On Wed, 21 Dec 2005, David Gerard wrote:
Angela wrote:
It's possible to add a stub category without adding a stub template. Perhaps this would be a suitable compromise between those who need the categories to be there and those who don't want multiple "this is a stub..." notices on one article? Compare http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ambrosius_Stub&oldid=27617688 with http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ambrosius_Stub&oldid=27615177, for example.
Who on Earth can remember the one trillion stub types? Not me. WikiProject Stub Sorting are the ones who know them.
For those revolted by multiple stubs (and I agree that they have all Geoff's listed points against them), the talk page could be workable - they wouldn't be blots on the article warranting {{toomanyboxes}} and they'd still be findable in the relevant stub category. WSS would need collective persuasion that this was a good idea, else they would likely assume it was an error and fix it.
You had me until that last sentence. I'm gonna continue with my "delete all but one stub template per article" ways until one of the folks from the Stub Sorting group decides to have a talk with me.
And before anyone thinks I'm in the process of irreparably destroying Wikipedia with my lawlessness (okay, as much destruction as removing stub templates can cause), let me state that on average I modify about one article a week for this reason. Some days, when I'm on a rip, I might strip stubs from as many as two or three articles. So it's not as if I'm attempting to imitate some grand scheme like Wik did, monitoring the changes on thousands of pages & reverting each one where he did not approve of the edit.
And I admit that I agree for the most part with that WikiProject's goals: one fat collection of articles under {{stub}} was just not workable. It's just that some times I have to wonder if all of the energy sorting these stubs wouldn't be better applied to making them into full-length articles, especially after Angela's example with [[Ambrosius Stub]] -- although now that I've had a moment to think about it, I suspect someone was having too much fun adding {{stub}}'s to Mr Stub's article.
However, I often encounter some real head-scratchers, such as [[Ibn Yasin]], whose article is marked with a {{philosopher-stub}} & an {{Islam-stub}}: just how many philosophy wonks are going to make a substantial change to an article about a West-African Islamic mullah? (At the moment, the most serious problem with this article is neither philosophical nor religious, but the least obvious: the date of his death. This article says it was 1059, another article 1056, & a book I borrowed from the local library says it was 1057. If I had more confidence in the book, I'd be bold & change them all to conform with it.)
What I see is the problem here is that eager new editors, who are looking for something easy to do, start adding every stub template or category label that fits the article they can think of. I know I've been overly enthusiastic in the past with some of my edits, so unless the WSS people insist that I stop my stub pruning or be hauled before the ArbCom, I'm assuming that most of these multiple stubs are the work of newbie editors who will outgrow this habit in a month or two.
Geoff
P.S. Had I known my email would have generated so many follow-ups, I would have changed the subject line. But I doubt I could have improved on Mark Gallagher's "stubification to the max!"