UESPWiki:Archive/CP Stubs vs Incomplete Pages

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Stubs vs Incomplete Pages

I think it might be a good idea to start distinguishing between a Stub and an Incomplete page. Stubs are defined as pages with minimal information, which need to be expanded on to become full articles. Incomplete pages are already full articles, but just missing some information. We've had the Incomplete template around for years, but it rarely gets used. But look for example at Oblivion:Mage Scholar. It was tagged as a Stub, and then the tag was removed, and then reinstated because the page is missing detailed NPC stats. I think if this page were tagged as Incomplete rather than a Stub, it would be a more accurate description. Other than the missing stats, there's not much else you could add to this article. Additionally, unlike the Stub tag, the Incomplete tag gives you the option to explain why you think the page is incomplete, which will make it less likely that somebody will remove the tag prematurely. There's a lot of pages on the site that are labelled as Stubs which really don't fit the criteria - some of them are decently long articles that bear the tag just because there's still some small thing missing. These should be labelled as Incomplete instead. Anybody with me? --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 09:35, 10 November 2008 (EST)

I've already been using the Incomplete template on a few pages, and I know a couple of other people use it too - see Category:All Incomplete Pages for the full list. The Mage Scholar article has always been a stub - this morning's edit was to remove a parameter that doesn't work in the stub tag.

I would broadly agree with your descriptions, but there's an extra one:

• stub: The article is basically a placeholder. Almost none of the information we'd typically expect is on the page. Obvious examples are things like Lore:Dragonstar and Lore:Cespar.
• incomplete: The article can stand as it is but misses some important detail. Examples here are Lore:Akavir and Lore:Redguard.
• needing verification: The article is almost finished but one or two things need adding (or checking). Examples here include Oblivion:Afflicted Brethren and Shivering:Undead Dungeons.

In between there are pages like Daggerfall:Knights of the Dragon, currently marked as a stub but possible more incomplete. In general I'd say that it's not worth splitting hairs in most cases. I suppose if somebody starts removing stub tags en-masse then there's a case for an editor who disagrees replacing it with an incomplete tag listing what needs to be added. I definitely don't think it's worth going through all 500 current "need improvement" pages and changing their current category. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 12:52, 10 November 2008 (EST)

Actually as a followup, there are pages like Shadowkey:Places. I know this isn't ready for prime-time but I'm not sure exactly what needs to be done. Calling it "incomplete" would be wrong since there's nothing specific I have to suggest, but it doesn't really fit into my definition of "stub". I think it comes down to "If you know what needs to be done, and there's not much, use "verificationneeded" or "huh"; if you know what needs to be done, and there's quite a bit, use "incomplete"; otherwise make it a "stub". –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 15:08, 10 November 2008 (EST)

I wouldn't call that a Stub OR Incomplete. Looks like a finished article to me. Minimal, maybe, and possibly improvements could be made to the formatting, but for a page that's really nothing more than a table of contents to link to other pages, (see Morrowind:Items for a similar example) I'd say it's pretty much complete. Then again, I know pretty much zilch about Shadowkey, so I could be wrong, but it looks like that page has all the information it will ever need to have.

I don't think the "if you know what needs to be done" criterion makes much sense, really. There are times when I might create an article just as a starting point - I know it needs more, and I know what it needs, but I just don't have the time/energy to do it now. In that case, I'll label it a Stub and either come back to it later or hope somebody else does. "Verification Needed" means what it says - if you see a questionable claim on a page, you mark it so that somebody can check to see if it's correct and verify/refute it. It can also be used as a placeholder for information you don't have at the moment. But I don't see it as just a weaker version of "Incomplete". --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 23:42, 10 November 2008 (EST)

You just said it yourself, "It can also be used as a placeholder for information you don't have at the moment." In that case it's a weaker "incomplete" tag. If you don't like the criteria I suggested, perhaps you can come up with your own? Until then, since it's of little importance, I'm going to keep using the tags in a way that makes sense to me. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 01:03, 11 November 2008 (EST)

Well, by "information", I meant things like fields in an infobox or a disputed claim in the text or something. Another major difference between VN and Incomplete is that VN refers to a specific piece of data that is missing or needs to be checked, while Incomplete and Stub refer to the whole page or section they're in. You can have multiple VNs on a page for each piece of data that's missing, but there shouldn't be a need for multiple Incomplete/Stub tags on a single page. (I suppose if you're referring to a section of an article as incomplete/stub rather than the whole article, there might be more than one, but we haven't really done that sort of thing too much.) --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 08:35, 11 November 2008 (EST)