Help:Stub

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 | * An entry too short to provide more than rudimentary information about a subject should be marked as a stub by adding a {{stub}} template. Anyone can edit a stub entry, or remove a stub template from an article which is no longer a stub. 
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 | An entry too short to provide more than rudimentary information about a subject should be marked as a stub by adding a {{stub}} template. Anyone can edit a stub entry, or remove a stub template from an article which is no longer a stub.
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A stub is a good way to create a page about a subject that can be populated with further details later.

The objective of this help page is to provide a general guide for dealing with stubs.

Basic information

A stub is a page containing only one or a few sentences of text that, although providing some useful information, is too short to provide detailed coverage of a subject, and that is capable of expansion.

Non-article pages, such as disambiguation pages, lists, categories, templates, talk pages, file pages, and redirects, are not regarded as stubs.

Sizable entries are usually not considered stubs, even if they have significant problems or are noticeably incomplete. With these larger articles, a {{cleanup}} template and/or {{expand}} template is usually added instead of a stub template.

Stub tags are useful for experienced editors looking for articles to expand.

How big is too big?

Contributing editors may decide that an entry with more than ten sentences is too big to be a stub or that articles with more than 250 words is too big to be a stub. The main thing to consider is whether a page provides enough detailed information about a subject and that widely known facts are already included on the page with some detail.

There is no set size at which an article stops being a stub. While very short articles are very likely to be stubs, there are some subjects about which very little can be written. Conversely, there are subjects about which a lot could be written, and their articles may still be stubs even if they are a couple of paragraphs long. As such, it is impossible to state whether an article is a stub based solely on its length, and any decision on the entry has to come down to an experienced editor's best judgement. Similarly, stub status usually depends on the length of prose text alone – lists, templates, images, and other such peripheral parts of an article are usually not considered when judging whether an article is a stub.

Ideal stub article

Any registered user may start a stub page.

When you write a stub, bear in mind that it should contain enough information for other editors to expand upon it. The key is to provide adequate details or context about the subject. Your initial research may be done either through books, newspapers, or reliable websites. You may also contribute knowledge acquired from other sources, but it is useful to conduct some research beforehand to ensure that your facts are accurate and unbiased, to avoid the need for further clean-up. Use your own words: directly copying other sources without giving them credit is plagiarism, and may in some cases be a violation of copyright.

Begin by describing or defining your topic. Write clearly and informatively. State, for example, what a person is known for, where a place is located and what it is famous for, or the basic details of an event and when it happened. This is normally called a lead sentence or lead paragraph. Here's an example:

Joseph Calleja (born 22 January 1978) is a world-renowned Maltese tenor.
or
Oscar Lucas (2 March 1921 - 11 August 1996) was a Maltese Jazz musician and Band Leader.

Next, try to expand upon this basic information. Internally link relevant words, so that users unfamiliar with the subject can understand what you have written and/or see how it relates to other people or things. Continuing on the previous example:

He began singing at the age of 16, having been discovered by vocal coach Brian Cefai, and eventually continued his studies with Paul Asciak.

Avoid linking words other than names needlessly; instead, consider which words may require further definition for a casual reader to understand the article. Lastly, a critical step: add sources for the information you have put into the stub. This can be done simply by including links to external sites. For example:

* Joseph Calleja's Official Website

A page is marked as a stub by simply placing the word stub between double pairs of curly brackets, like this: {{stub}}. This is normally placed at the very top of the page.

Once you create and save the stub entry, you and other editors will also be able to expand and enhance it.

How to mark an article as a stub

After writing a short article, or finding an unmarked stub, you should insert a stub template tag, which looks like this: {{stub}}

The stub template tag is placed at the top of the article, so that the stub notification appears before article content.

The stub template text has three parts: (1) an M3P related resources link to provide easy access to other pages that link to the stub's subject, (2) a short message encouraging other registered users to expand the page, and (3) a category tag placing the article in a stub category alongside other stubs.

Removing stub status

Once a stub has been properly expanded and becomes a larger article, any editor may remove its stub template. No administrator action or formal permission is needed. Stub templates are usually located at the top of the page, and look like this: {{stub}}.

Some entries still marked as stubs have in fact been expanded beyond what is regarded as stub size. Do not hesitate to remove stub tags that are clearly no longer applicable, especially if you've just added substantial information on that particular entry.

Using expand instead of stub

If an entry seems too large to be considered a stub but still needs expansion, the stub template may be removed and the more appropriate {{expand}} templates may be added instead. No entry should contain both a stub template and an expand template. This is because a {{stub}} implies both the fact that an entry is short and needs expanding, whereas an {{expand}} template is used to simply request that the information on a particular subject is expanded, even if there's already substantial information about that subject.

Stubbing existing entries

On occasion, an entry may have severe problems that require much of its content to be removed; such as self-promotional text without any factual information. If enough content is removed that all that remains is a stub, a stub template should be added to the article, if it does not already have one.

Locating stubs

See also

External links


W This page is adapted from similar material on Wikipedia.