Stub
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Basic information
A stub is an article containing only a few sentences of text which is too short to provide encyclopedic coverage of a subject, but not so short as to provide no useful information. Sizable articles are usually not considered stubs, even if they lack wikification or copy editing. With these articles, a cleanup template is usually added instead of a stub template. Note that small articles with little properly sourced information or with no inherent notability may end up being nominated for deletion or be merged into another relevant article.
While a "definition" may be enough to qualify an article as a stub, Wikipedia is not a dictionary. If little other information is ever likely to be added, the entry should go to our sister project, Wiktionary. The distinction between dictionary and encyclopedia articles is best expressed by the use-mention distinction: A dictionary article is about a word or phrase; an encyclopedia article is about the subject denoted by that word or phrase. Rather than copying such an article to Wiktionary yourself, you may add Template:Tl to it.
Ideal stub article
- See also: Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles.
Any registered editor may start a stub article.
When you write a stub, bear in mind that it should contain enough information for other editors to expand upon it. The key is to provide adequate context — articles with little or no context usually end up being speedily 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, in order to ensure that your facts are accurate and unbiased. Use your own words: directly copying other sources is plagiarism, and may in some cases be a violation of copyright.
Begin by defining or describing your topic. Avoid fallacies of definition. Write clearly and informatively. State, for example, 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.
Next, try to expand upon this basic definition. Internally link relevant 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. Once you create and save the article, other editors will also be able to enhance it.
Categorizing stubs
After writing a short article, or finding an unmarked stub, you should insert a stub template. By convention this is placed at the end of the article, after the External links section, any navigation templates, and the category tags, so that the stub category will appear last. It is usually desirable to leave two blank lines between the first stub template and whatever precedes it. Stub templates are transcluded not substituted.
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 a stub category alongside other stubs on the same topic. The naming for stub templates usually topic-stub; a list of these templates may be found here. You need not learn all the templates — even simply adding Template:Tl helps. 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 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 centralized at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting (shortcut WP: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. No administrator action or formal permission is needed. Many articles still marked as stubs have in fact been expanded beyond what is regarded as stub size. Be bold in removing stub tags that are clearly no longer applicable.
