Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals/Archive16

Proposals, September 2005

I think we need a category for the many creators of notable websites, blogs, internet software, etc.--Carabinieri 15:42, 14 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, falls in line with radio-bio-stub which got a pass below. nae'blis _(talk) 16:20, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Headgear stub

I think there is a need to create this stub. There are a large number of hat and headgear articles which could use expansion. The list of hats and headgear page is getting messy. Snafflekid 19:19, 14 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm - more to the point, Category:Fashion stubs is slowly getting towards the point of needing a split, and headwear (more precisely, headwear and hair styles) and footwear might be the two most obvious splits. Anyone keeping track of what the numbers are like in that category? Grutness...wha? 03:09, 15 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Headwear seems better than Headgear. there is a redirect from headwear to headgear now but I think the page should be renamed to headgear. Probably do it after hearing comments on the stub. Snafflekid 04:21, 15 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

either {{gang-stub}} or {{street-gang-stub}}

I've been finding a bunch of gang-cruft. The {{crime-stub}} seems to be the most appropriate stub to add, but there is almost certainly enough articles for a gang-stub. See gang, List of street gangs, List of Los Angeles street gangs, List of historical gang members of New York City, Category:Modern street gangs, Category:Historical gangs of New York City, and the woefully inadequate List of motorcycle gangs. There are also dozens of other gang articles that are not yet in those lists or categories (see Maravilla and Black Angels), plus related articles such as Gang Signals. Kasper Gutman 18:40, 18 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Just as there seems to be an effort to document every single school in the world, there also seems to be an unorganized effort to document every single gang in the world (or at least in Southern California). My best guess is that I could probably find a minimum of 40 to 50 gang stubs just for the SoCal area, so I think that there should be a gang-stub created. ^Blank ^Verse 12:42, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

At this point, I'm favoring the creation of a {{crime-org-stub}} → Category:Criminal organization stubs → Category:Criminal organizations, Category:Crime stubs, & Category:Organization stubs along with {{gang-stub}} as a redirect with possibilites to {{crime-org-stub}}. Barring an objection, I will so create this in 7 days per policy. Caerwine Caerwhine 21:50, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure why you want to create the stub as crime-org-stub. And why the redirect—I thought that the WP:WSS was trying to get rid of redirect? ^Blank ^Verse 04:40, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

We already have both a {{crime-stub}} and a {{org-stub}} that it would make sense to have this be a child of. And contrary to popular perception, we're not against all redirects. In this case, where we have two synonyms for the same concept, "criminal organization" and "gang" we're not at all opposed to having redirects from alternate names, we just tend to get into a tizzy when people try to add redirects where the only difference between the redirect and the template is that one follows the naming conventions and the other doesn't. Caerwine Caerwhine 05:51, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

And it's a broader scope, so it'd include things such as drug cartels that aren't gangs. Which I think is a plus, especially when it neatly covers the overlap between two existing stub types... --Mairi 06:03, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My personal opinion is that I would like to isolate the modern street gange articles as much as possible because most of them are crap. At the same time, I like to stick all of them with a warning template that says something like: "Warning: This is an article on a modern street gang. Much of the information is unverified, and may be unverifiable. Most of the websites on the internet on street gangs are also of dubious quality, written by gang wannabees, police wannabees, or "gang consultants" with vested interests in how they portray gangs." That probably isn't going to happen, so let's just create {{crime-org-stub}}, plus the {{gang-stub}} as either a redirect or subcategory, so I can start tagging articles with them. ^Blank ^Verse 21:45, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Why not? The worst that could happen is that someone would delete the templlate. There is always going to be a problem with the verifiability of articles about gangs - I don't think there'd be much problem with making a small warning box template for them too. As for the stub template, I like the idea of street-gang-stub. If necessary a separate crime-org-stub could be made, which street-gang-stub would be a likely (but not automatic) child of. But street gangs are distinct enough from other crime organisations to warrant a separate stub, especially since here seem to be a lot of subs on them. Grutness...wha? 23:23, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agreed with Caerwine's suggestion, so I implemented it: crime-org-stub created with gang-stub as a redirect. Other stubs types can be created as children as appropriate in the future. I wouldn't be opposed to the creation now of gang-stub or street-gang-stub if their need is warranted and someone wants to create and use them. — Fingers-of-Pyrex 15:10, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposals, October 2005

