Wikipedia talk:Stub/Archive 12

50 Boyz
50 Boyz

Referred to as the 50 Boyz[1] first by Gus Johnson of CBS Sports, the indomitable trio of DeMeco Ryans, Brian Cushing, and Zac Diles helped to establish the Houston Texans' run defense in 2009. The heart of The 50 Boyz, DeMeco Ryans(number 59) established himself immediately as the Texans' eminent linebacker after being drafted in the second round of the Texans' stellar 2006 draft(that saw them draft Owen Daniels, Eric Winston and Mario Williams)[2]. He won the Defensive Rookie of the Year award, and he is the heart of the 50 Boyz as he has played injured for a substantial amount of his career. However, Brian Cushing (number 56) brings a very ferocious mentality to the 50 Boyz. Drafted in the 2009 draft, Cushing came from a very distinguished group of SoCal linebackers that terrorized the PAC-10 for two seasons[3]. Cushing has brought the physicality that the Texans has yearned for, and he has established himself as the enforcer[4]. Last, Zac Diles, number 54, earned the starting job over talented linebackers Xavier Adibi and Cato June in the preseason of 2009 after playing well in 2008. A success story, Diles was drafted in the last round of the 2007 draft and was not expected to make the team. He brings finesse, hustle and intelligence to the trio. [5] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Houstontexans (talk • contribs) 04:28, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
 * If you want to write an article on this, do so, or visit WP:Articles for creation. This page is not for that purpose. Grutness...wha?  21:45, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Slight tweeks to message
Following a discussion here, I propose changing the stub template text from to ''This article is a stub. Please help by expanding it .''

or something similar. The goal is to emphasize that not only readers can edit, but that they are invited to edit. GeometryGirl (talk) 13:47, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I, personally, like the neutral and non-agressive text we have at the moment. If it will be changed, at least don't turn that line into a color exposition alongside with bolds. Make it This article is a stub. Please help by [ expanding it]. Debresser (talk) 14:21, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed, but I think the wording is worth the change. GeometryGirl (talk) 14:41, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Using "Please" instead of "You can" is probably a good idea - kind of related to WP:YOU. –xenotalk 14:45, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Seems people are happy about it. I'll make a poll. GeometryGirl (talk) 15:20, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Poll
Proposal: change to

''This article is a stub. Please help by [ expanding it].''


 * Support GeometryGirl (talk) 15:19, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Support per my comments above, but I think the link should retain class=plainlinks. –xenotalk 15:20, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * What is class=plainlinks? GeometryGirl (talk) 15:22, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * It removes the little icon e.g. [ expanding it].'' –xenotalk  15:26, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed! Another thing is that the first message has a bit of whitespace on the left. GeometryGirl (talk) 15:28, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yea, don't worry, that will still be there. I've updated your proposed version. –xenotalk 15:30, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I doubt it will do much good, but I'm certain it will do no harm. Consider this a tacit support as I won't oppose. Shereth</b> 18:30, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Support with the bolding and (slightly) brighter colours to make it stand out as opposed to the plainlinks which really just makes it another note at the bottom of the page that gets missed. Draw people's eyes to the area that says please help by expanding it. -  ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ  <sup style="color:#3AAA3A;">τ <sub style="color:#3AAA3A;">¢  21:26, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with you that it's a bit plain. Is there a specific bolding and choice of colours than you would like to propose? GeometryGirl (talk) 22:24, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Oppose I think it's fine the way it is. -- &oelig; &trade; 21:58, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose. By removing "you" you'll likely make it less likely that people will consider expanding the article. A direct appeal to the reader with the use of "you" is more likely to see a response than a generic "please help". As to bolding and colours, the whole point of a stub message -as has been repeated here in numerous occasions when proposals are made to "liven up" the stub templates - is for them to be discreet and not draw the reader's eye away from the article. Making them bold and multicoloured will only hinder that (and many readers may be confused by coloured message, thinking they are some strange form of hyperlink). Grutness...<small style="color:#008822;">wha?  22:34, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Colours have nothing to do with this poll. It is a matter of syntax. Geometry guy 22:55, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Then why were both Floydian and GeometryGirl talking about the colour in this poll? My comment was a direct response to the suggestion regarding "specific bolding and choice of colours" mentioned two comments further up. Grutness...<small style="color:#008822;">wha?  00:10, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Because that may (or may not) result in a better future proposal. The present proposal is this one. Geometry guy 00:18, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
 * If you care to actually read my initial comment, you will see that I did respond to that poll - to refresh your memory, I wrote: Oppose. By removing "you" you'll likely make it less likely that people will consider expanding the article. A direct appeal to the reader with the use of "you" is more likely to see a response than a generic "please help". I then made an additional comment in response to a comment of Floydian and GeometryGirl which I took to be part of this debate - which it is. It in no way changes my stated opposition to the proposal given in this poll, nor is there any reason for you to suppose that I misunderstood the nature of the poll. Grutness...<small style="color:#008822;">wha?  01:51, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Support. As an occasional copyeditor, I find "You can help Wikipedia by expanding it" weak and wordy: the referent for "it" is unclear (Wikipedia or the article?), and there is a presumption of capability on anyone reading it (what if I can't edit Wikipedia?). "Please help Wikipedia by expanding it" is more polite than a pure imperative, yet also covers the capability issue. Geometry guy 22:55, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I haven't been here for quite a while, but since I'm here now I though I'd make my position clear: keep as is. Debresser (talk) 23:33, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Grutness's sentiment that specifically phrasing it as "you" seems more personal and engaging. I wouldn't object to a rephrasing with consensus, though. The bold is a definite no-no however. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:31, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Wait, what?
What's up with the strangeness at the start of the 'Ideal Stub Article' segment? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.8.158.41 (talk) 21:29, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Discovered that whatever it is has something to do with this: { { a r t i c l e c r e a t i o n } } Remove spaces from that, and you get the following:

What.

173.8.158.41 (talk) 21:36, 9 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Don't quite understand the question - the article creation navbox is there because much of the Ideal Stub Section is about creating articles. It's hardly "strangeness". Grutness...<small style="color:#008822;">wha?  22:39, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Do we have a tool...
That could scan a category and list stubs with specified size, so one could for example check if there are indeed stubs, or maybe already start articles? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:17, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, AWB will do it. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 12:13, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Since I never used it, is it possible for somebody to generate a list of too large stubs for socio-stubs? I will happily review and clean them up once this is done.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 21:08, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Still Bob! Sowy! I am not Bob, it is spellt Bobb.Hmph! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drlf (talk • contribs) 23:36, 21 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Are you still interesting in doing this? It is fairly easy to output a list of articles less than (a particular size). What would you consider to be too-large? –<b style="font-family:verdana; color:black;">xeno</b><sup style="color:black; font-family:verdana;">talk 17:18, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Stub or C?
In my view of how we do things here, a two-line article is in no conceivable way more than a stub. Heads up: User talk:Trevor MacInnis. Geschichte (talk) 14:19, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I think you're confusing stubs with Stub-Class articles - they are different things. it is perfectly possible for a stub to be Start-Class or even C-Class; it is not possible for a Stub-Class article to be either. Admittedly, most stubs are Stub-Class, but not all of them are. The first few examples from the list you indirectly point to WikiProject_Aviation/Contest/Submissions/Zyxw may be C-Class by WP:Aviation's requirements, but they are also stubs and should be marked as such.


 * The confusion arose when WP:Assessment was set up and some clever users decided to take a word already used for one type of article (stub) and use it for a similar but not identical type of article (as Stub-Class). It's caused us no end of confusion since at WP:WikiProject Stub sorting. Grutness...<small style="color:#008822;">wha?  22:02, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Andal Ampatuan Sr.
The entry Andal Ampatuan Sr. is inaccurate.

Cory Aquino did not appoint Andal Sr as OIC of Maguindanao in 1986. It was another person, Datu Modi Ampatuan, who was the Cory appointee.

The source of the entry is a political column of a commentator, which sadly, is biased against Cory Aquino. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.53.207.250 (talk) 08:33, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
 * This page is for comments about stub sorting. If you have a problem with a specific article, the place to comment is on that artticle's talk page: Talk:Andal Ampatuan, Sr. Grutness...<small style="color:#008822;">wha?  00:26, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Bot removal of stubs.
SmackBot has now twice (if not more) removed my marking of stub templates, the latest being at Battle of Temesvár with this edit.

