Wikipedia:Stub

For proposing new stub articles, seeWikipedia:Articles for creationandWikipedia:Requested articles.

Astubis an article deemed too short and incomplete to provide encyclopedic coverage of a subject. As of 2024, almost half of Wikipedia's articles could be considered stubs.

This page provides a general guide for dealing with stubs: the first section,Basic information,contains information that is recommended for most users; and the second section,Creating stub types,contains more specialized material.

Existing stub categories can be found atWikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types,as maintained by the WikiProject Stub improvementcollaborative.

Basic information

Astubis an article that, although lacking the breadth of coverage expected from an encyclopedia, provides some useful information and is capable of expansion. Non-article pages, such as disambiguation pages, lists, categories, templates, talk pages, andredirects,are not regarded as stubs.

If a stub has littleverifiableinformation, or if its subject has no apparentnotability,it may bedeletedor bemergedinto another relevant article.

While a "definition"may be enough to qualify an article as a stub,Wikipedia is not a dictionary.The distinction between dictionary and encyclopedia articles is best expressed by theuse–mention distinction:

• A dictionary article isabouta word or phraseand will often have severaldifferentdefinitions for it
• An encyclopedia article isabout the subjectdenoted bythe titlebut usually has onlyone definition(or in some cases, several definitions that are largely thesame) but there may beseveral equivalent words (synonyms) or phrases for it.

Sizable articles are usually not considered stubs, even if they have significant problems or are noticeably incomplete. With these larger articles, acleanup templateis usually added instead of a stub template.

How big is too big?

Over the years, different editors have followed differentrules of thumbto help them decide when an article is likely to be a stub. Editors may decide that an article with more than ten sentences is too big to be a stub, or that the threshold for another article may be 250 words. Others follow theDid you know?standard of 1,500characters in the main text,which is usually around 300 words.

There is no set size at which an article stops being a stub.While very short articles are very likely to be stubs, there are some subjects about which very littlecanbe written. Conversely, there are subjects about which a lot could be written, and their articles may still be stubs even if they are a few paragraphs long. As such, it is impossible to state whether an article is a stub based solely on its length, and any decision on the article has to come down to an editor's best judgment (the user essay on theCroughton-London rulemay be of use when trying to judge whether an article is a stub). Similarly, stub status usually depends on the length of prose text alone; lists,templates,images, and other such peripheral parts of an article are usually not considered when judging whether an article is a stub.

That said,AutoWikiBrowseris frequently set to automatically remove stub tags from any article with more than 500 words. This threshold was chosen because it is very unlikely that any article containing more than 500 words is correctly classified as stub.

Creating and improving a stub article

See also:Wikipedia:Writing better articles

A stub should contain enough information for other editors to expand upon it. The key is to provide adequatecontext—articles with little or no context usually end up beingspeedily deleted.Your initial research may be done either through books or reliable websites. You may also contribute knowledge acquired from other sources, but it is useful to conduct some research beforehand to ensure that your facts are accurate andunbiased.Use your own words: directly copying other sources without giving them credit isplagiarism,and may in some cases be a violation ofcopyright.

Begin by defining or describing your topic. Avoidfallacies of definition.Write clearly and informatively. State what a person is famous for, where a place is located and what it is known for, or the basic details of an event and when it happened. As of 2024, most stubs contain two to seven sentences (50–150 words).

Next, try to expand upon this basic definition. Internallylinkrelevant words, so that users unfamiliar with the subject can understand what you have written. Avoid linking words needlessly; instead, consider which words may require further definition for a casual reader to understand the article. Most stubs link out to 5–20 other Wikipedia articles, often averaging about two links per sentence.

Lastly, a critical step: addsourcesfor the information you have put into the stub; seeciting sourcesfor information on how to do so in Wikipedia. Most stub articles have one to threeinline citations;some also list sources at the end of the page, asgeneral references.

How to mark an article as a stub

After writing a short article, or finding an unmarked stub, you should insert astub template.Choose from among the templates listed atWikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types,or if you are unsure what template to use, just use a generic {{stub}}, which others can sort later. Stubs should never be manually added to stub categories—always use a template.

Per theManual of Style,the stub template is placed at theendof the article,aftertheExternal linkssection,anynavigation templates,and thecategory tags,so that the stub category will appear after all article content.Leave two blank lines between the first stub template and whatever precedes it(one blank line leaves the stub category notice butted up against any preceding navigation template; it takes two blank lines in the edited text to produce one blank line in the displayed text). As with all templates, stub templates are added by simply placing the name of the template in the text between double pairs of curly brackets (e.g., {{Wikipedia-stub}}). Stub templates aretranscluded,notsubstituted.

Stub templates have two parts: a short message noting the stub's topic and encouraging editors to expand it, and a category link, which places the article in astub categoryalongside other stubs on the same topic. The naming for stub templates is usuallytopic-stub;a list of these templates may be foundhere.You need not learn all the templates—even simply adding{{stub}}helps (seethis essayfor more information). The more accurately an article is tagged, however, the less work it is for other sorters later, and the more useful it is for editors looking for articles to expand.