Sub-stubs of {{Org-stub}}

I Propose the following subcategories under {{org-stub}} which is pretty over-full right now:

{{Charity-stub}}
~~{{Political-party-stub}}~~
{{Labor-union-stub}}
{{Frat-stub}} - for Fraternities and Sororities

There are probably more, but that would be a start. GTBacchus 04:58, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well, for a start you don't need the second and fourth ones: {{Party-stub}} or {{Honor-stub}} already exist (the latter for honor societies - we can use that spelling because these things don't exist outside the US). Charity-stub would probably be very useful. As for "Labor-union-stub", it suffers from the problem that honor-stub can avoid by being a US-only phenomenon; most of the English-speaking world calls them Labour unions. Union-stub might be a reasonable name, though. Grutness...wha? 07:12, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- Just sampling the fraternities and sororities from Category:Organization stubs beginning with Alpha, I don't get the impression that they're mostly honor societies. I wouldn't be inclined to put a social-oriented or even a service-oriented fraternity in a category called "honor societies". {{Union-stub}} sounds perfectly reasonable - I hope it's clear that it refers to labor/labour unions, and not something else. I'm new on the project, so I don't know how it works, but I'd be willing to go through the pages of organization stubs and pull out specific types, I just need the go-ahead to create new templates, I guess. Or does someone with some kind of admin status have to do that? GTBacchus 08:21, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  - No, anyone can do it (but make sure to follow the guidelines!) - the main thing is to wait for a week or so, though, for any debate, suggestions, etc. Sometimes the discussion lasts a bit longer than a week if some issues are unresolved (which is why some of the things on this page date back as far as August). As to honor-stub, I'm not from the US so I have no idea what the difference between a fraternity or sorority and an honor society is - I'd assumed they were identical. Perhaps the solution would be to change the scope of honor-stub. Hopefully someone who knows more about the subject can make some suggestions? Anyone...? Grutness...wha? 09:34, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    - Looks like the template was created last night. Added a category for it, listed on the ST page, and filled in from Category:Trade unions. If anyone fancies the job of going through {{org-stub}} hunting for uncategorised unions, youre more than welcome to :) GeeJo _{(t) (c)} • 18:14, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      - Sounds like a good thing to add to WP:WSS/T. Grutness...wha? 23:28, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Honor societies are special types of fraternities/sororities for those who are high academic acheivers. There are lots of other types of frats for professional groups, cultural groups and mostly just for socializing. It would probably be easier to just change what honor-stub is for since there arent many stubs in it. BL Lacertae 09:49, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  - You mean we would keep the name {{honor-stub}}, but redefine it to be a category for stubs relating to any fraternity or sorority, kind of like the way {{UN-stub}} now applies to any International Organization? I guess if I were to suggest an advantage to the name frat-stub, it would be that it makes such things as {{honor-frat-stub}} and {{service-frat-stub}} feasible; those would be more awkward if the main name were honor-stub. I don't know whether it's worthwhile to plan for so many fraternity and sorority stubs anyway. :-\ GTBacchus 05:27, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
To that I would like to add {{footy-org-stub}}, for football-related organizations, player unions, associations, federations and confederations. I've now gone through the letters A to G of {{footy-stub}}, and I've already come across 81 football-related organizations. Aecis 22:48, 13 October 2005 (UTC) (Update: I've finished the count, and there are 120 footy-org-stubs in footy-stub.)[reply]
- a more generic {{sport-org-stub}} would probably also be useful. Grutness...wha? 23:54, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I've just noticed that {{UK-org-stub}} exists, and is attached to 308 articles, but ~~isn't~~ wasn't listed anywhere on WP:WSS/ST. Also, there aren't nearly as many frat-stubs as I thought there were, it turns out. I'm gradually working through org-stub and trying to identify sub-categories with the most entries in them. GTBacchus 00:36, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

