Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals

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Before proposing or creating a new type of stub, please read How to propose a new stub type.

This article was the subject of a previous vote for deletion with a result of keep. An archived record of the discussion can be found here (Prior to archival it can be found here).

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2005 discussions 2006 discussions

Contents 1 This Page Seems To Be a Violation of WP:BOLD 2 Possible stub category 3 Archiving the archives 4 Category:Baltic States football biography stubs ? 5 Comment moved from Jan. proposals page 6 ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ 7 WP:WSS/NG overhaul proposal (and first re-draft!) 7.1 Redrafting, stage 2 8 why stub categories? 9 Moving "Other discussions" to talk page? 10 Requested articles confusion 11 Stub without icon 12 Irish sport stubs 13 Stub Template Placement 14 Project consultation 15 Other discussions is live 16 New Stub 17 Bot-populating? 18 REVOLUTION! 19 Countering an increaing trend 20 Stub Help 21 Speedying, discussions already in progress 22 Stub Location 23 Question on recreating a stub related category 24 Proposed simplification of geo-stub hierarchy (Asia and Africa, plus Central Asia) 25 Lists!! 26 Czechoslovakia 27 Cyprus 28 How to count stubs? 29 Hierarchy beneath Category:Sportspeople stubs by nationality 30 Geologic formation stubs 31 Crustacean stubs 32 Category:South West England building and structure stubs 33 Archive and archive summary 34 CPI/CPI(M) 35 Query regarding China 36 Be prepared (oncoming Kosovo changes) 37 Argentina geography stubs 38 Cat:College football coach stubs 39 Jasmine seng 40 Another possible "Speedy creation" type? 41 Public Transit 42 Peru geography stubs 43 Post-stub stage - easy transition wanted

[edit] This Page Seems To Be a Violation of WP:BOLD

Why would anybody need permission to edit something, stub or otherwise? I'm sorry, but this section makes no sense to me. Just H 07:08, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:BOLD is not a "rule", such that "violations" of it can exist. We've found through experience that if people just create stub-types at will, we end up with a huge mess, which is useless for finding stub articles on a particular topic. Seeing as that's the point of tagging stubs, some Wikipedians decided to keep the stub categories organized. It actually makes a lot of sense, in context. -GTBacchus^(talk) 07:15, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Just H, have you actually read WP:BOLD? Specifically, have you read the part that says that it applies to articles but not to templates or categories? Creating templates and categories can create quite a mess if they have to be cleaned up - especially when they impinge on the smooth operating of Wikipedia. WP:WSS does a lot of work towards the smooth running of wikipedia - creating new stub types without checking whether they work within the overall scheme of stub types reduces the ability to keep that running as smooth and uneventful as possible. Being able to be bold is a tenet of Wikipedia, but if you boldly create a fork of an article, say, it will be quickly deleted. if you create an unnecessary stub type, it may well require more than a simple deletion - it could involve a great deal of effort re-sorting stubs - effort which is better spent elsewhere. Grutness...wha? 07:26, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I did read it, but to be honest with you, I didn't understand the purpose of why that was there, as most policies seem to be arbitrarily made, whether they are "rules" or "guidelines" or whatever. If someone knows how to make a category and stub, I don't see the harm -- that section of WP:BOLD should only apply to newbies, but I don't know how to change that rule or propose a change to that rule without it being reverted by the status quo, so I ignored it. Just H 17:57, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

The point is that stub sorters (i.e. the c. 400 members of this project) already have quite a lot on their plates maintaining a system containing thousands of stub templates. Stub tags are used on 100,000s of articles, so given the size of this task, we have to apply systematics when it comes to naming them, otherwise any sorting effort will be completely in vain, if we have to look up the name of every single stub template because they use completely different standards. The current system is pretty much the only thing that makes sorting possible in the first place since an editor can be sure that if {{Germany-bio-stub}} exists, then the similar template for Spain will be named {{Spain-bio-stub}}. Creating a template takes seconds. Deleting them takes at least a week a piece. This project does not prevent you from improving Wikipedia, since any good template idea is very likely to be approved as soon as people here have made sure that its name conforms to the naming system. It is also common sense that editors should be able to guess category names, which implies that the category tree for all countries follow a naming standard. Btw, this page has previously been nominated on WP:MFD where this proposal was rejected rather categorically.[1] But if somebody begins creating lots of badly named templates and then applies a bot to spread them all over the place, surely this will not be WP:BOLD but something quite different. It is this kind of scenario that we try to avoid. Valentinian ^{(talk) / (contribs)} 22:55, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I'm a fan of ignoring rules, and to be clear, really, this is not a rule. It's a guideline that helps the smooth maintenance of Wikipedia. Sure, you can start a Stub without proposing it. If there's a consensus to keep it, it'll be kept. If it's agreed the stub can be substituted or it serves too little a purpose to be kept, then it's likely to be moved, renamed or removed. It happened to me. I created a stub without a proposal which was of small scope. It was removed a short while later. Though I still disagree with the removal, I accepted the decision and will not re-create it, as I accept that there are suitable substitutes for it.

