Template talk:Stub

Help organize stubs! Click here: Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Stub

Old discussions archived:

Notes

Note to administrators deleting stub types

It is very important that when you delete a stub type, that you also remove it from the stub type list on this page. This is essential not only for maintaining consistency, but also to prevent confusion among stub-sorters.

Please ensure that no red links are left on this page, as they can lead to unnecessary deletions. In cases where a stub category falls significantly below the threshold of 60 stubs (typically around 50), well-formed stub templates on the list should be upmerged into appropriate parent categories rather than being deleted or redirected.

An important note on stub icons

Some stub categories relate to controversial issues. As such, their icons have been selected with care to avoid causing offence or appearing biased.

Before you change any stub icon, please ensure the change is discussed and approved at both Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals and the relevant WikiProject(s) associated with the stub category.

Sizes of stub categories

Maintenance note: reminder to all editors that the maximum section depth is 6 (WP:MAXLEVEL). Because all category pages are embedded in the WP:All stub types page, they should begin at level 3 (i.e. ===).

On March 15, 2007, all size counts (by the number of stubs in each stub category) were removed from this page to improve accessibility and maintainability. The names of stub categories with lists of stub articles too long to be easily maintained is at WikiProject Stub sorting/To do § Oversized stub categories. A list of all stub categories, ordered by size, is at WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub type sizes.

From July 22-24, 2024, stub types were finished being de-transcluded from this master page. A new all stub type page was created with everything transcluded, and subpages were reformatted to conform to that embedding.

Relationships between stub types

The parent-child relationships shown in the listing below reflect the relationship between categories into which each template places the article to which it is affixed. Multiple parentage is indicated by the presence of small text describing child stub types that appear elsewhere in the listing. This is done to eliminate duplication of stub counts, which inevitably leads to different values for the multiple listings of the same stub type as a result of human error.

Stub categories without a stub template

There are a few stub categories that are not associated with a stub template or contain only child categories (no articles):

Symbol stubs: only holds the categories Anthem stubs, Flag stubs, and Heraldry stubs.
Fictional universe stubs: only holds the categories for individual fictional universe stubs.
Film stubs by genre: only holds the categories for film stubs by genre.

List of stub types and templates

Shortcut

WP:STUBTAGSWP:STUBTAGS

Generic stub types

Stubs – {{Stub}} (Used when the exact category of stub is not known; often added by bots. Should be replaced quickly with a more accurate stub. You can check which pages use this template by checking here.)

Articles to be expanded contains articles which are no longer stubs, but still need expansion to become encyclopedic. Various cleanup templates include articles in this category, but they should not be placed on articles which are still marked with a stub template—one or the other should be used, but not both.
- {{Expand section}} contains articles that have a particular section lacking, but are otherwise no longer a stub.

Specific stub types

ca:Viquipèdia:Esborrany#Classificar els esborranys

Please enclose in each new stub template the message in <div id="stub"> and </div>.

NOTICE: New type of stub

A new type of stub has been created: it's called a substub. Substubs are like regular stubs, only even smaller. You can read more about the difference between stubs and substubs here, or view examples of stubs vs. substubs. There is also a new substub template message; the new message is meant to replace the normal stub message, but only where, of course, an article is a substub instead of a stub. The new message looks like:

This article is a substub. A substub is even smaller than a normal stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

You can use this new message by either replacing {{stub}} with {{substub}} in cases when a stub is more accurately described as a substub, or simply inserting {{substub}} at the bottom of an article. Many substubs are automatically listed on Wikipedia:Shortpages. You can discuss this new type of stub here, on the template message's talk page, or, preferably, on the substub talk page itself. -- Mike Storm 03:09, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Paragraphing stub message

I was thinking, wouldn't be better if the stub message was rendered as a paragraph (or even centered)? That way it wouldn't "merge" with the article text, as it currently does, and it'd look more like a warning — Kieff 09:10, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

Adding a div to allow user css to override stub display

Copied from Village pump - this discuss provides the reasoning for why we have a div inside the template - it allows users to decide to blank the template for themselves only, if they wish.

Wouldn't it be cool if the contents of a template could be overridden on a per-user basis, like we do with the style sheets and javascript. Then I could blank templates like {{stub}} and {{substub}} because I don't find them useful (I can see that it's a short article, ok!) but others who like these messages for whatever reason can still see them. Whatlinkshere etc would still work as they do now. Pcb21| Pete 07:23, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Good idea, like class='urlexpansion' for a text that may or may not be displayed.--Patrick 10:09, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I think you could get that effect by editing Template:stub, enclosing the text in <div class="template" id="stub">...</div> and then putting div.template#stub { display: none; } into your monobook.css. I didn't dare try that one out on the live Template:stub, though, but a test using Template:testing showed that it works for the display. However, Template:testing has a link to User:Lupo/temp (a test page of mine), and "What links here" on User:Lupo/temp didn't show the page I had included "{{testing}}" on, only the template itself did. Is this normal, or are some templates (e.g. Template:stub) handled differently so that the pages including the template show up on "What links here" on Wikipedia:Perfect stub article? Oh, and BTW, could some admin please delete Template:testing again? Thanks. Lupo 11:34, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Deleted Bmills 12:14, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

No, you are seeing the standard whatlinkshere behaviour for all templates. Thus I think this solution works. The only argument against it is that it complicates the wikitext when editing the template. When considering who edits template pages (experienced), I think this cost is worthwhile - obviously the talk page and an HTML comment will make clear what is happening. What do others think? Pcb21| Pete 12:11, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

These complexities can themselves be hidden in a template. See User:Pcb21/stub test and its includees. Pcb21| Pete 12:33, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Fine, then let's go for it! (Frankly said, I don't think the two-stage template solution in any simpler than just adding a <div> around the text. But I don't care very much about such a minor implementation detail, both are fine with me.) Lupo 12:41, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Ok, implemented directly. Pcb21| Pete 13:43, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

(Breaking out of indentation...) Pete, you said in your edit comment you weren't sure whether both the class and the id were needed. I used both because it allows selectively switching on or off individual templates, or the whole bunch of them. Consider the newly created {{substub}}: if you don't want to see those, but wanted to see the stub messages, you'd add only div.boilerplate#substub { display: none; } to your CSS. If you wanted to see no boilerplates at all, you might add a single div.boilerplate { display:none; }. If you don't want to see either stub message, but do want to see other boilerplates, you might add div.boilerplate#substub, div.boilerplate#stub { display: none; } to your CSS. Using both class and id gives users a little bit more flexibility, that's all. Lupo 09:06, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've requested this as a feature on feature suggestions. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 15:32, 2004 Jul 22 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the helpful tutorial Lupo - I thought it might be something like that but wasn't certain so trod cautiously. Pcb21| Pete 16:15, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Aevar, what are you requesting? It seems to be working already?! Pcb21| Pete 16:15, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Oops, should've read that feature request page already. Yes what you suggest would an ideal way of doing things (presuming you can nest divs). Pcb21| Pete 16:18, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Random edits to the template

THE STUB MESSAGE IS STUPID SO I BLANKED IT. --216.229.223.247 09:09, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC) A.K.A. CoolDude

That's very nice. Thanks for experimenting with Wikipedia. Your test worked, and has now been removed. I have protected the stub page since in the past people have said it should be discussed on this talk page first anyway. I notice that many of the other significant templates were already protected anyway. --ssd 12:07, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Typo?

There is an extraneous space between "it" and the final period.

Thanks, Dominus 13:31, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well, actually, there isn't; the code is as follows:

''This 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]''.

The problem is that the skin can (and, for me, does) have a special little icon showing that the final link ("expanding it") is an external one, over and above the special colour highlight.

There isn't a way of removing this, sadly, though you don't notice it when the icon is there too (the browser leaves in a space for the icon even though it's not shown).

HTH.

And please, don't use H1s or full-caps in sections.

James F. (talk) 14:01, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Keep the stub and substub messages?

personally I say no, they are stupid, they make the article look tacky and no one pays attention to them.--Ryan B. (Talk, contributions) 08:12, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I don't support them in this form. A page (i.e. wikipedia:list of substubs), or putting the tag on the talk page would be better. anthony (see warning) [message edited after reply]

I disagree. I think they should be kept as is. --ssd 12:05, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I can see on talk pages, maybe, but they just look bad on a page and i bet nobody even sees that and adds to the article, at least not anyone who would see that the article is short, without the template and expand it.--Ryan B. (Talk, contributions) 05:20, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If you feel this way, bring it up on the village pump, where more people will see your comments. --ssd 03:13, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm definitely in favor of keeping them. I certainly tend to pad out stub articles where I can; I'm sure I can't be the only one… — OwenBlacker 23:49, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)

Blank the message using your personal CSS. That is the what the div is there for. Pcb21| Pete 21:13, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You've gotta be an editor to play with your personal CSS (and an advanced editor at that). One major reason why these stub messages shouldn't be all over the article's text is because they're only useful to editors. They also violate Wikipedia:Avoid self-references. anthony (see warning) 23:18, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

But everyone can be an editor, just push the edit button. I assume by "advanced editor" you mean someone who knows what they are doing. It would be nice to have a few examples somewhere of exactly what to do to hide the stub messages. Perhaps some nice person will leave one here or link to an existing one. --ssd 15:24, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Everyone (not banned) can be an editor, but the vast majority of people don't want to be. And by "advanced editor", well, someone who has the time to figure out how the hell to make the CSS do this. I don't even know how to do it myself, although I guess I could figure it out with enough effort. Maybe if this is made easier we can make an exception to the policy against the messages. anthony (see warning) 19:10, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Unprotect

Please unprotect this template, or I'll be forced to use a new template for stubs. Templated should not be protected. Good changes to Template:Protected have been possible because that template is not protected. --Cantus 17:45, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

I don't think {{stub}} needs a big fancy div. Goplat 17:48, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yes it does. Without the div it is impossible for users to override the message using their own personal CSS. As you can see from the above talk - lots of people want this. Pcb21| Pete 21:13, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This should stay protected. Changing this template invalidates the cache on thousands of pages. This causes too much load on the database to have it edit warred over. Angela . 17:11, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

No, I don't think any edit wars will result. Please unprotect it, or I, too, will have to use an alternate template to mark stubs. — El Chico! ^Talk 19:50, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Not everything has to be done in a hurry. Have some patience and post suggestions here; the template is protected for technical reasons. ✏ Sverdrup 20:27, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Protecting this template and forcing changes to be dropped here gives admins an unfair advantage. Not only can they decide against my copy if they don't like it, but their name will be attached to it in the edit history. I'm going to use User:El Chico/FreeStub to mark my stubs.

Edit the template, and drop a copy here, and I'll update the real one for you if nobody objects. ssd 06:37, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Big mistake, sorry

Big sorry for this edit, I meant to edit my test template, which I had unfortunately previously redirected to template:stub (I forget what I was trying then, but its there in the edit history if you want to check). I was working quickly, and ended up changing this by accident. If anything went wrong on my account (ie Speedy deletions, etc), I definately volunteer to undelete or fix anything. Thanks to Kate for speedily reverting it, and to anyone else who notified me or tried to fix it. —siro χ o 06:02, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)

Invalid HTML

in HTML (and XHTML) a tag can only have one class= in it. MediaWiki removes all but the last one. They're supposed to be combined, class="boilerplate metadata". Goplat 03:16, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ditch the arrow

Psst. Add class="plainlinks". That is all. Oooo, .,-;"";-,. ,oooO 04:24, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Metastub

Since the bug which caused Category:NaodW29-item6a1c86547e335864 stubs has been fixed, {{metastub}} is now available as a simple, consistent framework for stub templates (see Template:Stubs for its use). --[[User:Eequor|η υωρ]] 19:08, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, still without clue as to what to do with it, if anything. Maybe some instructions on the talk page? --Phil | Talk 10:36, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

For example, {{metastub|article=[[aircraft]]-related article|id=aerostub|category=Aircraft}} is a simplified version of Template:Aero-stub. It produces:

This aircraft-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

This provides a standard format for stub messages, which can be updated from a single ___location (instead of becoming unmanageable when changes are inevitably made). --[[User:Eequor|η

υωρ]] 00:14, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Got that, but the "CSS ID" bit is escaping me: is there a list of values in use? --Phil | Talk 11:03, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

Proposed rewording

I was inspired by the French version of the stub template when thinking of the following wording:

This article is a stub. If you know or can find out more information about its subject, you can help by expanding it (select the "Edit this page" link).

The phrases in brackets are optional. Note also that this wording eliminates the word Wikipedia, to better conform with Wikipedia:Avoid self-references. Discuss. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 22:46, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

Movie stubs

There are three different stub templates for movies: template:movie-stub, template:mov-stub, template:film-stub. If no-one objects violently, I will start using the first in preference to the latter two. --Phil | Talk 08:57, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

Format request

Could someone with the clout to do it put a <BR> before the text of this template? It would improve the appearance of thousands (alas) of pages! — Bill 22:49, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Please, don't! This was done to template:bio-stub and it opens up a huge dead-space above the rubric. The DIV provides a line break already: any further formatting should be left to personal stylesheets. --Phil | Talk 10:54, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

Bill had added this previously to geo-stub where it was reverted by Delirium. I don't like the extraneous space either -- although it may be another glitch in rendering by my Firefox. --Joy [shallot] 12:19, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Apologies — sincere — for having done this again today; I only thought that I might have done it before, thus to check the history, then the various talk pages. I'll go revert my latest, but would someone explain where the Wikipedia personal stylesheets are? This isn't anything I've found onboard yet. — Bill 23:29, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Aha, see below: Cologne Blue may be the culprit. — Bill 23:54, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Two links to the same place?

