Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Archive 5

message: User:Grutness mentioned this on Wikipedia talk:Deletion of useless stub templates and stub categories:
::I'm beginning to wonder if the WP pages for Stub sorting need a bit of an overhaul anyway - it's forked a bit and grown into a bit of a tangle. But I suspect (shudder) that we'd need a special new page to discuss whether an overhaul is needed!
It's true. We need a restructuring and rewriting of many pages that relate to stub sorting and stubs in general. To seed the discussion, here's a list of stub-related pages:
*Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub
*Wikipedia:Perfect stub article
*Wikipedia:Stub categories
*WP:WSS
**Wikipedia:Stub sorting policy
**Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Criteria
**Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Guidelines
**Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types
*:Category:Stub categories
*Wikipedia:Deletion of useless stub templates and stub categories
*Wikipedia:template messages/Stubs
I'm sure there are more, so please add to this list. 
For starters, I think Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub and Wikipedia:Perfect stub article have to be rewritten to make stub sorting more apparent (they still recommend using ). Wikipedia:Stub categories and Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types are essentially the same. Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Criteria doesn't do what the name says. Wikipedia:Stub sorting policy and Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Guidelines overlap significantly. Now, I don't want to make this more of a campaign than it has to be, and I myself have learned to navigate these pages, but in my opinion it would be nice to streamline this whole business a bit more to make it more accessible, and a procedure which is less confusing for the casual editor means less work for stub sorters in the long run. -- grm_wnr Esc 15:29, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, I tried to sort out the Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting page a few weeks ago, it had no direction, no explanation of why or even how to sort stubs etc. I think making people aware of sorting into categories rather than just a plain old stub is really important. Bluemoose 16:09, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It is a mess. I don't think I'm being too egotistical to say that I do a hell of a lot of stub sorting, and yet I didn't know about Wikipedia:Stub sorting policy until about a week ago. There needs - at the minimum - to be some more sign-posting of what is where. And more usefully still, some kind of overhaul of the whole system.  Grutness|hello?  09:21, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text:  I am sort of trying to start that, but you guys have to help me on some way, even if it is by proposing something completely different from what I have. --Sn0wflake 19:22, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't have much time for this right now, but I think I'll get to it in a few days -- grm_wnr Esc 12:50, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: I tried to write something up on User:Grm_wnr/Stub page draft, but realized it had already become to long and specific. I'm posting it here anyway, because I didn't want to throw it away and maybe some parts of it can be salvaged for a better page. -- grm_wnr Esc 16:58, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I found your draft to be very suitable. It's only flaw, as I see it, is being a little verbose at one point or another. If there are no objections, I will work upon it and post my version below the first draft so that we (the community. Get involved, everyone!) can discuss this further. --Sn0wflake 16:44, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  If you'll be working in User:Grm_wnr space for drafting maybe we should move the discussion to it's talk page and leave a note here for folks to follow. I totally agree that there's a need to clarify and focus the stub page(s). This is really a good idea. Rx StrangeLove 17:42, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: I moved everything over to here. I just finished the third draft, based upon grm's work. It's starting to look good... still needs work, though. --Sn0wflake 01:22, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  If SfD makes it through Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) it should probably be added to the Centralization project: third draft section below. I'm also wondering if we should alter the substub section to reflect the talk around eliminating substub usage. Perhaps take this opportunity to eliminate them as a category, it sounds like that's what was being talked about below see: substubs (again). Personally I'd like to see them go away, though it'd take some work emptying it out....which Grutness has been hard at work doing already....I'd be willing to help out with that  Rx StrangeLove 01:01, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Overhaul of stub page structure. 