That said, I will never propose to create a stub or make a change to a stub. I won't gain consensus on anything because frankly, it never gets done. Do it yourself, create the sucker and if people ask "why wasn't this discussed" you may retort "because it's bloody stupid NOT to have it." But only say that (and you may quote me) IF it's bloody stupid to not have the stub. --linca^linca 13:16, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Consider this. There are three types of unproposed stub: good stub types, bad stub types, and stub types which are close to being good but fail for some reason. Most unproposed stub types fall into the third of these categories.

If you think of making a stub, and it is an appropriate one that fits within the general stub scheme, then all well and good. Proposal of it will take very little effort (maybe one sentence on the proposal page), and similar effort from WP:WSS to say "yes, it's good". However, if stub sporters don't know that such a stub is being created, they will continue to sort using other stubs, and it won't get used. When it is discovered or WSP:WSS is notified of it, it will therefore require re-stubbing which wouldn't have been needed if iwe had been in the loop from the start. If you think of making a stub which is not appropriate, then you do a lot of work to make it, we have to go through the hassle of an SFD process, and there's more work in deleting it and restubbing any articles which have the template. If you think of making a stub which is almost but not quite useful, then proposing it would get the crinks ironed out of it and get an appropriate stub made in five days (WP:WSS/P works pretty efficiently, by WP standards). If you make it without proposing it, then it causes problems for editors and stub sorters until its fixed, and the fixing ties up valuable time which could be spent by editors doing other work.

In other words, the process may not be compulsory, but it is highly recommended, as it saves a vast amount of work for us in all circumstances and for you as well in many circumstances. Grutness...wha? 22:48, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

The point that Just H was making that I agree with is that the concept of proposals is a breach of the first and only inherent rule of ignoring all rules. Plus, this also becomigns a bit too much for some, when really we're supposed to be avoiding instruction creep. I know this isn't quite that, but it borders on it. Anyway, as for the preservation of stub quality, have a look at the end of this page. I've made a suggestion for a replacement of all stubs. Arduous? yes. Effective? Incredibly so. --linca^linca 03:44, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible stub category

I haven't got the time right now to look for +60 articles, but at least there ar this two: [[2]] [[3]] that I think could use a psichology-book-stub (in the meantime, I used non-fiction-book-stub), and my guess is there could be more. Maybe I'll check it later, but anyway, keep it in mind. --Jbaio 13:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Archiving the archives

If there's no objection, I'd like to move Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals/Archive to Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals/Archive2005-2006 or some such title, and leave January 2007 on the current page, to be continued. It's getting longish and a new year seems like a good time for a fresh page. Eh what?! Any thoughts? Her Pegship (tis herself) 05:07, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

• No objections here. ~ Amalas rawr ^{=^_^=} 14:36, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
• Sounds good to me, too - and on a yearly basis from now on? Grutness...wha? 22:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
• Good idea. Agree about yearly archives from 2007 and on. Valentinian ^{(talk) / (contribs)} 22:29, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Baltic States football biography stubs ?

Somehow I can't seem to find who closed the football bio proposals, but was the Baltic category actually approved? We don't single out the Balts anywhere else and I haven't heard about any Baltic football leagues or similar. Just curious. Valentinian ^{(talk) / (contribs)} 22:40, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

That would be me, tidying up. It's entirely possible I misunderstood something, so feel free to revise the closing tags or "to be created" listing. Here's the discussion itself. Cheers, Her Pegship (tis herself) 04:20, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comment moved from Jan. proposals page

People who proposed about how the midle Juba province is owned were very wrong, this is because they mentioned the Daroot community belong a number of oercentage of the land. The ogaden community likewise belongs another percent of the land. Now who is Daroot and who is Ogaden?