This article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Does the message really need two links to the same page ("stub" and "help") in its two-sentence length? 65.116.19.243 19:22, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes, that way it's more likely that both people who like nouns and people who like verbs will click through and read the manual. (Originally it was two different pages for those two links but they're merged nowadays.) --Joy [shallot] 08:21, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Cologne Blue

Would some fix the template so that it looks reasonable in Cologne Blue? The current format (from 23:27, 2004 Sep 30) glues the message to the last line of the article text. Thanks -- User:Docu

Second the motion, see "Format Request" above. — Bill 23:55, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Adding an icon?

How do people feel about adding an icon to the template, like Wikipedias in most other languages have? (see German, French, Polish and Estonian for different examples) I personally like the Polish version, although the German one is pretty cool as well. --Aramգուտանգ 01:33, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I don't like anything that makes the stub message stand out more than the article. Dori | Talk 02:21, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)

I don't think the Polish stub deters from the article, plus it gived nice vertical padding to the stub message and makes it obvious that the message is not part of the article text, but instead a sort of "system message/footnote". In addition to that, the symbolism of the puzzle piece icon is simply perfect. Let's see what others think. --Aramգուտանգ 06:25, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I like it. although I'm torn between the simplicity of the Polish version and the efficiency of the German ;-) --Phil | Talk 09:39, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)

I'd support an icon if it was tasteful. The Polish one is absolutely wonderful for the reasons Aram stated. —siro χ o 10:52, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)

I support the usage of an icon common to all Wikipedias. Navigation, login, preferences, special pages are placed at the same position in all languages. This is why you can login, talk and edit everywhere. A common icon would help you to identify stubs in languages and alphabets you are not familiar. Gangleri 21:30, 2004 Oct 26 (UTC)

Breaking up the category

I have found that even the stub categories are getting large and unwieldy. So here is my suggested example, used in this case for simple stub, though it can be applied to any other category of stub:

This article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

[[Category:Stubs beginning with {{{1}}}|{{{2}}}]]

In this example, {{{1}}} is the first letter of the title and {{{2}}} is the second letter of the title. That way, the stubs can still be broken into categories, they won't all be listed under the same letter.

•→Iñgólemo ←• 04:14, 2004 Oct 26 (UTC)

Breaking up Stubs is a good idea, but it may be more useful to break it up by topic — see Category:Stub categories — and guide the templates into the categories in such a way that people interested and knowledgeable in some particular field will be given a list of pages needing improvement: along the lines of {{bio-stub}} and {{geo-stub}}, except sharper. I've been adding {{Italy-related}}. BUT the system (yours or mine) will only work if everyone puts the sharper stub markers on the page rather just plain {{stub}}; and right now, even {{bio-stub}} and {{geo-stub}} are not that widely used, let alone the sharper ones that already exist. — Bill 12:21, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

What about having the ability to specify the category where the stub should be inserted between the {{stub|...}}? Normaly [[Category:...]] should be at the end of the page but they are not. With many InterWiki links you may oversee such stub categories when reworking the article.
Or another suggestion: I think a great help would be to to create automaticaly somthing as [[Category:This category\Stubs]]. I have seen articles belonging to six categories and more. The suggestion does not require much changes exept reloading of the cache. But because it is a feature which was not available until now nobody would expect that it should work imediatly. Regards Gangleri 21:58, 2004 Oct 26 (UTC)

"select the "Edit this page" link"

Do we really need to tack on:

(select the "Edit this page" link)

to random stub messages? Isn't the link of the text "expanding it" enough? (Do we really want people who aren't acquainted with this concept of "clicking" on "links" to edit an encyclopedia?)

In any event, it should be consistent. Only some have this. --Joy [shallot] 19:41, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think it's bloated and unnecessary. The "expand it" link already does that. --[[User:AllyUnion|AllyUnion (talk)]] 10:04, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Auto-stub

According to Template talk:Auto-stub, we should remove this stub from all articles that it appears on, and never add it to any articles. Is this correct? Should the mention of this kind of stub above be fixed?

Brianjd 08:03, 2004 Nov 13 (UTC)

By "the mention above" I mean the line in the table in the first section, "Categories".

Makes no sense to me. I see no justification or discussion of this. It's an unsigned comment posted by user:OldakQuill, you should ask there. Personally, I'd be tempted to ignore it as is. --ssd

Bug

why does this display incorrectly, Card_magic? [[User:BrokenSegue|BrokenSegue]] 05:03, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

A bug indeed. Missing right bracket on last external link. Fixed. Thanks for pointing it out. --ssd 05:54, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Layout fix?

How about adding horizontal lines and center-align the text line? Like this: