Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Archive 12

message: I can't even read the AN/I page from my current connection, so I'm not quite clear if "closure" was achieved on this.  Can I assume this can be filed under "Beta runs a massive unapproved bot task, gets it badly wrong, is utterly inpenitent, immediate crisis is averted, no meaningful followup action is taken", otherwise known as "situation normal"?  Alai (talk) 16:17, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Betacommandbot antics 

message: Am I the only one that thinks the stub categories have gotten out of hand? It looks like we have categories so specific that someone could spend as much time trying to classify a stub as it would take to actually expand it to be a real article. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 13:18, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It only reflects how much Wikipedia's got out of hand. Look at it this way. There are now 2.1 million articles, of which, conservatively, one third are stubs. That's 700,000 stub articles. The choices are threefold: 1) keep going the way we are, with increasingly fine stub categories of easy to scan size (60-800 stubs), doing our best to maintain them in some sort of order so that editors can use them; 2) stick to a far smaller number of stub templates (easier work for sorters, but stub category sizes move into the thousands or even tens of thousands - very difficult for editors and hard work on the technology that maintains wikipedia); 3) do away with the concept of stubs altogether, thereby providing no help to editors at all. Though the first option is harder work, it's the only one which provides enough help to editors to be worthwhile. In any case, classification of stubs isn't quite as impossible as you think, though it is a several stage production line process these days. Someone will grossly classify a stub, then another sorter who regularly scans a lower level category will move it to a finer grading, and so on. No stub-sorter's expected to know all the stub types, though keeping the template names as uniform as possible makes it easier to guess where they are likely to be in those areas an individual stub sorter doesn't know. Grutness...wha? 13:52, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too specific 

message: Soooo...the suspense is killing me...when's the next Data Dump Due?? Her Pegship  (tis herself) 07:22, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Data dump drama? 

message: Just wondering whether any guideline exists as to how many categories a stub should be sorted into? There are some impressive lists at the ends of some articles! --Rlandmann (talk) 22:26, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If you're talking about stub templates and not permanent categories, ideally they should be for just the primary reason(s) that the subject is notable.  More than three is generally, but not always, overkill. Caerwine Caer’s whines 00:14, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah. There's no limit to permanent categories, but as far as stub categories is concerned, to quote Wikipedia:Stub: If an article overlaps several stub categories, more than one template may be used, but it is strongly recommended that only those relating to the subject's main notability be used. A limit of three or, if really necessary, four stub templates is advised. Grutness...wha? 01:03, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Ta - I knew there had to be a guideline somewhere! --Rlandmann (talk) 05:35, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  How many is too many? 

message: I have a problem with the following:
:Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types (WP:WSS/ST) - lists all stub categories (with statistics).
1) it claims to be a list of ALL stub categories, which it is not.
The list of US school stubs is currently nothing more than a random sample of some of the existing categories and the templates that link to the listed categories.
2) it states with statistics which I do not find (am I just not seeing them?)
Compare the list found at Wikipedia:WSS/ST#Education with the complete list of US school stubs found at User:Dbiel/ScratchPad/test2(this page has been deleted as its purpose came to an end when the master page was updated, see below)
Before I replace the current list with the complete list I compiled I would like to get some feed back.
The list I put together does include a separate listing for each state regardless if the category exists or not. This seems like the simplist way for some to find the correct state. They are listed under the regional category they belong to, unlike the original list that was a partial list of states with categories all grouped togther following the list of region categories. Dbiel (Talk) 03:46, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the reply.  I am not sure exactly what you mean by "hierarchical version".  Is the version at User:Dbiel/ScratchPad/test2(this page has been deleted as its purpose came to an end when the master page was updated, see below) OK to use as is, or does it need to be edited?  If so, could you do a sample edit so I can see what you are looking for?  Thank you. I am going to edit the project page based on your reply. Dbiel (Talk) 06:28, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

text: Thanks for the explaination. Before editing the list myself, would you be willing to look at the new version I created at User:Dbiel/US School Stub Categories(this page has been deleted as its purpose came to an end when the master page was updated, see below) 
and let me know if that format is acceptable and if any of the templates should be deleted because they are not approved. I removed the categories that do not exist at this time. I have no idea where to look for the approved list.  Feel free to edit the list yourself. It is in my user space simply because of the amount of time it took to create and not wanting to make a mess of the live copy. Dbiel (Talk) 02:09, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

text: We generally use the small HTML tag rather than italics for the upmerged templates without a category of their own, so I've rectified that.  It'll take a little longer to check on the correctness, though in this case as long as the size is OK, they'd quickly pass muster on the Discoveries page if they were sent there, so I see no need to do that. Technically the Stub List page is supposed to be the list of approved stub types. Caerwine Caer’s whines 03:22, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've sent the North Dakota and Mississippi cats to SFD as they are undersized, I'll leave it to you to decide whether to wait for the SFD to update the main list. Caerwine Caer’s whines 04:37, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I went ahead and updated the main list simply to get it off my plate.  I have been working on it for months. Thanks for the help. Dbiel (Talk) 20:58, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types 

message: We have  and . They are not identical (the first one is broader), but I am not sure if it fits into our categorization schemes? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  19:33, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge two stubs?

message: I stumbled across this discussion while trying to track down what was happening with mysterious edits to stub syntax.  Has anyone else noticed the problem being discussed? --EncycloPetey (talk) 10:32, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I swear Betacommand and his bot are creating far more work for the project than they're worth to it these days. :(( Grutness...wha? 19:54, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: To be fair, I suggested the link format he used as I had thought it would solve his concern while not breaking anything.  Would replace "/w/" with "//" solve the problem with secure server users?  (At least this does verify that people do use the expanding it links.) Caerwine Caer’s whines 22:06, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Has anyone else noticed this problem 

message: There is a discussion underway at Wikipedia talk:Categorization#Hidden categories concerning what kinds of categories should be hidden (using the new HIDDENCAT magic word). For the moment it is proposed that hiding be applied to all categories which classify the article rather than the article subject (i.e. maintenance cats, stub cats, "Spoken articles" etc.) Please weigh in. --Kotniski (talk) 08:52, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Note - this is a pretty important discussion - it will greatly affect the way stubs are dealt with. I'd advise people here that they should definitely take a look and comment! Grutness...wha? 23:11, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Hidden categories discussion

message: Hi all - consensus is required on a few items at SFD which have been open for quite some time. At present either they have very few comments, or they become a rambling discussion with no clear decision being made. If any of you could make some comments on the following, it would be very welcome:
*Dec 11, 2007 - two Indian politician stub types
*Jan 10 - Ohio sub-region stub categories
*Feb 5 - Glass-stub
Grutness...wha? 07:08, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consensus required 

message: StubSense hasn't been available for quite some time.  Is there an alternative? Stusutcliffe (talk) 05:23, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I used it yesterday with no trouble. As long as you don't need to use Commons files, I think it's OK. Sometimes if there are too many users trying to get it at once it balks. Her Pegship  (tis herself) 08:37, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry; I should have been clearer.  The download link doesn't work. Stusutcliffe (talk) 20:39, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Whoops, my bad...I was thinking of CatScan. Never mind...Her Pegship  (tis herself) 21:05, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: So, back to the original question...is there an alternative for StubSense? Stusutcliffe (talk) 05:18, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: have you tried catscan [] Waacstats (talk) 14:38, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  StubSense not working 

message: Redirect templates have been working for quite some time and Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub redirects isn't very well maintained.  How about we scrap the page and instead use a redirection template to populate a category for the stub redirects?  Stub template redirects would this have two redirection templates, one to explain the type of redirect and another such as  to populate a category such as . Caerwine Caer’s whines 18:36, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds like a reasonable move to me - the page has been needing an overhaul for a while. Might I suggest rather than outright deletion of the page adding a section to WP:STUB outlining WP:WSS's guidelines on when redirects are/aren't good ideas, and redirecting Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub redirects to that? Grutness...wha? 23:46, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Replacement of [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub redirects|Stub redirects]] page 

message: Okay, per discussion I have created  but the discussion suggested pointing the tagged files at "its European parent" category. Only I can't find such a category. I've spent all day draining the swamp (sorting, categorizing, wikifying, etc.) of nearly 200 stubs in  down to a handful and tagged the few Swedish films with the new template but I'm loathe to proceed further until this is worked out. Any hints, thoughts, or suggestions welcomed. (And feel free to tag the rest of those Swedish films, if you wish.)- Dravecky (talk) 00:50, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: mmm. I'd suggest making a parent-only (i.e., no template) category ) to point it to, and add the French, Italian, etc categories as subcats of it. Grutness...wha? 00:57, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: In the past, the films people have upmerged country stub templates directly to  and , which is as it currently stands, until 60 articles are thus tagged. Her Pegship  (tis herself) 04:19, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sweden-film-stub 

