TechInfoDepot:WikiProject Stub sorting

Some TechInfoDepotns have formed a project to better organize and categorize stubs and stub categories. This page and its subpages contain their suggestions; it is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of other TechInfoDepotns. Everyone is welcome to help; for more information please inquire on the talk page or see the "To do" list.

Project goals
This WikiProject aims primarily to sort stubs in TechInfoDepot. To do this the project has the following aims:
 * 1) Ensure better categorization of stubs
 * 2) Ensure that stubs are sorted as uniformly as possible
 * 3) Aim to keep categories at moderate sizes
 * 4) Maintain stub categories and templates
 * 5) Ensure that any new stub categories and templates are reasonable, usable, and useful

Why is stub sorting important?
Stub articles are generally short or below the high TechInfoDepot standard, or both. If they are not sorted, then it means they are less likely to be edited to higher quality as nobody necessarily knows the page is in need of attention. Even if a page is sorted into a category indicating it is in need of attention, such as the articles needing a cleanup, it is still not as good as putting it in a stub category. This is because stub categories attract experts in specific areas (chemists can see chemistry stubs for example), whereas generic cleanup and deadend categories do not.

Helpful hints

 * RTFM (read the friendly manual)
 * A field guide to stub sorters
 * When is a stub not a stub?

Parentage

 * One parent of this WikiProject is TechInfoDepot:Maintenance.
 * Another parent of this WikiProject is TechInfoDepot:WikiProject Templates.
 * The third parent of this WikiProject is TechInfoDepot:WikiProject Categories.

Structure

 * See TechInfoDepot:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types for more information on existing stub types.
 * See TechInfoDepot:WikiProject Stub sorting/List of stubs for a compact list of all stub types.

Guidelines and criteria

 * To see the current guidelines and other information on stub sorting and stubs in general, see: TechInfoDepot:Stub.

New stubs

 * To propose new stub categories/templates, see /Proposals.
 * List newly found stub categories/templates at /Discoveries.

Important page links

 * TechInfoDepot:Stub (WP:STUB) - official definition and instruction on stubs.
 * TechInfoDepot:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types (WP:WSS/ST) - lists all stub categories.
 * TechInfoDepot:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub type sizes - gives numbers of members of all stub categories.
 * TechInfoDepot:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals (WP:WSS/P) - for proposals on new stub types and other stub-related discussion.
 * TechInfoDepot:WikiProject Stub sorting/Discoveries (WP:WSS/D) - for newly-discovered stub types.
 * TechInfoDepot:Stub types for deletion (WP:SFD) - for deletion, merging or renaming of stub templates and categories.
 * TechInfoDepot:WikiProject Stub sorting/Criteria/Archive - for archives of old proposals and discussions.
 * TechInfoDepot:Most wanted stubs
 * Special:Shortpages
 * Category:Stub categories - the main list of stub categories and of articles contained within them''
 * Category:Stubs (CAT:STUB) - Articles tagged with generic stub. Frequently overpopulated and needs constant maintenance.
 * TechInfoDepot:Database reports/Stubs included directly in stub categories
 * TechInfoDepot:Database reports/Unused stub templates

Participants
The full list became too long for this page. It has been moved to Category:WikiProject Stub sorting participants. An older list is at TechInfoDepot:WikiProject Stub sorting/Participants.

Current number of participants is .

General rules

 * To put an article into a stub category, change the existing stub tag (if it exists) from stub to, for example, chem-stub if it is a chemistry stub.
 * Never subst stub templates.
 * The guideline TechInfoDepot:Manual of Style/Layout states that any stub tags should be placed at the very bottom of the article, after all other templates and categories. Two blank lines should be left between the first stub tag and whatever precedes it.
 * When sorted, you may leave an edit summary like this to encourage others to help:  Stub-sorting. You can help! 
 * You may wish to inform the creator of the stub that the use of stub is no longer recommended by putting   on their talk page. Alternatively, you may use.
 * No stub article should sit in only a stub category as this association is meant to be temporary. If no other category is listed, please add the standard article category that is the parent of the stub category.
 * Please remember to use the list of stub categories to make sure you are putting stubs in the correct category.
 * If the article is no longer a stub, remove the stub template. Refer to TechInfoDepot:Stub for more information on this matter.
 * If it interests you, consider checking talk pages of stub articles to see whether they've been tagged by some appropriate WikiProject. Adding a suitable project banner to a stub's talk page can help bring it to the attention of the right editors more quickly.

Things to do

 * See the project's "To do" list for those categories which are very large and those categories for which new sub categories have recently been added and thus need to be resorted.
 * Category:Stubs frequently reaches staggeringly large numbers; help is always needed sorting articles into more specific sub-stub categories.
 * All other stub categories need watching as well, to sort out mislabeled stubs and subsort them further, if applicable.
 * Stubs without any stub tags can be found on Special:Shortpages, Special:Newpages or Special:Randompage.
 * If a large (> 800 stubs) stub subcategory interests you and there aren't yet any subcategories in it, propose some subcategories at WP:WSS/P.
 * If you find new stub templates, list them at WP:WSS/D for discussion.
 * A longer list of oversized stub categories to be split, in order of size, is here: TechInfoDepot:WikiProject Stub sorting/To do. This might also be used as a holding area for proposals not yet created, and for sub-categories in need of being sorted-down into. Alai 17:30, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Tools
To shop for more tools, see TechInfoDepot:Tools or TechInfoDepot:Tools/Browser tools.
 * User scripts: A user script is a bit of JavaScript that gets loaded each time you visit a TechInfoDepot article and that does things for you. Their use is very varied. Some add popups to links, others make editing easier (regex search and replace), others change the way an article is formatted or simplify common tasks. Usually the script is copied into a user's .js file.
 * Navigation popups: Installed in a user's .js file, this causes a small box to pop up when your mouse hovers over a wikilink. The box can show you the first paragraph of an article, whether it's tagged as a stub, how many categories it has, etc. Can be useful for finding stubs and for categorizing an article according to the text in the first paragraph.
 * CatScan: Essentially a Boolean search tool. Enter a category or template and find items that use a different cat or template, find all items under a certain size, find images, etc.
 * AutoWikiBrowser: The AutoWikiBrowser is a semi-automated TechInfoDepot editor for Microsoft Windows 2000/XP (or newer) designed to make tedious repetitive tasks quicker and easier. It is essentially a browser that automatically opens up a new page when the last is saved. When set to do so, it suggests some changes (typically formatting) that are generally meant to be incidental to the main change. At present, AutoWikiBrowser can create a list of articles from single or multiple categories, "what links here", the wiki links on an article, a text file, a Google search, a user's watchlist, or a user's contributions. More about AWB...
 * : You can use this code to force an article to sort correctly (i.e. without an article, or by last name first), no matter what category it's in, even in stub categories. From the January 2007 Technology Report:
 * The default sort key of a page for categories can be changed using the new magic word. For instance, on George Washington,  would cause a subsequent  to be equivalent to , not  . This is especially useful when the article belongs in many categories.

Project templates
These are the project's templates. They are not the same as the stub templates used by the project.
 * Template WPSS-cat is used at the top of stub categories. It appears like this:


 * Template Stub category is also used at the top of stub categories. It appears like this:


 * Template Parent-only stub category is similar to Stub category, and is for parent-only categories It appears like this:


 * Template Underpopulated stub category is used on pages for new stub categories which need to be populated. It appears like this:


 * Template Upmerged stub category is used on category pages where there are upmerged templates feeding into that category. It appears like this:


 * Template Very large stub is used at the top of stub categories which are oversized. It appears like this:


 * Template WPSS-new is used on some of the project's discussion pages, and on other pages related to stubs. It appears like this:


 * Template WikiProject Stub sorting is used on the talk pages of some more editwar-prone stub templates. It appears like this:


 * Template WPSS-talk is used on the talk pages of some stub categories and templates. It appears like this: