This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
I've created category merge discussions for rock single stubs and pop single stubs primarily because the two are used interchangeably with their song stub counterparts. The scheme for single stubs is not as well developed as it is for song stubs (e.g. there's no Category:Pop single stubs parent). Thanks. StarcheerspeaksnewslostwarsTalk to me04:34, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
What exactly is an "underpopulated" stub category? I mean what is the cut-off? Currently, there are over 200 categories that are tagged as underpopulated but have more than 45 members. --DannyS712 (talk) 06:17, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
Generally speaking, we try to have stub cats contain at least 50 stubs, and anything less would be underpopulated. In some cases, the tags may be left from when the categories were undersized; they neither remove themselves nor get removed by a bot. עוד מישהוOd Mishehu21:46, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
If a stub category has fewer than 60 articles in it, it's considered underpopulated. Usually this is because either no one's gotten around to sorting into it, or it was created out of process by someone unaware of the WPSS and its parameters. Her Pegship(speak)21:47, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
Is that desirable in the case of templates, i.e. to rename them after just 48 hours' exposure?
If WPSS would accept that, then I'd have no objection; perhaps a new speedy renaming template could be created for the purpose. However, I would have thought that 7 days' exposure would be preferable. – FayenaticLondon20:45, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
Bot runs
Hi. I'd like to make stub sorting easier by running my bot to replace stub templates with other templates when needed. What do people think of the following specific task?
Category:Glaciology stubs is current over populated, despite the note that Please note that stubs relating to individual glaciers and landforms should not be marked with this stub, but should be marked with ((geo-stub)) or one of its subtypes. I see that there are 102 pages that are tagged as glaciology stubs but are also both categorized in Category:Glaciers of Ellsworth Land as individual glaciers and have another stub template that is indeed a subtype of geo-stub (Ellsworth Land geography stubs). For those pages, the glaciology-stub template would be removed
If the project supports this, and the bot is approved for these 100 edits, and all goes well, I'll list a number of other such cases that (to me) seem fairly clear cut. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 00:46, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
Can someone take a look at Template:XXXTentacion-stub - it has a template look of asbox, but as far as I can tell the template syntax is normal. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 06:47, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
@Redrose64: does ASBOX automatically transclude the /doc page if it exists? I didn't see a transclusion in the stub's source. Thanks for figuring it out --DannyS712 (talk) 08:29, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
I was wondering why this was the case. I think the templates should be removed from the parent category as they alrady have a subcategory. Thanks! --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 01:27, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
Well...despite being told that in other Wiki realms it isn't standard practice for the same person to close a discussion who has an opinion on it, it looks as though there are too few of us stub sorters active right now to follow that guideline. If there's no objection, I will go back to closing discussions on which a consensus has been reached, regardless of whether I've participated in them. If anyone else wants to pitch in, feel free. Cheers, Her Pegship(really?)17:57, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
proposing deletion of template (and possibly category)
Hi all - I'm going to head over to wherever these things are now deleted (WP:CFD?) to propose the deletion of ((Korea-museum-stub)). We have separate templates for both North and South Korea, and understandably no articles now use the combined template. I'm also wondering what others think about deleting Category:Korean museum stubs - it simply a South Korean subcat and six articles on North Korean museums, which could easily be moved back into the (not overpopulated) Asian parent. Grutness...wha?10:52, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
It looks as though there was no parent category made for Central American protected area stubs such as Costa Rica or Nicaragua. Then again, someone has also placed Category:Central America geography stubs as a sub-cat of Category:North America geography stubs, so it's not you that's missing something. It looks as though some rearranging of parent- and sub-cats is in order, and the creation of Category:Central American protected area stubs as a parent? Her Pegship(really?)19:50, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
Technically, Central America is regarded by geographers as being part of North America, but in common usage it's separate, so while its officially right it could cause a few raised eyebrows. I'd certainly be happy with a separate category per Peg. Grutness...wha?03:29, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
I've never really got my head around creating new stub templates etc - could someone suggest what to do in this situation, where a lot of "Asia politics" doesn't seem to have an appropriate stub template? Thanks. Several other countries, such as India and China also seem to be missing. PamD14:02, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
Is there a stub template for a different country that does what you intend (apart from being the wrong country)? We could use that as a basis for a Pakistan one. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:58, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
Most of the Foo politics stubs categories are parents to Foo political party stubs and Foo politician stubs; Category:Pakistan politics stubs would contain those two sub-cats, though I'm not sure whether Category:Pakistan politics stubs would contain many stub articles in and of itself. The other Foo politics stubs cats have their own templates, so maybe you should propose ((Pakistan-poli-stub)) and Category:Pakistan politics stubs both on the Proposals page. tl;dr I suggest you use ((Pakistan-stub)) until a political stub type is discussed on Proposals. Her Pegship(really?)00:24, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
So why do we need this? I just got in to a silly editing tête-à-tête with Bearcat over why a big yellow warning banner is needed on a page to complain it has not been added to any categories even though it literally was in a category. And it was in a category that was already a child category of where I stuck it to get rid of this banner. Here is the example article: Newspaper bag. — xaosfluxTalk00:21, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
Stub categories do not make an article properly categorized by themselves. Even if it has 75,000 stub templates on it, an article is still uncategorized if it does not have at least one direct category declaration being made on the page itself. There are several reasons for this:
Stub categories group articles by maintenance status, not by a characteristic of the topic. They're not meant for end user browsing, but to attract the internal attention of editors who might be inclined to work on improving the articles. So a regular reader who isn't involved in content creation, and is just using Wikipedia as an information resource, will not find the article in the correct or expected places if it isn't in any real content categories, because reader browsing isn't what stub categories are for.
Stub templates get removed from articles when they've been expanded beyond stub length, which makes them temporary. An article is still uncategorized if it is not included in any permanent categories that will not be removed from the article upon a change in its maintenance status, because pages have to stay categorized.
It is technologically impossible for our uncategorized-article detection tools to determine that a page has categories that are being artificially transcluded by templates — the tools can only detect whether a page has direct category declarations on it or not. So if an article were to be exempted from getting tagged as uncategorized on the basis of stub categories, then the tools would pick that page up again, and it would be impossible to clear it off the list at all if we weren't allowed to tag it. But the people who work with the uncategorized tools are not obliged to put up with permanent clutter that pollutes the list and makes it harder to detect other uncategorized pages — we have to be able to clear the list literally right down to zero, and cannot be expected to leave some articles lingering on the list just because you think direct category declarations aren't important. One of the reasons for this is that the tools have limits on how many pages they're capable of detecting — so if stub-templated but otherwise uncategorized pages were left on the list because the stub template counted as categorization, then those pages would eventually crowd out the pages that did need to be tagged, leaving them completely undetectable because there were more stub-templated pages than the tool's upper count limit.
So for all of those reasons, an article is not deemed to be categorized, or exempted from having to have the uncategorized tag on it, until it contains one or more direct declarations of non-stub end user content categories. Bearcat (talk) 00:29, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
As pages with a stub template are literally actually in a category, at the very least that template is inaccurate and misleading. It isn't like it is in a hidden category either. A reader reading that page sees literally a warning banner that this page is not in a category, immediately followed by a line that says as in this example Categories: Newspaper stubs - an actual category that is browsable and otherwise incorporated in to our category system. — xaosfluxTalk00:37, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
If stub cats were not meant to be topical, they should be hidden and not incorporated right in to the topical category system - at the very least they are dual-purpose. — xaosfluxTalk00:39, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
I've questioned whether "uncategorized stub" and "uncategorized" actually needed to be two separate templates in the past as well — but the point that was raised in response to my concerns was exactly what's happening here: some people don't realize that artificially transcluded stub categories don't count as "categorization" for the purposes of rendering a page "properly categorized", and thus simply remove the "uncategorized" template on the basis of the stub category. I don't see why a merged template couldn't just include wording about stub templates, but it basically amounts to "they were created that way and nobody's tackled the job of trying to merge them before". That said, the core issue that was being raised here had less to do with why "uncategorized" and "uncategorized stub" are two separate templates, and more to do with an assertion that stub-templated but otherwise uncategorized pages don't need any form of uncategorized template tagging at all. Bearcat (talk) 00:58, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
If stub cats were not meant to be topical, they should be hidden and not incorporated right in to the topical category system - at the very least they are dual-purpose. — xaosfluxTalk00:39, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
As I said above, even if an article has 27,000 stub templates on it, it is still uncategorized if it does not also have at least one direct declaration of an end-user content category on it. I've already explained several of the substantial and important reasons why this is the case — the most important one being that if pages are left untagged just because of stub templates alone, an essential maintenance tool will be broken because it is technologically impossible to make that tool detect categories that are artificially transcluded by templates. The tools work by looking for the presence or absence of actual direct category declarations on a page, and have no way to detect that a page is "categorized" by templates importing category transclusions — so if we ignored stub-templated pages, the uncategorized-page detection tools would get kludged up by untaggable pages that we weren't allowed to clear. That would crowd out the pages that did have to be addressed, thus having the effect of breaking the tools, and making it impossible to ever locate uncategorized pages at all anymore. So whether you agree with the need or not, the categorization project has to be able to clear stub-templated but otherwise uncategorized pages off the uncategorized page detection tools. Bearcat (talk) 00:58, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
Firstly, it's not "law of the instrument" in the sense that article describes — it's not an attempt to make a tool fit a task it isn't designed for, it's a matter of a tool that is designed for the task becoming unusable. Secondly, the issue you raised here wasn't with the wording of the uncategorized-stub template, it was with the idea that stubs need any template at all. Bearcat (talk) 04:37, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
The issue I'm raising is that a reader-facing caution banner is on an article saying there are no categories, and we place that immediately above a reader-facing line that says the page is in a category. — xaosfluxTalk11:54, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
The difference between the two templates isn't relevant to that issue, because which template gets used doesn't change anything about it. Bearcat (talk) 15:13, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
@Izno: not really. See my note at the TfD too, but basically I think we look like we don't know how to mark up a page when we have a line that says this page isn't in categories followed by a line that says here are the categories. If "stub categories" are not meant for readers, they should be hidden categories.... — xaosfluxTalk19:22, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
A thought: should stub categories be hidden? That would solve the contradiction between what the "Uncategorised" template displays and the reality that the stub is in a category, albeit a category of a specific type which we don't count as a category when describing it as uncategorised. If they are truly only intended for the eyes of editors, perhaps we should avoid confusion by hiding them from the reader. They would still function, and the stub would still display its message that "This foo related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.", but there would be less confusion. Perhaps? PamD18:13, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
When it comes to the distinction between "maintenance" categories and "content" categories, the stub categories are certainly the only type of maintenance category that we routinely make visible instead of hiding. Hiding them would make them a little bit tricker for editors who wanted to work with them to find — but it is still possible, it's just that some "novice" users would need a quick bit of education in how to actually do it. I don't see a compelling reason why they would need to be visible rather than hidden, personally — but I am aware that some people might disagree, so it would probably be best to publicize a wider discussion on that matter rather than just deciding to change this immediately. The only other concern I have is that there are over 16,000 stub categories — so making them hidden would take a heck of a lot of work to implement. But I suppose somebody could probably program a bot to automate that if it were decided to go that route, so that's not in and of itself a reason not to. Bearcat (talk) 19:57, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
Category:Stub categories needing attention
...is a bit over populated. I was going to try and take a crack at the backlog, but I wanted to see how it was filled first.
The guideline Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout § Standard appendices and footers states that any stub tags should be placed at the very bottom of the article, after all other templates and categories. Two blank lines should be left between the first stub tag and whatever precedes it.
I was once told (like, ten years ago) that certain bots and scripts expect two. I've not yet found out which bots and scripts those are. Certainly nobody's ever complained when I have used only one blank line. What I generally do is: if there are no blank lines, I add one; if there are three or more, I reduce them to two; if there is either one or two, I leave it alone. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:27, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
Template for nominating stub templates at CfD
Noted in (somewhat) more detail at WT:CFD but I created ((sfd-t2)) and ((sfr-t2)) for stub template nomination discussions, thought folks here might be interested. Also added a |stub=yes parameter to ((cfd-notify)) that changes some of the messages and links so this it be used for stub template nomination notifications. ~ Amory(u • t • c)16:11, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
A while back, there was a tool created by User:Danski454 that would provide a dropdown menu from which one could choose a stub type to apply to an article (see discussion here). I've been re-sorting Nepal geography stubs and it's tedious as hell, and this tool would be useful, BUT none of the Nepal geo stub types show up in the search. I posted a note on Danski454's talk page and haven't heard back yet, but has anyone else had this problem? I don't know where the tool gets its list of stub types - maybe that's the issue - any suggestions? Her Pegship (I'm listening) 18:27, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
You can consider upgrading to the StubSorter script which shows every valid stub tag, and lets you search easily like in Hotcat, without using hierarchial descent.
Hey folks - I stumbled across ((COVID-19-stub)) / Category:COVID-19 stubs while perusing CfD; this was created out of process, and seems to have been applied to many articles whose main subject is not coronavirus. As the stub type is listed as an option at the COVID-19 WikiProject, I left a note there and invited them to come here to discuss it. Any thoughts? Her Pegship (I'm listening) 02:31, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
I would not fuss about it having been created out of process. Most stub types don't go through WP:WSS/P (ref). The category looks legitimate to me as there are enough number of articles and it is helping COVID-19 editors to find articles to expand. The only trouble is that biographies of people who died due to COVID-19 have been included here, which I am not sure is appropriate. Still, if it it helping COVID-19 editors, I don't see a point in re-sorting them until such the pandemic has subsided and editor interest in the topic has reduced. SD0001 (talk) 05:28, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
I appreciate your concerns. Reasons why I'm posting about this stub type being created out of process follow (in no particular order):
The stub type is getting tacked on to those bios, as well as on to articles about institutions which existed before the current crisis and whose main mission is not specifically related to the virus.
My suggestion on the project page was that they use the "Stub-Class Article" template on talk pages, which would help their project more effectively.
The stub types on the list you linked to have been created according to WPSS guidelines; the "speedy creation" section sketches out types that may be created that way, and the names of those creating them are names of longtime stub sorters who know the "drill".
The template and category banners claim that they're maintained by WPSS, and "Further information can be found at" WPSS is included in the template documentation.
The stub template and category have not been added to the stub types list.
The stub type is not part of any hierarchy in the way that permanent categories are, which is vital to the structure of WP as a whole. It might belong under Category:Infectious disease stubs, for example, rather than as a top-level stub type.
I do understand that this isn't that big a deal to the WP overall, but as the nature of stub sorters includes a fair dose of nit-pickiness, I feel compelled to at least point it out. Cheers, Her Pegship (I'm listening) 16:37, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
P.S. I found that this was created as an upmerged template to Category:Epidemic stubs, and the category was changed to Category:COVID-19 stubs by 91.124.169.249 (talk·contribs), probably in good faith. If anyone thinks that category should be deleted, but the upmerged template kept, that sounds like a good compromise. Her Pegship (I'm listening) 16:43, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Update: There's been some clarification at CfD, that this stub type relates to the pandemic event, not the disease itself, thus the category has been proposed for renaming to Category:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic stubs; however, I'm not sure how a corresponding stub template would be formed. Any ideas? Please comment at the CfD. Her Pegship (I'm listening) 21:40, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
How are/should be stub template merges be handled?
I've noticed recently that any stub category of any size, at least as far as I've looked, now has one of those Automatic Category TOCs. So any stub category with 100 or more items will have a table of contents (even though up to 200 items listed will go on one page).
Do I gather correctly that this feature has now somehow been added to the template for creating stubs? I don't see the code for setting up these TOCs on any stub page I've looked at.
I kind of feel that any category, stub or otherwise, that fits onto one page doesn't need a TOC. But that's my opinion, and apparently there are people who think differently.
But with stubs there is a problem about that with a certain group of categories. These are categories in which every entry begins with the same letter. In non-stub categories, there are ways to get around that; these ways are not available (as far as I can tell) for stub categories.
And there are a lot of them. One huge class of them is categories of species in a particular genus. Every article in the category will begin with the genus name--the first part of the two-part "scientific name." There's a way around it in non-stub categories; you give each category link a "sortkey" for the species name--the second part of the two-part "scientific name." Then the category lists them under letter headings for those species names.
Take, for example, the one I'm working on now--the 600 article in the category for moths of a genus called Dichomeris. Look at the non-stub category page, and you'll see that the species Dichomeris abscessella is under A; Dichomeris baccata is under B; Dichomeris cachrydias is under C--and so on. I've been putting them that way; when I finish, the whole category will be that way. But the stub category has every entry but one under the letter D. So that's where the TOC directs. Uporządnicki (talk) 21:51, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
I think this is something recently implemented across categories in general; I've noticed it popping up (and creating unattractive layouts) on many categories, not just stub cats. I don't know how or where it originated; if anyone finds out let us know, as I have some useful suggestions for the creator(s). Her Pegship (I'm listening) 02:01, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
The new TOC does no harm: without it you'd still see all the Dichomeris stubs in one sequence. In many cases it's useful. I can quite see that in cases like this the article/stub needs to sort under "Dichomeris" everywhere except in Category:Dichomeris and Category:Dichomeris stubs, so tweaking the DEFAULTSORT isn't the answer. If you need to get to, say, "Dichomeris M...", a workround is: pick a letter from the TOC menu, say "P". This gets an empty listing at the URL https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Dichomeris_stubs&from=P. Change the "P" to "Dichomeris M", and go to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Dichomeris_stubs&from=Dichomeris%20M. PamD08:04, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
Thanks to @Redrose64 for the links and the ping, and to PamD for explaining things well. There are currently over 15,000 stub categories. Instead of TOCs having to be added and removed manually as stub categories change size, the use of ((CatAutoTOC)) means that a TOC is now generated automatically if the category meets the size thresholds set out at ((CatAutoTOC)). Unfortunately there are a few edge cases like this where the TOC adds little benefit (tho not, as PamD points out, zero benefit) ... but it does no harm. This is the first such case that I am aware of, out of just over 49,000 categories where CatAutoTOC generates a TOC. There may be a few more, but I think that the benefit to the other categories outweighs the issues here.
If Her Pegship has concerns or thoughts about the way that CatAutoTOC works, those would be best discussed at Template talk:CatAutoTOC, to keep discussion centralised. One of those issues is the size thresholds used by CatAutoTOC. I chose those thresholds myself based on my estimation of current practice, but as User:AzseicsoK noted above, there are inevitably differing views.
