Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting

Wanted: One stub sorter willing to do a small amount of daily work

Hi all - regretfully, health issues mean that I will be greatly reducing my workload on Wikipedia in general and WP:WSS in particular (full details can be found on my user page). Most of the tasks I do here aren't that important - though I do regularly sweep out any unsubcategorised stubs from various geo-stub categories, as listed at the top of my sandbox.

One task that I do daily, though, is very important: I check any new templates that are made, looking for unproposed ones that need to be taken to either WP:WSS/D or WP:SFD. please could I ask that someone else takes up this task? It usually takes very little time, but can be a bit stressful occasionally, since it's here that WP:WSS tends to come into contact with people who either don't know or don't care about the proposal process.

Given how many new pages are kept listed under Special:NewPages, this task would need to be done at least every two or three days, though I prefer to do it daily if possible ((it takes less time per go that way, and it's easier to knwo which ones have or haven't been checked). Grutness...wha? 22:15, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear that! I wish you all the best, whatever your circumstances may be. Everyone else: Please don't be intimidated by the occasional situations Grutness mentions; while I'm not a stub sorter myself, I think I know what he means, and I'd be happy to help as a mediator in any such cases. In any such event, please leave me a notice on my talk page, as I don't usually have this page on my watchlist. — Sebastian 02:47, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear that as well. I will attempt to take over this job, as I've been meaning to get more involved in this WikiProject for quite some time. Gosox⁽⁵⁵⁾₍₅₅₎ 21:31, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Listing hierarchy in the template's doc

How do you fix the hierarchy in the template's documentation? I'm looking at about five stub templates, e.g., Template:Cutaneous-infection-stub, which should probably be considered 'children' of Template:Dermatology-stub and/or Template:Cutaneous-condition-stub.

The cats are already arranged correctly, but the template documentation doesn't name the intermediate steps (which I think might be useful to the occasional editor, if the more specific template doesn't seem to quite fit).

The stub templates don't seem to use a normal doc page, and I haven't been able to find the instructions anywhere. Can someone point me in the right direction? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:03, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

There is a relevant discussion at Template talk:Asbox#Populating stubtree with a tree? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:54, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Stubs and lists (and lists of lists)

There are a batch of "lists of lists" currently labelled as {{stub}} by Yobot. They're being stubbed automatically because of an AWB rule specifying that the tag can be added to anything under 300 characters. I'm inclined to add a long comment and remove the stub tag, but not sure that this is right. Should the AWB rule exclude lists? or "lists of lists"? I've raised it at User_talk:Magioladitis#Yobot_and_stubs_and_lists_of_lists. PamD (talk) 11:10, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Examples (as they may be out of the stub category by the time you look there) include Lists of Valencia metro stations, Lists of Scottish counties by population and Lists of Australian rules football leagues. PamD (talk) 11:14, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

The examples you gave each list only two list. I would call them WP:DAB pages. I see little or no value, and they've each been around a few years. I've endorsed your WP:PROD of one. Maurreen (talk) 11:33, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

How to speed up move to new category?

I've been baffled how, just recently, it seems that new stub categories are not filling accurately.

Here's the issue. In accordance with stub policies, I'll create an upmerge template linking to one particular parent category. Then, once I find 60 articles, I try to move everything into a new child category. The category and template link up correctly, and any newly tagged articles are placed in the new category, but the original 60 stay in the old category, unless they get resaved.

Here's a couple examples of categories that have been waiting days to receive their articles:

• 4/22/10 - {{Atari-console-stub}} linked to Category:Atari console game stubs. 5 day wait.
• 4/24/10 - {{beatemup-videogame-stub}} linked to Category:Beat 'em up stubs. 3 day wait.

It seems like it was only a month or so ago when, if I updated the template at certain times of the day, the articles would dump right into the new category. Why the long wait now? Dawynn (talk) 11:34, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not exactly sure, but it's related to the job queue and I've also noticed that it's taking a long time for articles to move these days. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:52, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

China and PRChina, and Taiwan and RoChina stub types

Should a clear policy be drawn, and all existing stub types be carefully reviewed? The current situation is rather messy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.237.150.205 (talk) 11:12, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

We have come to a situation in which hospitals in mainland China that were closed before the People's Republic was established are tagged as {{PRChina-hospital-stub}}. The same tag is applied to hospitals in colonial Hong Kong that were closed before the UK handed over the territory to the People's Republic. Meanwhile {{China-university-stub}} (a subcat of Cat:Universities in the People's Republic of China) is applied to universities in mainland China that were closed before or very shortly after the demise of the RoChina on the mainland.