message: *Engineering
*Crime
:To whoever didn't sign this - please read the note at the top of the page! New stubs should be proposed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Criteria. Anyway, why not use the currently existing  and , which seem to be exactly the ones you're looking for?  Grutness|hello?  04:28, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal for yet more stub templates 

message: I've made a slight change to the wording of , from "...biographical article about a sportsperson" to "biographical article relating to sport...". The reason is that I've found a few stubs relating to racehorses, and this seems the best category to put them in...  Grutness|hello?  06:05, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I have moved this up for the sake of organization, if you find you must, then please move it back to the bottom of the page. --Sn0wflake 01:17, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Sportbio-stub - sl. change

message: I took a shot at this section, I'm hoping it's close to what people were looking for. Please take a look and make whatever changes you see fit, I   borrowed   freely from several   sources. I'm also happy to make whatever changes people would like...especially the "how to" section on creating the categories, something I'm a little hazy on. It might not be very clear, as you can see I refered to the help article on category creation instead of explaining it here. Rx StrangeLove 17:10, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I like it, but the wording sucks. ;) Now seriously, it could do with some rewriting, but it's looking quite good. This basically leads us to our final issue: stub deletion system... I really don't know how to handle that. Help, anyone? --Sn0wflake 19:31, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you thinking that we'd need a Sfd page? Othwise we could run them through categories for deletion. Or maybe do them as a separate section on the Creation of stub categories page? I suppose for consistency sake we should do a SfD page like the others, though it wouldn't see much action. And then we'd have to replace the deleted stubs, we probably wouldn't want to redirect them would we? Rx StrangeLove 01:44, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: (I've just remembered TfD, I forgot about that. That makes most of the comments above pointless, nevermind :) Rx StrangeLove 04:31, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

text: I agree it could use some tuning for sure, I had to fit it in between real life Sunday morning. I'll take it back and do some touching up, see what I can do.  Rx StrangeLove 21:15, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I made another pass at it, but there's still work to be on it, especially at the end in the category section. I'll work on that next, I'm not sure how much "how to" material to include in the category part. What makes sense to you guys? Rx StrangeLove 00:54, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

text: Re: the idea of an Sfd page - I like the idea personally. At the moment we vote on stubs ar WSS/Criteria, then at tfd, and again at cfd. Doing the whole job in one pass would be a great advantage. As for "wouldn't see much action", over half the templates on tfd at the moment are stub templates! I'm beginning to thing that creation of a stub template is seen as a rite of passage for new wikipedians! Re: the "how to" part on stub categories, creators of stub templates need to know how to name the new category and which parent categories to put it in ( links to :Category:Foo-related stubs, which is a subcategory of both :Category:Stub categories and :Category:Foo).  Grutness|hello?  04:38, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree about Sfd, if it would streamline the process I'm all for it, especially after what  BlankVerse ∅  found. Hopefully getting the current stubs culled out, the proposal process will help limit how much we have to use SfD but there's no way to make the proposal process mandatory (is there?) so we shall see. I also agree about including category creation, I'll expand the "how to" section. Rx StrangeLove 15:02, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I added some more material to the category section at the end, take a look and let me know how it looks, I'm open to suggestions. I still need to add a part about adding the stub template to the stub lists so people see them. Rx StrangeLove 05:09, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I made a slight amendment - you said :category:stub when you meant :category:stub categories. Other than that, it looks about right.  Grutness|hello?  05:28, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

text: SfD would probably be quite useful, but we have to make sure that it doesn't require several weeks for the process to come to an end. As I see it, a week should be enough. --Sn0wflake 19:39, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

text: A week sounds fine to me, too. Should there be the option of speedy-delete for patent nonsense like banana-stub and ?  Grutness|hello?  01:10, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

text: It would probably be quite useful, but I am under the impression that there would likely be some objections from outside of the project. Just my opinion, though. --Sn0wflake 01:25, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, you're probably right there. Ah well, we can probably live with any ridiculous templates for a week...  Grutness|hello?  04:42, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: We don't know until we try it. To make a point, we should really flood TfD and CfD with the new stubs Grutness just found. I think that would raise the chances a lot :)  -- grm_wnr Esc 09:02, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

text: ) There are already people at tfd getting pretty fed up with deleting stub templatess - they don't seem to care at cfd, but the comments at Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:Template_stub are telling.  Grutness|hello?  12:50, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

text: I was bold: community concensus for or against SfD can now be established on VP/proposals. -- grm_wnr Esc 16:04, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Creating new stub categories section