Briefly, my rationale for setting the threshold for a TOC at >100 pages in a category is that
that seemed to me to be a widely-used threshold
a TOC is useful not just for navigating between the pages of a multi-page category, but also for navigating on a single page, just like a TOC on articles. Once a category has more than about 70 pages, then on most laptops the page list extends below the fold (i.e. scrolling is needed), so a TOC can be helpful.
But if editors hold to a different view, please take it to Template talk:CatAutoTOC, where we can collaborate on setting up an RFC.
It looks like neither was discussed or approved; also, there's a slew of stub categories nominated for speedy renaming at CfR due to a consensus on the term "mass media" to replace "media". The Malaysian media stub cat is parent to sub-cats for tv, newspapers, and film; not sure whether that justifies its existence, but there it is. Her Pegship (I'm listening) 17:57, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
Argh. That CFDS includes Category:Malaysian mass media stubs (note the subtle spelling difference), so I shall fix ((Malaysia-tv-stub)) to use that, which will make Category:Malaysia mass media stubs empty and thus eligible for WP:C1 next Thursday. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:37, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
In my opinion, the icon for the stub ((Japan-crime-stub)), is kinda morbid and distasteful. I suggest we replace it with the more traditional-to-crime-related-stubs, the Handcuffs. All in favour?
WikiMacaroons (talk) 14:04, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
RedRose: You're not wrong. However, I don't like it either...but then, I'm not crazy about any image that includes a firearm, let alone a person using it. Her Pegship (I'm listening) 18:22, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
Howdy all - I just came across ((State of Palestine-stub)) and am pondering how to address several issues with it. Maybe you can give me some suggestions. In the beginning, we had ((Palestine-stub)) / Category:Palestine stubs, and although there was some concern over the cope of the category, no consensus was reached, so it remained.
The data I collected about the tagged stub categories (at Category:Underpopulated stub categories) also led me to believe that the minimum size guideline for stub types (currently 60, according to WP:Stub#Guidelines) is too big. We can discuss this here before proceeding to RfC. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 22:42, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
Template:DodaJK-geo-stub, created in evident good faith by a fairly new editor without going through the proposal process, needs some attention. If it's to be kept, it needs a rename, and it needs the giant copyrighted image removed from the template. It's being added to many rapidly created stubs about locations in Doda district in Jammu and Kashmir. Thanks, 2A01:4B00:8E02:4100:4CC0:22D0:2CEA:2877 (talk) 05:46, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
I just listed it for deletion; there's no need for a sub-cat of the Jammu and Kashmir geo stub cat, and as mentioned, it's misnamed. Creator gets points for enthusiasm and good faith. Her Pegship (I'm listening) 04:37, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, no one from this project has commented on the proposal, and I haven't seen anything at all about the discussion until you posted just now. Hmm. Her Pegship (?) 20:34, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
One of the problems that Wikipedia has is that the long-established practices of a particular group of users are suddenly overturned by a person who does not normally engage with that group. They usually do so by starting a discussion at a page that the group doesn't normally follow, and by the time that the group finds out, other outsiders have normally piled in. When you ask why the group wasn't consulted before the outside discussion was raised, they come back with comments that essentially accuse you of WP:OWN, WP:LOCALCONSENSUS or anything listed at WP:AADD without acknowledging that the work of the group will become more difficult. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:33, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
The discussion interestingly seems to conflate the function of article stub tags with that of project talk-page assessment templates. I'm not sure some of the contributors know that the two are not interchangeable, and it sounds as though some believe that article stub tags are applied by project members (other than WPSS members, that is). I don't actually understand why wikiprojects set ratings on articles, and why they don't just link to various stub categories for purposes of alerting their members to things they can improve. Then again, I tend to stick to my own corner of WP myself - and I wouldn't for a moment make a proposal to eliminate their tools. Especially without notifying all and sundry. *oy vey* Her Pegship (?) 02:46, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Another problem that Wikipedia has is that the !voters do not read the proposal properly, or even understand what it is suggesting. I'm seeing a lot of that at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Deprecate parenthetical citations. For instance, some people are supporting the proposal on the basis that the citation method concerned lacks some capability, which in fact it possesses. Even though I've explained this several times, new !voters still pretend that the capability isn't there. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:14, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Since the category is applied by the template, the software automatically re-assigns the category on the pages where the template is used. No bot is needed. – SD0001 (talk) 04:29, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
Hi folks - A while back, Category:Underpopulated stub categories was discussed and emptied in favor of using Category:Stub categories needing attention, which is separated into sections for under-, over-, or specifically-populated stub categories. I propose that Category:Overpopulated stub categories undergo the same emptying and CfD, for the same reasons. Thoughts? Her Pegship (?) 17:20, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
