Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Archive 8

message: If any of you ever wonder about the usefulness of sorting stubs, this article might convince you:  ... And now, back to work. Valentinian (talk) / (contribs) 14:03, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This list pretty much demonstrates one of the reasons why Scandinavians refer to this conflict as the Great Northern War. Valentinian (talk) / (contribs) 22:08, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is stub sorting really necessary? 

message: I wish to start new articles about some my favorite television sports commentators.  I am looking for appropriate stubs to use for articles about the following types of people: "play-by-play announcers or color commentators (basketball, golf, etc.)"; "television sports pundits or experts; sports-related talking heads, etc"; "sports columnists and journalists".  If no specific stubs exist, I'll just use a general "Broadcaster" or "Television personality" stub.  Thanks!--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 11:48, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Which stub should I use?

message: I just created this per a discussion a while ago, but I've no idea where to put it other than in  - including on the list of stub templates. Someone else care to step in here? Aelfthrytha 21:23, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  {{tl|diplomat-stub}} 

message: User:Draicone/WikiProject Reference Help is a project Draicone is starting to get citation and reference tags properly sorted. There's a byzantine maze of citation templates, which most editors may not remember but which will help a lot in getting referencing up to scratch. Anyone bored? - David Gerard 23:10, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've mainly been working on uncategorized articles lately. It's the same sort of thing, just with non-stubs rather than stubs. There isn't much I've found to do until we get the next database dump. Crystallina 18:32, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's getting to be a long wait, isn't it?  There's still a number of things pending at /P, but in a lot of cases it's getting hard to sort the wheat from the chaff without more recent info.  Alai 04:00, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And here it is...with definite progress, too! Crystallina 19:55, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bored stub sorter looking for something new? 

message: There are currently 137 uncatogorized stubs. I'll help to fix that, but any help would be apretiated, -Royalguard11(Talk)(Desk) 03:10, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How about an update? The total is now a whoping TWO HUNDRED TEN STUBS That's 210. -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk) 03:24, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: yeah, I mentioned that at the bottom of this page a couple of hours ago :) Grutness...wha? 03:41, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  WARNING STUBS 

message: I was just looking for Polish Biography stubs.Theyare all sorted by FIRST name, not LAST name. So if you don't know the first name it's very difficult to find.
How can this be corrected? There shoulb be some bot that would do this.
I haven't checked other categories but assume the same problem exists.
Syrenab 19:21, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Stub sorting already wastes too much time and resources, sorting by surname will use a disproportionate amount more. Martin 19:26, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I understand that it takes too much time to go back to old stubs. But how can this problem be avoided in future, on new stubs?
Syrenab 14:02, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There isn't currently a system set up to handle a sortkey for last names and such.  I believe it's been discussed before and it's been pretty well decided that it's more of a hassle than it would help. ~ Amalas rawr =^_^= 15:50, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Why not do this the same way as categories are done - give the stub template a parameter, then use it as a sort key?  I've done this for , and it works well enough. Percy Snoodle 10:09, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Because it would mean wasting hours of time adding parameters to existing stubs, just to make them slightly easier to find, plus they would never all get done, because most people will forget to add the parameter, and then we will have a mixture of sorted by first and second name, which will be even worse. Martin 10:23, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see how a solution which, granted, will only be partially implemented, is worse than a hardcoded surname-detection hack which can't be corrected when it fails. Percy Snoodle 09:19, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biography sorting 

message: We've gotten rid of the backlog of uncategorized stubs. As of the time I'm posting this, there are only 17 uncategorized stubs. We should try to keep up at this pace. Toonmon2005 01:30, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is about the level the main stub category is normally at - the only reason there was such a backlog is that a bot has been hunting for untagged stubs lately. Grutness...wha? 05:37, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Victory! 

