Wikipedia:When to use the generic stub tag

The hierarchy of topical stub-tags has grown to massive size and complexity since it was introduced in early 2005. As a result, a WikiProject has been created by editors who want to manage this growing nest of categories and sub-categories. WikiProject Stub Sorting consists of editors who understand that hierarchy and are intimately familiar with specific stub types. Since editors are often interested in diverse pockets of Wikipedia, not every editor may be able to quickly and accurately match every article to its appropriate stub type. If you are sure of a sub-category for the stub article, place that exact tag. Often, if you are unsure of the exact category, the parent stub category will be perfect. For instance, if you are pretty sure that an article covers Mathematics but unsure if it covers Algebra, the parent stub category for Algebra-stub is Math-stub. Placing the parent stub on the article serves to give a helpful first approximation at the correct category.

Often, however, it is not possible to easily judge the stub sub-category&mdash;that's why they are stubs! It also can be time consuming to find the specific stub type or even a list of stubs. Do not let this stop you from improving the encyclopedia or placing a stub tag at all. In this case, division of labor may be a better solution to the problem of finding the right stub tag. If you are unfamiliar with the topic-stub hierarchy, just put the generic  tag on the article and continue working. You may even want to help out with sorting. But don't let a lack of familiarity with part of the encyclopedia stop you from adding to it. This is a wiki, after all, and it thrives on editors who each know a lot of things about a little sliver of the world.