{{mil-unit-stub}} & Category:Military unit stubs

For around a dozen articles on military unit types, and the 80 or so specific unsorted battalions, regiments, brigades, etc. (More if the US, UK, etc, ones already sorted are double-stubbed.) Alai 03:23, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Add a few from Poland-related stubs. I wonder if this category would be only for for unit types, like Chorągiew, or for entire units like 1st Polish Army? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 15:28, 24 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Both. Chorągiew actually appears in my 'count' of unit types, 1st Polish would be in addition to that for actual units. (I didn't count in any of the existing sub-categories.) I started off counting them separately, but it's clear the first doesn't hit the threshold, and them seem more naturally included here than with "ranks", say. Splitting up the actual-units by size doesn't seem likely to work, either, unless we're very careful about size cutoff, which would then probably not be very clear to other stub-sorters. Alai 15:48, 24 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

As I am going over the Poland-stub category, here are some relevant ones you may or not may want to add to your list: Armia Ludowa, Batalion Parasol, Batalion Zośka, Confederatio, Confederation of Dzików, Kopia, Lisowczycy, Leśni, Operational Group, Poczet, Polish 28th Infantry Division, Pospolite ruszenie, Prusy Army, Rokosz, Rota (formation), Tajna Armia Polska, Wołyńska Cavalry Brigade. I hope that when you get your new templates you will go over those articles and update them :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 01:37, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Four of them already on the list, rest noted, thanks. Are there enough Polish military stubs in total for a {{Poland-mil-stub}}? Especially as there's a wikiproject... Alai 03:47, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It is one of the stubs I am considering, but I haven't done the exact count - perhaps you should ask somebody from the Wikipedia:Wikiproject Polish Army to do a count. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 00:26, 26 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

As you know, I've already mooted it there... :) Given the WP, the threshold would be lower: surely there must be at least 30 or so? I found 15 in the mil-stub category, there's probably more in weapon-stub, firearm-stub, WWII-stub, etc, as well as outside the hierarchy (as are the majority of the above). I think it'd be a shoo-in if someone from the WP suggested it (hint, hint!), but I can hardly force them if they don't want it... Alai 03:23, 26 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I am pretty sure the poland-mil-stub would be feasible, as you point out there are various equipment-related stubs and such (like Ursus wz.29). Btw, found one more unit-stub for you: Zawisza (Szare Szeregi). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 16:05, 26 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bishop stubs

As I noted above, there are 111 biographies of (arch)bishops in {{reli-bio-stub}}. I don't know how many more there are in e.g. {{christianity-stub}} and {{bio-stub}}. I would like to (again?) propose {{bishop-stub}} and Category:Bishop stubs. Aecis 22:24, 20 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

As I suggested above, I'd be more keen simply to split reli-bio-stub by religion rather than actual rank: christian-bio-stub/moslem-bio-stub etc. The problem of course would be people being added to the categories not because they were religious leaders, but simply because they profess a particular religion. So yes, bishop-stub sounds feasible. How about imam-stub? There must be quite a number of them in there, too... Grutness...wha? 00:41, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There are an immense amount of biographies of muslims in {{islam-stub}} and {{reli-bio-stub}}, which both could do with splitting. So {{imam-stub}} could indeed be viable. Aecis 11:06, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I mentioned it last time, but it got no responses, so I'll suggest it again: perhaps something like christian-relibio-stub/muslim-relibio-stub, to indicate that it's just not anyone who professes the religion? Or if not that, perhaps general christian-clergy-stub? --Mairi 18:08, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The reason I didn't respond to your proposal back then was that I didn't know how I felt about it. I couldn't make up my mind either way, and I still can't. There are pro's and con's to it. Currently, {{reli-bio-stub}} has between 1,100 and 1,200 articles. About 95% of these are about a christian or a muslim. This division would mean that we would replace one large category with two large categories. Another problem is that it could become a catchall for seemingly unrelated people (e.g. 9th century tribal chieftains and 20th century theologians). OTOH, {{muslim-relibio-stub}} or {{islam-relibio-stub}} could be very useful for early muslims who played an important role in the development and spread of islam, but who did not fit within "bureaucratic structures" (like the tribal chieftains). When it comes to christians with stub biographies, many seem to fall within these structures. For them we could use {{christan-clergy-stub}}. Other christians can be double-stubbed {{christianity-stub}} and {{reli-bio-stub}}. Aecis 22:34, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest the following:

{{Protestantism-bio-stub}} (sounds a little odd)

{{Islam-bio-stub}} (I don't know how that could be split further: I guess Imams would be one definate split)

Further religions: Buddhism, Sikhism, Taoism, eg, can be split (if necessary) once we've gotten the Big Three out of the way--Carabinieri 02:55, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In your structure above, {{bishop-stub}} is a subcat of {{Catholicism-bio-stub}} and so excludes Orthodox, and Anglican bishops, as well as other Christian groups that have bishops? I think it should go directly under {{Christianity-bio-stub}}. In fact, once this is created, is {{Catholicism-bio-stub}} really all that useful? DES ^(talk) 03:24, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to say the same thing. Either split by "flavour" or "rank", not by both. How about:

{{Christianity-bio-stub}}
- {{Clergy-bio-stub}}
  - ~~{{Bishop-bio-stub}}~~{{Bishop-stub}}
  - ~~{{Pope-bio-stub}}~~{{Pope-stub}}
- ~~{{Christian-theologian-bio-stub}}~~{{Christian-theologian-stub}}
{{Islam-bio-stub}}
- ~~{{Imam-bio-stub}}~~{{Imam-stub}}
- ~~{{Islamic-theologian-bio-stub}}~~{{Islamic-theologian-stub}}
{{Judaism-bio-stub}}
{{Buddhism-bio-stub}}
{{Hinduism-bio-stub}} etc etc

Grutness...wha? 11:14, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Would the theologian ones needs to be "theologian-bio", or could they just be "theologian"? --Alynna 19:27, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

When it comes to professions, we usually don't use "-bio" in the template title, like {{journalist-stub}} and {{economist-stub}}. So I would edit some of Grutness' proposals to {{Clergy-stub}}, {{Bishop-stub}}, {{Pope-stub}}, {{Christian-theologian-stub}} and {{Islamic-theologian-stub}}. Aecis 20:12, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Grutness on hierarchy, and Alynna and Aecis on the unnecessary "-bio"s. Alai 20:19, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't {{Imam-stub}} work as well instead of {{Imam-bio-stub}}?--Carabinieri 16:08, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah - my fault. I automatically added "bio" to everything without thinking. I also used the proposed new name of pope-stub (papal-stub is up for renaming at sfd). Grutness...wha? 02:03, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Should it be {{Christian-clergy-stub}} instead? as clergy isn't necessarily specific to Christianity... Other than that, Grutness's revised proposal sounds good. --Mairi 02:40, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

{{theologist-stub}} has been created prematurely. If it's worth keeping, I think it ought to be renamed to theologian-stub. --Mairi 02:11, 26 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think it ought to be kept as a split of {{reli-bio-stub}} and {{academic-bio-stub}}. {{Islamic-theologian-stub}} and {{Christian-theologian-stub}} should be split of {{theologian}} and {{Christianity-bio-stub}} and {{Islam-bio-stub}} respectively.--Carabinieri 14:06, 26 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've created {{bishop-stub}} and Category:Bishop stubs. Aecis ^praatpaal 00:13, 5 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I dont like the name of {{Imam-stub}}, lets call it {{Islam-non-theologian-stub}}, its wider and does not have the "shia" association. That and {{Islam-theologian-stub}}+ {{islam-book-stub}} whoul be great. There are loots of book that need to have a proper stub... --Striver 08:07, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with {{Islam-non-theologian-stub}}. It's too long, too unintuitive, too "clumsy". I also don't know whether there are enough stubs for {{imam-stub}}. I think it would be better to use {{Islam-clergy-stub}}, which can include for instance ayatollahs. It could be used alongside {{christianity-clergy-stub}}, to provide some consistency. The problem is that Orthodox Islam is a non-clerical religion, according to clergy, so I'm open to suggestions. Aecis [[User_talk:Aecis|<sup>praatpaal</sup>]] 11:22, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Also, {{Islam-non-theologian-stub}} would be exactly what's in {{Islam-bio-stub}}, since all the theologians would be in {{Islam-theologian-stub}}. --Mairi 19:34, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Category:European royalty stubs