message: If the flags were changed to 25 px, that would give this result:
 This United Kingdom-related article is a stub.  You can help Wikipedia by [ expanding it]. (UK-stub)
	 This Latvia-related article is a stub.  You can help Wikipedia by [ expanding it].
 (Latvia-stub)
	 This Germany-related article is a stub.  You can help Wikipedia by [ expanding it].
 (Germany-stub)
	 This Denmark-related article is a stub.  You can help Wikipedia by [ expanding it].
 (Denmark-stub)
So as I see it, the only problem is the flags.  needs cleaning up, btw! Valentinian (talk) / (contribs) 15:36, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the idea about a standard height, if only we can fix the flags somehow. Perhaps we should simply specify a standard height for all non-flag images and a standard length for all flags? We'll probably have to do something clever about Switzerland, the Vatican and Nepal later. This would avoid the problem of some of the -geos suddenly stubbed with three templates using flags of different length. Different heights for flags looks much less odd than different lenghts. Just my 2 cents Valentinian (talk) / (contribs) 20:43, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wouldn't the above suggestion do that?  At least for any flag that's no more "square" than 4:3.  Alai 20:54, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Reading it a second time, I guess it would. Valentinian (talk) / (contribs) 21:29, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Agree. This is why I suggest a standard length for flags and a standard height for other images. But I'm open to suggestions. Valentinian (talk) / (contribs) 07:01, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I just have a strong instinctive aversion to case analyses when they don't appear to be necessary.  Why make flags a special case?  Could we simply say "no larger than either 40x25 or 30x30"?  Actually, I'd probably prefer 35x25:  flags are just about the last things to need extra size for clear identification: that's rather the whole point of them.  (With one or two unfortunate exceptions.)  Alai 17:14, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, I was thinking about having a standard flag length of e.g 30 px (or 35px) while giving all other images a standard 30px height. I wasn't arguing for bigger flags. Valentinian (talk) / (contribs) 18:46, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I wasn't suggesting you were, I'm just a bit puzzled why we'd want to have one "rule" for flags, and one "rule" for everything else.  Various other images will have aspect ratios similar to flags, after all.  Alai 22:00, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The only reason is that a lot of -geo articles are stubbed with a number of national templates each using a flag. I just think it looks really really horrible seeing three or four flags next to each others having grossly different lengths. I am a bit inspired by the system used in front of the UN building where all flags have to use the same proportions as it makes the countries look more equal. In this case, the same length would probably do the trick. Valentinian (talk) / (contribs) 22:24, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The UN system is actually a massive kludge that many of the nations involved don't actually approve of that much (and very few if any vexillologists do) - they simply make every flag the same dimensions, irrespective of the actual specificiations of each country's flag design. On Wikipedia it would create an extra problem to do that, since we'd need to make a whole new set of icons of identical dimensions. As far as what to do with the flags, I'd suggest making all of them except the four problem dimensions (Vatican, Switzerland, Niger, Nepal) have a length of 36 px - 36 allows for tribands and bicolours to have good hard-edged images, which 35 doesn't). With the other four, 30px would make sense (they'd be 30x30, 30x30, 30x27 and 30x40 respectively). Grutness...wha? 00:13, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: V., why is this any different from having three or four photographs, or other images with different widths?  I'm not asking why we want a "rule";  I'm asking why we'd want a rule with built-in exceptions (and even exceptions to the exceptions).  G., I'd be happy to stipulate to 36px rather than 35, but I'm not at all keen on creating 40px high images, for flags or otherwise.  On the whole I'd still favour my earlier suggestion (or some similar bounding box or short list of possible bounding boxes), both on the basis of relative uniformity, and on results.  I'd have no strong opinions either way about which image, and hence aspect ratio, to use for any given flag.  Alai 03:19, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Note that my comments were for flag length, not height. I feel that the comments about keeping the length of flags as consistent as possible is preferable to making them all a set height. I've no objection to having a minimum/maximum range rather than a set figure, though having several fgas of different sizes does look a bit rough. Grutness...wha? 05:19, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Portrait" images that use an initially-reasonable-looking width, and end up with an excessive height are exactly the problem with this approach though, and made no better by having one standard for "flags" and one for "everything else".  Anyhoo, my "bounding box" suggestion would have the net effect of making the vast majority of flags, with a typical range of aspect ratio, have the same length, without making a separate rule (with separate exceptions, and still ending up with oversized icons).  The "range" was only for images with a different aspect ratio, not for arbitrary variation from case to case.  Then again, on second thoughts, perhaps it might be just as well to use (something like) 36x30 for everything, No Matter What.  Flags of radically different aspect ratios are going to look "wrong" when lined up, no matter what.  You should also consider the aspect that if you make flags a special case, 'everyone else' will want one, too.  Alai 06:27, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: ...which would mean a lot of stretched or squashed images (and not just flags), which people would come along and fix irrespective of what "rules" we try to impose. Mind you, I wonder if we're really making more instruction-creep and work for ourselves where no problem really exists. We haven't had actual numbers for size before now, but have gone ahead and changed image sizes when they are obviously too big or too small. What's wrong with carrying on in exactly the same way? It isn't just flags that are the problem here, BTW - have a look at the icons used on some of the Australian WikiProject-related stubs and imagine how big the icon on Perth-stub, for instance, will be at 30px height. Grutness...wha? 06:44, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Stretched, how so?  Remember that it doesn't change the aspect ratio of the image, it does a constrained resize to the "tighter" fit.  They'd also be squashed if they were either too detailed, or too "portraity", both of which are bad ideas anyway, so the ideal "fix" in such cases is to get a more suitable image.  At any rate, the objective isn't 100% "compliance" (is anything on WP:STUB?), but a reduction in the number of jarring clashes (which "we" get blamed for, of course), and of doing so in as simple a manner as possible.  I know people are quick to call us Evil Processist Trolls, but all the above applies whether or not we're guidelineifying this;  come to that, even if  it doesn't get beyond this talk page, I'd like to think that all the people going from here to "fix" icons were "fixing" them in a way that was consistent, and made some sort of sense.  Perth-stub would get about 3% wider (and hence, 3% higher) under my suggestion above:  is that a problem in some way that's not clear to me?  Alai 15:36, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  More examples: Flags at 25 px height 

