Editing Incubator escapee wiki:WikiProject Stub sorting/Criteria/Archive3 (section)

===US State stubs===

For some of the larger US States, there's enough information to warrant individual stub categories. I'm working on [[Template:Texas_stub]] right now (Currently has 18 pages, will be expanding). This will allow those who have lots of knowledge for an individual state (not uncommon) to focus there instead of sifting through oodles of United States stubs. --[[User:YixilTesiphon|YixilTesiphon]] 02:21, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

:*Not really a vote (although I sway towards yes), more a question - Are these state geo-stubs, or just basic state stubs. If the latter, do you intend to put individual state geo-stubs in there as well? There are certainly enough US-geo-stubs to subdivide them like this, but I suspect there are other types of articles (e.g., politics and bio) which would also go in there. In either case, it would be worth linking the new category (up to 50 categories?) into both the US-geo-stub and US-stub categories. [[User:Grutness| Grutness]]|<sup>[[User_talk:Grutness|hello?]]</sup> [[Image:Grutness.jpg|25px|]] 05:33, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

:*<s>I sway the No = Disagree direction.</s>  What I've been doing for place-related stubs is stubbing them to the available geography categories (at the country or region level) then categorizing the article to the finest geographical category available.  For instance, see the stub [[Dauphin county library system]] for an example.  This might put the stub in front of a local person who knows a lot about Dauphine County, PA, USA perhaps while knowing little at the state-level.  [[User:Ceyockey|Courtland]] 06:30, 2005 Feb 11 (UTC)

:::That's fine if you know all the local area categories for the US... personally I think it would be easier just to remember the names of the 50 states. Also, many articles will be about items that transcend local county boundaries while staying within a state: large geographic features, state politicians, and the like. It also saves people from having to look us all the county names in a state if they do know about the whole state. Most states will only have 100 stubs tops, at a guess - a reasonable number to look for for things to write - whereas US as a whole currently has just over 1000 geo-stubs - too many for a casual Wikipedian. The more I think about this, the more it seems like a good idea to me. [[User:Grutness| Grutness]]|<sup>[[User_talk:Grutness|hello?]]</sup> [[Image:Grutness.jpg|25px|]] 06:51, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

:::*Vote reversal to '''Agree''' with addition of 50 state stubs: Hmm.  I see what you mean.  The argument about needing to dive-deep to find things (either to read or work on) resonates as in my work life I do try hard to keep resources no more than 3 layers deep as a matter of usability.  This is a problem that's been dealt with in the bioinformatics realm by the [[Gene Ontology|Gene Ontology Consortium]] by maintaining a fully resolved categorization and a "slim" categorization that is much shallower.  The analogy here would be to stub to the state level and keep the stub category upon transition to full article status, while also categorizing to the most specific depth availble. [[User:Ceyockey|Courtland]] 17:08, 2005 Feb 12 (UTC)

* '''Disagree'''. Most of them are likely to be small localities and counties thus I say we resurrect a us-city-stub (Or something akin). If that doesn't eliminates most of the small towns little can be written about by outsiders anyway, then add maybe regional us-geo-stub. Please, DO NOT mix stub types, country-stubs are for country-related topics, state politicians goes into the future politician-stub. --[[User:Circeus|Circeus]] 13:07, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)
:::I agree entirely - but YixilTesiphon's original suggestion was for a Texas-stub, not a Texas-geo-stub, which suggests Texas-related articles of all sorts - including politicians, dealt with in the same way as Australian politicians, say, getting both a bio-stub and an Australia-stub. [[User:Grutness| Grutness]]|<sup>[[User_talk:Grutness|hello?]]</sup> [[Image:Grutness.jpg|25px|]]

*'''Comment'''. I was independently working on something similar: [[Template:UT-stub]]. It would be used in conjunction with [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Utah]] and would tag all articles related to the state: geography, politicians, music, culture, arts, sites, buildings, history pages, historical figures, sports teams, and so on. Maybe we need a standard for state stubs? If I were to vote on this I would definately '''support''', since having a stub category would help to collate all related stubs so we could work on our project better by knowing what needs to be expanded. I believe Texas is currently the only other active US state WikiProject. --[[User:JonMoore|[jon<nowiki>]</nowiki>]] [[user talk:JonMoore|<small><small><font color="red">[talk<nowiki>]</nowiki></font></small></small>]] 13:42, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

