AGHSReunions:Stub
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Basic information
A stub is an article containing only a few sentences to a few paragraphs of text that is too short to provide encyclopedic coverage of a subject, but not so short as to provide no useful information. Not every short article is automatically a stub; if there just is not much to say about a topic, and if the article says pretty much everything there is to say, then the article is not a stub. Note that a topic on which there is very little to discuss, there are few or no references, or the subject has no inherent notability, then it may not belong in this wiki at all. Such articles may be deleted or be merged into another relevant article
We strive for articles that are more like articles you might find in an encyclopedia rather than simple definitions like in a dictionary. The distinction between dictionary and encyclopedia articles is best expressed by the use–mention distinction: A dictionary article is about a word or phrase; an encyclopedia article is about the subject denoted by that word or phrase. Another way of thinking about it is that you usually use a dictionary for a quick definition of an unfamiliar term, but you use an encyclopedia to learn about a particular topic. Articles may start out as a brief definition, but they should be expanded into a full article as quickly as possible; articles that remain essentially dictionary definitions may be deleted or be merged into another relevant article.
Creating a stub article
You may find that an article needs to be created, but you are not very familiar with the topic, or perhaps you do not have time to fully research the topic in order to write a full-length article. No problem! Creating a stub article helps get the ball rolling, and it gives other editors a starting point from which to build upon.
Anyone who has an active account may start a stub article. Remember that stub articles should contain enough information for other editors to expand upon it. The key is to provide adequate context — articles with little or no context usually end up being speedily deleted. Your initial research may be done either through reliable websites, books, or sometimes personal recollection (such as if you are writing about an event you witnessed in the past). You may also contribute knowledge acquired from other sources, but it is helpful to conduct some research before starting, to ensure that your facts are accurate and unbiased.
Copyright infringement and plagiarism are serious concerns here, and you may not copy another person's work without their expressly given permission. If the person has released their work under an acceptable license, then their permission has been given in advance. All you need to do is identify the license and provide adequate attribution (usually required, and always a good idea) to the author. One way to do so is by adding the license type (GFDL, CC-BY-2.0, etc.) and a link to the original source in your edit summary. Another way is to include a citation reference to the original source; this is especially appropriate for long quotes of material. If you copy an entire article verbatim from another source (something that is discouraged, but acceptable under certain licenses, you must identify the entire article as imported and the license that therefore applies to the work; you must also include a full attribution in the talk page of the article that meets the requirements of the license (the GFDL, used on Wikipedia material and on many other Wikis, is very particular about this requirement).
Begin your stub article by defining or describing the topic. This information should be a brief paragraph that summarizes the key points about the topic. The first sentence should nearly always include the topic in boldface (use three apostrophes in front of and following the topic to display in boldface). Avoid fallacies of definition. Write clearly and informatively. State, for example, what a person is famous for, where a place is located and what it is known for, or the basic details of an event and when it happened.
- The following is an example of how to format and structure an opening paragraph for an article.
A detailed explanation is available of what each part of this example does.
'''John Doe''' (born {{Birth date|1970|1|31}}) is an [[w:Agatha Award|]] winning mystery writer from [[Arroyo Grande]], [[California]]. He graduated from [[Arroyo Grande High School]] in [[Class of 1988|1988]]. He later graduated from [[Cal Poly]] in [[Cal Poly Class of 1992|1992]] with a [[w:Bachelor or Arts|BA]] degree in Literature. He is married and has two children.
The above text would appear like this in an article:
John Doe (born January 31 1970) is an Agatha Award winning mystery writer from Arroyo Grande, California. He graduated from Arroyo Grande High School in 1988. He later graduated from Cal Poly in 1992 with a B.A. degree in Literature. He is married and has two children.
Next, try to expand upon this basic definition. Internally link relevant words, so that users unfamiliar with the subject can understand what you have written. Avoid linking words 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; see citing sources for information on how to do so in Wikipedia.
After you create and save the article, other editors will also be able to enhance it.
Categorizing stubs
After creating a stub article or finding an unmarked stub, you should insert a stub template. By convention this is placed at the end of the article, after the External links section, any navigation templates, but before the category tags. This will cause the stub category to appear last. It is usually desirable to leave two blank lines between the first stub template and whatever precedes it. Stub templates are transcluded never substituted.
Stub templates have two parts: (1) a short message noting the stub's topic and encouraging editors to expand it, and (2) a category link, which places the article in a stub category alongside other stubs on the same topic. The naming for stub templates is usually topic-stub; a list of these templates is available. You need not learn all the templates — even simply adding {{stub}} helps. The more accurately an article is tagged, however, the less work it is for other sorters later, and the more useful it is for editors looking for articles to expand.
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 maximum of two stub templates (or three if really necessary) is advised.
Updating stub status
Once a stub has been properly expanded and becomes a larger article, any editor may remove its stub template. No [[AGHSReunions:Administrator|]] action or formal permission is needed to remove a stub tag.
Many articles still marked as stubs have in fact been expanded beyond what is regarded as stub size. If an article is too large to be considered a stub but still needs expansion, replace the stub template with an {{expand}} template (no article should contain both a stub template and an expand template).
Be bold in removing stub tags that are clearly no longer applicable or adding one when it is needed.
Locating stubs
- AGHSReunions:Stub types - information about and a complete list of standard stub templates
- Category: Stubs - the main list of stub categories and of articles contained within them
- CAT:STUBS - the same thing
- Special:Shortpages - a list of pages ranked from shortest to longest
- By setting stub threshold in your Preferences to a maximum number of bytes for a page to be placed in class "stub" for markup purposes.