Sounds good to me as well as I assume this updates automatically, in which case it will save a little bit of time. One question though there are a few categories that I believe have not been above 800 for a month or so that are still showing in the category, for example Category:Norwegian people stubs, any idea why these are still showing up? Waacstats (talk) 14:04, 24 October 2020 (UTC)
I don't think they're automatically added to Category:Overpopulated stub categories; they're added when an editor puts a ((verylargestub)) tag on the category, and likewise removed from it when someone removes the tag. Her Pegship (?) 19:22, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
@LaundryPizza03: You refer, I think, to this edit - Legobot doesn't consider activity, it looks at the age of the RfC and if more than thirty days have elapsed, the ((rfc)) tag is removed. In this case, 19:54, 29 July 2020 (UTC) plus thirty days is 19:54, 28 August 2020 (UTC) - the tag was removed at 20:01, 28 August 2020 (UTC), that is, when the RfC was 30 days and 7 minutes old. All this is covered at WP:RFC#Duration. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:01, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
I learned that I needed to reboot it immediately below, anyway. Apparently the question was too broad to attract meaningful input. This time I threw out an estimate of what the new guideline should look like. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 00:54, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
Not-undersized stub cats
Hi folks - I've been scrolling through Stub categories needing attention - Stub categories which are potentially undersized and I see several categories where there are over 70 articles in them, but they're still in the "potentially undersized" category. I went through the source code, stub templates, everything I could think of, but I cannot tell why these categories are there. There's no ((popstub)) template (any more). An example is Category:1993 country song stubs, which holds 126 articles and yet shows up in the "potentially undersized" category. Does anyone know (a) why/how these stub cats are marked potentially undersized, and (b) how to remove them from the inaccurate "needing attention" category?? Her Pegship (?) 00:03, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
Aha, thanks for checking. My understanding of template functions is limited, and I don't dare tinker with this one; to whom can I appeal to tweak this to reflect an accurate count? Her Pegship (?) 18:00, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
It looks like nul edits get rid of some, however all those which that does not work for seem to have either , or ' in the title. Don't know if that will help narrow down the problem. Waacstats (talk) 22:44, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
((sfp create)) and several other templates used in closing discussions will be deleted in favor of ((sfp top|result)); ((sfp bottom)) will still be used at the bottom of each discussion. Just FYI. Her Pegship (?) 20:04, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
Template:ValdezCordovaAK-geo-stub and Category:Valdez–Cordova Census Area, Alaska geography stubs
Per this, the Valdez-Cordova Census Area ceased to exist almost two years ago. From looking at the affected content, we have someone who showed up at a bunch of articles to insert empty authority control templates while leaving this more substantial bit of work for someone else to do. Still other editors have attempted to revert the efforts of others who were trying to do something about correcting this. Seeing that, I've taken the initiative to properly split content reflecting the two new census areas. I'm not really interested in doing all the work, or at the very least am only interested in doing it as my time will allow, and I've already given up enough time on this to where I'm falling behind with other off-wiki and real-life activities. If you're looking for something to do, any help would be appreciated to complete this. Thank you. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 23:07, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
Canadian politician stubs
Discussion currently underway at Templates for discussion, as to whether to delete ((ProvinceofCanada-politician-stub)). I believe there was discussion in August 2020 about creating upmerged templates for ((UpperCanada-MPP-stub)) and ((ProvinceofCanada-MPP-stub)) and that the creator of the templates nominated for deletion misunderstood the conclusions made. Anyway, if you'd like to weigh in, feel free. Her Pegship (?) 21:19, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
@Lugnuts: Do you recall which you copied from? I doubt that they had "French sportspeople stubs" in addition to "French (sport) biography stubs". --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:07, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
Hi. Sorry, no idea - it was about a year ago. Probably one of the other European stub-cats from the same sport, so it would have been "foo sportspeople stubs", etc. LugnutsFire Walk with Me12:10, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
Hi there - I see that you followed suit by naming the category like the other categories in this hierarchy, Category:South African soccer biography stubs, etc. There's been some discussion in the past over the use of "football (soccer)" or just soccer, so I will leave the naming discussion up to others more familiar with the issues. Otherwise, they look properly formed and populated. Her Pegship (?) 19:51, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
Hello. Do you guys have a tips page/training guide somewhere for someone adding stubs to articles? Max number of stubs per article? Most common categories? Most common stub mistakes? Thank you. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:58, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
There is, in theory, no limit to the number of stub tags which may be placed on an article. But they need to be relevant: if you go beyond two or three, it's likely that the relevance of some of them will be low, and those should be omitted. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:18, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
