no sense whatsoever. There has to be some internal logic (or indeed, any logic) to stub category names, beyond "a given part of speech appeared in a parent, let's use it somewhere or other in the stub name, after throwing away the prepositions that caused that word to be used in the first place". I'm frankly boggled Grutness would support this, having previously said exactly the opposite in at least one context, though perhaps in hindsight I shouldn't have been since we do have a ''lot'' of these "Awkward Attributive Noun geography stubs" kicking around at present. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 07:56, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
::My support is more for the suggestion that we should try to somehow get the stub category names in line with the main categories than it is for the actual suggestion of "Foo X stubs"/"Fooian X stubs". The problem with importing the standard category names wholesale is that it would lead to some even more cumbersome combinations such as "X of Foo stubs". But the closer we can get things to consistency with the main categories the better. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 11:05, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
:::I'd gladly support "somehow in line with" myself: on some issues, they're pointlessly wayward, both internally, and wrt the perms. Case in point would be the whole people/personnel/biography/biographical business, which is completely needless. Of course, the perms are often all over the shop, too, so this is trying to hit a moving target. I'd rather have internal consistency than external, which is in fact essentially what the perms do themselves: have rules for each "layer", and horizontal consistency within that (... on a good day...) rather than fully-vertically-integrated common usage, particularly on nouns vs. adjectives. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 02:27, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
 
== Abolish stub types altogether ==
My argument is simply this: Abolish stub types. Articles would be ''tagged'' as stubs by any user, either just like they are now (eg <nowiki>{{stub}}</nowiki> appearing in the code) or perhaps by some other mechanism, such as [[Flickr]]-like tagging (see [[folksonomy]]). Then the articles would be able to be listed as stubs under the category (or categories) the article has had applied to it. If no category has been applied to the article then it will appear under an 'uncategorised' stub list.
 
This simply removes the problem of thousands of stub types doesn't it?
[[User:Reinthal|reinthal]] 07:09, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
 
:This proposal crops up occasionally and does sound appealing, but there are problems with it - notably that quite a lot of the time stub articles don't have categories and an uncategorised stub list would be extremely long (even if only 5% of stubs have no category - a very low estimate - that would mean a list of 20,000 stubs). See [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting#An alternative to stubs]] for a recent similar suggestion. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 08:24, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
::That problem would only be temporary, though. Articles with a non-general stub but no categories were presumably tagged by someone who took the time to look up the correct stub for their article, but didn't bother to add a category. This proposal would essentially ''force'' people to add a category, and remove the redundant effort involved in giving an article a specific stub only to later add the categories that are clearly implied by that stub. At its most extreme, we could try to work something out so that putting {{tl|stub}} in an article with no categories causes glowing red text 24-point text to appear at the top of the article that says "THIS ARTICLE IS UNCATEGORIZED. {{tl|stub}} requires a category. Please add a category to this article along with the stub!", much like transcluding subst-only templates does now. Of course, that wouldn't work with the number of existing stubs with no categories we have... We could always decide on a few categories that are decided by each existing stub, and run bots to slowly turn them into generic {{tl|stub}} while adding the necessary categories. This would be almost necessary in implementing this suggestion, anyway. Once those bots had finished running, the only things left in cat:uncategorized stubs would be what's currently in Category:Stubs. --[[User:Aquillion|Aquillion]] 22:54, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
 
:This would be a great solution (and the only really reasonable one in the long run, in my opinion), but it requires major code changes in MediaWiki to implement properly, since MediaWiki does not support category intersections at the moment. If you can write up a patch that does it, great, but in the meantime, the status quo is what we have to use. --<span style="font-family:monospace">&nbsp;[[User:Grm_wnr|grm_wnr]] </span>[[User_talk:Grm_wnr|<span style="border:1px solid;color:black;font-size:9px;padding:2px 1px 0px 1px">Esc</span>]] 17:13, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
 
:There are several issues here: is a "quick technical fix" going to be available at some point; is it OK to get rid of some of the criteria of stub-sorting, like keeping stub categories within a certain size range, which the category-intersection model would make impossible, unless there was some after-the-fact way of fixing this up; and would such a system be more or less usable from the point of view of the "sorters"? None of these are clear at first inspection. I imagine we'll persist until they become moreso, or else the whole edifice collapses under the weight of the sheer amount of work required to prop it up. There's no question that there's much inefficiency built into the current sorting of sorting and re-sorting articles, even ''after'' they have permanent categories. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 03:01, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
 
== "Stub category names should be guessable" ==
 
Can people explain exactly what their rationale, and exact criteria for "guessable" stub category names are? Who is being assumed to be doing the guessing, and on the basis for what body of knowledge? People working from the particular permanent category? Other stub categories? One or other naming conventions page? Without further elucidation I don't know what "guessable" category name is supposed to be, much less why they're desirable, in particular above and beyond other desidirata. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 06:04, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 
== Moving the Atlantic Ocean with a teaspoon ==
 