There is already a {{Euro-royal-stub}}, but it currently redirects to {{Euro-noble-stub}}. It has over 75 articles using it nonetheless, and there are a fair number of articles that have been double stubbed with {{Euro-noble-stub}} and {{royal-stub}}. I think it's time to give {{Euro-royal-stub}} a category of its own. Caerwine 22:37, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea. We could also clean up the existing {{Portugal-royal-stub}} / Category:Portuguese nobility stubs so it has a clear scope... --Mairi 04:57, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Support, but if you are looking at these, I would like to suggest going straight to {{Germany-royal-stub}}, {{France-royal-stub}} and - as Piotr is bound to suggest it anyway :) - {{Poland-royal-stub}}. The count for Germany is 134 - I'll do the others presently. We could also do with a specific stub for rulers of the kingdoms in the UK before it was a single country. These are presently scattered through royal, UK-royal and UK-noble (which is where they seem to be menat to go, rather awkwardly): I've found so far 91. (Would it be asking for trouble to suggest that the ancient Irish rulers could go in there as well? in which case another 20 or so). Not sure though what it could best be called - {{UK-PCroyal-stub}}? (= pre-conquest?)Staffelde 11:27, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think we may be having a problem of definition here. If we count petty kings as royals rather than as just nobles it's going to raise the count of royals considerably. In the case of Germany for example, I would not count the Kings of Bavaria as royalty, because Bavaria was never a sovereign national realm, so I would place any stubs articles about the King and Queens of Bavaria and their children under {{Euro-noble-stub}} (or {{Germany-noble-stub}} once that is created). By using the same standard, almost all of the Irish kings are actually nobles and not royals. Caerwine 23:40, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Good god.Is that nonsensical redirection still there? There was agreement to remove that months ago but Gruntness fought a lone battle to stop that. But Caerwine is simply wrong in definitions. If it the subject is a monarch, then they should get a royal stub. Saying that Bavarian royals weren't royals, or that Irish kings weren't royals, is POV and not on. If they were called a king, then we have to treat them as a king and not say 'well we disagree' so we are going to call them something else. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 23:47, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, I thought it had been deleted ages ago, too. (it's not "gruntness" either, BTW :) Grutness...wha? 02:12, 26 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree entirely: the objection is not based in fact. Bavaria, e.g., WAS a sovereign nation for centuries, as were all the other territories that were eventually lumped together as "Germany" - and the same for most of the rest of the world. It is not for us to say now that only certain monarchies were "real" monarchies. Nor do I understand the concern about "raising the count of royals", as if there were some intrinsic merit in avoiding it. {{Euro-noble-stub}} doesn't work well at the moment precisely because it is stuffed with articles on people who were royals and shdn't be there.

