FamilySearch Wiki:Stub

A stub is an article with minimal content that needs to be expanded. Placing the stub template on an article categorizes it, grouping it with other articles that are also in need of additional content. To find a list of stub articles, see the Category:Stubs. Volunteers can also check out some of the short articles that would benefit by expanding the content as well.

Lengthy articles are not considered stubs, even if they need links to other wiki articles or copy editing. Instead, add a Cleanup template. See the table of maintenance templates that can be used to classify articles according to contribution needed.

There is no specific size at which an article stops being a stub. Very short articles may often be stubs, but only if they do not adequately cover the subject of the article. An article of only a few short paragraphs may cover all the important information on a particular topic and so would not be classified as a stub. Length is not the determining factor. An article with headings and subheadings but no content should be categorized as a stub. Use the Empty section template to identify empty sections within more complete articles.

Contributing to a stub article
There are many types of information that might be added to an article, including but not limited to:


 * Links to related wiki articles
 * Links to pages on local ethnic, religious, or racial groups
 * Ethnic groups
 * Research tools
 * County origin/parent counties
 * Strategy docs/case studies
 * Gazetteers/place finding aids
 * Translation or handwriting guides
 * Links to pertinent online forums and discussion groups
 * Links to digitized county histories
 * Timelines (covering destruction of records, natural disasters, major migrations, etc.)
 * Genealogical/historical events in the local media
 * Images of the place or its records
 * Events that affect jurisdictions and records
 * Events affecting many deaths or migrations
 * Laws affecting adoptions, marriages, migrations, or record format
 * Laws affecting record access
 * Epidemics and natural disasters
 * Inventions (travel, migrations, etc.); delays between inventions and their widespread acceptance
 * Wars and citizen draft requirements
 * Migration routes per time period

See Montgomery County, Kentucky for a good example of a filled out article.

Marking an article as a stub
After writing a short article, or finding an unmarked stub, insert the Stub template at the very bottom of the page, after any navigational templates or category tags.

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, the stub template may be removed and appropriate expand section templates may be added. 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 - used when a specific stub category has not yet created or is unknown
 * Special:Shortpages - auto-generated list of short pages, sorted with shortest first
 * By setting Threshold for stub link formatting in Preferences &gt; Appearance to a maximum number of bytes to make links to pages smaller than a certain size appear in a different colour.