On Monday 23 September 2002 02:32 pm, The Cunctator wrote:
To implement this we need two components:
- a way of denoting "insufficient" entries (or "sub-stubs" or
"micro-stubs", etc.) similar to the "watch this page" function
- a way of marking such entries in the text of the entries; e.g. different
link coloration or a "!" instead of a "?"
This has already been suggested in one way or another by several people now, including me. This could in fact be married with the proposed 500 byte/character article definition cut-off whereby any page that is less than 500 characters yet meets the current criteria for automatic article detection would be marked as being a stub.
I could also see having a function where an article that is above the 500 character minimum threshold but is still obviously inadequate to human eyes to be even a minimal article on the subject, could be "voted" to be counted as a stub.
For example, a 700 character article on US history could only be a stub under most anybody's definition -- a simple list of major conflicts the US has been involed in and the most important presidents and generals would be more than 1000 characters. On the other hand, a 510 character article on some obscure Mayan god that even most present day Maya decendents are unaware of, could possibly classify as a minimal article and not a stub so long as it is well written. So I see the range of 500 to a 1000, or maybe even, 1500 bytes as the major subjective stubiness realm.
Of course, I still argue that that 95+% of encyclopedia topics objectively can't be covered even as minimal articles with fewer than 500 characters. I would further argue that it is not possible to have a decent definition using fewer than 100 characters, but that is a different thread....
It is very interesting that you mention the use of ! for denoting stubs -- a newbie posted /exactly/ that suggestion on my talk page. It is strange sometimes how the same idea is simultaneously proposed by several different people at once. I guess good ideas are infectious. :-)
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
PS, I'm still a bit mad, but I'm glad we are on rational speaking terms again Cunctator.