As you can see from the To Do page, we're not getting too far with stub sorting and indeed seem to be going backwards with every update bringing progressively more categories and stubs. Is there any way to fix this other than just "sort more"? [[User:Crystallina|Crystallina]] 18:06, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
:For stub sorters? Probably not. For editors in general? Expand stubs until they are no longer stubs (and remove the stub notice). Simple. :) --[[User:TheParanoidOne|TheParanoidOne]] 20:12, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
:I'm seriously tempted to suggest redefining "oversized" to mean over 1000 articles in size... [[User:Alai|Alai]] 04:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
::Hrm. On second thought and upon reading the edit summaries I probably should not have said anything at all, carry on. [[User:Crystallina|Crystallina]] 17:48, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
 
== Wikipedia Integration: solution to some stubs ==
 
I have worked with a few individuals to form a project to eliminate poor stubs and duplicate content in favor of more comprehensive articles. I agree some articles will always be "stub" in size, but those that are suspect to development in more than 1 article for the same subject matter should be merged, and maybe split off again when deemed necessary.
 
[[WP:ʃ]]
 
[[User:Cwolfsheep|Cwolfsheep]] 23:15, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 
== Syro-African Depression ==
 
is a quad stub. <font color="green">[[WP:IAR|k]]</font>[[user:kzzl|zz]][[the news trusted most in name|*]] 21:45, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 
:Unfortunately this regions covers five countries and we normally stub geographical articles with one template per "affected" country, so this one could have had five. This method does look a bit stupid but is an attempt to make the article appear in as many relevant categories as possible. In cases such as this, using a template for each country seems to be only possibility to treat all countries equally. But it is a prime candidate for expansion. Do we have any experts around? [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 00:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
:The other option is simply to revert it to its region as a MEast-geo-stub. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 01:22, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
::I agree with Grutness. If the feature covers that many countries of the Middle East, it would be better to use the single broader-term stub. -[[User:Acjelen|Acjelen]] 14:15, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
:::I can easily buy that solution. The max. is probably around three to four countries, so this one might be a bit too much. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 00:14, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
::I usually use a limit of four, FWIW. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 01:55, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
:::I'd tend to concur. There ''may'' be circumstances where a convoluted structure of the stub types, and an unusual article argues for more stub tags, but a simple list of countries isn't one of them, nor is any similar use of "sibling" templates. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 03:35, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
 
== A (suggested) new wheeze for dealing with articles double-stubbed into oversized categories ==
 
FYI, I've made a [[Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approvals#User:Alaibot.2C_stub_template_merger|request for approval]] for a bot-task for replacing double tags with "consolidated" stub types. With luck, this will help somewhat with the re-sorting backlog, though it certainly won't be a complete solution by any means. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 04:36, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 
== Stub Class articles rearing their confusing head again ==
 
Talking of bot requests for approval, please note [[Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approvals#User:Dark_Shikari_Bot|this]]. In extremis, what this could be is a stub-un-sorting bot, but what it really illustrates is the confused thinking about the whole "Stub-class" thing. Is "Stub-class" the same as "stub", or not? We were unable to get a straight and consistent answer to that when the question arose at SFD, with at least one person arguing to keep the two categories separate on the basis of being different (without really defining how, or addressing the issue of terminological confusion). This sounds like a possible trainwreck. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 16:12, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
:I've added by 2¢ to that bot request... hopefully others here might do likewise... [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 01:39, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
:[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category%3ASEPTA_stubs&diff=64849573&oldid=49713067 Two] [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category%3APhiladelphia_stubs&diff=64850026&oldid=42972259 changes] related to "Stub-Class" vs "Stub". The first seems the most contentious as it has replaced a legitimate stub category with a Stub Class category. --[[User:TheParanoidOne|TheParanoidOne]] 20:52, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
::Said editor now seems to be merging Stub-class and stub categories, using stub-class on articles rather than talk pages (or indeed, on both), and generally creating a mess with them. While there's a degree of home-brew screwup at work here, I think it does also go to underscore the capacity for confusion from the terminological overlap. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 21:02, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
:::I've reverted these: the editor in question seems to think these are "artificial" distinctions (right, great idea having talk pages and articles in the same category, ''obviously''). I sense this one will run and run, in one form or another, though. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 18:18, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 
== Wikipedia Integration ==
 
I've identified this project as a candidate for material to be analyzed by Wikipedia Integration methodology. Please feel welcome to offer suggestions and feedback. [[WP:ʃ]] [[User:Cwolfsheep|Cwolfsheep]] 16:22, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
*Exactly what does this analysis (or indeed, methodology) involve? I see no discussion there of WSS, and the link to this project is amid links to such non-entities as [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedians for writing an encyclopedia]]. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 00:36, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
 