According to my best of knowledge, what I know is this, Daroot is the same community for Odaden, but they want to get to shares of the land which is not possible. Ocassionally, the land Midle Juba and lower Juba belongs to the community called digil and mirifle and Somali Bantu and Bajuni only. The rest of the communities were brought by Mohamed Siad Barre from Ethiopia and Northern Somalia after a severe drought erupted there. They are only refugees and want to take over the lands of thses innocent people.

What you cana ask of yourself is, "the Italian colonised to which community in Southern Somalia?

By that time, none of the Ogaden, Hawiye and Mareteen community were present in colonization period, where were they?

The mango trees and coconut palms which are grown on the banks of the river Juba were issued by the Italian colonizers and the British colonizers. They gave only to Somali Bantus because they were colonized.

Eventually in Southern Somalia the people whom were colonised and belong the land are Somali Bantus and Digil and mirifle. The proof is that during a colonial period, a leader against the colonization must be there. Who was leader in Southern Somalia to resist the Italian colonization and the British as well. It was Nasiib Buundo of the Shambara Community who died jail in Moqadishu.

Proposed by: Jaate Kasiinje Kunjiila.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.88.156.46 (talk • contribs)

Exactly what is the "proposal" here? And what does it have to do with stub sorting? Grutness...wha? 04:31, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

just appearing as a newbie there. would like to propose some new stubs,

on Miscellaneous, Materials, i would propose to create a section about "Plastic(s)" ,including production, design and disposal or recycling. this planet is filled by PET, PP, and their likes, and this Wikipedia should develop a consensus on how to reduce their use (plastics) and improve disposal , and also another about "Glass" history, production, aso. (recycling glass is easy, except for the floated one)

finally in Science, i propose a stub about "optics" (did,nt see such, meabyh i need glasses/lenses myself...) , including the history of such lenses, instruments, microscopes, a.s.o. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.136.197.132 (talk • contribs)

You may want to post those on the project page, if they arent already there.

71.99.136.195 01:08, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:WSS/NG overhaul proposal (and first re-draft!)

(This is just a courtesy copy of the note originally posted on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting, since more sorters may actually be reading over here than over there.)

• 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. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 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. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 11:09, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 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 Redraft1 as HTML comments, while a few come from 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! — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 04:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] why stub categories?

why not just have a stub category for every normal category? Or just use the stub tag and automatically have the stub-category assigned by the page-category? And if there is no page-category then one could be added if there were a prexisting stub-category. why not have a script do this? Has this been discussed before? --Tim 18:08, 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.:

• 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 Cat: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.

Grutness...wha? 23:58, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Continued here: Wikipedia_talk:Stub#Why_stub_categories.3F --Tim 04:19, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Moving "Other discussions" to talk page?

The "Other stubs discussions" section at the bottom of WP:WSS/P is often overlooked and rarely used. Perhaps it would be better to move any discussions there to this talk page, and leave a note on WP:WSS/P to the effect that "Other discussions relating to stubs should go on the talk page"? That way they'll probably get more comments than they would otherwise... - and it would mean the entire WP:WSS/P page was transcluded! Grutness...wha? 23:21, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Requested articles confusion

Twice now this month I've noticed new users request new stub articles here as opposed to new stub types. Should we consider having a pointer near the top to point people to Wikipedia:Requested articles? More importantly, is there some text somewhere that might be mistakenly leading people here to request article creation? Caerwine Caer’s whines 08:42, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stub without icon

{{theat-struct-stub}} has no icon. Where can I request that one be added. Reply at my talk page. TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio) 23:34, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Irish sport stubs

Having recently created and populated two stub categories (Cat:Irish cricket biography stubs) and Cat:Irish rugby union biography stubs for Ireland that relate to sports where the international team represents the whole island i.e Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, i was wondering 1) Do these categories need to be subcats of both Ireland-sport-bio and NI-sport-bio or just the one. In the case of rugby does it nedd UK-rugby-bio as a parent as well. 2) As it stands only Ireland-sport is a parent category and I have left any NI-sport-bio tags in place but removed Ireland-sport-bio tags is this correct or should I be doing something different. Waacstats 21:55, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stub Template Placement