I've found Template:Veganism-and-Vegetarianism-stub, which was created at 20:27, 21 February 2021 (UTC) by Throughthemind (talk·contribs) without (so far as I can tell) first being proposed at WP:WSS/P. It uses |category=Stub-Class Veganism and Vegetarianism articles which is a misuse of that parameter. My problem is that I can't work out what a suitable category should be. Any ideas? Or maybe we should simply WP:TFD the template since it is used on only one article. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:51, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
It seems this was originally meant to serve as a talk page VAV Project template. It's unused and there's now a correctly formatted talk page template, so I posted this one to TfD. Her Pegship (?) 18:29, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
This is related to the discussion here. Mjquinn_id has created ((Tennis-GrandSlam-stub)) and Category:Grand Slam competition stubs without checking with anyone here as to its usefulness or implementation. There are currently 8 articles tagged thusly, and as there is a TOC by decade on the cat page, I assume that Mjquinn_id intends to fill the category. While the creator embraces WP:BOLD, I think that a proposal here at WPSS would have been in order. My question is, should I put a WPSS banner on the category even though it was not proposed/approved by WPSS? Tagging @Mjquinn id: for their information. Her Pegship (?) 19:42, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
My apologies; thought they were more "internal project" type categories. There have been discussions there about how to better approach the 25K of stubs we have. Feel free to discuss where ever you need. This category will be for the most important of Tennis tournaments; ideally, the first stubs to be "cleaned up". Currently pending another change to Wikipedia:WikiProject Tennis for the implementation of workgroups (which would support and populate this category). Roughly; this would break 25K out into: 2K, 2K, 5K, 10K, (the rest stay here). Mjquinn_id (talk) 20:40, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
They are "internal project" categories - for the stub sorting project. Anything to do with WP Tennis needs to be configured for the talk page, not the article page. Her Pegship (?) 18:04, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
Member of the tennis project here. I endorse this subcategorization of Category:Tennis competition stubs (fully aware of its independence from the tennis project), and as such think the WPSS banner should be placed on the category/it should be managed by WPSS, despite its creation not having been approved through the usual channel. See also my latest comment at Template talk:WikiProject Tennis#WorkGroups. Thanks, —Somnifuguist (talk) 12:16, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
I don't know how to make a sub-category land under a letter representing one of the conditions noted in the category header (N, O, P, Q, S, U) rather than appearing under its name in the general category. For example, Category:Central Province, Sri Lanka geography stubs shows up under "C" instead of "O" (for Oversized). Can someone tell me the code for changing the order? Her Pegship (?) 5:17 pm, 26 September 2021, Sunday (2 months, 10 days ago) (UTC−7)
I've found Template:US-physiologist-stub and Category:American physiologist stub. They were both created on 23 February 2022 by Joaquin89uy (talk·contribs), and neither was proposed (let alone approved) at WP:WSS/P. We don't even have a category or stub template for physiologists in general (let alone any other country-specific ones), and the number of articles using them (4) is well short of the 60 threshold for approval, so shall we send them for deletion? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:03, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
@Joaquin89uy: I don't disagree that Category:American physiologists exists, but that's not the point, because it's not a stub category. I'm talking about Category:American physiologist stub, which is claiming to be a stub category: all new stub categories should be proposed at WP:WSS/P and only created when approved. If this had been approved, we would have advised that the name is not in conformance with agreed practice. You've put four articles in the category - can you find 56 more? If not, you cannot justify the existence of Category:American physiologist stub and even the existence of ((US-physiologist-stub)) becomes doubtful.
@Redrose64: It's ok. I was just responding to your phrase here: "We don't even have a category or stub template for physiologists in general (let alone any other country-specific ones)", which , based on my reply, is not exactly true, because Category:American physiologists does exist.
I may be able to find more physiologist's stubs. The thing was, I only searched, like, the first couple of letters on the "American Physiologist" category list (Category:American physiologists), and got tired and went to sleep.
Furthermore, I'm sorry about not asking previous to creating. I just didn't know I had to at the time. Feel free to decide between yourselves what you want to do, or if you want me to keep looking for stubs on the aforementioned list or whatever. It's true that the "US-biologists-stubs" might cover this pretty well enough. - Joaquin89uy (talk) 17:23, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
There *is* a category "American physiologists" but there is no *stub category* for any kind of physiologist, which would normally be a precursor to "American physiologist stubs". Her Pegship (?) 18:49, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
There appears to be an issue with the images of a few stub templates, and I can't seem to wrap my mind around what may be the issue. Can anyone figure this out? Curbon7 (talk) 23:30, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14. (John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.)
It will work on a variety of links, including those from ((cite web)), ((cite journal)) and ((doi)).
The script is mostly based on WP:RSPSOURCES, WP:NPPSG and WP:CITEWATCH and a good dose of common sense. I'm always expanding coverage and tweaking the script's logic, so general feedback and suggestions to expand coverage to other unreliable sources are always welcomed.