message: After long threatening, I've now split out the above from what's now .  The latter has suffered progressive drift in meaning (if not an outright semantic coup), and now claims these are "very large by design", which is expressly not the case for stub types.  It might still be worthwhile also having a separate , as this might be better suited for stub categories that are unlikely to need much in the way of further (direct) subcats, but do need frequent re-sorting, such as  and  -- both currently very large again, btw -- as well as  itself.  Alai 06:07, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  {{cl|overpopulated stub categories}} 

message: Have proposed at SfR, fyi. - CrazyRussian talk/email 14:56, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: {{tl|Struct-stub}} and all its child-struct-stubs → {{tl|Structure-stub}} &c.

message: I note that User:Instantnood is on one of his "Hong Kong is not part of China" kicks (insofar as the previous one can be said to have ended), in particular as regards to the stub hierarchy.  See 
,
,
,
 and
I'd welcome some additional input, rather than immediately getting into a revert war, or kicking this up to ANI or measures under his existing probation.  Alai 16:26, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't put your words in my mouth. Hong Kong is, as according to its constitutional document, "an inalienable part of the People's Republic of China". Demonstrate you have the most basic familiarity, or else don't come up with your own conclusion. — Instantnood 21:40, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Instantnood and "Hong Kong" stub hierarchy issues 

message: is back over the 200-stub mark... Grutness...wha? 00:24, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Which is light relief compared to  and , no...?  Alai 02:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You do know that by "all hands to the pump!" Grutness means that we all need change those articles'  tags to something more fitting to their bases (like  to  or to ). The only reason (s)he says that is because the articles are less likely to get expanded by people who know what they are doing if they are just in  (meaning if there are bio articles there, you are definately less likely to expand them than if they are in ). Cbrown1023 02:45, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorting stubs?  What a concept.  Alai 03:22, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ha-ha, but I was just trying to point out that  is the only stub-category that is only the jurisdiction of WP:WSS, the others are the jurisdiction of WP:WSS and one or more other WikiProjects. Cbrown1023 03:53, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Where "jurisdiction" typically means a vague sense of entitlement and ownership, whether or not they bother doing any of the effort of re-sorting them, in my experience.  (The term "scope" might be a little more neutral.)  I don't see how that's pertinent, or otherwise how a two-listings-page stub type is ever worse than a 12-page ones.  Alai 05:03, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Yeah - basically without sorting,  will just grow and grow - if there's only a handful of stubs there's not much effort emptying it, but once it gets up to the 200 mark it needs more stern attention from WP:WSS. Oh, and it's a he, BTW Grutness...wha? 04:46, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Side note: Please if you can help it try to find something more specific than  - that category got huge in a short amount of time. Crystallina 13:06, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: All hands to the pump!