I couldn't find a relevant page to bring this up, but where are stub templates supposed to be? At the top or the bottom of the page? --Notmyhandle 01:48, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

To quote WP:STUB: After writing a short article, or finding an unmarked stub, you should insert a stub template. By convention this is placed at the end of the article, after the External links section, any navigation templates, and the category tags, so that the stub category will appear last. It is usually desirable to leave two blank lines between the first stub template and whatever precedes it. Grutness...wha? 05:34, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Project consultation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Proposals/Archive/March_2007#Split_of_.7B.7BIndonesia-geo-stub.7D.7D - suggests that members of stub sorting were under no obligation to seek out either the members of the Indonesia project - or go beyond their own restricted circle of conversation. I believe that such decisions and processes require a member of such conversation to seek out the opinion of members of the project affected. To not do so would be a way of preventing quite a lot of grief for all concerned. Unless there is some specific written policy within the stub sorting project that gives the project precedence by policy or practice over projects that they affect, I would stongly suggest effort be taken to check first before such a decision can be made SatuSuro 04:16, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

It's a good point, and where possible we should (and frequently do) consult relevant WikiProjects. Having said that, it's not always practical. On a subject which crosses dozens of WikiProjects, like geography, it makes a lot of sense to split all countries in the same way where possible - in the case of geography stubs, that means by major current political subdivision. While it would of course be fantastic news if all country-specific wikiprojects agreed with this being the best way to split, there will be cases where an individual wikiproject finds this a less-than-perfect means of splitting. However, for the ease of stub splitting in general it makes a lot of sense for there to be uniformity across all splits (it's hard enough remembering which countries are split beyond national level - having to remember which are split by province and which by some other means of splitting would be extremely counterproductive).

As it is, it should be remembered that stub-splitting is aimed at editors in general across the whole of Wikipedia, rather than individual WikiProjects. While we try to ensure that stub types will be useful for wikiprojects as well as general editors, it doesn't always work out that way. In any case, WikiProjects have their own parallel scheme using talk page banner templates which allow them to note and assess all relevant articles, not just stubs. Grutness...wha? 05:29, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Hey man - thanks for the great explanation - good stuff.

its clear that indonesia is an archipelago and unitary state - it wouldnt take much to see there is a project - and not much checking to see that we as a project fiercely defend our project against some weird unasked for and unannounced re-arrangements - and we had the arch agrro t-c (who shouldnt even be mentioned let alone be remembered) come and do amazing mixups of our regional and etceteras and other unmenti0onable acts that did not relate to local context.

Its just that we rudely stopped the stub maker in his/her tracks and we have a number of issues to resolve now when other editors come on board later today - we would (despite your explanation) like to have some more discussion on the matter - any suggestions on how to resolve the issue in the specifics would be appreciated. Thanks again for your explanation and time to make it. It is appreciated. SatuSuro 05:39, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Glad the explanation was appreciated. We do frequently get accused of treading on other WikiProjects' toes here, and it's not something we like doing or do deliberately. The more we can work alongside other projects the better. The best suggestion I can make as to where to go from here is to open a new section on Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals/2007/May - or Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals/2007/June if you don't do it soon :) - reopening the earlier proposal and explaining your WikiProject's preferences. Feel free to round up anyone else from WP:Indonesia who wants to add their two-rupiah's worth. ideally, as I pointed out above, our preference would be to split by whatever the top-level administrative division is, which would be the 33 provinces. The main problem with that is that many of them would have too few stubs for their own categories at present, so they would at least in the short term be better upmerged into larger categories split by island group (we use 60 stubs as a general minimum for a separate category). As the separate stub types gather more stubs, chances are that many of them would get enough stubs for their own categories (this is what has happened with other countries in the past - the United States, for instance, was firstly given 50 state-specific types but were categorised initially into four regions. Grutness...wha? 06:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that SatuSuro 06:18, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Other discussions is live

I put a proposal under Other stub-related discussions a week ago, and it still has no comments. Has anybody here seen it? -- kenb215 talk 00:49, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I definitely hadn't noticed it... as I wrote a couple of months back (on this very talk page), that section is rarely used and most "other" discussions tend to go here on the talk page. Grutness...wha? 10:07, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Stub

I just added a new stub for Herbalists: herbalist-stubKSVaughan2 22:49, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Sigh. Any particular reason why you're announcing this on the talk page rather than proposing it on the page itself before creating it? It's got a redlinked category and even if every single article in Cat:Herbalists was a stub it wouldn't get near threshold. Grutness...wha? 01:48, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bot-populating?