Clearly there is some difference in kind between, again e.g., the monarchies of the UK, Prussia etc in their developed forms, and the kings of the Hwicce and so on, and this is surely one of the reasons why it is worth having separate stub categories for them.Staffelde 01:10, 26 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Seems fairly sensible. (Though it was better as a redirect, than as a pointer to a redlink category, as at present... Not that'll affect the categorisation immediately, anyway.) OTOH, given the size of Euro-noble-, it'll be necessary to split that by country (or some other geographical subdivision, at any rate), and I'd be keener to do that first. And presumably lots of countries will have a 'viable' number of nobles+royals, but not royals by themselves, so I don't think we'll see the end of double-stubbing anytime soon... Alai 03:11, 26 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree this should be based on royal-stub, but we need a clear defintion of what can go there. Recently when I was sorting Euro-noble-stubs into Poland-noble-stubs I had to remove a lot of Euro-royal-stubs, and wondered who and why added those into the relevant articles. What about princes and dukes, like Grand Duke of Lithuania or Polish dukes during the time of division/fragmentation when Poland had no king (~14th century)? What about family of the king, especially in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were some were elected from families that have never before been kings (like Michał Wiśniowiecki, King of Poland - were his parents or children royality?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 21:35, 26 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bavaria's problem wasn't so much it's lack of independence, as the Holy Roman Empire imposed but a light yoke on its constituent states, but it's lack of nationhood. However, Bavaria is definitely an edge case, and besides, a more serious problem is how closely do you have to be to a reigning monarch in order to be counted as royal? Obviously children should be counted as well as grandchildren that are in the line of succession, but once you get past that we're going to run into disputes. I'm not so much concerned with where the line is drawn, as that it be drawn so that there is a clear boundary between royal and non-royal. BTW, I was bold and since someone else had changed the stub from a redirect into an independednt stub that pointed to a redlink category, I went ahead and created the category, tho I haven't listed it as yet. Caerwine 00:38, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway, should we decide to keep this, we won't need any null-edits, tho we definitely need to decide on a scope for a what counts as royal, and what is close enough to be in a royal family. If we define this too broadly, there won't be any difference bwtween being royal and being noble, given how inbred the European nobility is. Caerwine 02:22, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

But the Kings of Bavaria, aside from a very brief overlap, weren't HRE subjects at all; rather they were Kurfuersten, and as such required not to call themselves kings -- and when some of them did, it was the beginning of a very rapid end to the (non-)Empire. (Just to confuse matters, the rulers of Bavaria did use the title "king" during and as part of the Kaiserreich.) Now, whether a Prince-Elector is "royal" is somewhat inobvious, and somewhat depends on one's definition. The "from sceptre to shovel" question is pretty fuzzy too, that's an entirely valid point. Naturally each present day or historical country has an internal system that is (or isn't) marvelously consistent and clear about the different ranks and layers of nobility (and royalty), but that doesn't mean a single universal definition can readily be extracted. Even particular titles can be confusing: consider "Serene Highness", for exampleAlai 02:49, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Reverting to a useful point made by Alai, for most countries / geo'l regions, the category "royal + noble = viable" is a very effective solution, provided it is possible to find a term that means both royal AND noble, as otherwise, regardless of the intent, there will be constant arguments about it. Is {{Foo-royal&noble-stub}} technically possible?

On the subject of what constitutes "royal", it would be very misleading to limit this category to ruling houses that happened to call themselves "kings": if - for the sake of argument only - there were such a category as {{Germany-royal-stub}}, anybody browsing it would surely expect it to contain all the German ruling houses, whether they were Kings, Princes, Dukes or anything else. Obviously, though, what applies in Germany need not apply elsewhere Staffelde 10:01, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not familiar enough with German terminology to say what the most logical "split" in that case would be. But for the "unsplit" categories, I think X-noble-stub is perfectly adequate (esp. if one is going to double-stub the royals with some geographically broader royal category, too). Indeed, it strikes me as logical to make the assorted "royal" categories sub-cats of the corresponding "noble" ones. Alai 00:45, 28 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps implementing this proposal would open a Pandora's box of controversial and POV stubbings, but here it goes: How about having two templates, Foo-royal-stub and Foo-noble-stub, feeding into one category, Foo royalty and nobility stubs? That way you got two intuitive templates feeding into one viable category. It would also end the issue of who belongs in which category, because all would go into the same bowl. Aecis 11:04, 28 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe its because as a firm small-r republican, I've never bothered to notice but aren't all royals also nobles or is there even such a thing as a non-noble royal? I just do not see why having royal stubs being subtypes of noble stubs won't work. Caerwine 03:02, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Because they are two different things, and have (or historically, had) different functions. A possible comparison is in the RC church: all Popes are also priests, but they are sufficiently important, and different in function, to require separation. It would be inefficient for potential editors, and also totally inaccurate, to bury the Popes in a swamp of low to middle grade priests and bishops, or even Cardinals. Similarly, if you bury the royals in a swamp of low to middle grade "nobles", or even non-royal dukes, it is less efficient, and additionally gives the impression that Wikiedia generally isn't very well-informed - which is not a good thing for a would-be authoritative encyclopaedic source.

