Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting

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see Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals.

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February 2005 February 15, 2005 March 2005 May 2005 June 2005 March 2006 September 2006 March 2007 Dec 2006-Apr 2007 Apr-July 2007 July-Dec 2007 Jan-Jun 2008

Changes to Opera stubs

I understand changes are being made to opera stubs. Can you please tell the editors at the Opera Project what you propose to do? Up to now one simple stub has been used (most of the time) and that has met the needs of editors perfectly well. Changes to stubs, especially the creation of new ones, can cause problems with categorization etc. Stubs are not just for aesthetic appreciation! Thanks. --Kleinzach 02:45, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Outreach

Grutness raises a good point in the ongoing Opera stub split discussion which I feel deserves further discussion: Perhaps no-one involved in opera editing said that the stub category was close to being broken because none of them are regularly involved in stub sorting. If they had been, they would probably have proposed some form of split here themselves. It got me thinking we could do more regular outreach so other WikiProjects understand what WikiProject Stub sorting does before a lot of their stubs are sorted. The way I got involved in stub sorting was that I saw a lot of stubs on my watchlist sorted and wondered what was going on. Although they shouldn't be, a lot of folk are possessive over pages on their watchlist. I was thinking we could post a standard message on the WPJ talkpages every six months (say) and bumpf up the pages here about what WPSS does. Projects who are already involved we could either put on an exclusion list or post a different standard message. Severo^TC 10:06, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

It's a good plan. I aim to canvass for any time any time I propose anything a related WPJ might consider "novel", but frequently the will falters. We might want to try working our way down the "by size" list, making sure that we've had at least some sort of contact with related projects, even if we aren't currently proposing a split. Something on the lines of, "you have a stub type that's so oversized we haven't worked out what to do with it for the past year and a half", or "you have a large but not (yet) oversized stub type; at some point you may wish to consider splitting it up".

One idea I had -- but never did anything to implement -- is that where we're starting with an existing oversized type, we have some sort of "tracking template" on the category talk page -- or perhaps even integrated in some way into {{verylargestub}}. Basically indicating whether a splitting scheme is needed, proposed, approved, underway, etc, ideally linking into the relevant discussion. It would be useful for our own purposes, and it would also provide a "heads up" for anyone actually bothering to use the category page in person. It might be better than explicit "come comment" messages, which often fall on deaf ears, result in a discussion in the "wrong" place, or else a "let's not bother" grade of response. Alai (talk) 23:57, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

sounds like a good idea. A standard message to Wprojects when they are likely to be involved in a splitting process is easily templatised, too (something like {{Projectstubannounce|foo stubs}} returning "Hi - a debate is about to start at WP:WSS/P about a possible split of Cat:Foo stubs into subtypes..."). That could easily be placed on WProject talk pages. Grutness... 00:51, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

My story is very similar to Severo's and I think outreach is a very good idea. Prioritizing oversized stub categories' wikiprojects is a good idea, but also those projects with lots of stub categories. The api.php and Category pages have made it much easier to see category sizes. I wish it was easier to make "active" pages on the wiki without admin (to add global javascript) or developer (to tweak special pages) status. I wrote some XSLT that snags things from api.php and combines them into a report, but it has to have a base document to run from, which requires some sort of external link or javascript. JackSchmidt (talk) 05:33, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

WPJs with lots of stub types are likely to be somewhat more aware of the whole splitting/whoops-too-big routine. But if they haven't done it for a while, or indeed if they have the opposite "problem" (lots of marginally-sized stubcats), it might be a good idea to remind them of the size clause of the stub guidelines. What sort of "active" page had you in mind? Something to track size status with respect to the size threshold? It'd be possible to handle that by bot... Alai (talk) 16:43, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Yup. One important part about WPJs is that the people involved actually change, so talking to them every 6 months to a year is probably a good idea, just to introduce our project to the new members. As far as active pages, yup. I make pages that load a little slowly (5-10 seconds), but are "live" in that they query api.php to get the information. I usually just make them standalone webpages, since it is hard to make them as wikipedia pages (a little javascript or xslt or something is usually needed to combine/filter/sort the information). Definitely they can be done by running a bot, but I don't have a bot account, and it seems like there is a lot of red tape involved for each task (I'm happy to comment on a bot approval if you want to have AlaiBot do this). JackSchmidt (talk) 15:00, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Delinking dates in template scoping statements?

Does anyone see any logic whatsoever in edits like this? This looks like a programme to remove overlinking from the article space that's wandered somewhat blithely into the arena of stub templates. Alai (talk) 02:47, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Seems like another AWB bug. I wish they would deactivate their more brutal fixes outside of the main space. I think we've all seen AWB attack a stub category page (for instance, taking a nice list of refinements of the stub category and moving them all to the bottom). Looking at Lightmouse's contribs, there are quite a few that might need to be reverted. JackSchmidt (talk) 05:36, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

1980s probably shouldn't be linked there... either way as AWB is user controlled you can't blame the programme for something an editor has decided to do. Severo^TC 08:41, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

It's user controlled but there are a set of fixes it will offer to do, which the user only needs to cast a quick eye over (like changine [[Cat|cats]] to [[cat]]s, so it's unhelpful if this set includes things which on balance shouldn't be done! But, like Severo, I'm not sure why or whether 1980s needs to be linked within stub description. PamD (talk) 09:29, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

"Need" would certainly be putting rather strongly: it's not a huge deal either way. But the norm seems to be to link defining elements of the scoping statement, and I certainly don't see a need to remove them: I certainly don't think that it's wise to apply article-text MoS considerations unqualifiedly here. Alai (talk) 13:16, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Are there any wires in the area, like a TV wire? Is there an A-frame? 24.109.207.40 (talk) 14:25, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I think what the IP is suggesting is that the problem User:Alai pointed out could be solved, if only there were a type of virtual A-frame and some connecting wire. It's not at all a bad suggestion, technically speaking, but it's impractical for use on Wikipedia. Perhaps someone could construct a Whisper Gold? Swamilive (talk) 18:22, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm strongly inclined to believe you're both, in technical terms, attempting to pull our legs. If not, you're making yourself distinctly obscure. Alai (talk) 12:37, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

id="stub"

copied across from WP talk:Stub. Grutness...

Because the box standard for stub templates is apparently to wrap them inside a <div class="boilerplate metadata" id="stub">, XHTML errors are generated by pages containing multiple stub templates, as all id attributes on a page should be unique. This concern was raised at the village pump and I offered two possible solutions, so I invite everyone interested in stub template formats to comment here. — CharlotteWebb 13:42, 5 June 2008 (UTC)