Talk:Malduoni

When is a stub a stub?

So here's a question: when is a stub a stub? Is a stub article merely a very short article, or is it a short, incomplete article? In this particular case, the information provided in this article is in fact all that has been written on Malduoni personally. If the information in the wiki is everything that is currently known, is it actually a stub? I always thought of a stub article as being merely a placeholder, a way of saying, "There's a lot more information here, but we haven't added it yet". Do I need to amend my definition to include complete, if short articles? --brandingopportunity 15:08, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

It's a good question, and one we should address as a community. I think any article that is both short and for which there is more published information should certainly be a stub. An article that just doesn't include all sources on it should not be, in my opinion, automatically a stub. I have been using the rule of thumb that any article with less than three sentences in the main body is a stub, regardless of source material. This might not be how we want to proceed with stubs going forward, though, and it's worth discussing more openly than in this particular article's talk page. --yoda8myhead 15:23, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree, it's definitely worth addressing; there's many ways of defining what a stub is, none of which are without their inconsistencies. I don't know if it's even possible to determine, at least not in a general sense, but at the same time there's no reason we shouldn't attempt to do so. -- Heaven's Agent 16:42, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

So what is everyone's opinion? Should a stub be defined as a short article of three or less sentences, or should it be a short article of three or less sentences that has information missing? --brandingopportunity 21:02, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. If we set the definition as "a short article of three or less sentences" it would also include articles of the same size which could be made longer by including additional sources. There are times, I think, that even longer articles would count as stubs based on whether they feel complete or if they are missing substantial chunks of available information. But I don't think we should expect everyone making edits to know what information is and isn't available for something. If someone only has the CS, for example, they might have no idea if the single paragraph they're writing on some ancient culture is not "complete" due to a PFS scenario that details it further. No matter what we decide, I think there will always be exceptions and there will always be instances in which tagging something a stub doesn't really have any justification other than a gut feeling, and as experienced editors, when we feel that something isn't "done" yet, we are generally right in that assessment. -- yoda8myhead 21:13, 17 July 2009 (UTC)