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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.

Archives Index Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5 Archive 6 Archive 7 Archive 8

Contents 1 Stub without icon 2 Adding a stub to a page 3 nina 4 Is this a good example of a stub? 5 So..... 6 In The Rest Of The World 7 Are stubs immune to reference requirements? 8 Placement of stub tags on a page 9 Where would I get a stub list? 10 What would this stub be?

[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)

Hi Tony - I'm replying both here and on your talk page, since this does come up occasionally. There's no mandatory requirement for a stub icon, and, in fact, they were considered harmful to the servers in the past (see Wikipedia:Suspend use of stub icons), though that seems to have blown over with improvements to the servers. Though stub icons are nominally dealt with as part of WP:WSS, for the most part there is little control exercised over them except in cases where there may be controversy. Feel free to add your own (perhaps using some other iconned stub template as a guide), but please follow these simple guidelines:

1) the image should preferably be no bigger than about 40 or 50px in its longest dimension (we did have a full discussion about the size at some point, but I can't remember exactly where the discussion is or what its outcome was - keeping the icon to this size should not cause too much concern, however).

2) ensure that the image is free - "fair use" cannot be claimed for stub icons.

3) make sure it's an image that will look good at this tiny size, and try to make it as symbolic or recognisably "of its subject" as possible - a famous theatre, such as London's restored Globe Theatre, or a symbolic icon such as the smiling and frowning theatrical masks, is probably most suitable.

Grutness...wha? 00:38, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Adding a stub to a page

When you add a stub to a page, should you first remove any existing stubs from the page? Or can a page have multiple stubs on it? SqlPac 17:02, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

It is not uncomon for a page to have two stub tags on it. More than three is very rare and IMO almost always a very bad idea. Three is dubious, in most cases. DES ^(talk) 17:13, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Having up to four stub templates is acceptable, and multiple stubbing is in general a very good idea if a subject crosses multiple subject types. I guess MO is at odds with DES's :) Grutness...wha? 23:42, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

There are instances where one could argue either DES's or Grutness's case with some success. One should certainly try to avoid any obvious duplication: if you're adding {{US-writer-stub}}, leaving either {{writer-stub}} or {{US-bio-stub}} in place would be far from ideal. OTOH, many stub types are split on more than one axis (such as people, by occupation and by nationality), often requiring the use of two. Musicians are routinely sorted by nationality, instrument, and genre. Add to which the possibility of overlap between sibling topics (multiple nationalities, several occipations, etc). But there's at least fairly common consent that more than one is acceptable, but that after a certain number, one is getting into diminishing returns and/or wretched excess. Alai 16:15, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

In my particular case, since I largely concentrate on geo-stubs, a major problem occurs with stubs on rivers, mountain ranges, and other features that cross or form international boundaries. If there was a stub on the the Pyrenees, Euro-geo-stub is clearly too vague, but you cannot use Spain-geo-stub without also using France-geo-stub and Andorra-geo-stub without the chance of an international incident or at least accusations of bias - and using just the one stub also doesn't help editors who deal with French otr Andorran geography. There are definitely cases where multiple stubbing is a distinct advantage. Grutness...wha? 23:49, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Since the geo-stubs are (largely) only split on the one axis, so it's (largely) just a matter of sibling-overlap. In theory, articles relating to very large numbers of countries or sub-divisions should be much less likely to be stubs... At any rate, the judgement call in such instances is, just how many sibling-stubs to add before it's better to kick for touch back into the parent? (I'd guess opinions on that hover around three or four.) Alai 15:20, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] nina

How can be a lady (SHE's) a man (the KING)89.6.154.187 13:31, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I think this question should be addressed to Marty Willson-Piper, not to us. Grutness...wha? 23:23, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is this a good example of a stub?

Could you check out the stub I wrote on Bee Playing Cards? Did I categorize it correctly? Should it have a {{stub}} tag or an {{expand}} tag? (Oman9978 01:14, 25 May 2007 (UTC))

[edit] So.....

Do we extend a stub? I want to extend to Wookipedia Ko Vakier page... --72.183.115.91 12:07, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

If you mean do you extend any articles marked with stub templates, yes - that is the whole reason they are marked, so that editors know which articles are in severe need of help. We don't have a Wookiepedia Ko Vakier" page, though, or even a "Ko Vakier" page, so you can't really extend them! Grutness...wha? 23:11, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Grutness, quite right. Anything marked with a sign reading 'This ARTICLE THEME HERE article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.' The last bit explains it all, really!Clown face 2007 17:29, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] In The Rest Of The World

I was going to create a stub for a photography website I came across (www.InTheRestOfTheWorld.com). How do I go about doing so, and would this be a good idea?