Whenever a new stub type dear to my heart is created, I end up going through by hand and re-sorting them. I keep seeing, though, that some are "bot-populable" (blame Alai for that bone-jarring neologism). What does this mean? Can I reduce some of my repetitive stress? Can I turn in my shovel?? Her Pegship (tis herself) 18:32, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

• Sorry for your jarred bones and stressed tendons! Speaking for cyberme and myself, stub types are bot-populable if their existing categorisation (or more precisely, categorisation when there last last a db dump, often a very different animal, though hopefully more a problem for false negatives than false positives) determine their stub types-to-be in a straightforward and reliable fashion. Alai 03:51, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Ah - that explains it for me, too. So - to use an example - everything marked with UK-struct-stub and church-stub could easily be botted across to UK-church-stub - right? Grutness...wha? 03:57, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
    • That's something of a special case, but in effect, yes. Alai 04:47, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] REVOLUTION!

Hey, I have a suggestion for something that would revolutionise stubs, albeit while plugging up bots for a while. What if we had one stub template? No seriously, one stub template. What we then could do is use variables like in the project talk page tags (such as {{WPBiography}}). So, for instance, we have a drummer, who's a singer, who's a philanthropist, who's a communist, you have something like {{stub|drummer=yes|singer=yes|philanthropist=yes|communist=yes|likes fries with that=yes}} and you'd yeild:

I know this would mean deleting thousands of stubs and making one Mecha-Streisand sized template, but I think it would actually simplify, eventually (after ironing out the kinks) the whole stub process. The reason i say this is because the standard of formatting of the names (i.e. lack-thereof) of stubs would be more approachable.

Anybody else think this is a good idea or am I on my own on this one? Viva le resistance! --linca^linca 12:42, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Check the archives of this page. This suggestion has been made many times in the past, and it is generally seen as a very bad idea, since it would allow anyone to come up with any slight variant of name they want. Meaning parallel stub categories, for example, for American/United States/US/United States of America biography/people/biographical stubs. It also - as you point out in your example - allows people to very easily create totally frivolous stub types like Cat:French fries lover stubs - the curent system means that a little bit more effort is required for someone to make such a beast - which usually puts any vandals off the idea. There's also the problem that one of the reasons for cutting big categories down as much as possible is server load - it does bad things if there is any need to alter a template used on more than a couple of thousand articles. The template you're proposing would theoretically be used on several hundred thousand aricles. Any slight tinkering with it could potentially wreck Wikipedia's servers permanently. Grutness...wha? 01:27, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

For this reason, I'd suggest having it fully protected at all times and proposals still exist. It'd mean things would work effectively. Another thing is th possibility of having nested templates that contribute towards the main template, each of the nested template could potentially be editable by the general editors. --linca^linca 01:31, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I only mentioned a couple of the reasons that have been given in the past why this isn't a good idea. as I said, a look through the archives will turn up several long discussions on the subject. Also, nested templates are deliberately avoided on Wikipedia, since they cause far more problems than they are worth (as detailed in such pages as Wikipedia:Avoid using meta-templates and elsewhere). In any case, using nested templates would mean that this would actually create more effort than the current use of non-nested templates. Plus you've got the enormous amount of work involved in changing over from the current system (changing 450,000 stubs across? No thank you!). And there's still the problem that it makes it far easier to create unuseful or parallel stub types. Also, it's very well to say that proposal system should still exist, but as you yourself know from experience, not everyone proposes stubs before making them. There would simply be more of these, meaning more work at WP:WSS/D and WP:SFD - plus it would be far harder to monitor new stub types, since Special:Newpages couldn't be used to find them. Grutness...wha? 02:26, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

There are plenty of ways to indicate french fry aficionados without reinventing the stub system - categories, lists, WikiProjects - none of which would gum things up as badly as the meta-stub idea above. I think perhaps you are a lone voice. Her Pegship (tis herself) 04:44, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Countering an increaing trend