message: I've attempted to clean up the wording at the top of the main  to be clearer and lower maintenance. Before it simply listed a large number of (but nowhere near all) the geo-stub types. If anyone can think of a way to simplify it still further, it'd be good - in any case, I'd like a few comments, positive or negative, on the new look. Grutness...wha? 00:09, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Main geo-stub category

message: Could someone have a look at User:Alai/Psychoactives -- which is a list of all the pharma-stubs which are hypnotics, sedatives, opioids, stimulants, anxiolytics, antidepressants, antipsychotics, alkyl nitrites, psychedelics, dissociatives, deliriants, mu-opioid agonists, semisynthetic opioids or mood stabilizers (according to their permcats).  I've already attempted to sort these by bot into the new , and had most of them reverted by a user who was less than communicative about what he was up to.  Some indication of whether these need to be re-sorted by hand, or just re-stubbed as-was would be useful.  Alai 03:56, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd be useless. I don't know my aspirin from my tylenol, sorry, Goldenrowley 22:06, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Am I on drugs?  And if so, are they the right ones? 

message: I checked the numbers of stubs tagged with more than one tag (or more precisely, in more than one category), and here's how it looks.
 +----------+----------+
 | num_tags | count(*) |
 +----------+----------+
 |        2 |    83797 |
 |        3 |     9102 |
 |        4 |      872 |
 |        5 |       99 |
 |        6 |       18 |
 |        7 |        5 |
 |        9 |        1 |
 |       15 |        1 |
 +----------+----------+
In case you're wondering about the fifteen... .  Other than that, doesn't seem too bad, really.  Alai 21:19, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not bad at all, though the 7 and 9 are also a bit of a worry - have you fixed them too, and if not, what are they? Grutness...wha? 22:23, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

text: One good thing about the rogue 15 is it shows us a couple of non-standard-sized flag icons (which I'll fix). Grutness...wha? 22:30, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I think that's got rid of the worst of the multistubbing. Might be worth running that check every month or so... Grutness...wha? 00:27, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It won't be any more often than every db dump, which currently could be every fews days, or every few months...  Other than that, I can run it any time I remember/am reminded.  Alai 01:43, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This may sound stupid, but why does it matter if articles are double tagged as stubs, if the tags are different.  It is actually helpful because it gives different people a chance to access them.  That's only if they're completely diff... there shouldn't be a  and a .  Do other double-tags matter? (by double I mean multi) Cbrown1023 01:50, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If done to excess it's a pain, since for one thing, 15 tags, and 15 stub categories look completely ridiculous, and increases the amount of booing from the sidelines.  For another, it's counterproductive to sorting effort if a stub is "overreported" in multiple stub categories, and ends up having to be re-sorted in several of them.  Broadly I'm in favour of tagging something with everything related to its primary notability, and have help "drift" the language on WP:STUB in that direction, but as with everything, there's a point of dimishing returns.  Alai 03:56, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree - there's nothing wrong with double or triple stubbing something, and 4x is okay on occasions, but anything beyond that just ends up with a mess in the bottom of the article. it's very rare that a stub article really needs huge numbers of stub categories - the one which had 15, for instance, didn't lose much at all as far as categorisation was concerned by being reduced to one stub type. Most of the sevens reduced to two or three very easily, too. Grutness...wha? 04:52, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Multi-stubbing rogues' gallery 

message: Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory.  This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you.   B2T2 14:21, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Project directory 

message: Don't worry - it's not an anti-WSS group! I came across this while looking for illegitimate stub templates - looks like a good scheme, but how come we haven't heard of it before? Grutness...wha? 22:32, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: From the looks of it, it's very inactive. The most recent project talk post for it was April 16. I'm not counting the project directory post, since that has been posted on all projects and isn't by a member or someone trying to help the project. What's the tag or template for deleting projects? I can't remember. I think the members of it should be notified first, then if there is no objection...the project should be removed. It was a good idea, but it simply doesn't appear to be that interesting in the long run. People that know enough about certain topics do improve stubs, a project isn't needed for it. RobJ1981 22:47, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Shame. Sounded like a good idea. The deletion process page you're looking for is WP:MFD - the right tag will be listed there somewhere. Grutness...wha? 23:38, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Anti-Stub]]

message: OK, second try for a script. This time in my own sandbox space. See User:Hankwang/sandbox/stubindex. What do you think? It should be little effort to change it into a bot that runs on a daily basis. As I said above, this should make everyone happy. Han-Kwang 22:31, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: First observation: This version is definitely much better than the first. The use of the template names rather than the category names is a big plus. In some examples, a template name might not be completely obvious (e.g. footy = European-style football) but that one sounds pretty impossible to fix. I don't know if you've noticed it, but it seems to me like your script doesn't like non-English characters; e.g. I noticed the incorrect "Ã…land-stub" rather than , "SÃ¸rTrÃ¸ndelag-geo-stub" instead of  and "NeuchÃ¢tel-geo-stub" instead of . This problem affects both the French, Scandinavian and Czech material (e.g. ). On the positive side, it does sound a lot more appealing to have a bot do this kind of work automatically. The thought about more manual work and the use of category names were my two main problems with the first draft. Unless Conscious says anything to the contrary, I still believe we should keep the original WP:WSS/ST list in one piece to avoid any unexpected problems with that page. Valentinian (talk) / (contribs) 01:54, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Might not be a problem with the script as such:  I found similar problems when trying to copy'n'paste from a terminal window to a wikipedia edit window.  Doing so from a Unicode-savvy (UTF-8) editor fixed the problem for me.  Alai 06:39, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

text: The new version is considerably better, although I'm still not convinced of its worth unless there's some way to make it editable only by script (otherwise there will very quickly become discrepancies between the lists). Oh, and Alai - don't get me started on the new category system that makes it impossible to see subcats in some forms of software. I only have access to a Mac/IE combination sometimes, and the new category system doesn't work at all with that. Every subcat simply appears as an unclickable "[+]" with no accompanying name. Moving your stublist to a more central location might only see other people edit it - but adding User:Alai/Stub-counts to  (like I did with the geo-stub splitting pages) might be a reasonable compromise. Grutness...wha? 23:26, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Script-editable-only is impossible, unless you protect the page and give the script admin permissions (not very likely). But my idea was to put a big warning on the generated pages that they will be overwritten on a daily basis, and run the script from a server that is online 24/7. Discrepancies would not survive more than 23:59:59 hours. Han-Kwang 23:33, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

text: In which case, I tend towards being against the page - warnings don't work, as we know full well from people adding items to the current stub type page despite never having followed the instructions on that page. And whereas now we can at least keep track of any new unproposed stub types that are added to the stub type page, a daily over-writing will make it much harder to find any such templates if they are surreptitiously added to that page. Also, listing the templates without their categories will make it more likely that people will create stub templates without categories. But see below. Grutness...wha? 00:17, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you want, I might also generate a page that summarizes all recent non-bot edits to all the autogenerated pages. Of course I don't have months of experience with stub sorting, but aren't you a bit too pessimistic? The purpose of the index page is to find an appropriate stub to put on an article page. You are worried about unwanted side effects, namely (1) additions of unapproved stub types and (2) if an unapproved stub type is added that it will be without a category. Han-Kwang 14:23, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No offence, but if you did have months of experience at watching the stub type page, you'd now why I'm being pessimistic - on average I'd say we get about 2-3 additions per week to the list that haven't gone through the proposal process: the length of WP:WSS/D (which lists such discoveries) gives some indication of that. Grutness...wha? 21:49, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, but is (2) also happening, and is it a problem in that case? Han-Kwang 23:31, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is happening, but to a much lesser extent, and it's less of a problem than it used to be, though still a concern. I'm just worried that it will happen more often if a listing page doesn't have the two things automatically shown next to each other. Grutness...wha? 00:04, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Fwiw, I like the category-tree format myself. At first all the little + signs bugged me, but now I wouldn't part with it. Pegship 22:15, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