All the details are at Help:Starting_a_new_page, though that is a pretty confusing page. It largely depends on whether or not you are a registered user. if you are, then all you need do is enter the title you want in the menu bar (e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InTheRestOfTheWorld.com) and click on the link that says "create the article". if you're not a registered user, you can't create an article, but you can request a new article and provide enough info for it to be written up by someone who is registered, by going to Wikipedia:Articles_for_creation. As to whether the article's a good idea, I don't know. It largely depends on how big or well-known the site is. You could try googling it, to see how many hits it gets on other sites, or simply be bold and create the article anyway (if it's not notable enough for its own article, it will probably be nominated for deletion again). Grutness...wha? 00:29, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Are stubs immune to reference requirements?

I've been tagging a number of stubs with the {{unreferenced}} tag. Not all, but some of the smallest ones with the least information. Recently I got reverted on one of these with the edit message: "rv unhelpful tag - IT'S A STUB". I was not aware that being a stub made an article free from verifiability requirements. So before I revert the revert, getting into an edit war, I wanted to get some additional opinions on whether I'm correct in my actions, or whether I've been correctly reverted. - TexasAndroid 19:22, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't say they're "immune", but one might well want to "go easy on the tags", when it comes to very short articles. If one ends up with uncategorised, unreferenced, orphaned, stub, and cleanup templates all on the same article, one is probably over-egging things, to take an extreme case, even if all individually apply. "Stub" obviously implies "needs assorted sorts of work done on it", so personally I'd only apply additional tags if the case seems especially egregious. (e.g. extensive or fishy-looking claims being made, which are more on the lines of "cite or remove" rather than "some references would be nice here".) Alai 21:41, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Placement of stub tags on a page

This has been a sore point with me for awhile and I need to find out what the official rule is. I believe that in the editing, stub tags should go a) above categories and b) above any sort of template boxes and the like. The former is based upon my understanding of how stub tags were to be placed, while the second is a style preference because otherwise the stub tags are often rendered invisible because on shorter articles with template boxes they often under up "below the screen jump" if you get my meaning.

A bunch of stub articles I created have had their stub tags moved to the bottom -- under the categories and under a rather sizable template box. Before I start reverting, what is the rule for placement? I couldn't find anything on this at WP:MOS. Thanks. 23skidoo 16:15, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

The official rule is that there is no official rule. The late SPUI was gung-ho for the "least important" stub cats appearing last (so therefore placing the tag after the explicit categories), but there was never any general agreement to that effect. However, I very strongly recommend not placing them before any non-maintenance templates (such as navboxes, etc). To do so would be to essentially interleave article content with meta-content; better to have the latter clustered together. Alai 20:12, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

The de facto standard has been to place things in this order at page-bottom:

• References and other standard page-bottom sections
• Navigation boxes
• Categories
• Two blank lines and then stub tags
• Interwikis (fr, it, etc.)