message: Hi,
I'm here because I think you might be interested in a report I generated with stubsensor, something I've recently come up with. Stubsensor finds articles that are labeled as stubs and spits out the largest of them. The first three articles out of the report are Niqqud, Christian Opposition to Anti-Semitism, and Women in India. All 3 labeled as stubs and all 3 clearly are not stubs. 
I thought maybe you guys would be interested because you donate your efforts at fixing other portions of the stub system. If you are see the top 200 at User:Triddle/stubsensor/20050421. I've already fixed about 40 of them myself and I'm pretty sure I took care of nearly all the false positives when it comes to stub detection. Triddle 19:08, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Good job there, Triddle. We often bump into such articles during Category:stub hunts, but it must be quite a pain to find those on specific categories. Your work is appreciated. Are the entries to be removed from the list once they are handled? --Sn0wflake 19:26, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't quite understand what the question is so I'll answer the two I think it could be: 1) is the list going to be updated automatically once the fix has been performed? No, there would be a lag time of at least a half a week to two weeks (depending on the sql dump schedule). 2) is it ok to remove items from that list if they have been fixed by hand? Yes, please, be my guest =) Also I only put the top 200 in there because its short; I've looked around article 5,000 in that list (Sutherland, Nasal irrigation) and it still seems to be going strong. Would you be interested in the complete list of 5,000 articles? Or anything inbetween? Triddle 19:51, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I did some more work and put up a report of the top 2,000 in the same location. I'm going to keep going myself from 2001 and up. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have questions or have an idea for something I can do to help you guys out. Take it easy. Triddle 00:30, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

text: It is a good idea - as long as we keep in mind that stubbishness and article length aren't completely correlated. You can still have fairly long articles which have a stubby feel, remember. Good work, though Triddle - it should be very helpful.  Grutness|hello?  04:41, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

text: Looks good, adding Not a stub; see stubsensor to the edit summary will encourage more people to help. Onco p53 05:09, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Articles improperly tagged as stubs 

message: There is a newly created Wikipedia:WikiProject Templates. Should this be listed as one of the parents of Stub-sorting WikiProject? Also, the currently lists "parent" Wikipedia:Maintenance doesn't have any information on the Stub-sorting WikiProject, which seems like a logical place to have info in the WP:WSS. BlankVerse ∅  12:28, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds like a good idea, unless there are objections, I can add a listing to Wikipedia:Maintenance. Rx StrangeLove 00:21, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Project Parent? 

message: With substubs on the final days of their existence and a SfD proposal pending (and no strong objection, apparently) I think it's probably time to get started on the final draft of the new referece article for stubs. I will write it as if these two things had already come true, and then we can discuss it. I will probably get it ready by the end of today. Cheers. --Sn0wflake 18:30, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for taking this on, looking forward to seeing it!  Rx StrangeLove 01:19, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Finishing touches 

message: A good idea (IMHO) has been suggested about sfd by User:Korath at the VP - that if sfd goes ahead, both cfd and tfd should be notified of any current stubs up for deletion, sort of along the lines of a posting at both saying "The proposed deletion of toenail-stub is now being debated - all comments should be addressed to Wikipedia: Stubs for deletion#Toenail-stub." I think this might be a good way of mollifying anyone who thinks that tfd and cfd might somehow miss out on some juicy debates.  Grutness|hello?  23:13, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Or maybe some sort of daily digest that would list the new SfD's each day at CfD/TfD that each nominator would add to? That might take up a little less space. I'm assuming the thought was that each nominator would post a note at CfD/TfD when adding a listing to SfD.  Rx StrangeLove 02:11, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I find Rx's idea quite plausible. An article containing the stubs added on the day could be linked from both TfD and CfD, so that there would be no need of doing things twice. --Sn0wflake 02:24, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

text: Sorry to say this, but I am finding this not only confusing, but also too much complication for nothing. Categories attached to stubs are nothing more than an extension of the stub itself. Stubs for deletion should be listed on SfD an that's it. Why complicate if you can simplify? --Sn0wflake 04:46, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Good idea for sfd