text: HK, I'm not sure I follow what it was you didn't follow.  All the (well-formed) stub types are already in a category;  by my remark about top-level stub categories just meant creating a list along the lines of Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Top level stub categories -- or else a category , say -- containing only those stub categories which are themselves not sub-categories of other stub-cats.  The idea being, you could pick one of those, and nav down the category hierarchy until you get something you like the look of.  (Grutness, my condolences about your forcible use of IE, but you're in effect no worse than before (other than in "relative information poverty" terms.)  I've no objection to the "summary style" mirror (caveated, as you say, with 'please don't update directly, it'll only get overwritten' disclaimers), though it's a little too terse for my tastes.  At the very least, I'd like to see template links, and some remnant of the hierarchy left in place in the form of indentation (which would doubtless be somewhere intermediate in size between your page, and G's suggestion).  Alai 05:41, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: On the contrary, I'm in a considerably worse position than before. Before, when I opened up a category, I had the names of the subcategories  and could click on them to get to the subcategories. Now all I have is a list of [+]s that don't do anything, like the strange column of [+]s further down this page. I can't see any subcategory names, and I can't get at any subcategories. It's a right royal pain in the ass. Grutness...wha? 11:52, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, I'd misunderstood what you meant by 'only seeing the +s'.  Poor reading comprehension on my part.  Is this the case with IE in general?  Alai 08:19, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal for new index format

message: One option which might work as a compromise is to strip back the current page considerably by de-linking the templates, redirects, and any child types (but leaving the category and WikiProject links) and removing the size counts. The size counts can probably be handled more effectively via Alai's subpage anyway, especially if that is run by a script (is it?). So, for instance, instead of each line reading something like this...:
*Color stubs *R | *W |  - <200 on October 14
...it would read simply:
*Color stubs (color-stub) | *R | *W
This would considerably reduce the page's coding without losing any information which isn't fairly simple to find elsewhere - hopefully it would reduce it enough to prevent some of the loading problems that some people are encountering. Grutness...wha? 00:17, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That would reduce the page size from 1.3 MB to 0.6 MB. (based on 427 bytes/line vs. 205 bytes/line). It helps, but User:Hankwang/sandbox/stubindex is still considerably less with 0.15 MB. Han-Kwang 14:29, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I suppose if the proposal in your sandbox goes ahead we could do both anyway. Dropping the main page down by 55% of its size sounds a pretty good move. Also, since more stubs have redirects than WikiProjects, it's likely the cut will be slightly greater than that (though still nowhere near 0.15 Mb). Grutness...wha? 21:49, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

text: See my comments a section heading and an hrule above.  (I also vote for phasing hrules out of talk page markup.)  With those provisos, I have no objection to the principle.  Alai 08:25, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The hrule is gone now. :) I have been rather busy with life outside wikipedia lately, but I placed a request here: []. Han-Kwang 08:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: A possible compromise option

message: My bot  has now made a successful test run to generate what I originally had in mind. See User:Hankwang/sandbox/Stubindex2. As was requested, the sections are indented to show their place in the hierachy. It links to a number of smaller pages with fully linked categories and stub templates, which are just partial mirrors of the WSS:ST page.
Open issues:
* Alai's request for a Top level stub categories page. I'm still not exactly sure what it means. Would that mean having the a separate page that just lists the first stub category of every section in WSS:ST? Once you find the top-level category, you can follow the links to sub-categories. This is something that could be done manually; the bot would just help to prevent "sneaking in" of unapproved categories.
* A page to check whether anyone tried to add stub templates to the autogenerated index pages. I'd propose to let it be, and if after a month or so it shows from the page history that unauthorized changes are actually being made, I can extend the bot to create a page showing "unauthorized edits".
Could you please comment whether this is acceptable or needs modificiation? Han-Kwang 19:59, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Anybody there? Han-Kwang 21:09, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If there are no objections, I will run the bot in the Wikipedia: namespace and add links to the derived page on the WPSS links template. Han-Kwang 18:36, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Bot-generated mirror pages available: please comment

