Stub

The objective of this article is to provide a general guide for dealing with stubs. The first section, Basic information, contains information that is recommended for most users. The second half, Creating stub types contains more specialized material.

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 if a small article has little properly sourced information, or if its subject has no inherent notability, but has information that has a relevance and can be reasonably expanded to be useful it will not be deleted, but it may be better merged into another relevant article, and the page made a redirect.

A "definition" may be enough to qualify an article as a stub, and unlike Wikipedia definitions of terms are useful (with a link to other resources like Wikipedia . If little other information is ever likely to be added, the entry should go to our sister project, Wiktionary & Wikipedia for an in depth answer without having to write a full article on Tractor Wiki for peripheral subjects. The distinction between dictionary and encyclopedia articles is best expressed by the Wikipedia:use–mention distinction: A dictionary article is about a word or phrase; an encyclopaedia article is about the subject denoted by that word or phrase. Rather than copying an article from Wikipedia or Wiktionary, you may add a link to the article [[Wikipedia:Article name|Link text]] e.g Wiktionary definition on Wikipedia to link it.

Ideal stub article

See also: Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles.

Any editor may start a stub article on Tractor wiki.

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 just to fill a red link without any real content just make it harder for editors to see were articles are needed. 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, put any direct quotes in <blockquote> Copied text</blockquote> and attribute it clearly to the source. This should only be done if rewriting is not really viable without adding lots of words just to pad out, e.g Specifications.

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. Lastly, a critical step: add sources or references for the information you have put into the stub; see citing sources (References) for information on how to do so in Tractor Wiki. Please add section headings; ==See also== and ==References== or ==Sources== with ==Links== for any web site links at the bottom of page.

Please add at least one Category by adding [[Category:example]] were example is the say the name of the manufacturer for an article about particular model of a machine.

Once you create and save the article, other editors will also be able to enhance it.

How to mark an article as a stub

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. As with all templates, stub templates are added by simply placing the name of the template in the text between double pairs of curly brackets (e.g., {{stub}}). Stub templates are transcluded not substituted (Wikipedia definitios).

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. You need not learn all the templates — even simply adding {{stub}} helps. Note:Tractor wiki has not added Stub Types yet, this feature will be added as the project increases in size. 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 two is advised.

Stub-related activities are centralized at Project:Stub sorting TWSS.

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. If an article is too large to be considered a stub but still needs expansion, replace the stub template with an {{expand}} template. (no article should contain both a stub template and an expand template).

Be bold in removing stub tags that are clearly no longer applicable.

Locating stubs

• Category: Stub categories the main list of stub categories and of articles contained within them
• Category: Stubs deprecated, but still receives a few articles periodically
• Special:Shortpages

Creating stub types

Please propose new stub types at Project:Stub sorting/Proposals so that they may be discussed prior to creating them.

In general, a stub type consists of a stub template and a dedicated stub category,

If you identify a group of stub articles that do not fit an existing stub type, or if an existing stub category is growing very large, you can propose the creation of a new stub type which is debated at Project:Stub sorting/Proposals.

Main stub sub groups

These are by the main article classifications, and the split into further sub groups;

• {{stub}} - main top level
  • {{Bus-stub}}
  • {{Car-stub}}
  • {{Club-stub}}
  • {{Commercials-stub}}
  • {{Company-stub}}
    • {{Company-defunct-stub}}
    • {{Company-UK-stub}}
    • {{company-US-stub}}
  • {{Engine-stub}}
  • {{Event-stub}}
  • {{Machinery-stub}}
  • {{Miniatures-stub}}
  • {{Plant-stub}}
  • {{Steam-stub}}
  • {{Tractor-stub}}