Help:Stub

A stub is an article that is too short to provide comprehensive coverage of the subject, but long enough to provide some useful information. To qualify as a stub it must at least define the meaning of the article's title. Often that means three to ten short sentences, but less text may be sufficient to qualify as a stub for articles on narrow topics, and complicated topics with more than ten sentences may still be stubs. However, in reality, many articles which are labeled as stubs are much longer than that. You can help Saintapedia by adding relevant material and links and then removing inappropriate stub notices.

Another way to define a stub is an article so incomplete that an editor who knows little or nothing about the topic could improve its content after a superficial Web search or a few minutes in a reference library. An article that can be improved by only a rather knowledgeable editor, or after significant research, is not considered a stub.

Sizeable articles which lack wikification or copy editing are generally not considered stubs, and the normal procedure is for one of the cleanup tags to be added to them instead. Note that small articles with little information may end up being nominated for deletion or be merged into another relevant article.

Removing stub status

Once a stub has been properly expanded and becomes an article rather than just a stub, you or any editor may remove the stub tag from it. No administrators' action or formal permission is needed. Be bold in removing stub tags that are clearly no longer applicable.

Why stubs

Even articles that start out with little information can improve over time and become high-quality articles. However, articles should still strive for equal weight. Unbalanced topics which give undue weight to niche or fringe aspects of a topic may give readers an unrealistic perception of the consensus viewpoint. While articles may initially be fragmented when in early stages, over time it is important for articles to morph into comprehensive articles which give proper weight to all aspects and viewpoints of the article according to their importance. Information builds on itself and knowledge generation takes effort and time.

Template

Please add the {{stub}} template to any page that you believe meets the criteria of being a stub.

External links