message: Why is the icon for mall stubs a bridge?  Shouldn't it be a mall or something? --Transfinite 01:12, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: that... is a very good question. I've changed it, but a better one would be good. Any suggestions for pictures we can use? Grutness...wha? 01:18, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm looking through Commons, but there isn't a mall category as far as I can see, so I have to do a manual search.  I'm hoping to find something that works at that scale. --Transfinite 01:44, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There's some OK pictures on the mall article, though none from the US.  A non-US mall might be a bit better than a US non-mall, though -- who'll ever know at 40px, anyway?  Alai 04:11, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Pure carelessness on my part. Sorry about that. Crystallina 03:43, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  {{tl|US-mall-stub}} 

message: Normally, I'm not in doubt as to the proper use of -bio-stub templates, but regarding this article I must admit to be in two minds ... :) Valentinian (talk) / (contribs) 19:43, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added that article to Wikipedia:Unusual articles :) Grutness...wha? 22:17, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bio-stubs? 

message: Stub categories →AzaToth 12:32, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What's the purpose of this? --TheParanoidOne 13:09, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like a demonstration of what a category tree of stub cats would look like...? Pegship 19:19, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's the "Why" of it that I'm confused about. --TheParanoidOne 23:21, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not much of a tree;   is completely flat.  Alai 23:41, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And why doesn't it go past "a"? Just H 04:28, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categorytree 

message: Howdy all! I keep running across references to "db dumps", StubSense, etc. and would like to put together a little list of tools for use in stub sorting. I grasp tenuously the concept of a database dump, but not how Alai uses it for proposing stub types. I have a vague idea of how to use StubSense, but could use something spelled out (in as simple terms as possible). I am crushed that CatScan still cannot use the enwiki copy on the toolserver, but I hope for its restoration...someday...Anyway, anyone have a favorite tool and a brief idiot-friendly description of how to use it? Feel free to add it to my sandbox and I'll doll it up to add to the project page.
Of course, if someone has already done this, please point me to where and ...never mind...Pegship 17:50, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: By db dumps, I mean [download.wikipedia.org these fine fellows], or more specifically in my case, the "page" and "categorylinks" table thereof.  Using same basically involves downloading these, using them to build offline copies of the tables in question, and then running SQL queries on those, much as one would on the 'live' database, were that possible for mere mortals.  I'm not really in a position to set this up as a web service, so I'm afraid the best I can do is to offer to run such queries by request, where it's possible for me to do so.  In particular one thing I can do fairly readily is to upload lists of candidates corresponding to a particular permcat, which are often much too false-positive-ridden to be any use for 'bot-restubbing, but might be handy for AWB users.  A summary of the different tools along the lines you mention sounds like a good idea, though while the toolserver is unwell, somewhat moot.  Here's hoping, as you say.  Alai 04:52, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A little help for us mid-level tinkerers 

message: I have cross posted this from Wikipedia talk:Categorization.
I have noticed a few users "categorising" articles by simply adding stub tags, (often replacing the  tag with a stub for example). Can we formally add a sentence explicitly explaining that a stub tag (or any maintenance tag) does not categorise an article (in an encyclopedic sense), despite the fact that it does add a category.
Please reply at Wikipedia_talk:Categorization#stubs_and_categories. thanks Martin 17:26, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stubs and categories 

message: As of the time listed below, there were 0 stub articles. All of them have been sorted into categories!!!!
YAY!!!
(I think i'm just happy, There are normally a lot of stubs on that category.)
Tyson Moore 01:10, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NO <nowiki>{{stub}}</nowiki> ARTICLES 

message: Can some one who knows more about templates than me have a look at this template because there appears to be no articles in the category when yesterday there was 100's if not 1000's.  I'm sure not all have been cleared out and the template was changed receently.  
Waacstats 09:23, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed.  The articles should be showing up again soon. Slambo (Speak) 12:12, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Bio-stub