== Tentative steps in bot-work ==
 
As well as merging double tags on stubs, I've also started using my bot to restub some articles on the basis of their permanent category, and parent stub type. See the current contents of {{cl|Non-profit organization stubs}}. This method might not find the most appropriate possible stub type, but it should at least find ''a'' notionally appropriate stub type. I'd be interested in hearing people's thoughts on this approach, and on what instances (if any, of course) they think it's appropriate to do this on, etc. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 03:05, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
*OK, this is now approved, so if anyone has any suggestions for to-do's for full-speed edits, please suggest away. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 05:03, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
**One possibility is the clothing-stub/fashion-stub mess recently mentioned at SFD. Half the items marked fashion-stub should be marked clothing-stub and vice versa (and no doubt some should be marked with both). [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 05:44, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
***"Ah, but which half...?" If you can suggest a "rule" for this based on the perm-cats, that may be a possibility. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 06:17, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
**Well, that's my point. Any with a permcat of ''Fashion'' should get fashion-stub, any with a permcat of ''Clothing'' should get a clothing-stub. It won't completely sort them out, but it should improve both stubcats immensely. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 08:12, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
***Just trying to be as explicit as possible -- so I can blame you when it all goes wrong :). What about (perm-)subcats? {{cl|Fashion}}'s a subcat of {{cl|clothing}}, but I could put all contents and subcat contents of "Fashion" in that first, and then the remainder of those with other subcats {{cl|clothing}}, say. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 15:10, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
****This is now half-done: I've taken all the clothing-stubs with a fashion cat, and moved them over to fashion-stub. Doing it the other way around is a little more involved (I suppose that what we're looking for is fashion-stubs with another category that's also in the clothing hierarchy, but isn't also in the fashion sub-tree), but at any rate we should shortly be rid of the {{tl|clothingstub}} redirect. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 06:00, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 
==new WPSS template==
I've just created a new WPSS template for use at the top of category and template talk pages. occasionally WPSS has been tripped up by not knowing about discussion taking place on a template or category's talk page... hopefully {{tl|WPSS-talk}} will reduce the chance of that happening in future. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 06:28, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
 
==[[Wikipedia:Barnstar_and_award_proposals#The_Wikiproject_Stub_Sorting_Award|Stub Sorting Award]] ==
Would someone mind generating some support for your [[Wikipedia:Barnstar_and_award_proposals#The_Wikiproject_Stub_Sorting_Award|award]]? Otherwise the proposal will get archived. --[[User:Evrik|evrik]] 15:39, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 
*I have humbly submitted a design for a [[Wikipedia:Barnstar_and_award_proposals#The_Stub_Sorting_Barnstar|Stub Sorting Barnstar]]. Please take a look! Cheers, <font color="green">&hearts;</font> [[User:Pegship|Her Pegship]]<font color="green">&hearts;</font> 05:27, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
:I think it looks great :) [[User:SynergeticMaggot|SynergeticMaggot]] 08:48, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 
*A stub sorting award proposal has been submitted by [[User:Kukini]], and designed by[[User:Pegship]] in [[WIkipedia:Barnstar and award proposals]]. After reaching consensus, the barnstar was approved and posted on [[WIkipedia:Wikiproject awards]].--[[User:Leroyencyclopediabrown|Ed]] 23:07, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 
== Image load on servers ==
 
I think a lot of us have had the impression that it was always better to use very "light" stub images due to potential load problems with the image servers. This post from [[WP:VPT]] (Village Pump, Technical) says that this is not a problem at all, since the image is rendered only once. Apparently, we can use any type of stub image that we like.
 
(copied from a post with the same headline)
 
''Q: Are some images more processing-intensive than others? I was under the impression that image resizing and rendering was done only once (say, the first time an image is requested at ##px), so even if complex svg rendering is required, it wouldn't particularly matter. However, a user has expressed concern that some large images should not be used for stub templates because of their high server load. Is there truth to this? ~&nbsp;[[User:Booyabazooka|Booya <sup>Bazooka</sup>]] 14:47, 29 July 2006 (UTC)''
 
:''A: A large image is rendered into a thumbnail the first time it's used at a specific size, so a large stub image has the same load on the servers as a small stub image (assuming both were thumbnailed at the same size). The load is also much smaller than you might think, due to brower caches and proxies. There was a time (about a year ago IIRC) when a lot of stub images were removed due to server load issues (the image servers were not keeping up with the load); since then, new image servers were added and it's no longer a problem. --[[User:CesarB|cesarb]] 16:28, 29 July 2006 (UTC)''
 
So at least that is one less concern. :) [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 21:52, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
 