I have got on to the bot's maintainer recently about this when it did it at Battle of Pakozd. Unfortunately the matter there seems to have been dropped and archived before achieving consensus.

In my opinion, a bot should not make the decision to remove a stub, but WP:STUB says "Any editor can remove... without special permission". It depends, then, whether a bot is regarded as an editor for the purpose of this sentence. I believe in practice, though, it is best to leave such removal to a human's decision. In particular, in these articles which form part of a series:
 * Generally they have been, or are being, translated from Hungarian Wikipédia.
 * Their talk page indicates them part of WikiProject Hungary and WikiProject Military History.
 * Both these projects have members who classify pages.
 * To remove the stub templates may make it more difficult for them, or other editors, to find them and classify them.
 * Different projects might rightly classify things differently, and since there is no standard definition of what a "stub class" article is, it need not be inappropriate that an article is still marked as a stub even though, from the perspective of another project, it is e.g. "start class", since being a stub and being "stub class" are different things.
 * One, Battle of Temesvár, is cleary (to my eyes) currently still a stub (see the diff above) because it describes the pretext and aftermath of the battle, but not the battle itself.
 * Since WP:STUB encourages a stub article to have what I call the "scaffolding" e.g. infobox, pics, categories etc etc, the fact that this is all present does not negate the fact that the article is a stub.
 * This Temesvár article at the time the bot made the change also included the and  tags. WP:STUB says an article should not have both the  tag and stub templates. I do not think by extension this should mean any template that happens to start with "expand". I am not assertoing  this was the reason for removing them, but I would regard it being so as very much too liberal an interpretation of WP:STUB, since those templates have quite distinct usages/meanings and are not merely artifacts of . Clarification there please.
 * The Temesvár article at the time had the tag. While not of itself even intended to prevent/delay other editors' contributions, it may be taken as evidence indicating that the article is actively being expanded, and so hint that in its current state it could well be considered a stub. Again I am not suggesting that it will always do so (otherwise it might as well come under the same guidance as ) but it may give a hint to a human editor that it is indeed a stub.

In short, I think it entirely inappropriate for a bot to make this kind of decision. For a human editor, with the assistance of AWB, to do so, is entirely another matter, since in good faith I accept that an editor will consider the whole balance of the article and use AWB to find candidates, not automatically trust it (as a bot does).

Any opinions on this matter?

Best wishes Si Trew (talk) 20:47, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * This is probably best taken up at the WP:BON, since it is ultimately one of bot policy and not stub policy. You could add  to the article, to prevent them editing it again (if it is exclusion complient) . –<b style="font-family:verdana; color:black;">xeno</b><sup style="color:black;">talk  20:53, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks xeno. I think I will add that to all articles I create or substantially work on, since in many ways SmackBot seems to me to do more harm than good when one conscientiously creates stub articles. I am not sur it is totally one of bot policy, because WP:STUB's wording applies equally to editors who applied it thoughtlessly, e.g. the ambiguity of the template.


 * I subbed my comments above before you replied, but you'd posted reply before me. I can only assure you I just changed the wording a little to make it clearer, but not the substance of what it said.


 * Best wishes Si Trew (talk) 21:00, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

With reference to the expand templates, I'm not sure whether the rule could be extended to cover any template starting with expand, but I wouldn't think so. In any case, if an article has both expand and a stub template on it, generally it is the expand template which should be removed, not the stub template, for two reasons: 1) most articles which have both are stub articles which an editor has mistakenly added an expand template to; 2) stub templates subcategorise articles, making them easier for specific groups of editors to find - expand doesn't. If a bot has been programmed to remove one of these templates from any article with both, it should be removing the expand template, not the stub template. Grutness...<small style="color:#008822;">wha?  23:50, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * That makes sense to me. For then it is obvious that e.g. does not fall under this remit of not mixing  with stub templates, since its primary purpose is quite different from  i.e. to hint to other editors where they may find extra content, not merely to say that it's a bit (or a lot) on the short side. Generally speaking the same article in that tag will be an Interwiki link, but an English article may have several such links, and so it points to the one that seems to be the most likely candidate for etting useful information. Of course I am treating Hungarian articles here as an example and not a special case.