But if there is a good reason for doing that, as with the smaller countries where there are too few of either to justify a complete split, then the category title needs to make it completely clear that the category contains BOTH nobles AND royals (ie, that at least Wikipedia knows that there is a difference): if it doesn't, this argument is bound to recur at regular intervals until the question is sorted properly. We may as well do it now.(Staffelde, 31 Oct, 18.12 my time, from a machine on which I can't log in)

To answer your actual question, yes it is possble to have a non-noble monarch - you only need to look at the Roman emperors, who latterly were successful generals. Later monarchies were in practice virtually limited to the nobility for other reasons - heredity or a restricted circle of choice, mostly - but the two are not the same. (Staffelde again)

It's certainly the case that royalty don't always come from among the nobility, but it's less clear that this doesn't in effect co-opt them to it. Often with the assumption of noble-style names, titles, etc. The logic of this can be discussed on a country-by-country basis, though. (In this case, patrician- and imperial- would be more descriptive.) As to the "swamping" point: clearly that's the case; (part of) the whole point of stub-sorting is to avoid over-large and under-specific stub-cats. But equally, we don't want under-sized ones. Suppose, hypothetically, that we have the proverbial Small European Country for which there are 46 noble (qua noble) stubs, and 19 royals. I think it'd be preferable to sort them into single SmallEuroCountry-noble-stub category (double-stubbing the latter as euro-royal-, too), than dividing them into two undersized ones, or to leaving them unsorted. Alai 22:36, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with what you say, except for the matter of the category name. If you call such a category SmallEuroCountry-noble-stub and then include in it people who are unarguably royal, then regardless of the logic behind it there will continue to be disagreements about it, simply because the term 'noble' neither means nor includes the term 'royal', and every time another user notices that, they will point it out all over again. If you have a category called Trains and then put ships in it, you can expect constant arguments to the effect that a ship is not a train. If for good reasons, such as lack of quantity, you need to group ships and trains together, the category has to be called something else - eg, "vehicle" or "ships and trains" - that includes BOTH ships AND trains. May I refer back to the comparison with popes and cardinals, or bishops? If anyone suggested grouping popes with bishops for no other reason than that the Pope is bishop of Rome, and that they were a small-p protestant, so hadn't bothered to notice what the difference was, the argument would be over very quickly, and not in their favour - and the question here is rather similar.

The difficulty can be bypassed by the use of a satisfactory term that really covers both noble and royal (it seems to me a clear indication that there is a real distinction between them, that in fact it is not very easy to think of one, but perhaps this is my non-republican - with a small n - background showing up). "Imperial" only applies to empires; "patrician" is simply too imprecise. Would titled would do? Both royalty and nobility have titles of a particular sort, ie, titles of rank, which distinguish them from the rest of the population in their respective countries. So would {{SmallEuroCountry-titled-stub}} be acceptable? Or if not, can we look again at my earlier suggestion of {{SmallEuroCountry-royal&noble-stub}}?Staffelde 02:19, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Scientific journals