If a more specific stub template than is currently on an article exists and completely covers the subject of the article, remove the more general template and replace it with the more specific type (for example, an article on Morocco may be stubbed with{{Africa-stub}}.If it issolelyabout Morocco, remove the template and replace it with{{Morocco-stub}}– don't simply add{{Morocco-stub}}and leave{{Africa-stub}}in place). One specific template can often replace multiple more general types (for example,{{UK-sport-bio-stub}}can replace both{{UK-bio-stub}}and{{sport-bio-stub}}).

If an article overlaps several stub categories, more than one template may be used, but it is strongly recommended that only those relating to the subject's main notability be used. A limit of three or, if really necessary, four stub templates is advised.

Stub-related activities are centralised atWikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting(shortcutWikipedia:WSS). This project should be your main reference for stub information, and is where new stub types should be proposed for discussion prior to creation.

Removing stub status

Once a stub has been properly expanded and becomes a larger article, any editor may remove its stub template. Noadministratoraction or formal permission is needed. Stub templates are usually located at the bottom of the page, and usually have a name like{{something-stub}}if you are using the classic wikitext editor rather thanVisualEditor.

Many articles still marked as stubs have in fact been expanded beyond what is regarded as stub size. If an article is too large to be considered a stub but still needs expansion, the stub template may be removed and appropriate{{expand section}}templates may be added (no article should contain both a stub template and an expand template).

When removing stub templates, users should also visit the talk page and update the WikiProject classifications as necessary.

Be boldin removing stub tags that are clearly no longer applicable.

Locating stubs

This section is about finding articles already tagged as a stub. To find the appropriate stub template to tag an article with, see§ How to mark an article as a stub.

• Category:Stub categoriesthe main list of stub categories and of articles contained within them
• Category:Stubsdeprecated, but still receives a few articles periodically
• Special:Shortpages

These categories can be used withAutoWikiBrowser(AWB) to make bulk changes to stub types, or the sub-program within AWB calledDataBase Scannercan be used to find articles by number of characters or words to locate potential stubs needing categorization or other tagging and/or expansion. This stand-alone application requiresthe operator be approvedand the installation of the program on a personal computer (Linux, Mac, or PC). An alternate process using the web-based toolPetScan(no installation required) can also be used to locate articles by minimum or maximum size, the intersection of stub categories along with another category of interest, templates on the page, date of last edit, and namespace.

Creating stub types

Please propose new stub types atWikiProject Stub sorting/Proposalsso that they may be discussed before creating them.

In general, astub typeconsists of astub templateand a dedicatedstub category,although"upmerged" templatesare also occasionally created which feed into more general stub categories.

If you identify a group of stub articles that do not fit an existing stub type, or if an existing stub category is growing very large, you can propose the creation of a new stub type which is debated atWikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals.

Example

An example of a stub template is{{Website-stub}},which produces:

The stub category,Category:Website stubs,lists all articles containing the{{Website-stub}}template.

Guidelines

Several guidelines are used to decide whether a new stub type is useful. These include the following:

1. Is there a stub type for this topic already? (CheckWikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types.)
2. Will the new type be well-defined? (Stub categories are a tool used by editors to expand articles. Good topic definition makes stubs easier to sort accurately.)
3. Does the new stub type cover ground not covered by other type, or create a well-defined subtype that does?
4. Will there be a significant number of existing stubs in this category? (Ideally, a newly created stub type has 100–300 articles. In general, any new stub category should have aminimumof 60 articles. This threshold is modified in the case of themainstub category used by aWikiProject.)
5. Would your new stub type overlap with other stub types? (Stub types form a hierarchy and as such are usually split in specific ways. Compare other stub splits atWikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types.)
6. If you are breaking a subtype out of an existing type, will the new creation reduce the size of the parent by a significant amount? (This is not an absolute necessity, but is often a catalyst for the creation of stub categories. Stub categories containing over 800 articles are typically considered to be "over-sized", and in need of such sub-types.)

If you think you have satisfied these guidelines, it ishighly recommendedthat you propose the new stub type atstub type proposals page.This allows for debate on matters relating to the stub type that may not have occurred to the proposer, and also allows for objections if the split does not satisfy stub guidelines. If there are no objections within five days, you may create the new stub type.

New stub templates

After the creation of a new stub type has been discussed atWikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposalsand agreed upon, a template can be created. The name of this should follow thestub type naming conventions,and will usually be decided during the discussion process.

All stub templates should link to a stub category. This may be a category specific to the topic of the template, or the template might be "upmerged" to one or more less specific categories – for example, a template for Andorran history might link to a stub category for European history and a general Andorran stub category. This is often thought to be desirable when a stub type is proposed in anticipation of future use, but is not currently over the size threshold; or where an existing stub type has a finite number of well-defined subdivisions, with some numerically viable as subtypes, and others not.

As stub templates can sort articles into more general categories, the bar for the creation of a stub template is not as high as the bar for the creation of a dedicated stub category; a template should still be used on more than just one or two pages, but does not necessarily require 60. In fact, the creation of a stub template may be a helpful tracking tool for determining whether the topic is approaching the 60-article minimum to justify a category, as the template's "what links here" can be used to count how many articles are using the template.

Adding a small image to the stub template (the "stub icon" ) is permitted, so long as the image ispublic domainor has a free license—fair useimages must not be used in templates. Stub icons should be small, preferably no more than about 40px in size.

The standard code for stub templates is found at:{{asbox}}.This template can be used (withoutsubstitution).

New stub categories

The name of the stub category should also have been decided during the proposal process and will also follow thenaming guidelines.

The text of a stub category should contain a definition of what type of stubs are contained in it and an indication of what template is used to add stubs to it. The{{WPSS-cat}}template should also be placed on the category, to indicate that it has been created after debate atWikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals.The new stub category should also be added to theWikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub typeslist.

The new stub category should be correctly added into other categories. These should include at least three specific categories:

• The analogous permanent category ( "permcat" )
• At least one higher level ( "parent" ) stub category
• Category:Stub categories

Thus, for example,Category:France stubs,should be in an equivalent permcat (Category:France), parent stub category (Category:Europe stubs), andCategory:Stub categories.

The creation of stub categories can be partially automated by using{{Stub category}}as follows: {{Stub category|article=[[A]]|newstub=B|category=C}}

A:Insert the description of the category here.

B:Insert the name of the new stub template here.

C:Insert the name of an appropriate parent non-stub category.

In the example given above, the formatting would look like this: {{Stub category|article=[[France]]|newstub=France-stub|category=France}} which would produce this:

This category is for stub articles relating toFrance.You can help by expanding them.
To add an article to this category, use{{France-stub}}instead of{{stub}}.

This syntax also automatically adds the new category toCategory:Stub categories,though parent stub categories and{{WPSS-cat}}still need to be added manually. It also automaticallypipesthe stub category with "Σ", so that appears at the end of the list of subcategories in non-stub category C. This effectively moves it away from navigation categories to place it alongside other editing- and cleanup-related categories.

If you have some doubts or comments regarding any part of the process, do not hesitate to address them or ask for assistance atWikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting.

Stubbing existing articles

On occasion, an article may have significant problems that create opportunities to remove most of its content. This may be done in response to an article that is heavilybiased,eitherfororagainstits subject; in response to an article that has some verifiable material but is otherwise full oforiginal research,self-published,orprimarysources; in response to aVRT complaint;or a variety of other reasons.

If enough content is removed that all that remains is a stub, a stub template should be added to the article, if it does not already have one.

Stub types, WikiProjects, and assessment templates

This stub really needs expansion.

When a newWikiProjectcommences, one of the first things its creators often do is decide whether or not a specificstub typeshould be created for it. Often there is no real problem, as WikiProject topics frequently coincide with subjects of specific stub types. On other occasions, there will be no specific stub type, and thus a new type should be proposed.

Occasionally, a WikiProject will seek to have a stub category which is too small, or a stub type which runs contrary to the way stubs are normally split. This can create conflict between that project and WikiProject Stub sorting, or, more importantly, between that one stub type and one or moreotherstub types. Even where there is an existing stub type, there may be conflict, as often the definition of a topic as used for stub sorting may not be identical to that used by its specific WikiProject. It should be remembered in cases like this that, while a specific WikiProject may be looking for a solution for its concerns, WikiProject Stub sorting is attempting to make a coherent and cohesive system that works foralleditors. The system needs to be as compatible as possible with the needs ofallWikiProjects, and also with the needs of casual editors, and others who are participants in any WikiProject.

Assessment templatesare a way around this problem, and more often than not a far more useful tool for WikiProjects. Assessment templates have several distinct advantages over stub types for WikiProjects. The templates are placed on article talk pages, where they are less likely to be seen as controversial (the placing of stub templates on controversial articles has frequently been a source ofedit warring). They allow all articles within a topic area to be assessed and catalogued by a related project—not just stub articles. They allow an indication to be made of exactly what work needs to be done on an article. They also allow workgroups that are subgroups of WikiProjects to have their own specific templates that are better suited to their tasks.

See also

• Wikipedia:Content assessment
• Wikipedia:Stub Makers
• List of stub templates(or the easier-to-load list of subpageshere)
• Wikipedia:Requested articles,Wikipedia:Most-wanted articles
• Wikipedia:Writing better articlesfor help expanding stubs
• Category:Wikipedia essays about stubs,including:
  • Wikipedia:Make stubs
  • Wikipedia:Permastub(permanent stubs)
  • Wikipedia:When to use the generic stub tag