Wikiquote talk:Stub

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Discussion Archive

Having raised the issue on the Village Pump, I'd like to discuss having a consensus vote on stub tag placement. Being from Wikipedia, I'm used to seeing stub tags at the bottom of articles, and I was suprised to find many of them at the top of Wikiquote pages. I've moved some to the bottom as part of general formatting (I find formatting is the most helpful job I can do here), assuming them to have been placed at the top by mistake.

I asked on the Village Pump whether there was a set standard, and Jeffq responded to my question. He was able to confirm that placing tags at the top was in fact the current policy, but also noted that the issue had never really been considered in depth (as far as he was aware).

I'd like to start the process of gauging community consensus for where tags should be placed, so a consensus-based standard can be set and articles tagged uniformly. Is a straw poll the best form for this, or do others have ideas on how to go about this? -- Essjay · Talk 11:01, 6 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

• I'm partial to the top, and this is because when a stub does grow, putting the tag at the bottom seems to ensure people will forget to remove the tag. This is from experience of weeding out the stub categories from long articles... ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 12:53, 6 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

• I can't say that I necessarily advocate one way over the other, but I've grown accustomed to placing them at the top, mostly to highlight the fact that an article is a stub (so that it is obvious when it is opened), but also for the reason that Moshe offers - it makes cleanup and removal of the tag more likely to occur. ~ UDScott 13:18, 6 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

• Personally, I don't care (I'm fairly new here, and I'll go with whatever the consensus is). I'd just like to have an acutal consensus so someone less consensus-friendly than myself doesn't cause problems moving them to the bottom. -- Essjay · Talk 14:02, 6 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

• I prefer the bottom, but I concede Moshe's point and will go along with standardizing on top placement. (BTW, I hope everyone is okay with my reformatting to bullet form for easier tallying of this informal polling.) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 21:20, 6 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

• Just my two cents: I've been cleaning up various stubs around WQ and usually find myself subconciously moving stub tags to the bottom, as I'm used to seeing them that way on WP (I do a lot of stub sorting there.) However, I agree with Moshe and UDScott that the stub tag being on the top helps to draw attention to the fact that the article is a stub, and I have no problem with them being placed there. I'll make sure I stop moving them to the bottom. Jaxl 01:21, 7 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

• The stubs at the top are annoying and greatly detract from the articles they are placed on. They should be at the bottom only. I also think the stub tag is being placed on too many articles. If an article has four or five very good quotes, plus a good introduction, I think in most cases an article is no longer a stub. BlankVerse 14:49, 5 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

• I'm in favor of stubs at the bottom: there're annoying at the top and tend to stay there for a long time anyway. I also agree that 4 or 5 good quotes are enough for removing the stub tag. iddo999 19:38, 5 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

• Having come over here from Wikipedia (where I've been doing a ton of stub-sorting), my tendency is to put them at the very bottom. I forget where I saw it, but in a discussion like this one that came up at WP, the question of "who is the stub tag for?" came up. If a stub tag is for editors who are looking to expand an article, then having it at the bottom is best, because they've specifically come to the article and don't need "This is a stub!" right in front of them. On the other hand, if the stub tags are more designed to try to entice lurkers to edit a page, then it makes more sense to have them at the top, because it makes it more likely that people will see it. I don't have any idea on what percentage of people will expand a stub-tagged article after seeing the tag (when they didn't already intend to), but my gut tells me that most people who read a page are reading for the quotes. In that case, throwing a stub tag as one of the first things is just a minor annoyance. Personally, I don't like the way the stub text looks sandwiched between the intro and the quotes; like some others, I'd been moving the stub tags to the bottom when I did edits, without realizing there was a guideline for it. As for what the threshold for a stub is, that's a whole other can of worms. —LrdChaos 20:33, 31 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

I have prepared a revision draft of this policy at Wikiquote:Stub/Draft. If anyone is interested in taking up discussion on this, please leave comments on the Draft's talk page. Also, a diff view of the current policy and the draft (showing the changes being made) is availabe here. If I don't see any discussion within the next week or so, I'll be bold and subst: the draft in. If the discussion takes off, I'll move towards a consensus poll once the discussion has borne fruit. -- Essjay · Talk 04:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Having seen no discussion, I've been bold and substituted the draft. Essjay ^{Talk • Contact} 07:54, 19 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

It seems like subs are handed out to everything that isnt the lenght of a wiki article and they are a eye sore.Its silly --Whywhywhy 10:57, 21 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

That's the point. If an article has only a few relevant lines, it's the very definition of a stub. In Wikiquote's case, if they only have a few quotes (say, less than 5), they're stubs, even if they have tons of other material. (Quotes are the essence of any Wikiquote article.) The proper way to remove a stub tag is to add enough (valid) quotes to give the article some real substance, then delete the tag. If you feel an article has been inappropriately tagged, you should say so on its talk page to encourage the tagging editor to justify the tagging. You can also post your question or complaint to their talk page, especially if you get no response on the article's talk page. I hope this information helps. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:52, 4 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

My point is that a complete quote page may only have 5 quotes ,but very good quotes and be complete, thus length is not the only factor deciding a complete page, holding wikiquote to the standards of wikipedia article lenghts is silly.--Whywhywhy 13:34, 5 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

Actually, I don't believe there is any formal number here. (Quick-reading the current Wikiquote:Stub, the only number I see mentioned for a non-stub article is the (intentionally vague) "beyond a few".) Anyone who feels an article is no longer a stub, regardless of the number of quotes, can remove the stub tag. If they are concerned it may be restored, they can forestall this with a brief justification on the article's talk page. Likewise, someone may restore the tag in the absence of such justification. If they restored a removed tag, they should definitely provide a justification. Once a discussion is started, the parties can work this out between them (and with community support). This is standard wiki practice. In short, don't be afraid to be bold, but be ready to explain your actions if there is disagreement. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 20:59, 5 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

How many quotes a page needs to not be considered a stub is something that I don't believe can every be defined with a single number that works for all cases. There are going to be pages where there's a potential for a lot of quotes, and if only a few (even as many as ten, let's say, when there could easily be a thousand) are present, or if the ones present only present a small part of the whole issue (for a concept) or of a person's beliefs and what-not, then the article would still be a stub. On the other hand, there are going to pages where only a few quotes are going to be appropriate, and three quotes could be about as many as you'd ever get. That wouldn't really be a stub, because there isn't room to expand much beyond that. I think the best you can do is to use vague definitions; I personally like to consider that something isn't a stub if the quotes present provide a good portion of everything there is to present on a given subject/person. For example, if there's a page for an author with a dozen books, but quotes are only listed for one, but there are a lot of quotes, that's still a stub, because there's a lot that hasn't been said. A page for a not-exceedingly famous person might only include two or three quotes, and that could be reasonably complete, and not a stub. It's my opinion that setting a fixed number to be considered a "stub" isn't going to fix the problem of over-use; if the number is too low, then the problem would just become under-use (i.e., many articles that I would consider stubs by my subjective criteria would be ineligible for stub tagging), and if it's too high, then you still have over-use (too many articles would be tagged as stubs when they're about as complete as they'll ever get). This same discussion happens over at WP, and there really isn't a resolution to it, except for a few people to try to say the same thing I am, which is that you can't really put a definite number (or article size in bytes at WP) on what makes a stub and what doesn't. —LrdChaos 20:43, 31 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

Well said. I just created Sheri S. Tepper with quotes from only one of her short stories. Even though I had 6 interesting quotes from this work handy, it still feels stubby to me because it's such a narrow view of her writings. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 21:52, 31 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

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