I note an increasing trend that the creators of unproposed stubs, once notified that their creations are at WP:WSS/D or WP:SFD, then come to WP:WSS/P to propose the stub type. Not only is this backwards but - more importantly - it splits whatever discussion is taking place on the stub into two separate areas. Is it worth having a notice at the top of WP:WSS/P requesting that once an stub type is at WP:WSS/D or WP:SFD, it should not come to the proposal page, for this rason? Grutness...wha? 00:31, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Works for me. Her Pegship (tis herself) 04:11, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stub Help

Greetings from sunny Cambodia stub Goddesses and Gods! Damn am I glad this page exists. I must confess to being a complete stub virgin - I don't know how to create them and I only barely know how to add and use them. Over at Wikiproject Cambodia We have three stub categories in use - Cambodia, Cambodia-bio and Cambodia-geo - this seems fairly modest and sensible to me. However, these stubs don't seem to link off the main Cambodia stub categry on your project pages properly. However, the geo stubs appear correctly as a sub category of Cambodia stubs - but the Cambodia bio stubs are missing. When I wander over to Category:Asian people stubs I find no category for the Cambodian bio stubs - just the articles all mixed into some kind of Asian melting pot! Could some kind soul who understands these arcane matters make this category work as a sub category of Cambodia stubs? Thanks, Paxse 08:41, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi Paxse - that's what we here call an upmerged stub template. What often happens with stub types is this - when a template is first proposed and created, there are too few stubs for a separate stub category to be worth having, so the template is fed into the next higher level of stub category. Once enough stubs exist which use the template, a separate category is proposed as a "speediable" creation. That seems to be what's happened here - and there are now enough Cambodian bio-stubs for a separate category so I'll propose the new cat. Shouldn't take more than a day or so for the new category to be made. Grutness...wha? 23:39, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

You sirrah, are a Wikipedian and a gentleman - my sincere thanks for sorting this out. Otago eh? and a Ψ to boot - Uncanny, I boast one parent from Kurow and one from Invercargill and I believe we have the same quals (I took a peek at your site - very interesting). I love Look Both Ways - that is a stunning piece of work. Cheers, Paxse 05:25, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliments :) Yup - Dunedin and a psych MSc. Don't often get to Kurow (and certainly not at this time of year! Brrr!) but I go to In'gll every now and again (in fact, I'm off to an engagement party there in about a month's time). Glad you like the paintings! Grutness...wha? 23:36, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Speedying, discussions already in progress

I've added a note to the top of the page about "speedy creation" and also about discussions in progress (as mentioned a couple of comments further up this page - I've also added a line suggesting that anything that would have been put under "Other discussions" should be brought here to the talk page instead - I think it's far more likely we'll spot such discussions here. If I've been too bold, feel free to revert - if not, please amend the wording, especially that of "S2" speedying - at the moment it sounds a little weak. (Before/after difference: [4]). Grutness...wha? 00:01, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stub Location

I'm not sure if this has been brought up before, but is there anything that would prevent stubs being listed in a seperate area on the "front page" of an article/category? I've just come from one of the "owls" pages which has a ridiculous amount of stubs coming off of it. Wouldn't it be more helpful to the person who's looking up information if these contentless place-holders were moved to the bottom of the page, just above or as a part of the reference section? There are over 90 stubs there, and it's really frustrating to click and "back" your way in and out of 90+ pages of nothing. --Portia Wasabi 17:46, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

If you're talking about a stub template, they're supposed to be placed at the bottom of the article page. If you mean a category page that lists stub types, like Cat:Computer stubs, anyone can edit those, but beware - there might be a project that likes that kind of redundancy. Her Pegship (tis herself) 18:40, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't mean a template, I don't want to add a new stub. I just don't want to go through multiple pages that say "The screeching purple polka-dotted Madagascan Owl is native to Madagascar," if I'm looking for relative wingspans among North American owls. Why not put the stubs elsewhere, or indicate an "article" that is only a stub by putting them in a different color or something, like the uncreated "articles" are? Something to help the user know which links not to bother with? --Portia Wasabi 21:25, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Can you give us an example of such an article? I think I don't understand the question. Her Pegship (tis herself) 21:44, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