* At least until the next time the image servers start being overloaded again. It's still a good idea if you have several servicable images of equal utility to choose from to pick ones that will keep the load down. <span style="font-family:cursive">[[User:Caerwine|Caerwine]]</span> [[User_talk:Caerwine|<small style="font-family:sans-serif;color:darkred">Caerwhine</small>]] 17:25, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 
:What surprised me was that it seems that the servers generate a small thumbnail once and then uses this image rather than the larger file. Anyway, if I have to chose between two good images and one is a lot smaller than the other, I normally go with the smaller image. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 18:06, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 
Image size for stub icons has never been about server load (although whether there are images or not was). Icon images are kept small primarily because having large images in a stub template draws too much attention to it and away from the article. That's the reason why a small clear stub icon is always preferable to a large clear one, especially when the image is vertical, since that is more likely to take several line widths - which beomes a problem when there is more than one template. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 09:10, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
 
== subst'ing stub templates ==
 
Does it say anywhere that stub templates should not be subst'ed? I've had a user telling me that I should be subst'ing all stub templates. If there is an official policy on this, I think it should be put on the project page. --[[User:Bruce1ee|Bruce1ee]] 11:31, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 
:This is the official policy: <big>'''NEVER EVER SUBST STUB TEMPLATES. EVER.'''</big> [[User:Bluemoose|Martin]] 11:36, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 
:Actually the user (aka me) was saying that he (I) had been told to subst. Happy not to - it takes fewer key clicks. Glad there's a policy. (Where?) --[[User:Dweller|Dweller]] 12:12, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 
::No harm done, really. It was pretty easy to fix. However, we probably need to write this rule somewhere easy to see. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 12:18, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 
:It's written up somewhere on one of the WP Policy pages as to which templates should be substed and which ones shouldn't - I'll see if I can find it. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 14:18, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 
:It says on [[WP:SUBST]], but that is a bit out-of-the-way. [[User:Bluemoose|Martin]] 14:19, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 
::That was the one I was thinking of. It appears to be guideline rather than policy on WP, but it's regarded as policy at WP:WSS. Subst'ing stub templates causes no end of problems so it is strongly discouraged in a [[Ghostbusters|"don't cross the beams"]]-type way. Perhaps putting it in big friendly letters on WP:STUB would be a good idea. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 14:25, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 
:::... or how about here: [[WP:WSS#General_rules]]. --[[User:Bruce1ee|Bruce1ee]] 14:38, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 
::::Done, in both places :) [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 14:53, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 
:::::Thanks for that! --[[User:Bruce1ee|Bruce1ee]] 15:01, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 
== informal titles ==
 
Alai made a comment about how this WikiProject is no fun, so I was wondering if there could be informal titles or something. Something like a leadership council, but without actual responsibilities. Alai already suggested one title: ''Stub Approval Group Moderator Director For Life'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Proposals/2006/August#.7B.7BIndian-food-stub.7D.7D]
 
Just something fun to think about. *shrug* [[User:Amalas|<font color="maroon"><b>~ Amalas</b></font>]] [[User talk:Amalas|<font color="navy">rawr]] [[Special:Contributions/Amalas|<sup>=^_^=</sup></font>]] 20:10, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 
:Then, seeing as how I hang out in {{cl|Rail stubs}} and work on them most, I hereby claim "Chief Rail-stub Mogul" for my own title. B-) [[User:Slambo|Slambo]] <small><font color="black">[[User talk:Slambo|(Speak)]]</font></small> 20:33, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
*I'd like to be [[Image:Magic.png|40px]] Wearer of the Sorting Hat. <font color="green">&hearts;</font> [[User:Pegship|Her Pegship]]<font color="green">&hearts;</font> 21:15, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
*Oh, good grief. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 01:16, 12 August 2006 (UTC) <small>(Geo-stub Coordinator-General and NZ-stubber Pursuivant)</small>
*I seem to be The Countess. At least my talk page suggests it. Either that or She Who Is On The Verge Of Getting Fired For Stub Sorting At Work. [[User:Crystallina|Crystallina]] 22:42, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
**Mind if we call you [[Bruces sketch|Bruce]] to keep it clear? B-) [[User:Slambo|Slambo]] <small><font color="black">[[User talk:Slambo|(Speak)]]</font></small> 01:50, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 
== Parameterised multi-stub template nonsense... ==
 
See {{tl|Maintenance}}, and weep. It's probably not SFDable, either, as it's not ''just'' a stub template. (The technical term, to paraphrase Slavoj Žižek, would be "nightmare".) [[User:Alai|Alai]] 20:29, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
*It looks like it's only in chemistry type articles (amino acids, chemicals, cell biology, drugs, etc) and it has pretty much only one editor: [[User:BorisTM]]. I also found this old [[Wikipedia talk:Version 0.5/Archive 1#Generic template|discussion]] but it doesn't have many answers. [[User:Amalas|<font color="maroon"><b>~ Amalas</b></font>]] [[User talk:Amalas|<font color="navy">rawr]] [[Special:Contributions/Amalas|<sup>=^_^=</sup></font>]] 20:56, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
**Doesn't "nightmare" per definition involve the tax man? (Rambo go home, you never met [[Ole Stavad]]). [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 21:15, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
***Seriously, TFD ? [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]]</sup> 21:15, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
****Yes, seriously TFD. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 22:48, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 
== Category:British royalty stubs ==
 
Category:British royalty stubs says it is for stubs relating to British royalty - however, only actual royals are currently in it. Can I add members of royal households and courtiers, etc? [[User:Dev920|Dev920]] 12:42, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 
== Yellow Stub Message Background ==
 
Wouldn't it make sense for stub tags to be displayed on yellow backgrounds, just as page tags are? It would seperate them from the article, look smarter on the bottom of each page, and would make them more prominent to the eye. [[User:Crimsone|Crimsone]] 20:19, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 
:*I vote no, if that's an option.
:#stubs usually already have plenty of colored boxes - {{tl|cleanup}}, {{tl|wikify}}, {{tl|uncat}}, {{tl|sources}}, etc
:#The colored boxes are ''distracting'', not helpful. People come to wikipedia to ''read'' the articles. I think that the helpful editing messages should be as unobtrusive as possible.
:[[User:Amalas|<font color="maroon"><b>~ Amalas</b></font>]] [[User talk:Amalas|<font color="navy">rawr]] [[Special:Contributions/Amalas|<sup>=^_^=</sup></font>]] 20:28, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 
:::That being the case, would you have an alternative suggestion for the separation of the stub message from the article, so that it is clear that the sub message is not part of the article itself, and is clearly seperate from it in a visual (aesthetic) sense? [[User:Crimsone|Crimsone]] 20:39, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 
::::I actually had that discussion on the AWB talk page ([[Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive 8#Moving stubs|link to discussion]]), and you can just leave 2 blank lines before the tag, and it looks fine. [[Cortex (archaeology)]] is a good example. [[User:Amalas|<font color="maroon"><b>~ Amalas</b></font>]] [[User talk:Amalas|<font color="navy">rawr]] [[Special:Contributions/Amalas|<sup>=^_^=</sup></font>]] 20:56, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 
:::::A fair comment. While I still feel the yellow box background would look better, I can't disagree that the two additional spaces fulfill the need for differentiation. The two spaces are certainly adequate though. Thanks :) [[User:Crimsone|Crimsone]] 21:58, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 
:FWIW, this suggestion has come up frequently in the past, and the consensus has always been as Amalas suggests. Stub templates aren't meant to be noticeable - anyone can see if an article is too short. All they're meant to do is provide a means of categorisuisng the articles and a quick link to any relevant information on how to extend the article. Making them stand out is a bad idea, esopecially in those cases where the article is so short that any boxed/coloured template would dominate the article's actual text. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 01:55, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 
A further thought - I notye that {{tl|Aviation-stub}} uses grey text rather than black to separate it from the main body of the text. (This was never proposed, it seems, but still... ). Perhaps a similar thing could be done with other stubt emplates. Admittedly it's a bit ''too'' grey at the moment, but perhaps <font color=#606060> something like this </font> would work? [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 01:33, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
 
== Categorization proposal ==
 
I would like to propose that articles be placed in categories at the same time they are stub sorted. For example, if an article tagged with {{[[Template:stub|stub]]}} is sorted to {{[[Template:US-novelist-stub|US-novelist-stub]]}}, which places it in [[:Category:American novelist stubs]], that article would also simultaneously be placed in [[:Category:American novelists]]. The former categorization will disappear when the stub tag is removed. But the later category should stay, so its placement cannot be part of the stub template. Please let me know what you think and how to best implement this. Thanks! — Reinyday, 23:48, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
:In theory a good idea, until you look at the details. Often the appropriate permanent category is not the one that is the parent of the stub category, but one of the parent's subcategories. There's no good way to handle permanent categorization than other than by manually placing the categories. Now if we can come up with some ideas on how to encourage people to place the permanent categories, that would be great. <span style="font-family:cursive">[[User:Caerwine|Caerwine]]</span> [[User_talk:Caerwine|<small style="font-family:sans-serif;color:darkred">Caerwhine</small>]] 00:36, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
 
