Maybe we can have User:Humanbot programmed to cycle biographies and have people read them as a check? Mgm On 12/18/05, Andrew Gray <shimgray(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hi, [[Category:Schrödinger people]] ? Kind of appropriate when you're talking about... :) They would be better as "flags", except that flags don't exist. Better because no one would necessarily want to browse that whole category... It is marginally better because it directly addresses the "Oh my god what happened to Seigenthaler is awful I'm going to go and check my entry right now- EEK! EEK! where's my lawyer?" situation. Also very few incoming links. Could we perhaps automatically label these pages (as I suggested somewhere) and have a "report libel" button? That way the few users who do end up on the page can be used to give it a quick "this looks contentious" review. We're not asking them to fact check it, but just to report to us the possibility that it's libellous. That could work, by reducing the burden on the anon user, while filtering down immensely the number of pages to only the few that are reported. Steve

Geoff Burling wrote: We have one. PLEASE DON'T DO THIS. Different stubs are subcategories of different parent categories. Someone from a wikiproject about content will often go into that project's stub category and start work on stuff they find there. That is: the sort of stub is actually as important as that it's a stub. I didn't say 90%, I said 20-30%! - d.

G'day Geoff, <snip reasons /> Perhaps the developers could dream up some way to add the benefits of multiple stub templates (multiple categories) but hide the text of all but one template? Or even some new text --- if there's more than one template present with the word "stub" in it, only print the categories as well as "This multi-category article is a stub ..." or something. Or perhaps that's too difficult. Will you also edit war with the Wikiproject Stub-Sorting people who regularly patrol stub categories and will add any templates they deem to be "missing" from an article? Stub templates, as far as I'm concerned, are the domain of WSS. Not our problem. If I'm willing to go the extra mile and add exact stub templates, I will; if I'm not, I'll just put {{stub}} and let them sort it out. If we don't like how stub categorising is handled, the solution is to either participate in WSS and argue with *them*, or to simply refuse to participate and stick to plain-jane {{stub}}. It's not to deliberately mess around the work they're doing (as you're proposing, and SPUI received a block for a while back for doing). I'm sure there's work elsewhere on Wikipedia of which you're rather proud? It depends how you define "drek". If "drek" means unsalvagable, then I'd agree, no more than 20-30%. If it means "crap", then (before anon users were prevented from creating new articles), I'd say easily 90% of new articles created by anons were crap and in need of cleanup, if not necessarily nuking from orbit. Cheers, -- Mark Gallagher "What? I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!" - Danger Mouse -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.14.2/208 - Release Date: 20/12/2005

On Wed, 21 Dec 2005, Mark Gallagher wrote: That is something I have often wondered. Some kinds of stubs lend themselves to more than one category -- but were it possible to simply add something like {{subst:stub}} to an article, & send a flag to all of the categories that this article needed attention! Naw, I'm too preoccupied with other things to waste time edit-warring. And I have found that the best tactic when faced with this kind of confrontation is to walk away -- then make my changes several months later, after the miscreant has gotten her/himself banned. I suspect that most of them aren't too keen on multiple stub templates for reasons I've mentioned elsewhere. Until now, no one's even noticed what I've been doing. I've been trying to corral a decent sampling of articles for [[Wikipedia:Good articles]]. And I've written a few biographical articles on Ethiopian people. Why do you ask? By "drek" I meant new articles David described in another email as "shoot-on-sight". People complain that many -- if not most -- of our articles are mediocre: there are times when I feel many articles on notable subjects aren't even _that_ good. Geoff

Steve Bennett wrote: Every type of stub I've seen so far has some sort of corresponding non-stub category that the article can be placed in, so whenever I remove extra stub templates I make sure the article's properly categorized. They don't get "lost" that way.

Conrad Dunkerson wrote: One of the reasons for stub sorting was that [[Category:Stub]] had tens of thousands of entries and this was enough to start making things go funny. It also made it almost impossible to say "hmm ... think I'll go expand some stubs" unless you're really fond of topics starting with A. The stub categories are not parallel; each is under a non-stub category. - d.

Geoff Burling wrote: I've also been doing this for probably more than a year now and have never had anyone complain about it, so it doesn't seem to be causing any obvious problems. I always try to leave the "most relevant" stub notice for those who actually use such things to find articles to work on.

On 12/20/05, David Gerard &lt;fun(a)thingy.apana.org.au&gt; wrote: It's possible to add a stub category without adding a stub template. Perhaps this would be a suitable compromise between those who need the categories to be there and those who don't want multiple "this is a stub..." notices on one article? Compare <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ambrosius_Stub&oldid=27617688> with <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ambrosius_Stub&oldid=27615177>, for example. Angela.

