Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting

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Notice Before proposing or creating a new type of stub, please read
How to propose a new stub type.
WikiProject Stub sorting
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Information
Project page talk
- Stub types (sections) talk
- Stub types (full list) talk
- List of stub redirects talk
- Naming guidelines  
- To do talk
Wikipedia:Stub talk
Discussion
Criteria (A) talk
Proposals (A) talk
Discoveries (A) talk
Deletion (Log) talk
Category

Some Wikipedians have formed a project to better organize and categorize stubs and stub categories. This page and its subpages contain their suggestions; it is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of other Wikipedians. Everyone is welcome to help; for more information please inquire on the talk page or see the "To do" list.

Contents

[edit] Project goals

This WikiProject aims primarily to sort stubs in Wikipedia. To do this the project has the following aims:

  1. Better categorization of stubs
  2. Make sure that stub sorting does not get messy
  3. Ensure that stub categories attempt to remain at moderate sizes

[edit] Why is stub sorting important?

Stub articles are generally short and/or below the high Wikipedia standard. If they are not sorted, then it means they are less likely to be edited to higher quality as nobody necessarily knows the page is in need of attention. Even if a page is sorted into a category indicating it is in need of attention, such as the articles needing a cleanup, it is still not as good as putting it in a stub category. This is because stub categories attract experts in specific areas (chemists can see chemistry stubs for example), whereas generic cleanup/deadend categories do not.

[edit] Parentage

[edit] Structure

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types for more information on existing stub types.
See Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/List of stubs for a compact list of all stub types.

[edit] Guidelines and criteria

  • To see the current guidelines and other information on stub sorting and stubs in general, see: Wikipedia:Stub.

[edit] New stubs

  • To propose new stub categories/templates, see /Proposals.
  • List newly found stub categories/templates at /Discoveries.

[edit] Important article links

See also: Category:WikiProject Stub sorting, all subpages of this page

[edit] Participants

The full list became too long for this page. It has been moved to Category:WikiProject Stub sorting participants. Current number of participants is at least 340.

[edit] Stub sorting methods

[edit] General rules

  • To put an article into a stub category, if it is a chemistry stub for example, change the existing stub tag (if it exists) from {{stub}} to {{chem-stub}}.
  • Never subst stub templates.
  • When sorted leave an edit summary like this: Stub-sorting. [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting|You can help!]]
  • It is common practice to put the tag at the very bottom of the article, after all other templates and often after the categories.
  • You may wish to inform the creator of the stub that the use of {{stub}} is no longer recommended by putting {{subst:stubsort}} on their talk page.
  • No stub article should sit in only a stub category as this association is meant to be temporary. If no other category is listed, please add the standard article category that is the parent of the stub category.
  • Please remember to use the list of stub categories to make sure you are putting stubs in the correct category.
  • If the article is no longer a stub, remove the stub template. Refer to Wikipedia:Stub for more information on this matter.

[edit] Things to do

  • See the project's "To do" list for those categories which are very large and those categories for which new sub categories have recently been added and thus need to be resorted.
  • Category:Stubs frequently reaches staggeringly large numbers; help is always needed sorting articles into more specific sub-stub categories.
  • All other stub categories need watching as well, to sort out mislabeled stubs and subsort them further, if applicable.
  • Stubs without any stub tags can be found on Special:Shortpages, Special:Newpages or Special:Randompage.
  • If a large (> 800 stubs) stub subcategory interests you and there aren't yet any subcategories in it, propose some subcategories at WP:WSS/P.
  • If you find new stub templates, list them at WP:WSS/D for discussion.
  • A longer list of oversized stub categories to be split, in order of size, is here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/To do. This might also be used as a holding area for proposals not yet created, and for sub-categories in need of being sorted-down into. Alai 17:30, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tools

To shop for more tools, see Wikipedia:Tools or Wikipedia:Tools/Browser tools.

  • User scripts: A user script is a bit of JavaScript that gets loaded each time you visit a Wikipedia article and that does things for you. Their use is very varied. Some add popups to links, others make editing easier (regex search and replace), others change the way an article is formatted or simplify common tasks. Usually the script is copied into a user's .js file.
  • Navigation popups: Installed in a user's .js file, this causes a small box to pop up when your mouse hovers over a wikilink. The box can show you the first paragraph of an article, whether it's tagged as a stub, how many categories it has, etc. Can be useful for finding stubs and for categorizing an article according to the text in the first paragraph.
  • StubSense: Given a category, can find the most frequently used stub templates for items in that category.
  • Stubsensor: A script which detects long articles with the stub tag attached to them and is used to organize periodic cleanup projects
  • CatScan: Essentially a Boolean search tool. Enter a category or template and find items that use a different cat or template, find all items under a certain size, find images, etc.
  • AutoWikiBrowser: The AutoWikiBrowser is a semi-automated Wikipedia editor for Microsoft Windows 2000/XP (or newer) designed to make tedious repetitive tasks quicker and easier. It is essentially a browser that automatically opens up a new page when the last is saved. When set to do so, it suggests some changes (typically formatting) that are generally meant to be incidental to the main change. At present, AutoWikiBrowser can create a list of articles from single or multiple categories, "what links here", the wiki links on an article, a text file, a Google search, a user's watchlist, or a user's contributions. More about AWB...
  • {{DEFAULTSORT:}}]: You can use this code to force an article to sort correctly (i.e. without an article, or by last name first), no matter what category it's in, even in stub categories. From the January Technology Report:
The default sort key of a page for categories can be changed using the new {{DEFAULTSORT}} magic word. For instance, on George Washington, {{DEFAULTSORT:Washington, George}} would cause a subsequent [[Category:United States presidents]] to be equivalent to [[Category:United States presidents|Washington, George]], not [[Category:United States presidents|George Washington]]. This is especially useful when the article belongs in many categories.

[edit] Project templates

These are the project's templates. They are not the same as the stub templates used by the project.

  • Template {{WPSS-cat}} is used at the top of stub categories. It appears like this:
Stub-sorting Wikiproject

This category is maintained by WikiProject Stub sorting.
Please propose new stub categories here before creating fresh categories and templates.


  • Template {{WPSS-new}} is used on some of the project's discussion pages, and on other pages related to stubs. It appears like this:
Stub-sorting Wikiproject

To avoid unnecessary redirects and reverts, please discuss any new stub type you wish to create at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals prior to its creation and placement in articles or tables.
  • Template {{WikiProject Stub sorting}} is used on the talk pages of some more editwar-prone stub templates. It appears like this:
Stub-sorting Wikiproject

This stub-notice is maintained by WikiProject Stub sorting, an attempt to bring some sort of order to Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can choose to improve/expand the articles containing this stub notice, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
  • Template {{verylargestub}} is used at the top of stub categories which are oversized. It appears like this:
This stub category is very large. Subcategories may be helpful for browsing.

To view existing subcategories, please visit Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types.
To propose new subcategorization methods, please visit Wikipedia: WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals.


  • Template {{WPSS-talk}} is used on the talk pages of some stub categories and templates. It appears like this:
Notice Most of the discussion relating to this and other stub categories occurs at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting. You may wish to consider leaving a note there rather than here.
  • Template {{popstub}} is used on pages for new stub categories which need to be populated.

[edit] See also