::It'd be possible to create a "stub-plus" template designed to be subst'd into the article, which for each type has a) the code for the stub-tag itself (''not'' itself subst'd, of course), and b) some additional permanent categories, where that's possible. But it'd be a good deal of work to set this up for every stub template, and if it were only done for some, it would cause more confusion than it would help things. And it'd depend on people using it correctly, and not (for example) failing to subst it, or getting confused and substing "normal" stub templates instead. A different approach would be to do something similar by bot: if an article has a stub tag, but no perm-cats, add an appropriate one (where available). Or there's the traditional wiki approach: masses of volunteer labour will get these things done sooner or later... [[User:Alai|Alai]] 03:00, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 
:::There will always be way more categories than stub types, so I don't think it can be done automatically. [[User:Pietdesomere|Piet]] 12:52, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 
::::It would be more of a problem if it were the other way around... The above observation just means that the "automatically" added perm-cat won't be the most specific, and will typically have to be further refined by hand, and obviously there will be categories that don't correspond to a stub type at all, and hence will have to be added by hand. So the marginal benefit over the present system (where it's all done by hand, but with the stub category placing it somewhere it the right general neighbourhood) may indeed be slight, if any. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 16:31, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 
:I like the spirit of the idea, but I think in practice it would be somewhat redundant. Generally -- perhaps there are exceptions -- "Category:XYZ stubs" is already a subcategory of "Category:XYZ"... thus when a stub is sorted it is already sorted into the parent category. As noted above, of course, this is not usually the most appropriate category, but it is a start. What might be useful to WikiProjects and the like would be a list of "XYZ stubs without real categories." -- [[User:Visviva|Visviva]] 17:27, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
::I could certainly generate such a thing. One subtlety is how you define "real" category: there are any number of "maintenance" categories and the like used in the article-space. A often-useful technique is to start looking at "Category:XYZs", as you say: those may not be the only appropriate categories, but they should have one of those at least. Often more pressing though is that if an article is tagged with a <country>-bio-stub template it may lack any indicated of occupation or notability, either as a stub type or as a perm-cat (and vice versa). Do you have a "customer" Wikiproject in mind for a "pilot scheme"? Refined categorisation is also useful for driving re-sorting stubs when they get oversized, so it'd be in "our" interests to facilitate and promote this. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 18:44, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
 
== Sortkey ==
 
I'm not sure this is the right place for this, but at least some people will see it. I saw some stub templates with a parameter, and realized that could be used as a sortkey for the categories. Of course this would require changing all the stub types (or just biological, since those should usually have sortkeys for their other categories). The appropriate section would be changed to (for {{tl|bio-stub}})<br><nowiki>[[Category:People stubs<includeonly>{{#if:{{{1|}}}|{{!}}{{{1}}}|}}</includeonly><noinclude>| </noinclude>]]</nowiki> (for some reason using &#124 didn't work). [[User:TimBentley|TimBentley]] [[User talk:TimBentley|(talk)]] 02:34, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
:This is the perfect place for this comment! Actually, I've thought in the past that adding a sortkey pipe would be very useful for stubs (especially, as you point out, bio-stubs - biographical not biological, though :). It would require a helluva lot of work, though. Anyone know whether it would cause server issues for such high-use templates, or any other problems? If not, it's definitely worth considering - though, as I said, it'd be a LOT of work. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 03:02, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
::My main objection is that it would considerably complicate the basic stub template code, making it even less comprehensible to casual users and coders than it already is. We'll need to carefully document why it's there at [[Wikipedia:Stub#Creating_stub_template]] and if we can get {{tl|metastub}} to produce the code after being substed, it would be even better. <span style="font-family:cursive">[[User:Caerwine|Caerwine]]</span> [[User_talk:Caerwine|<small style="font-family:sans-serif;color:darkred">Caerwhine</small>]] 04:01, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
 
:I think this would largely wasted effort, myself. There's over a hundred thousand bio-stubs just for starters, and ultimately, this is being done just to be thrown away. Better to spend the effort on expanding the article. It might be marginally easier to find the right stub if they were sorted by surname, but better that they be sorted uniformly lexigraphically than a hodge-podge of the two in a single category, which is the most likely outcome. If people really must do this (and it's already unilaterally in place in some cases, then ''please'' used a named parameter, and not just "1". Every so often someone gets a bright idea for a stub templates that's parameterised in some way or other, and of course invariably, "their" parameter is "1", too. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 02:52, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 
I notice that Instantnood has added an extra parameter to {{tl|Stub Category}} to cater for this, which assumes that the sort key is indeed parameter #1. As noted above, I think this is pointless at best, and potentially confusing. In fact, there's been a lot of hither-and-yon edits on this template. As this is used about on about 2,500 categories, it's probably well into "high risk template" territory, and we should probably think about protecting it on that basis. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 18:41, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
:Sounds like a very good idea. go for it. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 23:51, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
 
== StubCatDiffuse? ==
 
I'm wondering if we should systematically employ either {{tl|CatDiffuse}}, or some bespoke equivalent, on "once and future oversized" stub categories. I don't know if people pay any attention to these things, but it might be worth a shot. A more far-reaching version would be to modify the ''templates'' to indicate they should be replaced by something more specific, though in such cases we'd have to make sure that in ''every'' case there was a suitable sub-type that would be applicable. An interesting existing example: {{tl|football-stub}}. In addition, we should probably be more systematic in out use of {{tl|verylargestub}}. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 03:11, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
*-Good idea. A "bespoke equivalent" would be better, pointing discussion of wholesale changes to [[WP:WSS/P]] rather than to the category talk page, but other than that, a good idea. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 05:44, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
**I hereby mass-nominate everything that is now, or has ever been over ten listings pages (i.e., north of 2000 stubs) to get this, for a start. And working down from there... [[User:Alai|Alai]] 06:19, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 
== Actor stubs status ==
 
I'd more usually stick something to this effect on the [[/To do]] page, but "actor stubs still oversized and need sorting" isn't exactly in the "news" department. Specifically, I think I've "diffused" these as much as is possible on current data. The good(ish) news is that the actors and US actors are down to five pages, and the UK actors down to seven pages (I think the last may not be as well-categorised as the others). Caveats would be that these have been moved in several directions at once, so there's lots of stubs that probably ought to be double-stubbed according to specific medium and nationality combos that have not, and that the judgements as to "primary" medium are rather crude: I've moved anything with both a film and TV category (but not a stage) to "-screen-", and anything with only one of those two to that stub type; the "stage" types don't look viable on that basis. The bad news is, first as I said I may not be able to do much more, short of a manual slog through each of those parents, dealing with the cases that have either too little categorisation, or "too much". And secondly, that this is going to make types like UK-tv-actor- worse and worse from here... [[User:Alai|Alai]] 01:20, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
*I currently go through some actor stubs each day, but hopefully these posts get more people to help out. Actor stubs is too big, but I agree with what Alai said... the more actor stubs is sorted, the bigger the other stubs are (US-movie-actor, US-actor, etc). Maybe people need to work on getting some pages past the stub status? I will try to do what I can, but I currently sort other groups of stubs as well. [[User:RobJ1981|RobJ1981]] 01:56, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
 
In case anyone is feeling at a loose end: I've compiled lists of [[User:Alai/UK-actor-all|UK actors allegedly of big screen, small screen, ''and'' stage]] and [[User:Alai/UK-none|of none of the above]]. Obviously tagging the former with all three, or with "-screen-" and "-stage-" rather defeats the purpose of the exercise, while there's no category clue what to do with the latter at all. So per-article inspection and re-sorting required. (Feel free to delete chunks of the pages if you do a "batch".) [[User:Alai|Alai]] 06:35, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
 
== Martial Arts ==
 
I'm not sure if this is the right place to say this, but I find it a little POV to associate a Ying-yang with martial arts. I mean, chinese people weren't obsessed with ying-yangs and korean people didn't even know what they were until the rest of the world did. Assosiating a ying-yang with martial arts is like putting the american flag on a category called "smart people". After all, we have pretty smart people. How long is it until that is not a biased, POV statement? Has anyone realised [[Taekwondo]] is more popular than [[Karate]]? An image associated with chinese
popular culture does not belong on a category full of martial arts stubs.[[User:Daniel_123|Daniel<font color="/Esperenza">_123</font>]] | [[User talk:Daniel_123|Talk]] 13:58, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
*I've continued this discussion on the [[Template talk:Martialart-stub|template's talk page]]. I would suggest that all further discussion be conducted there so as to keep it in one place. [[User:Amalas|<font color="maroon"><b>~ Amalas</b></font>]] [[User talk:Amalas|<font color="navy">rawr]] [[Special:Contributions/Amalas|<sup>=^_^=</sup></font>]] 16:01, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
 
== ''Yet more'' sub-class shenanigans ==
 
I'm rather boggled that yet another [[Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approvals#User:Kingbotk|bot proposal]] has shown up to create talk-page spam on an industrial scale, announcing that stubs are (coincidentally enough!) "stub-class articles" -- whodathunkit, hrm? And what's more, this one has already been bot-flagged, and has made '''''over 150,000''''' such edits already. No wonder the db dumps are getting larger and slower, that's probably almost as many new talk pages that have been created, with remarkably little information content. This is admittedly benign to stub-sorting per se, as it's making no automated changes to existing stub templates, but isn't the duplication getting a little ridiculous at this point? If these things are essentially the same, why do we need two parallel structures, and if they're crucially different, why does mass-duplication of current contents make any sense? [[User:Alai|Alai]] 05:50, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
:Well, I'm glad that someone else is unimpressed with the assessment tags. Obviously the people behind kingbotk think what they are doing is worthwhile. Perhaps efforts further up the chain will be required. -[[User:Acjelen|Acjelen]] 15:14, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
::Person singular, AFAIK. A manual assessment, adding some actual information content along the lines of "this is a blah-class article", where "blah-class articles" are supposedly likely to make it into WP1.0 (don't ask me what the "blah-class" threshold might be, the 1.0ists are as clear as mud on this, and for all I know are going through this exercise just for the sheer fun/hell of it) might be fair enough. But I can't for the life of me see the point in tagging every single stub in the db, that was never at any point in any number of being selected for 1.0, with talk-page spam explicitly stating this factoid. BTW, the discussion is now at [[Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Kingbotk]]. While listed as "on trial run", I'm inclined to believe that the bot-flagging has been construed as de facto approval. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 16:06, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
 