It is fairly uncommon to see them out of this order. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:29, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Both Alai and SMcC are perhaps being a bit more lenient than some stub sorters - it does say at Wikipedia:Stub#Categorizing stubs that stub templates go under all other templates and also under the categories, so though it's not policy, it is the accepted procedural guideline, and chances are that if you change them back, someone will come along and revert what you've done at some point (I'm actually surprised it's not mentioned at WP:MOS, though that does list this page in its "Further guidance" links, so perhaps some of the finer details are left off the main MOS page - it's a pretty long page as it is). It's not something that we're particularly strict on, but I'd say that they should definitely always go after any navigation boxes or other large templates - adding the stub template before them forms a break that may well discourage readers from reading any furhter, since they do have the effect of saying "this is all we have". Whether they go above or below the categories is a bit more of a matter of individual taste, though putting the stub templates after them does push the stub category to the end of the list of categories, which is a little more useful for readers. Grutness...wha? 08:52, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Not that I want to be known as a hardass or anything, I think what I outlined agrees with your take. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 13:11, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Heh, yeah, I suppose it does. I think the main point I was making is that "no official rule" and "de facto rule" both seem to indicate that it's something not written into any of the style pages anywhere as instructions, whereas WP:STUB does spell things out fairly precisely. Grutness...wha? 00:00, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Reading the above, I see that there is in fact an MoS statement on this issue, however for the record I think it renders the tags useless. Placing it under the templates in many cases makes the stub tags disappear "after the jump" rather than appearing prominently under the main text. Similarly, if an article has a lot of categories but happens to be a stub, the tag also disappears in a sense into the list (although of course its placement in the edit page has no bearing on where it appears on the screen as it still appears above the category tags in any event). I just feel that hiding stub tags under the templates a) looks poor from a page layout perspective and b) drastically reduces their effectiveness in calling attention to the fact that the article in question needs more content. This is NOT always self-evident, especially with new users and with articles that might have large templates and infoboxes attached. For an example, go to Pot Luck (album). At present, the stub tag has been placed above the large Elvis Presley template (I agree BTW the template is too large but that's another issue). Now imagine the tag placed under the template; unless you happen to be using a portfolio screen, odds are you won't see it unless you scroll down and most people won't scroll down. 23skidoo 17:08, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's exactly the point. They're not supposed to be noticeable on the articles - their intended purpose is to put articles into categories where they can be easily found. We don't want stub templates to be obtrusive to readers, but we do want stub articles to be easily found by editors. The only real reason for having text on a stub template is so that it's clear that an article has been stubbed - giving instruction of what to do is an added bonus. As such, having them hidden at the bottom of an article makes perfect sense - certainly far more sense than breaking into the middle of an article by having them appear before navigation boxes or reference lists. Grutness...wha? 23:44, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

You mean the "style guidance" on this page? I'd be pleasantly surprised if that's anything remotely like a stable consensus, rather than just the view of whatever editor got there last. :) It's maybe not ideal in the case where a tiny amount of stub text is followed by the honking huge nav templates favoured by editors in certain domains, and then the stub tag, but the majority of stubs are, after all, much less than a rendered page, and most of those that are longer are not exactly what you'd call "core stubs". In line with what Grutness says, it does seem the least-worst option. Alai 05:16, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I have to beg to differ on the rationale for stub tags. I don't see them as things to hide in a corner. They should be right in the open, to draw attention to not just the community -- who as far as I'm concerned are the converted already -- but to newcomers who might not realize that their input is encouraged. Also, it increases the ability of more serious editors to quickly discern if the article is correctly stub-tagged under the right criteria (and a category isn't always going to help with that). And while its true that templates often overwhelm the shorter articles, they are becoming more and more commonplace -- in some cases being preferred to catgeories -- so we just have to live with that. I also have issue with the stub tags appearing under categories in the edit pages. That has no impact on how it appears on the article page, but there have been many times where I've seen the stub tags hidden in the middle of a category list or a set of foreign-language links. 23skidoo 17:39, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I disagree as far as as several of those points are concerned.

They should be right in the open, to draw attention. Surely you can tell by looking at an article whether it is a stub. The main purpose of a stub template is not to draw attention to this fact, which should be obvious, but rather to categorise the stub article.

It increases the ability... to quickly discern if the article is correctly stub-tagged. It's far easier to check that if the stub template is right at the bottom than it is if it's part-way up the article, nestling between the end of the text and a navigation template. Simply press "End" and you can find the stub template.

I also have issue with the stub tags appearing under categories... That has no impact on how it appears on the article page. On the contrary, it does make a difference - it ensures that stub category appears last in the category list, which is surely the correct place for them as it is not one designed for navigation.

Grutness...wha? 23:19, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree then. My response is I'm no longer going to place stub tags on articles and someone else can decide where they go. Every new article gets scrutinized by someone anyway. 23skidoo 15:32, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Where would I get a stub list?

Where would I get a list of all topics that are considered stubs? I'd like to help edit some. --Fishy Monster 19:26, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Wow, do we have a job -- or a million or so -- for you! You could look in Cat:stubs, the sub-categories of Cat:stub categories, and so on. Or, for a list by topic, see WP:WSS/ST. Hope that helps. Alai 19:35, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

you could go to googlexD —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lalala45 (talk • contribs) 23:58, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What would this stub be?

What would I put for the stub catagory on this page?

Bryse (talk) 04:55, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

• {{afd}}, or if you're feeling kind, {{mergeto}}? Alai (talk) 05:00, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Or to try to be a little less cynical, {{fictional-stub}}. Alai (talk) 05:43, 20 November 2007 (UTC)