Some cynics would say that there are two solutions to that problem :) Steve

Angela wrote: Who on Earth can remember the one trillion stub types? Not me. WikiProject Stub Sorting are the ones who know them. For those revolted by multiple stubs (and I agree that they have all Geoff's listed points against them), the talk page could be workable - they wouldn't be blots on the article warranting {{toomanyboxes}} and they'd still be findable in the relevant stub category. WSS would need collective persuasion that this was a good idea, else they would likely assume it was an error and fix it. - d.

Bryan Derksen wrote: Do the people who like all these stub labels ever try to fix these problems, or do they just have a personal passion with finding work that others can do? :-) Ec

On Wed, 21 Dec 2005, David Gerard wrote: You had me until that last sentence. I'm gonna continue with my "delete all but one stub template per article" ways until one of the folks from the Stub Sorting group decides to have a talk with me. And before anyone thinks I'm in the process of irreparably destroying Wikipedia with my lawlessness (okay, as much destruction as removing stub templates can cause), let me state that on average I modify about one article a week for this reason. Some days, when I'm on a rip, I might strip stubs from as many as two or three articles. So it's not as if I'm attempting to imitate some grand scheme like Wik did, monitoring the changes on thousands of pages & reverting each one where he did not approve of the edit. And I admit that I agree for the most part with that WikiProject's goals: one fat collection of articles under {{stub}} was just not workable. It's just that some times I have to wonder if all of the energy sorting these stubs wouldn't be better applied to making them into full-length articles, especially after Angela's example with [[Ambrosius Stub]] -- although now that I've had a moment to think about it, I suspect someone was having too much fun adding {{stub}}'s to Mr Stub's article. However, I often encounter some real head-scratchers, such as [[Ibn Yasin]], whose article is marked with a {{philosopher-stub}} & an {{Islam-stub}}: just how many philosophy wonks are going to make a substantial change to an article about a West-African Islamic mullah? (At the moment, the most serious problem with this article is neither philosophical nor religious, but the least obvious: the date of his death. This article says it was 1059, another article 1056, & a book I borrowed from the local library says it was 1057. If I had more confidence in the book, I'd be bold & change them all to conform with it.) What I see is the problem here is that eager new editors, who are looking for something easy to do, start adding every stub template or category label that fits the article they can think of. I know I've been overly enthusiastic in the past with some of my edits, so unless the WSS people insist that I stop my stub pruning or be hauled before the ArbCom, I'm assuming that most of these multiple stubs are the work of newbie editors who will outgrow this habit in a month or two. Geoff P.S. Had I known my email would have generated so many follow-ups, I would have changed the subject line. But I doubt I could have improved on Mark Gallagher's "stubification to the max!"

--- David Gerard &lt;fun(a)thingy.apana.org.au&gt; wrote: imagine ever having the They're doing useful work and they feel like they are. Volunteers may not be "interested" in it, but it may be useful to point out that not all volunteers are considered equal. Some volunteers for example have checkUser access (and indeed 'who checked who' should be open knowledge, [redacting IPs of course]). Other volunteers are Arbcom members who have been elected (or appointed) to hold decisive authority over other volunteers. IOTM, that if this small group was the least bit creative, they could apply that decisive power toward the completion of goal-oriented tasks. Not all Arbcom "remedies" should be drastic; indeed the Arbcom could be charged with being useful. Stevertigo __________________________________ Yahoo! for Good - Make a difference this year. http://brand.yahoo.com/cybergivingweek2005/

On Dec 22, 2005, at 8:55 PM, David Gerard wrote: There is some reason to take wide regard as being a bad idea as a good thing, at this point. -Phil

On Dec 22, 2005, at 9:20 PM, David Gerard wrote: Well, yes, but it's so hard to find a remedy that properly says "You're a petulant child and should go away." -Phil

G'day Geoff, <snip /> I sometimes wonder if all the energy spent writing about minor characters in /Star Wars/ or /Pokemon/ wouldn't be better spent improving our articles on minor Australian politicians, but, as a number of Wikipedians I hold in high esteem (inc. David Gerard, Tony Sidaway, and of course Jimbo) have pointed out, you can't make people do the stuff they aren't interested in by taking away the stuff they are. Stub-sorting is a worthwhile effort; I don't think it's as useful as the WSS believe it is, but we're better off having those users concentrating on WSS matters than leaving altogether. <snip /> Worl, User:Grutness and User:Mairi are definitely not newbies; Grutness has been around since before the dinosaurs started smoking and doing drugs, and Mairi was recently made an admin. But as a general rule, I think you could be right. A lot of easy tasks (well, easier than editing, anyway) tend to attract newbies like so many annoying but unbiteable blowies. This even includes AfD, where teaching new editors that "AfD isn't a vote and even if it was the presumption that keep votes are worth twice as much as delete votes isn't 'unfair'[0]" is an ongoing effort.[1] <bows /> [0] Or whatever it translates to. I'm not well-known for my maths. [1] Speaking of which, a few more people trying to improve the culture of AfD wouldn't go astray. It'll be more useful, but probably less emotionally satisfying than bitching on the mailing list about those deletionist vandals ... -- Mark Gallagher "What? I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!" - Danger Mouse -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.14.4/211 - Release Date: 22/12/2005

On Fri, 23 Dec 2005, Mark Gallagher wrote: [quoting me; keeping attributions is always a good thing] I have a feeling that we're talking past each other here, & not realizing that we're in general agreement on this matter, so let me just re-emphasize my primary criticisms with the WSS, which are two: the first is the creation of possibly unnecessary sub-categories of stubs, & the second is adding more than one stub to articles. Now concerning the needless creation of sub-categories, I will admit that I can't think of a specific example, although whenever I encounter an existing stub moved to yet another new stub category my first reaction is that this was wasted effort. However, after a few days as I discover the usefulness of this change my opinon changes; it's a first impression that I admit I will always have, but try to keep to myself unless I find evidence that clearly confirms my suspicions. As for the second criticism, as I wrote above, I can't help but believe it is a newbie error, because it demonstrates an misunderstanding of the usefulness of stub tags: I see similar abuse with category tags. What is really the value of adding the categories of "Ethiopia", "Rulers of Ethiopia", & "Members of Ethiopia" to [[Haile Selassie I]]? These categories link to each other, & fail to add useful content to the article. Only someone knowing that Haile Selassie was an important Ethiopian would misuse these categories to emphasize his importance -- a mistake I assume only a newbie would make. In short, my criticism is not with the idea of a stub tag, but with how it is used -- or IMHO, abused. I can't comment on the other two you've mentioned, but I've occasionally followed Grutness' efforts, & I haven't seen him add multiple stub tags to articles. He once even explained on his Talkl page his rationale for creating new sub-categories -- which in my opinion means I'll accept his decisions without question unless I think they are clearly in error. However, I haven't seen his name attached to examples of articles with multiple stub tags, so my suspicion that this is a newbie mistake still stands. The one easy task I often indulge in is the creation of new links within articles; & I've noticed that there is a faction who believes that is often abused. There is a skill to the successful execution to even these "easy tasks", one that is not immediately apparent. Geoff

On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 04:14:33 +0100, Geoff Burling &lt;llywrch(a)agora.rdrop.com&gt; wrote: <snip> <snip> Obviously *redundant* stub templates can be removed and replaced with more spesific ones. For example if an article is tagged with {{US-bio-stub}},{{writer-stub}} and {{US-related-stub}} then the "proper" thing do to is to remove all those and add the more spesific {{US-writer-stub}} that transport all the same info and those 3 would (that's pretty much what the stub sorting project is all about). However if the subject of the stub belong in 2-3 different categories it should most defenently have a stub tag for each, unless it's a completely trivial thing. For example if a politician have also written an auto-biography (haven't they all) that only sold 500 copies and no one have ever heard about I would naturaly not suggest putting a {{writer-stub}} tag on a stub about him/her. I agree the number should be kept down, but outright removing all but one template seems exessive, and is actualy counter productive with the goal of having the stub turned into an article. If the choice is between a stub with multiple "ugly" tags and a nice clean stub that less people are likely to find and expand then I'd go with the ugly stub any day. -- [[User:Sherool]]

How about building up 'keywords': e.g. "defrauded". It is very easy to Google the site for such a thing. Charles

Hi, On the category, you have just defined a "suspicious article" haven't you? Particularly the "wasn't categorised by anything" bit. Steve

"Andrew Gray" &lt;shimgray(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote in message news:f3fedb0d0512181443q5805d6fdq@mail.gmail.com... I was going to suggest that {{lifetime}} and/or {{lived}} could be modified so that the death date was optional, and lack thereof would put the article into [[Category:Living people]], but given the recent furore over conditional templates, maybe now is not the time...:-( Also, I note that these templates have been listed for instant Substitution, so the information wouldn't actually stick anyway :-( -- Phil [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]

"Bryan Derksen" &lt;bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca&gt; wrote in message news:43A6F5E0.7040809@shaw.ca... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_substitution#Article namespace I discovered it when I found myself converting a pair of birth/death categories in the saem article again, and discovered that a bot was goind around SUBSTituting them according to the guidline on that page. Let discussion ensue :-) HTH HAND -- Phil [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]

Folks, I think that the problem has been sorted out. Nevertheless, it could have been a sizable problem for us. Nevertheless, we have a responsibility to ensure that our processes are as good as we can get them. Taking notice of complaints is not always sufficient. Jimmy Wales took notice of the Siegenthaler matter as soon as he became aware of it. Nevertheless, it didn't stop it from becoming a problem for us in the media. While a legal fund is worthwhile, we don't want to spend money on defending cases in court that could go towards buying more servers. We need mechanisms to pick up problem articles as soon as possible. Further, we need to look at warning people about inserting defamatory material into Wikipedia every time they edit. Regards *Keith Old* Keith Old