message: Hello all. I read the lengthy section above on this issue, but failed to see a consensus on a set thumbnail size. Is there a set standard in practice today or is the size determined on a case-by-case basis? The reason I ask is that I'm planning on standardizing the size of the shields on the WP:USRD stub templates, which right now are anywhere between 30-40px. Regards, TMF Let's Go Mets - Stats 19:05, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think we really reached a consensus. I'd say that as long as the longer axis is around 40 then there'll be no complaints. Since we're talking shields in (mainly) square boxes, a width of 40 is probably fine. One thing I didn't mention in the earlier debate but which i've just thought of, BTW, is that with flags divided into three equal bands 40 can look a little messy, so I'd be tempted to suggest either making them 36 or 42, or keeping a constant height of 21 or 24 (which will make most flags a multiple of three in length). Grutness...wha? 22:52, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stub thumbnail size, part two 

message: I have a bunch of templates for Munich-related articles. You can find them on the main page of WikiProject Munich. Kingjeff 19:24, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, the spirit of cooperation is alive and well on Wikipedia. We're supposed to cooperate with your wikiproject without you cooperating with ours. Good thinking. Grutness...wha? 22:50, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's your WikiProject that lacks spirit of cooperation. I've tried to compromise. But you guys are stubborn to the bone. Kingjeff 15:09, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I remember your attempted compromise. We told you how no other wikiproject had more than a couple of stub types and that seven was going to cause you and us too much work, so you offered to change the name of two of them. Meanwhile, we have offered the compromise of creating an overarching stub for your project that covers all the ground that your seven do and more, and also offered you the suggestion of a parameterised WikiProject template which would allow you to categorise as many different types of article as you want in any way you want. Which seems the better compromise solution to the current problems? Grutness...wha? 22:02, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I notice that part of the problem is that when you created this WikiProject, you didn't use the standard WikiProject creation template. If you had, you'd have seen the information relating to stubs and how they should not be created prior to proposal. Mind you, so too do things like WP:STUB, and a wide number of stub categories, such as , , and . it's not as though there are no notices around.  Grutness...wha? 23:01, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: WikiProject Munich stub templates

message: User:The Transhumanist has recently started an interesting project, a "virtual classroom" giving handy tips and quick summaries on how parts of WP work. (S)he asked me to write something for it, so I've written a run-down on how stubs work for it, which can be seen here. Feel free to have a look and make any comments you think necessary, and also if you feel it's worth putting a link to it from pages like WP:STUB, and WP:WSS, feel free to do so! :) Grutness...wha? 01:03, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Virtual classroom

message: Do we know? I couldn't find a number anywhere, and the stub category is so large counting the pages even with the 200 interval will take a while (and counting subcats would be rather annoying).-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  20:34, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure that anyone knows for certain, and the number changes every day. At a rough estimate, 1600-1800. Grutness...wha? 23:12, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

text: At the 31st Oct db dump, there were 3485, though some of those aren't "officially" listed (either through omission, or bootleggery).  The live db has 17 listings pages in , roughly agreeing with the above.  Alai 13:20, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Whee - off by a factor of two! Grutness...wha? 04:29, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Thanks - perhaps we should add those stats to User:Dantheox/Stub percentages?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  00:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: How many stub cats do we have?

message: Quite often, when clearing , I come across cases where the user has thought it would be a neat idea to put a stub template on their user page. When that happens, I subst the stub then explain on their talk page what I've done. After having written the same explanation a or more dozen times in the last few months, I've finally decided to make a subst'able template to add this information: . Use it as you wish! Grutness...wha? 01:05, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: When I saw the section header, I thought you might be referring to [www.cafepress.com/wikipedia.18988356 this]. <g> Her Pegship 02:57, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Heeey. I like that! :) Grutness...wha? 05:41, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: {{tl|Stubbed user}}

message: Just discovered this deletion review debatre. Others may be interested in commenting... Grutness...wha? 04:47, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: {{cl|Stub templates}}

message: Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention.  Badbilltucker 19:34, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia Day Awards