Do note that this is not a script to be mindlessly used, and several caveats apply. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable.
I am having problems with Eluru-geo-stub / its category Category:Eluru district geography stubs. This does not display correctly on article pages and does not collect anything in its category. Yet it looks the same as other stubs that do work. Ideas/corrections? Thanks. Hmains (talk) 18:33, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
Well, the template uses the wrong code; it begins with "((Stub Category", so the headers that normally appear at the top of a stub category now appear at the bottom of the articles. Templates use the "((asbox))" code, and the category is created separately. I appreciate your willingness to be bold, but you would have avoided this headache if you had proposed the stub type first, as urged by the Stub sorting WikiProject. I suggest that the template should be deleted, or at most, upmerged to Category:Andhra Pradesh geography stubs. Her Pegship (?) 21:12, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for the quick response. I have requested deletion of Category:Eluru district geography stubs. I will use the Andhra Pradesh geo stub. What next? Hmains (talk) 23:40, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
My suggestion would be to wait until the Category:Geography of Eluru district collects a higher number of stub articles, then perhaps proposing an upmerged template (e.g. Eluru-geo-stub template that would feed into Andhra Pradesh geo stubs). Thanks for the discussion. Her Pegship (?) 00:48, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
Deleting stub category and template?
I have just finished emptying a stub category, Olivellidae, completely, except for the stub template. It had been a biological family of sea snails. But there were changes made to the classification, and I moved all the articles to other stub categories. The stub template and category are no longer needed. How do we delete them? Uporządnicki (talk) 13:28, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
@Gonnym: In an ideal world every stub template would be unused, as every article in the encyclopedia would be of "start" status or above. Until then, if a stub template is not in use it means that all the articles to which it might have been applied have been upgraded above stubs, or deleted, or given a more precise stub category. There may be a handful of unnecessary or malformed stub templates, but the vast majority are potentially useful and should be left well alone. PamD17:55, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
Stub created putting articles into a parent-only category - at TfD
I would like to propose a template for historical Prussian districts, there are some Prussian district articles and at wiki project Prussia we plan to create more so it would be helpful to have a template Crainsaw (talk) 18:47, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
Stub proposal; Framework For Success In Post Secondary Writing
I am proposing a new stub for the Framework For Success In Post Secondary Writing. This document is highly influential and created from all different perspectives. While it is not extensive enough to be an actual article I am proposing a stub Yeahhidk (talk) 21:53, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
I notice that there have been more and more articles tagged with ((stub)) which have to do with current events - for example, Parachinar school shooting and Assassination of Girma Yeshitila (which has been redirected already). Typically there are not many details about the incident described, thus it gets marked as a stub article. Is there consensus on how these should be tagged? Should they get a stub tag, and if so, should they be tagged with the country/sport/medium in which the event occurs? Or is there another template/notice that will bring it to the attention of editors who deal with current events? Any advice? Thanks in advance - Her Pegship (?) 20:48, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
Hundreds of stub categories by Fadesga
I notice that User:Fadesga has been very active in creating stub categories since June 2022 [3] but I can find no record that any of these categories went through the stub sorting proposal procedure that the stub category banner says all stub categories must go through. Is there some other channel for stub category creation that I am missing? Or have all of these stub categories been created out-of-process? —David Eppstein (talk) 00:48, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
They've actually been very active in creating stub categories going way back to October 2012 (there were two before that, in March 2011 and August 2012), although there was a low between 2015 and 2018. Since August 2018, they have created some every month except for November 2022. Most of them seem quite well populated, here are the counts for those created in July-August this year:
Creating "un-vetted" stub types is, alas, not uncommon, and as most of the creators just use the code from existing categories as boilerplate, the WPSS banner can be misleading. I don't know how to address this particular list of categories (I'm mildly annoyed that the few I have checked on have not been added to the big List of Stub Types), except to suggest that perhaps someone should ask Fadesga about them. Her Pegship (?) 01:30, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
Stub categories by Joeykai
I was browsing some old stub categories I've worked with before and I noticed that User:Joeykai had created two stub categories in July 2022 (Category:English MPs 1529–1536 stubs, Category:English MPs 1563–1567 stubs) that I had either thought about proposing or had proposed in the past as part of dealing with the very large categories, but that I don't recall if it was approved. They were appropriately sized, but it struck me as a bit weird so I checked a bit further and didn't see any stub proposal discussions, nor were they listed in the List of Stub Types. I did a search[4], and here's a smattering of other stub categories I saw that this user created, but which I couldn't find on the List of Stub Types:
Can someone double check if these are legit? I tried to use petscan to get a feel for all the stub categories the user created but I didn't know how to filter on user. Furicorn (talk) 13:06, 14 September 2023 (UTC)