*'''Comment''': The addition of the 50 US State stubs might have the consequence of intensifying any latent sentiments about US-centrism of the content.  Should we also consider the addition of stubs for organizational units like the 23 Swiss cantons, 16 German states, 47 Japanese prefectures, and 7 (?) Australian territories?  The notion of breaking the US into the 50 state categories has to do with a) volume of stubs available and b) this is the 2nd tier organizational unit generally recognized in the country (the 3rd tier being county, 4th tier township, 5th tier incorporated area I think). [[User:Ceyockey|Courtland]] 17:16, 2005 Feb 12 (UTC)

**Currently there are only three WikiProjects based on US states, two of which are active: [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Hawaii|Wikiproject Hawaii]] (least active), [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Texas|Wikiproject Texas]], and [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Utah|Wikiproject Utah]]. As I said above, I would like this only to help collate stubs for the benefit of the community. I don't think we need 50 stub notices if there are not 50 communities. And yes, if someone wants to take the time to make projects for all the Swiss cantons and German states and Japanese prefectures and Australian territories which are active and devoted to increasing knowledge about those regions, then, why not? As for US-centrism, this is the English Wikipedia, and I guess a certain amount of US-(and British and Austrailian and New Zealander, and anywhere else where English is the primary language)centrism is natural. Honestly, this is the first time I have heard of this. I think the English Wikipedia has a wide range of articles on many varying subjects.--[[User:JonMoore|[jon<nowiki>]</nowiki>]] [[user talk:JonMoore|<small><small><font color="red">[talk<nowiki>]</nowiki></font></small></small>]] 18:13, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

***'''Comment''': The other problem is that there is starting to be some backlash to the huge increase in the number of topic stubs from Wikipedia editors who have not been involved in the Stub-sorting WikiProject (for example, see [[Wikipedia:Meta-templates considered harmful]] where I've tried to moderate [[User:Netoholic|Netoholic]]'s description and make it more accurate). For the stubs for US states, I would say that we probably should be cautious for the moment and only create stubs for states that have WikiProjects (like Utah, Texas, and Hawaii), or that have individuals who not only will commit to converting US stubs to state stubs, but to then start converting the state stubs to fuller articles. [[User:BlankVerse|<font color=green>''Blank''</font><font color= 	#F88017>''Verse''</font>]]<font color=#2554C7> </font>[[User talk:BlankVerse|<font color=#F660AB>&empty;</font>]] 18:34, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

***'''Comment''': I don't think anyone's honestly expecting 50 - just taking out the few biggest (TX, CA, NY, plus the two others with projects) will help greatly. As for Americocentrism, there's already a Melbourne stub and a Canberra stub for Australia, and I've thought a Scotland stub would be useful before now. [[User:Grutness| Grutness]]|<sup>[[User_talk:Grutness|hello?]]</sup> [[Image:Grutness.jpg|25px|]] 18:48, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
:This all sounds great ... limiting the stub increase only to accomodate states with associated Projects.  About the 'US-centrism' comment ... I prefaced it with 'might' and 'latent' because, no, I've not experienced a widespread sentiment but, yes, I've heard isolated grumbles here and there on particular topics.  Perhaps I was a bit overly expansive in my 'mights' and 'could be's.  Apologies.  [[User:Ceyockey|Courtland]] 01:25, 2005 Feb 13 (UTC)

Addition: I don't think there's a need for 50 state stubs. How many South Dakota stubs are there really going to be? But then again there aren't too many experts on South Dakotan history, as opposed to, for example, Texas history.



:*Did someone say that [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Hawaii]] was the least active of the three state-based WikiProjects?  Business at WikiProject Hawaii has been picking up within the past few days.  Everyone should check out what we're doing.  We rely on {{tl|HI-stub}} to be able to quickly call up a list of articles we need to work on that's within our scope on Wikipedia.  I think an independent Hawaii-stub is extremely valuable.  Taking it away from us will slow things down a bit.  --[[User:Gerald Farinas|Gerald Farinas]] 04:27, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)