== Is stub sorting really necessary? ==
 
If any of you ever wonder about the usefulness of sorting stubs, this article might convince you: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ivan_Hristov_Bashev&oldid=72723624] ... And now, back to work. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]] / [[Special:Contributions/Valentinian|(contribs)]]</sup> 14:03, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
* Nice one. It's funny that the guy just before you removed exactly one superfluous category, but didn't notice the fifteen stub tags. [[User:Pietdesomere|Piet]] 14:09, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
* Haha. Priceless. And look at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ivan_Hristov_Bashev&diff=prev&oldid=70444364 redundancy]. It makes my poor brain hurt. --[[User:TheParanoidOne|TheParanoidOne]] 20:41, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
 
*Ha! that's pathetic, check [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Northern_Wars&oldid=43742980 this] out. That's right 10 stubs. [[User:Bluemoose|Martin]] 21:29, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
::This list pretty much demonstrates one of the reasons why Scandinavians refer to this conflict as the ''Great'' Northern War. [[User:Valentinian|Valentinian]] <sup>[[User_talk:Valentinian|(talk)]] / [[Special:Contributions/Valentinian|(contribs)]]</sup> 22:08, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
*I realise I've probably mentioned this one before, but I still find [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hopkins_School&oldid=55873348 this] an entertaining use of stub templates. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 23:38, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
**Another brilliant application of the [[WP:IAR]] "policy"... as far as anyone can tell, at least. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 07:49, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
*''Stub sorting and stub categories make no sense''. When I write a Wikipedia essay on this topic, that will be its title. Stub sorting is a kludge, a huge waste of resources. There has to be a better way, and I think that there is... [[User:GregorB|GregorB]] 22:37, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
 
==Which stub should I use?==
I wish to start new articles about some my favorite television sports commentators. I am looking for appropriate stubs to use for articles about the following types of people: "play-by-play announcers or color commentators (basketball, golf, etc.)"; "television sports pundits or experts; sports-related talking heads, etc"; "sports columnists and journalists". If no specific stubs exist, I'll just use a general "Broadcaster" or "Television personality" stub. Thanks!--[[User:The Fat Man Who Never Came Back|The Fat Man Who Never Came Back]] 11:48, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 
== {{tl|diplomat-stub}} ==
I just created this per a discussion a while ago, but I've no idea where to put it other than in {{cl|Diplomats}} - including on the list of stub templates. Someone else care to step in here? [[User:Aelfthrytha|Aelfthrytha]] 21:23, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 
== Bored stub sorter looking for something new? ==
 
[[User:Draicone/WikiProject Reference Help]] is a project [[User:Draicone|Draicone]] is starting to get citation and reference tags properly sorted. There's a byzantine maze of citation templates, which most editors may not remember but which will help a lot in getting referencing up to scratch. Anyone bored? - [[User:David Gerard|David Gerard]] 23:10, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
:I've mainly been working on uncategorized articles lately. It's the same sort of thing, just with non-stubs rather than stubs. There isn't much I've found to do until we get the next database dump. [[User:Crystallina|Crystallina]] 18:32, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
::It's getting to be a long wait, isn't it? There's still a number of things pending at /P, but in a lot of cases it's getting hard to sort the wheat from the chaff without more recent info. [[User:Alai|Alai]] 04:00, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
:::And here it is...with definite progress, too! [[User:Crystallina|Crystallina]] 19:55, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
 
== WARNING STUBS ==
 
There are currently 137 uncatogorized stubs. I'll help to fix that, but any help would be apretiated, -[[User:Royalguard11|Royalguard11]]<small>([[User talk:Royalguard11|Talk]])([[User:Royalguard11/Desk|Desk]])</small> 03:10, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 
== Biography sorting ==
 
I was just looking for Polish Biography stubs.Theyare all sorted by FIRST name, not LAST name. So if you don't know the first name it's very difficult to find.
 
How can this be corrected? There shoulb be some '''bot''' that would do this.
I haven't checked other categories but assume the same problem exists.
 
[[User:Syrenab|Syrenab]] 19:21, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 
:Stub sorting already wastes too much time and resources, sorting by surname will use a disproportionate amount more. [[User:Bluemoose|Martin]] 19:26, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 
== Victory! ==
We've gotten rid of the backlog of uncategorized stubs. As of the time I'm posting this, there are only 17 uncategorized stubs. We should try to keep up at this pace. [[User:Toonmon2005|Toonmon2005]] 01:30, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
:This is about the level the main stub category is normally at - the only reason there was such a backlog is that a bot has been hunting for untagged stubs lately. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...''<small><font color="#008822">[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?]]</font></small>'' 05:37, 11 September 2006 (UTC)