If I understand the comment correctly, PW is asking whether stubs can be kept separate within categories - so that, for instance, in Cat:Owls, all the owl stubs would be moved right to the end, after Z. If that's so, then the answer is yes, it could be done, but it would require extra coding every time a stub is sorted and also extra coding every time a stub is removed. it would also make it far harder to work out which articles exist in a category and which ones don't - let's face it, even a stub article is useful to some people looking through a category. There was a suggestion about a year back that stubs within permanent categories should have some kind of extra coding key in their category listing, such as an asterisk after the name, but IIRC the idea was abandoned at least in part because it was too tricky to do. Grutness...wha? 23:44, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I understand. Thank you, Grutness. --Portia Wasabi 21:52, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question on recreating a stub related category

In on of my "potential" edits, i went to create Category:National Football League stubs. Upon arriving at the page to edit it, i noticed that the category was deleted back in 2005. After digging, i found the discussion (or at least a portion of it) here. After reading the discussion, it appears that it is okay to recreate this category. A lot has changed since then. Having never done something like this before, is it acceptable to recreate this? I will gladly provide reasons for the recreation if asked. Jmfangio| ►Chat  07:55, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Best thing to do would be to repropose it (i.e., take it off the talk page and onto Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals). The most important thing hasn't really changed, though - there are still only about 350 stubs, which isn't enough to require splitting (less than that, really, since there's considerable undersorting of the bio-stubs and team-stubs). Grutness...wha? 23:42, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

• Happy to do that, but would you mind helping me learn a bit more about this? You say that there are only about 350 (which sounds like a ton of stubs to me) - but what is it going to be split from? I'm just not educated on this stuff enough. Jmfangio| ►Chat  07:35, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

The category where stubs on the NFL currently go is Cat:American football stubs. Mostly, its subcategories are things like biographies and teams, though there is precedent for a split by league as well. 350 stub articles sounds like a lot, but stub categories have slightly different reasons to exist from general "permanent" categories, so size becomes more of an issue. Generally, in stub sorting the "sweet spot" is between about 60 and 600 stubs (more than that and an editor is sqamped with articles - less than that and they have to hunt around through several categories to find articles worth expanding). It's a permanent battle to keep categories to a "viable" size. In a case like this, what is far more likely to be a acceptable suggestion to many here at WP:WSS would be to propose an 'upmerged template' - that is, a separate template for NFL which still feeds into the American football stubs category, rather than having its own category. Upmerged templates can have only a handful of stubs with no real problems, and they're useful in two ways. First, it makes it easier to see how nmany articles there are on the subject of the upmerged template, and secondly if there are a lot, it becomes easier to make a new stub category specifically for them, since it simply means an edit of the template, rather than changing the template on every article. BTW, with your username, I would have thought you'd be more interested in motor racing than NFL :) Grutness...wha? 10:23, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks much for your explanation. That helps! As for my username; you are good! I am more interested in F1, i'm just trying to edit something I'm less inclined to have POV issues with :-) Jmfangio| ►Chat  10:42, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed simplification of geo-stub hierarchy (Asia and Africa, plus Central Asia)

Hi all - I'm putting this here to sound everyone out before possibly going to SFD.

I'd like to slightly simplify the hierarchy of geography stubs, particularly for Asia. Currently, every country in Asia has its own geo-stub template, and all but five have their own categories. Those five countries are spread through three categories - Cat:Asia geography stubs, Cat:Middle East geography stubs and Cat:Southeast Asia geography stubs. I'd like to propose combining these three categories, keeping only the Asia one and redirecting the MEast- and SEAsia templates- to it. This will result in one Asia geography stubs category containing all the individual countries and about 220 "loose" articles.

A similar case could be made for Africa, though the task there is a little larger, with 12 countries without categories (of which nine have templates), divided between five regional categories. These five have been problems, since the boundaries they use are not quite standard. Combining these in the same way would result in one category with about 390 articles.

On a similar point, the category Cat:Caucasus geogrraphy stubs Cat:Central Asia geography stubs is probably not needed. It simply contains country-level subcategories, each of which could quite simply be redirected to continental parents. (whoops - wrong cat)

Any thoughts? Grutness...wha? 02:12, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

The Central and South East Asia categories have definitely outlived their usefulness. We still seem to split the Middle East off separately in many cases, but I wouldn't mind seeing that one go as well to avoid the mess about which countries actually constitute this region. Valentinian ^{T / C} 07:35, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lists!!