message:  isn't listed here under "By country". PamD (talk) 09:35, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Done, thanks for pointing this out.  Alai (talk) 02:58, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  US-tv-stub 

message: There is a technical problem at the above page, please see Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29#WikiProject_Stub_sorting.2FStub_types Kathleen.wright5 24:37, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems to be OK now. Kathleen.wright5 14:04, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I was wrong, its still continuing. It happens after I list new or recently discovered Stub Types. Kathleen.wright5 12:53, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Technical problem [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types]] 

message: In particular, for the Category window at the bottom of a book stub.  For example, it is easy to sort for a Book category such as The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy:  just add '|Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, The' after :Category:1995 books (and before)).  This fix does not, however, work for {{philo-book-stub. True,  the latter uses curled brackets ('{'), not square brackets ('['). Any fix to be found?  Thx.  --Thomasmeeks (talk) 16:49, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Rather than parameterising the categories in the way you suggest, many articles now use , which works for categories and stub templates. Mind you, I for one always find it easier if the stubs are all together under "The" or "A", at least for sorting purposes - that way you know you're dealing with titles. I'm probably in a very small minority for that, though. Grutness...wha? 00:07, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thx for comment. I tried that for The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy.  It works for [[Cetegory:1995 books...  &  Dictionaries:... but not not for  {{Philosophy book stubs ...   Apparently, the sorting algorithm does not carry over to the latter with its oh-so-fancy curled brackets. Should I take the problem to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)? --Thomasmeeks (talk) 13:28, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There does seem to be some lag the last couple of days; items I sort are not being migrated to their categories consistently (see ). Might be worth a heads-up at the pump. Her Pegship  (tis herself) 16:12, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Problem solved thx to help at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals/2008/April, which identified poorly customized stub link that concealed default sort.  --Thomasmeeks (talk) 19:39, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Technical problem: How to alphabetize stub books beginning with 'The' or 'A'

message: How do I turn the above page into a Link so that it can be put onto members User Pages instead of the usual link (parts of which don't work). Kathleen.wright5 23:37, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Problem solved. Kathleen.wright5 08:15, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re:Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/List of Stubs 

message: For the last couple of days I've been unable to load Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Stub_types; the URL shows in my browser's Location field, and the status bar says "Done", but the page is blank. I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.14 on an admittedly slow (9-year-old) iMac, but I do have DSL and I haven't had this problem for this long before. Any ideas? Her Pegship  (tis herself) 16:58, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've tried both "rollback" and "undo", but neither works.  The page may have simply gotten too long to work with MW software? --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:13, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems to be loading OK now. Her Pegship  (tis herself) 05:37, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unable to load Stub types 

message: There's a current discussion over at the MOS. Her Pegship  (tis herself) 05:37, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  American vs US 

message: WTF is going on with the database? I have created some revised categories and redirected stub templates to them (see  and sub-cats of ), and for days now have been waiting for the articles to re-sort into their new categories. A few null edits seem to have produced a few results in one case, no results at all in another. Grr. I have emptied my browser cache, reloaded, purged, etc etc, and STILL...Any ideas?? Her Pegship  (tis herself) 19:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I came across the same thing a week ago.  The only answer I could find was that somebody was doing something to the server that deals with the replag so it wasn't working.  Hopefully whoever it is can hurry up and get it working again.  Special:Statistics shows 11.3million pages in the job queue out of 12.8million pages, so even if it started working right away it would take a while to get everything done. Waacstats (talk) 11:59, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Replag?? 

message: Iron Mike Holdings are a Scrap Steel co-operation based in Attercliffe, Sheffield. It is estimated by the South Sheffield Review that they occupy 38% of the Scrap Metals market in Sheffield  —Preceding unsigned comment added by The machine 1986 (talk • contribs) 16:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh good. Now we know where to go for scrap metal in South Yorkshire. Sigh. Grutness...wha? 01:37, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Michael 'Iron Holdings' Morgan 

message: I've been trying to work through the massive backlog on the to-do list and while the Illinois categories were relatively painless, it turns out I know nothing about Antarctic geography. So while I have created the long-overdue  and  as upmerged templates, I don't have Clue #1 as to actually applying these templates to articles.  Anybody with this sort of specialized geographical knowledge is encouraged to jump in here. - Dravecky (talk) 08:21, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: As a rule of thumb, West Antarctica is the Ross Sea, the Weddell Sea, and the Antarctic Peninsula which lies between them - i.e., the areas claimed by the UK, Argentina, and Chile, plus much of NZ's claim. East Antarctica is everywhere else - Norway, Australia and France's claims, plus the westernmost part of NZ's claim. It's a little tricky because AFAIK only the United States really makes the distinction between East and West Antarctica - even here, where there is a strong link to the Big Ice, the terms are never normally used (which is one of the reasons I wasn't that keen on this split in the first place). The fact that the articles on East Antarctica and West Antarctica are themselves stubs doesn't help. Grutness...wha? 09:56, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, maybe that's why they'd sat on the to-do list for over a year.  I've spent the last day or so (and am looking at still doing this for the next day or so) working on applying the 32 Mexican state geo stub templates I created (from the to-do list) to the 834 articles in :Category:Mexico geography stubs so I'll leave the Antarctic stubs to the mercy of the experts. - Dravecky (talk) 04:45, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Antarctic geo stubs 

message: There's a small mistake on the above page just before the Science section, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types#Science. I tried to correct it but I got a blank page as before. The Compact List is fine. Can it be fixed by an Admin? This post is also at the above page's Talk Page. Kathleen.wright5 04:22, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Small mistake on [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types]] 

message: Template: has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Grutness...wha? 01:31, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  TfD nomination of [[:Template:{{ucfirst:Sectstub}}]] 

message: See the proposal at Wikipedia talk:Stub#Proposal about using a link to a short tutorial instead of a link to the edit tab in each stub template. 199.125.109.34 (talk) 07:25, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal

message: This edit summary reports that closings can only be done by an admin; I was also advised earlier that if one has participated in a discussion, one may not close it. I guess I missed the boat; I've been closing left and right for a long time. Sooo...would someone else mind keeping an eye on /proposals, /deletions, and /discoveries, and closing when possible? thanks - Her Pegship  (tis herself) 03:41, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Here Peggy you may assume that the comment was not directed at you and can safely be disregarded. Expertise takes precedence over user-rights. Cheers. — CharlotteWebb 13:27, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Closing discussions 

message: Any suggestions on an appropriate stub type for Miss World Famous Beauties 2007?  I've looked in Leisure, Culture, and Miscellaneous and can't see any remotely suitable stub type for it! PamD (talk) 22:09, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Beauty pageants? 

message: Because the box standard for stub templates is apparently to wrap them inside a , XHTML errors are generated by pages containing multiple stub templates, as all id attributes on a page should be unique. This concern was raised at the village pump and I offered two possible solutions, so I invite everyone interested in stub template formats to comment here. — CharlotteWebb 13:41, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  id="stub" 

message: The above category has been deleted, should the stub template Osteo-med-stub be deleted and if so how? Kathleen.wright5 23:26, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Did the discussion come to a consensus of delete or (more likely) upmerge? - Dravecky (talk) 00:10, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It was Upmerge to , which seems to have been done, so no deletion is needed (or supported, for that matter). Grutness...wha? 01:56, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[:Category:Osteopathic medicine stubs]] 

message: I am quite new to computer coding and do not know the code for making stubs.
Can anyone tell me what is the code for making a page a stub?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zywxn (talk • contribs) 14:39, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If you mean how do you mark an article as a stub so that it will be sorted into a stub category, you add a stub template, which is done by adding the word "stub" between two sets of curly parentheses - . Ideally, rather than using the plain stub template, you'd mark it using a more appropriate stub template according to whatever the subject of the article is (e.g., an article on an American tennis player might get  , and an article on a geographical location in Jamaica might get . There is a full list of stub templates at WP:WSS/ST, but even a basic  will mark an article as a stub. See WP:STUB for more details. Grutness...wha? 00:08, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  How do you make a page a stub??? 

message: I want to know why France gave Charlie Bowers the Honor her deserved and America did not. Even Canada has his films. I am Outraged because he was my Uncle. Please put him in Wikipedia.–-----  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.166.49.205 (talk) 11:14, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: By any chance do you mean Charles Bowers? He's had an article here for years! Grutness...wha? 13:42, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Charlie Bowers Famous Cartoonist and Movie shorts