 * I also agree that since stub templates are there partly to allow other editors to find and perhaps recategorise articles better (something that others may be able to do more appropriately than the translator of the article, despite best intentions in finding them), any help that can be given there it seems trite to remove, for the slight inconvenience of the clutter in the stub category (which is there, after all, for the very purpose.) It's sometimes just very hard to find the right categories or stub templates for an article, e.g. there is but on Hungary we only have the more general ; while I could create  and an appropriate subcategory etc, it seems superfluous right now because the only articles that would likely live in it are the ones we are currently working on anyway. As it happens, the Military Project tend to remove the stub templates after doing their assessment, which seems right and proper (although I have my doubts whether they should be removing, which probably more rightly comes under the WikiProject Hungary, but that is a much more minor point since the two projects tend to assess the articles within a day or two of each other.)


 * Best wishes Si Trew (talk) 07:40, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I have to second the motion that Smackbot and other bots not remove stub tags from articles, at least not if a WikiProject talk page tag has labeled the article a stub (indicating human judgement unless it also bears yes). I've had problems with this bot several times myself. It seems to decide that any article over X number of bytes or lines or characters or something long must automagically not be a stub any longer, no matter how obviously incomplete and messed up it is. I also agree that this is ultimately a BON issue. However, I don't think BON will "get" it or act on it without some consensus already here on the issue. I.e., we should come to an agreement here, then take that to BON for action. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 06:17, 17 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I am told at my talk page here: User talk:SimonTrew that it is based on number of words with some things such as lists being weighted less heavily, and referred to the AWB documentation, which misses the point because I don't care how AWB works, I care about what rules are implemented using it. Now, personally I think AWB is an automated tool to assist human editors, not one to make decisions for itself. While SmackBot makes some uncontroversial edits, I have four basic problems with it:
 * Tasks like this (and for example reordering footnotes) are prima facie if not ipso facto controversial, since they have been brought up as such.
 * SmackBot generally will not simply change somthing that is uncontroversially wrong to something that is uncontroversially right, such as inserting dates into templates; it then, while it has the article, makes all kinds of other unnecessary changes such as changing the case of template translcusions, which clouds the actual real change it makes.
 * Its edit summaries are usually generic and unhelpful. ("Date maintenance tags and general fixes").
 * These last two demonstrate a lack of the separation of concerns means that generally one has to check the diff oneself to see whether SB has trampled it, thus reducing the value of its wikignoming work.


 * Fundamentally, while it is one of the WP:Five Pillars to WP:AGF in other editors, I do not think that extends to editors that are bots. One must I think necessarily assume no faith in bots, that is to say, treat their edits with suspicion, since they cannot bring human understanding to their edits, and so have no faith themselves. (Which is not to say, of course, they have bad faith, though it can seem like it sometimes, i.e. the bot knows better than you do.) Therefore, I think at WP:STUB and elsewhere, a careful distinction need sometimes be made between human editors and bot editors. Whether the term "editors" is unambiguous enough when both are meant, or whether another term is needed (the clumsy "human and bot editors" for example) to express what is implied, I am not really qualified to judge.


 * I did post this to WP:BON but I agree it is probably best kept here. I hope I made it quite clear there that it was a copy of the conversation so far that I posted here, and to which Xeno replied.


 * Best wishes Si Trew (talk) 07:23, 17 December 2009 (UTC)


 * For the benefit of other editors here, Battle of Temesvár now has the translation complete (which is not of course to say that the article is "complete" in any sense), so it's best to look at the diff I've given at the start of this section for the purpose of this discussion. Si Trew (talk) 08:17, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Unreferenced tag?
Is there any point in adding an unreferenced tag to an early-stage stub? I note that people sometimes do this, and I generally remove it with a comment such as "of course unreferenced, it's a stub". The article clearly IS unreferenced, but the tag draws attention to the article giving the impression that it needs attention to add references to fix it up, when this will actually not help at all as there's no information to be referenced yet. I write this thinking, in particular, of the absolutely minimal stub Ship registration that I just created. (The article itself is clearly needed as articles on Flag of convenience, drug submarine and others refer to but do not define or discuss registration, but I am not qualified to write it.) To summarise: should a minimal stub be tagged as unreferenced or not? Pol098 (talk) 12:51, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Purpose of stubs and the over-categorisation of stubs - football biographies
I started with proceeding with changes to existing football bio stub categories in order for them to not infer nationality when this was not known - see log at. However, as well as being an onerous process to just do the one category change, it got me thinking more widely about the purposes of stub categories and the issue of creating too many categories. You will see from WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types/Sports that there are large numbers of sub-categories for footballers by both country, position and year of birth, although I see American football seems to go that detailed as well. I could not see on the main stub page any information on the purpose of stub categories, and the appropriateness of them. I welcome your general views on stubs and in particular on whether football appears to have too many categories. Please note I have previously asked some questions on this at WP:Footy and will aim to do so further before any changes, but I wanted to get some general stub process views. Thanks. Eldumpo (talk) 11:00, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Stubs with no possibility for expansion
The following text was added recently, and then removed because it had been added without consensus. I would like to obtain consensus on this text and then re-add it, because I think it is very sensible, especially in light of the huge problem we have with unsourced and poorly sourced BLP stubs:

Stubs with no possibility for expansion

All stubs should have the potential to develop into full articles. A stub that has no possibility whatsoever for expansion beyond stub status is presenting the verifiable information in the wrong way. Wikipedia should not have single-fact articles.

This does not necessarily mean that stubs that have no possibility for expansion should be copied to Wiktionary, if they are stub encyclopedia articles and not stub dictionary articles. Wiktionary is not an encyclopedia, and the solution for an unexpandable stub encyclopedia article on Wikipedia is not to create encyclopedia articles on Wiktionary.

Per our deletion policy, stubs that cannot possibly be expanded beyond perpetual stub status should be either renamed, merged, or refactored into articles with wider scope, that can be expanded beyond perpetual stub status, or deleted or speedy deleted if it cannot be renamed, merged, or refactored. —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Wordsmith (talk • contribs)
 * Oppose OK, now let's not try and invoke WP:BLP to push opinions. The issue with BLPs is nothing to do with size, but with verifiability - an immaculately sourced stub is no more of a problem than any other article. Now, the most relevant parts of the deletion policy are:
 * Articles that cannot possibly be attributed to reliable sources, including neologisms, original theories and conclusions, and articles that are themselves hoaxes (but not articles describing notable hoaxes)
 * Articles for which thorough attempts to find reliable sources to verify them have failed


 * Which are, again, nothing to do with the size of an article. It is completely possible to construct a very informative (and well-sourced) stub - deleting it because you don't think it's long enough is ridiculous. This was removed from WP:NAD because it totally misrepresents our policies - the answer isn't to add it here instead. – Toon 20:22, 6 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't really understand this response. Surely the rationale presented at the start of the section in question (that Wikipedia should not have individual articles for individual facts, and that all subjects worthy of an article should be capable of sustaining a non-stub article) are uncontroversial? This would imply that permastubs should be discouraged, and then the question has to be raised of what to do with them. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:07, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
 * My main issue is that the section starts out talking about "single fact articles" and then segways into saying that our deletion policy prescribes deleting perpetu-stubs. The deletion policy does nothing of the sort. This is mainly because the section was written for Not a dictionary, hence the "single fact articles" bit - i.e. articles just saying: X is a Y[1] - that is fair enough, but saying that all stubs, whose subjects could be notable but we can't expand because there isn't that much available coverage from the time (i.e. a footballer born in the 1800s may not have accessible coverage, but scored the first ever goal in the FA Cup; going on to win the trophy three times, as well as playing first-class Cricket and for the England national football team) should be deleted just because they aren't long enough, is just silly. Such articles can be very informative - and having an article on that guy seems pretty important to providing good football coverage to me. – Toon 15:38, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Stubs which cannot be expanded are not stubs. They are short articles. In general very short articles which cannot be expanded should be (as things are done at teh moment) merged. There is usually a way to do this even if it means articles called "Minor characters from My Very Big Soap Opera (Ma-Mb)". The utility of doing this is still questionable however. If I type in "Humble Maltracht", why does it help me to load 127 other characters from MVBSO at  the same time? I would argue that it doesn't. A one line  article "Humble Maltracht is the substitute janitor in Episode 21,373 or MVBSO.  He rescues a number of pupils from the burning building before having to leave for an orthodontist appointment." provides the information needed and the requisite links. Rich Farmbrough, 02:29, 5 May 2010 (UTC).