Does it bug anyone else that people have taken to listing articles that could justify a stub type on the proposals page? Takes up a lot of room & looks untidy. Is this helpful, or even necessary? Her Pegship (tis herself) 22:54, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

It is not necessary, but I think we actually once asked people to do it. Perhaps we should simply archive these suggestions as soon as they're approved or rejected? Valentinian ^{T / C} 21:56, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

We did suggest lists at one time, and it is potentially useful for splitting, though it does make this page messy. Perhaps we could suggest that people could make lists but on a subpage of their user page, rather than here? Grutness...wha? 23:42, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Czechoslovakia

Recently I have come across a number of bios for people from Czechoslovakia tha have been tagged with bio-stub templates for both Czech Republic and Slovakia. When the article has given a place of birth I have deleted the incorrect tag, however a number of the articles don't give a place of birth and the article does not give any indication as to which nation they should be in (In many cases they are sportsmen who competed well before the split). Is it correct to leave both tags in place, should a generic euro-bio-stub be placed on the article insted or is there another solution that I have not yet considered.Waacstats 12:30, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not a big fan of the templates for deceased nations, but I see your point. I've normally tagged dubious cases relating to Czechoslovakia with both templates hoping that somebody would remove the incorrect one later (I know, clunky solution). Would it be possible to draw up a list and contact the relevant noticeboards? We might be lucky that they had a few sports buffs around. Valentinian ^{T / C} 12:43, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Using catscan there appears to be a total of 12 so not as big a problem as I first thought. breakdown is one Czechoslokia president and 11 sportsmen.Waacstats 19:50, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Using google might resolve some of those places of birth, too. Don't think there's any need for a Czechoslovahia stub at the moment - 12 is hardly a big problem. Grutness...wha? 01:42, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cyprus

I have recently (bravely/foolishly?) created the {{Cyprus-bio-stub}}, {{Cyprus-politician-stub}} and {{Cyprus-footy-bio-stub}} as well as Cat:Cypriot people stubs all of which have been at various times approved on here. I am letting people know so that hopefully an admin can check them and if it is still deemed necessary to protect them from edit warring. Note that when I last checked the templates none had any image on them as I felt this was safest for now. Waacstats 15:12, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How to count stubs?

I think we have (had?) a tool that counted stubs in a category. What was its name? It should be added to the 'how to' template, so people can easily count it using the tool instead of manually.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  23:55, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

• I think the tool you are after is Stub sense however this appears to have been broken for quite some time. The only other option is Catscan. Waacstats 15:25, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hierarchy beneath Category:Sportspeople stubs by nationality

Greetings Stubsorters. There seems to be some inconsistency in the hierarchy beneath Category:Sportspeople stubs by nationality. Consider that:

• Category:Chinese sportspeople stubs is a subcategory of Category:Asian sportspeople stubs which is a subcategory of Category:Sportspeople stubs by nationality which is a subcategory of Category:Sportspeople stubs, but
• Category:Dutch sportspeople stubs is a direct subcategory of Category:Sportspeople stubs by nationality, as well as being a subcategory of Category:European sportspeople stubs which is a subcategory of Category:Sportspeople stubs (note: not Category:Sportspeople stubs by nationality)

I would have expected "Asian" and "European" to be at the same level, and likewise "Chinese" and "Dutch" to be at the same level, but they're not. I'm happy to rearrange the hierarchy myself, but I thought I'd raise it here first, in case this had already been discussed and/or the current arrangement is intentional. DH85868993 06:32, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

when created the European cat did contain all the individual nations but somebody moved them out. It is on my mental list of things to do but I haven't got round to doing it yet. So as far as I'm concerned feel free to put all the European countries in the euro category only. Waacstats 18:44, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Geologic formation stubs

These are on the to-do list, and I see that the Geology stubs cat needs sorting, but I'm stumped as to how to form the template. Would this be {{geomorphology-stub}}? or {{geology-form-stub}}? Any other suggestions? Her Pegship (tis herself) 22:22, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd make it geomorphology-stub, if you're talking geological processes. If you're talking about specific formations (such as individual faults, outcrops, and the like) I'd go about it a little differently, making it Cat:Regional geology stubs ({{region-geology-stub}}), which could then more easily be split by continent/nation if and when necessary. Grutness...wha? 00:20, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Crustacean stubs

Category:Crustacean stubs is getting rather large at over 600 articles, and I have decided to create new stub templates for crustaceans and split the category. Here are the previews for the proposed templates:

Template:Crustacean-stub

Template:Copepod-stub