[WikiEN-l] What proportion of articles are stubs?

[Ray Saintonge]

On 11/29/10 5:46 PM, MuZemike wrote:
> And that's another problem that I am seeing more and more of. Call it
> simply being lazy, unable to write actual prose, or a combination
> thereof; but there are so many articles that get created that have only
> one (likely unsourced) sentence, a pretty infobox, a pretty navbox, a
> table, categories, and what other (stub) templates there.
>
> I would claim that infoboxes are the biggest culprit in that they are
> being substituted for "actual prose". If an article creator only has one
> actual sentence of prose to put forth, that is not much, and I would
> claim sheer laziness in the article creator's part.
>
> Especially with these stubs on locations, when you cannot provide any
> more information on a location than what would normally be presented in
> an organized list or even an atlas or map, one wonders if writing about
> a location in the form of an encyclopedia article is the most efficient
> way to go.
>

So fix it if it bothers you.  The French language article on Lanarce is 
much longer, and some of the material there could be translated.  I am 
not at all concerned about whether an article is a stub, but I realize 
that some people get very passionate about absences.  If half the stubs 
in a given category are expanded in a given block of articles within a 
year that's very good progress.

I can agree that having proper prose can be a positive feature, but if 
all the information that a reader might want is in the info box little 
is accomplished by turning that information into fine prose. The 
structured format may indeed be more efficient.

All articles start as stubs, and grow over time.  This does not happen 
evenly, but there is no need for some to whine about it.

Ec