GenieWiki:Stub
From GenieWiki
Stubs are GenieWiki articles that have not yet received enough attention from editors, and do not yet contain enough information on their subject. In other words, they are lacking in content and require additions to further improve the article, and GenieWiki's usefulness. The community values stubs as useful first steps toward complete articles, and anyone can complete them, or contribute to completing them.
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Handling stubs
A stub is an article that is too short, but not so short as to be useless. In general, it must be long enough to at least define the article's title, which generally means 3 to 10 short sentences. Note that even a longer article on a complicated topic may be a stub; conversely, a short article on a topic of narrow scope may not be a stub. However in reality many articles which are labelled as stubs are much longer than that. You can help GenieWiki by removing inappropriate stub notices.
Another way to define a stub is an article so incomplete that an editor who knows little or nothing about the topic could improve its content after a few minutes of research on the given topic. An article that can be improved by only a rather knowledgeable editor, or after significant research, may not be a stub.
Sizeable articles which lack wikification (adding links and following the general style of a wiki article) or editing to improve formatting, spelling etc are generally not considered stubs, and the normal procedure is to clean the article up instead, or raise the subject on the talk page. Note that small articles with little information may end up being deleted or be merged into another relevant article. For example simple conditions in AoK are not given their own articles, but instead are kept within Conditions (AoK). If your article is very short consider either leaving/adding it to a larger article, or adding some more information to it if possible. A larger article is prefered to merging, but not if extra material is added just for this purpose, and is of little usefulness.
Ideal stub article
When you write a stub article, it is important to bear in mind that its main interest is to be expanded, and so it should ideally contain enough information to give a foundation for others to build on (no pun intended). Your initial research may be done either through experimenting, or through a reliable source such as articles, the forums etc. You may also simply write from your existing knowledge. It is useful to conduct a small amount of research beforehand, in order to make sure that your version of the facts is correct and from a neutral point of view. Ambigious statements and weasel words (words which make a general claim with no real support or evidence) are best avoided when possible, e.g. by making proper tests or citing a thread where a quote was first said.
Begin by giving a definition or description of the topic in question. Try to avoid fallacies of definition (e.g. defining a word with another similar word, or using words with unclear meaning). Since at times definitions are impossible, you should write a clear and informative description of the subject. State, for example, what a designer is well known for, what a campaign is about and why it is notable, or state the basic purpose of a website and who is involved in it.
Next, you should try to expand this basic definition. The previously mentioned research methods will often fetch you enough information for you to be able to expose the basic points of the subject. Once you have a couple of well-structured and well-written sentences, you should internally link relevant words, so that users unfamiliar with the specifics of a subject can understand what is written on the article. Avoid linking words needlessly; in case you are in doubt, you should use the preview button and try reading the article from the point of view of somebody who has had no exposure to information regarding the subject. If no word seems hard to comprehend or relevant enough, simply do not link anything.
Once you have submitted the new article, there are a number of courses it may take. An editor might get interested in it and develop it further, or you could expand it yourself once you have found greater information about the subject or once you have more free time on your hands. Even if it remains a stub, it is still far more useful than no infomation at all.
Categorizing stubs
After writing or finding the short article, the editor should add the article to Category:Stub by placing that very text at the bottom of the article (and below any other categories). To do that, simply add {{stub}} to the bottom of the page.
Because GenieWiki is still in its early stages, most articles will be stubs, so marking them as such may not be so crucial at this point. As the category grows bigger, stubs may have to be sorted by their subject to aid in dealing with them. This would also prove helpful for people who are e.g. interested mainly in map design, and could work on expanding map design stubs.
Removing stub status
Once a stub has been properly expanded and becomes an article rather than just a stub, you or any editor may remove it from the stub category simply by deleting the code {{stub}}. No admin action or formal permission is needed.
See Also
- Special:Shortpages - these shortest articles may be potential stubs
- Category:Stub - Location of all articles marked as stubs