message: Changing one stub label for another for no discernable benefit [*] gets dull after a while. Ever feel like creating content but don't know what to write about? Then come on over to Wikipedia:2004 Encyclopedia topics. We have a list of >20,000 topics that need an article, so there is bound to be one to your taste! Add content to Wikipedia today! Pcb21| Pete 11:03, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I have taken the liberty of striking your notice, since you seem to be rather biased against our project. Evidence? I might be the evidence myself. I am a content writer and I find  to be a true blessing. So do editors in other areas. So I would like to ask that you stopped spamming our Discussion page and go find something better to do with your time. Thank you in advance. --Sn0wflake 19:04, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't strike other people's comments on talk pages, even if you disagree with them. Pcb21| Pete 20:05, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Contributing content

message: Template:Substub is up for potential deletion on tfd, and the vote looks close. While I think there's little point in the template, I'd be worried if it were removed at the moment, gven the large number of artcieles that use it. Either they will have the template removed with no replacement, or they will be changed to plain stubs - adding a couple of thousand items to the current pile of unsifted stubs. 
Whatever the outcome of the vote, can I urge the people currently going through :Category:Stub to spend some time sifting substubs as well? Reducing the number of substubs is as useful as sifting stubs, and may prevent (or at least reduce) problems should the vote be for deletion of the substub template!  Grutness|hello?  01:57, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Substubs

message: The wording of the new document seems to be coming on quite well... one point about the substub section, though - slowly but surely that is being winnowed away. Many of substubs seem to be redirectable, deletable, mergeable, or are not really substubs anyway. Most of the rest are best served in the more specific stub categories than they ever would be sitting in :Category:substubs. At the current rate, that category could be empty 9and redundant?) within the month. Maybe its an idea that's had its time...  Grutness|hello?  01:34, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I have noticed that you are working hard on emptying the substub category... my only fear is that deletionists might not exactly "get" that and start sending small stubs by bulk to VfD. But we might as well go on with this. Whoever makes the next draft should keep that in mind. --Sn0wflake 02:24, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure I follow this -- might just be sleepy-headed, though.  Do you mean that if substubs are more-or-less eliminated, then VfD effort will instead be displaced into other stub categories?  Is that really any different, or is the substub category supposed to be a judgement of article quality, as opposed to just strictly length?  Alai 07:22, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In case things go bad, we can back you up. :) --Sn0wflake 16:45, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Substubs (again)

message: I just found Template:Active Wiki Fixup Projects, which looks like the WSS should be added to it. BlankVerse ∅  11:55, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Active Wiki Fixup Projects

message: What happened to SFD? Sounds like a good idea to me. Radiant_* 13:45, May 12, 2005 (UTC)
:Currently making its way through Village pump (Proposals). Not sure what the next step after that will be - anyone? Grutness...wha? 01:54, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I say we write a draft page and let people have a look at it - and maybe a test run with a few selected extra-useless stubs. -- grm_wnr Esc 08:06, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  SFD? 

message: I note that User:Husnock has created :Category:Stubs to be discussed. I'm a little baffled by the reqason this is needed, and I'm loath to ask him, since I think I'm already on his list of "least favourite Wikipedians". Anyone have any ideas about it?  Grutness|hello?  05:21, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Category? (stubs to be discussed)

message: I feel like Stub-Sorting would benefit from taking some preemptive action -- that is, to prevent people from just sticking a  tag on their short pages in the first place. Perhaps placing a prominent message somewhere in the Manual of Style or in the Tutorial would help. For example, we could insert a notice saying something to the effect of, Please help ensure your stub article is expanded quickly by categorizing it. with a link to, say, the stub types page. If there is already something like this, it does not seem to be obvious enough. But it is clear that we need a way to reduce "stubber's sloth." MithrandirMage 15:47, May 15, 2005 (UTC)
*I think it's much easier for someone who knows the system to sort the stub, especially when the names are often hard to guess. Once someone sees the correct tag added to an article, they'll probably add it to the next stub they make of the same type. Kappa 15:54, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  An Ounce of Prevention.... 

