On Fri, 23 Dec 2005, Mark Gallagher wrote:
[quoting me; keeping attributions is always a good thing]
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.
I sometimes wonder if all the energy spent writing about minor characters in /Star Wars/ or /Pokemon/ wouldn't be better spent improving our articles on minor Australian politicians, but, as a number of Wikipedians I hold in high esteem (inc. David Gerard, Tony Sidaway, and of course Jimbo) have pointed out, you can't make people do the stuff they aren't interested in by taking away the stuff they are. Stub-sorting is a worthwhile effort; I don't think it's as useful as the WSS believe it is, but we're better off having those users concentrating on WSS matters than leaving altogether.
I have a feeling that we're talking past each other here, & not realizing that we're in general agreement on this matter, so let me just re-emphasize my primary criticisms with the WSS, which are two: the first is the creation of possibly unnecessary sub-categories of stubs, & the second is adding more than one stub to articles.
Now concerning the needless creation of sub-categories, I will admit that I can't think of a specific example, although whenever I encounter an existing stub moved to yet another new stub category my first reaction is that this was wasted effort. However, after a few days as I discover the usefulness of this change my opinon changes; it's a first impression that I admit I will always have, but try to keep to myself unless I find evidence that clearly confirms my suspicions.
As for the second criticism, as I wrote above, I can't help but believe it is a newbie error, because it demonstrates an misunderstanding of the usefulness of stub tags: I see similar abuse with category tags. What is really the value of adding the categories of "Ethiopia", "Rulers of Ethiopia", & "Members of Ethiopia" to [[Haile Selassie I]]? These categories link to each other, & fail to add useful content to the article. Only someone knowing that Haile Selassie was an important Ethiopian would misuse these categories to emphasize his importance -- a mistake I assume only a newbie would make.
In short, my criticism is not with the idea of a stub tag, but with how it is used -- or IMHO, abused.
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.
Worl, User:Grutness and User:Mairi are definitely not newbies; Grutness has been around since before the dinosaurs started smoking and doing drugs, and Mairi was recently made an admin.
I can't comment on the other two you've mentioned, but I've occasionally followed Grutness' efforts, & I haven't seen him add multiple stub tags to articles. He once even explained on his Talkl page his rationale for creating new sub-categories -- which in my opinion means I'll accept his decisions without question unless I think they are clearly in error. However, I haven't seen his name attached to examples of articles with multiple stub tags, so my suspicion that this is a newbie mistake still stands.
But as a general rule, I think you could be right. A lot of easy tasks (well, easier than editing, anyway) tend to attract newbies like so many annoying but unbiteable blowies. This even includes AfD, where teaching new editors that "AfD isn't a vote and even if it was the presumption that keep votes are worth twice as much as delete votes isn't 'unfair'[0]" is an ongoing effort.[1]
The one easy task I often indulge in is the creation of new links within articles; & I've noticed that there is a faction who believes that is often abused. There is a skill to the successful execution to even these "easy tasks", one that is not immediately apparent.
Geoff