Our new stub sorter user: Chemturion has pointed out to me that we don't have any splits of {{mag-stub}}, and that scientific journals could probably do with their own stub. I agree, and will go one further, suggesting that both {{sci-journal-stub}} and {{med-journal-stub}} are probably long overdue. Grutness...wha? 05:24, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking we could spilt the magazine into to two main stub catagories, {{journal-stub}} (for industry and professional periodicals) and the current {{mag-stub}} (for consumer magazines) and then catagorize further from there. In the journal stub we would have such things as {{sci-journal-stub}} and {{med-journal-stub}} and in the consumer mag stub we would have such thing as {{culture-mag-stub}} (for things like People and US Weekly) and {{tech-mag-stub}} (for things like PC Magazine, Macword, and PopSi.) Chemturion 06:50, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

{{music-mag-stub}} would be good too BL kiss the lizard 07:27, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

All of the above are logical as categories, certainly. "Journal-stub" I'd be especially keen to see for the sake of clarity of description. But do they all hit 'threshold'? Support 'em as and when. Alai 22:07, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

well, we could start by splitting it into mag and journal, and see how the numbers look from there... Grutness...wha? 00:42, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm worried about {{journal-stub}} as being clear enough from the stub name as being different from {{mag-stub}}. To me a journal is a magazine and vice versa. I'll grant that refereed periodicals include "Journal" in their name more often than not, but the distinction is just too ambiguous for me to like basing stub names on it. {{sci-mag-stub}} and {{med-mag-stub}} are just as clear as {{sci-journal-stub}} and {{med-journal-stub}}, so I don't see the need to try to draw a confusing distinction between two synonyms for stub names. Caerwine 05:38, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Strongly oppose -mag- variant names. "Journal" may sometimes be used as a synonym for "magazine" (though not really in these parts), but "magazine" is not a synonym for "journal". Smooshing together "scientific magazines" (like say, New Scientist) with actual journals would be much more confusing than any possible ambiguity between the two terms, which can in any case be made explicit on the category page. Alai 05:55, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly think that there's a fairly clear distinction between magazines and journals. The only grey areas would be things like popular science magazines (e.g., SciAm, NewSci), and I'd veer towards putting those under sci-journal-stub simply for the sake of keeping science periodicals in one place. Grutness...wha? 08:16, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with that; they're not grey at all. A peer-reviewed journal is a well-defined type of periodical, and the subject that's covered is irrelevant to its definition. Scientific American, at least, is definitely a science magazine, and not a journal. -- SCZenz 08:33, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

And thus we see the nub of the problem. I think we all agree that there is a clear distinction between peer-reviewed periodicals and non-peer-reviewed periodicals, the problem is can we make that distinction unambiguously without resorting to a lengthy stub name such as {{peer-review-periodical-stub}}. I happen to read a "journal" six days a week, but it's the Wall Street Journal. At the very least I'd like to see the proposed stub text and the category name in this case. For example:

{{journal-stub}}

This article about a peer-reviewed journal is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Category:Peer-reviewed journal stubs

This category is for stub articles relating to peer-reviewed journals. You can help Wikipedia by expanding them.
To add an article to this category, use {{journal-stub}} instead of {{stub}}.

This is clearly a case where we need to discuss more than just the name of the stub template before we start creating. Caerwine 16:27, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Then again, The Wall Street Journal isn't a magazine, either... But I'm happy to stipulate to Caerwine's caveats, or any reasonable variant thereon. (Mea culpa, I tend to be lax about including category names in proposals (and then on occasion, have ended up thinking, "hrm, hang on...", seven days or so later). And this is probably unwise, as it's the categories that are the real pain to change.) Alai 17:14, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest that {{mag-stub}} be divided by topic. I'm getting ready to clean-up some medical and developmental biology articles by adding references. This will make (medical) journal stubs. I don't think sorting the stubs by peer-review is needed because it will take too long to research.--FloNight 19:50, 15 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I created {{journal-stub}} a few days ago, when I wasn't aware about the WSS project. But now I'm glad that there's a consensus about splitting {{mag-stub}}. There were almost 800 stubs in the category and I was surprised there was no separate stub category for journals. I named the category "scientific journal stubs", and moved relevant journals from Category:Magazines stubs to Category:Scientific journal stubs (there are 129 stubs in the category right now). Bmdavll ^talk 05:58, 4 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]