message: Hi all - I've just been looking at :Category:Buildings and structures stubs, tp see whether it could be split further, and discovered it has double the number of stubs it had two months ago (just under 500). So... I decided to check a few - the 78 beginning with T-Z. Amazingly, 45 of them had been mis-labelled. there were UK-struct-stubs, US-struct-stubs, Arch-stubs, a couple of geo-stubs, a water-stub, and even a rocket-stub! I'm going to wade through the rest, but if there are any stub sorters looking for something to do, I could do with a hand! (Oh, and by the way, Asia-struct-stub is looking like a good one to split off it). Grutness...wha? 09:55, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I had a quick scan through them and changed the relevant ones, but there are still a lot in the category. If you are thinking about a split, Canada-struct might be potential candidate, in addition to your suggested asia-struct. --TheParanoidOne 08:31, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks - I got through the rest, eventually, but the help was much appreciated. There were 490 of them - there are now 320, which gives some indication of how many were misplaced. I've changed the wording on the struct-stub templates to give more of a hint as to what should be in there (NOT architects! NOT caves! NOT shipwrecks!). Canada-stub is a good suggestion. I've proposed both of those, and germany-struct-stub (lots of them in the Euro-struct category) over at the Criteria page. Grutness...wha? 08:41, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Call for help on struct-stubs

message: Ladies and gentlemen, the Substub is dead. Long live the glorious stub category revolution! Grutness...wha? 02:53, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Speedy deleted, rule 4. Grutness...wha? 23:53, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: RIP

message: Hey, when you go through and sort stubs, don't smack articles with the patent nonsense template. Patent nonsense is absolute gibberish. As much as you may not like silly statements, propaganda, advertisements, etc, those are valid stubs that need editors to work on them. Please go read "Not to be confused with..." at Wikipedia:Patent nonsense.  kthxbye. PS, also, an edit that would mark an article to be deleted is anything but a minor edit. If you still choose to put a delete template on an article, make sure it has a valid edit summary.  SchmuckyTheCat 18:08, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hm... I am sorry but I think that you have probably posted this on the wrong Talk page. If a specific member of the project did something you didn't agree with, you are encouraged to talk to him or her directly, but I don't see how we can help you. Cheers. --Sn0wflake 22:21, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Since at least two different stub sorters have done it, I'm posting it where it will be read by stub sorters. SchmuckyTheCat 23:03, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Recently the project has grown by quite a bit, and not everybody reads this Talk page, so I would really recommend direct communication; it's often the best way to solve this sort of problem. But your comment has been taken note of, nevertheless. --Sn0wflake 23:14, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: deletion templates during stub sorting

message: Hi all - just stumbled across this - thought WP:WSS should know about it. Grutness...wha? 05:49, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removing icons? 

message: Hi there! Regarding Wikipedia:Substub - this page should probably be reworded to indicate there no longer is such a thing. I'd also support deleting it entirely, if necessary, but I think asking WSS input would be useful. Radiant_* 11:40, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
:I reworded it a couple of days ago, when it became clear that substubs were going, and I see several others have altered it more since (User:Grm wnr, for one). It might be better reworded as part of the new stub page that is being written, but I think that if it's made clear that Substubs are a historical item since deprecated, it shouldn't cause much trouble, and can be linked in from the stub page. Also, since people may wonder for a while what happened to "good ol'substub", it won't hurt if the page hangs around for a while. Grutness...wha? 13:40, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Are there really no substubs anymore? We treat them differently now, but "Substubs are short stubs" - a hazy, but workable definition, which could arguably mean that "Substubs are stubs that are too short to be considered good or acceptable stubs", which in turn means they still need special attention... Even as a subset of stubs, the term is entrenched in Wikipedia jargon, and we should have a page on that. -- grm_wnr Esc 17:47, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Substub page 

message: Now that Wikipedia:Stub is taken care of, it's probably time to move on to Wikipedia:Perfect stub article. I might get started on it this next week, but if somebody wants to go ahead, have fun. Cheers. --Sn0wflake 22:51, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The next target 