Hong Kong stub types

Should Hong Kong stub templates that are not yet having any stub category be fed into the Asia one or the China one? Some Hong Kong stubs are actually not related to China nor the People's Republic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.237.150.205 (talk) 11:15, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Explicit stub categories.

I just found an article with a stub cat from 2008. Fixed it up and went looking. There are nearly 5k articles (as of March) with stub cats. What to do? Rich Farmbrough, 02:53, 5 May 2010 (UTC).

Category:Piracy stubs

These are a sub-cat of "people by occupation stubs" Category:Pirate stubs if it existed would be the rightful sub-cat of people by occupation. Rich Farmbrough, 10:13, 5 May 2010 (UTC).

Italian sport stubs

I recently created Category:Italian sport stubs and {{Italy-sport-stub}}. It's likely that I omitted some step that you folks would have liked me to take, or I did it in some way that was slightly different that what you would prefer. I am notifying you here so that you can clean it up after me. Also because I used {{WPSS-cat}} to say that you would be maintaining it. Thanks. —Mark Dominus (talk) 19:24, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

What is your process for renaming?

I am a member of the Canadian music project. Is it possible to get our seven stubs renamed from "Canada" to "Canadian"?

{{Canada-band-stub}}

{{Canada-country-band-stub}}

{{Canada-composer-stub}}

{{Canada-musician-stub}}

{{Canada-guitarist-stub}}

{{Canada-singer-stub}}

{{Canada-record-label-stub}}

I ask because every category to which these stubs relate are all named Category:Canadian ??? Thanks. Argolin (talk) 08:47, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

• There are a lot of mismatches between main categories and stub-types, and it's probably more important to keep the whole huge family of stubtypes consistent with each other: people who sort stubs cover the whole gamut of subject matter, so knowing that it's "[country]-singer-stub" just like it's "[country]-footy-bio-stub" or "[country]-geo-stub" is much easier to remember. If some countries used the adjective and some the noun, it would be much slower to sort stubs. PamD (talk) 22:14, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

There are 13 cats under Category:Canada stubs with the Canadian prefix and 8 with the Canada? Also, not all the stub types listed above are on your document page. I'll find the exact page if you need me to. I was looking for all the stubs for our project last week when I posted the request for a Category:Canadian music stubs. From what you saying, the new cat will be named Category:Canada music stubs. Can I create it? I can see your group is very busy. Argolin (talk) 06:06, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

New Zealand government / politics stubs

In New Zealand, we have a politics taskforce. The related page is Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand/politics. In April 2010, the project was renamed from Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand/governments to broaden its scope, and to more accurately reflect the scope. I suspect that Category:New Zealand government stubs exists because it reflected the former taskforce name. I propose that the category be deleted, and the 62 pages be added to Category:New Zealand politics stubs (where there are currently 449 pages and 2 subcategories). I've posted a note at Category talk:New Zealand government stubs as well as politics task force talk page. Schwede66 18:30, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

The page you want for proposing that is WP:SFD. Grutness...wha? 22:18, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Mr Grutness, for (once again) putting me on the right path. You have your eyes everywhere! I've put my thoughts on Category talk:New Zealand government stubs. Schwede66 03:32, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Category:Onchidiidae stubs

I noticed that the category Onchidiidae stubs is in the category Heterobranchia stubs along with Pulmonata stubs, however Onchidiidae is a superfamily under the informal class Pulmonata. My question is should I move Onchidiidae stubs into the Pulmonata stubs category? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pepper543210 (talk • contribs) 23:06, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

What is the process for deleting a stub template?

I don't believe the template {{Canada-country-band-stub}} was authorised by your project. The Canadian music project currently has a total 80 country musical groups (including subgenres). Placement of this template adds the article to Category:Canadian musical group stubs. Further, there is no mention of this template in the Category:Canadian country music groups. I don't see it's usefulness at this point for the Canadian music project as it is the only genre based stub type. Can it be deleted? Argolin (talk) 23:21, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

All the details about stub type deletion are at the top of WP:Stub types for deletion, which is the process page you should use to propose this. Grutness...wha? 22:55, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Grutness. As I thought an unauthorised stub per WP:STUBS. I'll post it later in June to the WP:WSS/D after I familiarise myself with the process. Argolin (talk) 01:15, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Can I create stub templates that were approved way back?

At Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals/2009/June#Reorganisation of Pharmacology stub categories, splitting the Category:Pharmacology stubs (> 3000 entries) and the corresponding stub template was discussed and approved of, though never implemented. Can I go ahead with it, or is there something like an expiry date for this consensus? Thanks --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 15:51, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Go right ahead.--TM 16:13, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 16:55, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

How do I (for example) mark {{antiinfective-agent-stub}} as a subtype of {{pharma-stub}}, so that the "Stub hierarchy" box in the template documentation shows the correct relationship? --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 19:43, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

The stub heirarchy is just an automated tool to find subwords of the name which are also templates. For example if Template:Agent-stub existed, then this would be displayed. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:20, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 08:34, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

How stub templates interfere with a certain script

Template:Formerly

OK, that's perhaps an overdramatic way of describing a rather obscure complaint. However, many stub templates prevent articles appearing on User:Mr.Z-man's excellent tool for finding articles that lack images. The reason for this is that the tool looks up a database that records any usage of images in the article, not just Image: and File: but within templates and message boxes. This meant that pretty much any stub did not appear on lists generated by the tool, because it saw the picture in the stub template and assumed it depicted the subject of the article.
After I pointed this out, Z-man said that rewriting the code to use a different database wasn't really an option, but he has just changed the tool so that there's now an option to only look for JPEGs in articles. It's not perfect, but it works well enough as long as none of the stub templates contains a JPEG. I've been taking photos of central London lately, and found that just swapping JPGs for SVGs in the stub templates for London roads, structs and railway stations allowed >90% of articles without images to show up in Z-man's lists. However there is a long tail of other stub templates that can be placed on geotaggable articles, particularly in Category:Building and structure stubs and more generally in Category:Geography stubs.
Personally I find that JPG photos are usually unintelligible at the 30px size typical of stub templates, and I also think SVG cartoony images are better on style grounds for meta stuff like stub templates to contrast with the JPGs in the article content. The clincher has to be that it doesn't make much difference for stub purposes what the image is, but it makes a critical difference to a tool that helps make Wikipedia better. I'm not necessarily saying that someone should go out and change all the JPGs to SVGs immediately (although it would be nice, particularly on the members of Category:Church stubs relevant to London <g> ) but it should be something to bear in mind when creating new stub templates.Le Deluge (talk) 11:38, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Erm, i think that is a bad idea, he [the bot/script] should just go though a list then us use a list of stub templates to work out which pages need to be ruled in/out of the list. Peachey88 ^{(Talk Page · Contribs)} 09:45, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't really see the point — presumably most stubs lack images, and in most cases that's bottom of the priority list for fixing. (Note that lots and lots of excellent, complete articles neither have nor need images, if they're on academic subjects that happen to be difficult to visualize.) --Trovatore (talk) 10:02, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I find these responses rather depressing, it's almost as though Peachey88 and Trovatore don't want stubs to be improved. We're talking about the subset of articles that are geotagged, which means that almost always they have a physical manifestation - we're not talking Dialectics here, but churches and statues and office blocks. I don't think you can really say much about priorities, an image really can be worth 1000 words, and an image would be regarded as a prerequisite for getting a WP:GA for this kind of article. And, critically, someone who knows about the subject may not be able to get a free-licence photo, and vice versa. You can imagine an Australian cricket historian writing about the history of the home of cricket, or a Canadian music fan writing about the club where Paul McCartney met Linda and where Hendrix played a famous gig, but finding it hard to find photos of the sites short of spending $100's on flying to London. Whereas I already have a notable site in Kingly St on my list of "photos to take", and if I'm aware of others needed in the vicinity it's a trivial effort to take the photo, even if I have no particular knowledge of the old-time London club scene that would allow me to contribute to the words in the article.

As I said, Z-man has already indicated that fixing it at the script end would entail a major rewrite that he's not prepared to do. And as I also said, the bot is only one reason to move away from JPGs in stub templates - they're generally so small as to be illegible, and I think "cartoony" SVGs are more appropriate for meta templates in any case. Le Deluge (talk) 12:55, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

"that he's not prepared to do" and others are apparently not prepared to do what you are proposing. I think it's a bit of wasted effort as well. Why not just use another list of stub articles and wade trough those as well ? I'm assuming most won't have a relevant image either. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:16, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with DJ here. Making some peculiar changes to images because a tool doesn't do something properly isn't a good way to go about this. One could scan a the stubs looking for Image: / File: in the wikitext. Section retitled. –xeno^talk 14:20, 14 July 2010 (UTC)