message: While Snowflake and other were diligently creating the new central project page, I've been working on something else which I think might be a reasonable addition to the project's pages, which I'd now like to present for appraisal and improvement. A lot of recent talk has been about trying to maintain consistent naming of stub templates, and working out which redirects are badly-enough named to reuire deletion. I have written a first draft of some naming guidelines, also including some of the major exceptions, on a subpage of my user page at User:Grutness/WikiProject Stub sorting/Naming guidelines. If you think it is a good enough start for such a page, then I will move it to Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Naming guidelines. Please have a look, make any amendments you think necessary and get back to me (even if only to tell me it was a waste of time and a co0mplete crock of tutae, as they might say in Maori). Grutness...wha? 08:15, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Even though I find it quite complete and certainly useful, I don't see how the average user would bother reading through it before creating stubs with unusual naming. Maybe an abridged version is in order? --Sn0wflake 19:27, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You're probably right, but I'm considering it more as a way to list precedents and see what doesn't fit into the scheme and how we can improve those that don't. Perhaps "Naming guidelines" should be a summary of this page, and the page in my user pages should be called something like "Naming precedents"? Any thoughts? Grutness...wha? 01:19, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Do a little revision in case you missed anything and post it on the project page, then. :) As you proposed, make sure there is a quick summary on the top and it's all set. --Sn0wflake 12:51, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

text: OK - I've added the summary, and moved the page. Feel free to change anything that doesn't look right! Grutness...wha? 13:14, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Another page for your perusal

message: Even as we are diligently hacking away at (sorting) the remaining articles in :Category:Stub, some users are creating new  articles or applying the  tag to existing ones.  I have composed a couple of form messages that I have started inserting on the User_Talk pages of users who have recently used the  tag.  I have gotten some positive responses to these, and want to make them available to others who may find them useful.  They are:
* User:RussBlau/stub-sorted-msg for newly-created articles using .
* User:RussBlau/stub-edit-msg for users who have inserted  into existing articles.
Both messages take the same two parameters:
; pg : The title of the page you sorted (no brackets needed).
; tag : The new stub category into which you sorted the page (no braces needed).
There is no guarantee that these messages will remain available in their current forms, so I highly recommend that you  them.  
I think the key to making this work is the positive, polite tone; it doesn't do any good to lay a guilt trip on someone for being ignorant of the availability of stub categories.  Also, of course, it only makes sense to do this when the page history shows that the  tag has been inserted recently, not for articles that have been sitting around for months waiting to be sorted.
I hope others find this useful, and that it enlightens other Wikipedians about our labors here! 
--Russ Blau (talk) 13:13, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
:A good move, and they look useful (they could almost work as templates! :) It is important to keep a polite tone. I wrote a couple of "form letter" type things for when users create new stub categories without going through WP:WSS/Criteria first (I know a couple of others - Allen3 for one - use very similar messages). it's very difficult not to piss people off. So far, to the best of my knowledge, one person has got annoyed with my messages, and I do regret that. As to adding generic , I use a similar message when sifting out the generic geo-stubs (which I do every two days, putting them in their individual countries)> If I notice one editor who's been writing or editing several stubs on the same country, I put the following on their user page (or some variant of it):
:Hi, I see you've been adding some geo-stubs on Country X! When you label them as stubs, a plain geo-stub is fine, but that country does also have its own geo-stub template, , which will make it easier still for editors to find, so it would be even better if you could use that. Keep up the good work! :)
:Grutness...wha? 14:33, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This generally strikes me as a good idea. Would it also make sense to add a sentence to , , and possibly  saying these can be further sorted? Susvolans (pigs can fly) 06:55, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Anyone who is sorting stubs to geo-stubs and stubs into bio-stubs might be just simply happy doing that.  -- AllyUnion (talk) 08:02, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

text: Great idea - I think these should go on the project page, in a form that can be copied and pasted. I would do it myself, but I dont want to take all the credit. - Bluemoose 09:27, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some helpful messages 

message: The discussion of SfD at the Village Pump ran favorably, even though not many peopla seemed to care. So, I've made a draft (obviously heavily inspired by TfD):
User:Grm_wnr/SfD_draft
Please edit it mercilessly, or tell me if it is completely pointless. -- grm_wnr Esc 21:19, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks good - I've added a couple of thoughts on a discussion page for it. Grutness...wha? 01:15, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  SfD - for real